Obama or Odinga?

This past week much of the political world's attention has been focused on the Presidential Election in Kenya. This was held on August 8th (8/8/17).

In 2007 the Kenyan election shocked the World when it descended into widespread violence that cost more than a thousand lives.

The reason for the violence is that Kenyan politics much like Kenyan society is still dominated by tribal allegiances.

One of Kenya's leading politicians is Uhuru Kenyatta who is a member of the Kikuyu tribe. This is Kenya's largest. Another leading politician is Raila Odinga who is a member of the Luo tribe. This is the fourth largest tribe in Kenya.

The 2007 election happened in the time before Twitter. Therefore I wasn't really aware of it until the violence broke out. However in response to the violence the United Nations (UN) ordered Kenyatta and Odinga to share power in the government of national unity. This meant that one of those men was granted power despite losing the election.

The 2013 election was one by Kenyatta by a narrow margin. This prompted Odinga to repeat his claims of electoral fraud. However the nation was still so shocked and under the international microscope following the violence of 2007 that Odinga's claims were largely ignored and there was no repeat of the unrest.

Knowing that tribal demographics alongside Kenyatta's successful first term placed him at a significant disadvantage Odinga's 2017 campaign has been centred around making allegations of fraud. Even before the campaign had started Odinga mounted a legal challenge to the contract to awarded to print the ballot papers claiming that it was part of a conspiracy to rig the vote.

I think Odinga's wildest claim was that the Kenyan army had established death squads to exterminate large numbers of Luo tribe prevent them from voting.

Roughly a week before the poll the head of IT with the Kenyan Electoral Commission Chris Msando was kidnapped and killed with his body being found several days later. This allowed Odinga to claim that Msando's login details had been used to change the electronic record of the results.

Of course is anything drawing attention to the issue with such a high profile killing would make it harder to change the electronic record. Msando's login details being used after everyone knew he'd be kidnapped would provide pretty clear and easy to detect evidence of wrongdoing.

The August 8th (8/8/17) election went on to be won by Kenyatta with 54.3% of the vote with Odinga coming second with 44.7% of the vote.

This result has been verified by multiple international observer bodies and is in line with what you would expect from Kenyatta's tribal advantage.

Unfortunately Odinga has refused to respect the election result. Instead he has called members of his Luo tribe to the streets to unleash violence that has left several dead. His intention seems to be to trigger a repeat of the 2007 violence in order to bully his way into power in a second government of national unity.

Although I respect the result of the Kenya election I can't say that I have much respect for the way that people voted in the way that they did.

For democracy to work you are supposed to take an unbiased look at all the candidates. You then choose which one to vote for because you think their platform and personality is in your best interests. Simply voting for someone because they are the same tribe as you is not true democracy.

Sadly Kenya's other famous political son Barack Obama clearly sees things differently. He used his two terms as US President to divide America into different tribes all dependent on his leadership.

These divisions have been done on the basis of race, religion and sexuality. On the issue of gender the male/female split was not divisive enough. Obama's liberal supporters now like to talk in terms of six or more genders. I know or have known people who are legitimately transgendered. However even I think people who describe themselves as; "Gender Fluid" need to have a word with themselves.

The objective of this political strategy is to cause conflict. After all the more conflict there is the easier it is for power mad politicians to tell the different tribes that they need them to protect them.

The racial division led by the Black Lives Matter movement has been particularly unpleasant. Not least because it has been extremely violent.

The city of Ferguson, Missouri alone has had to put up with hundred of days of violent disorder at the hands of Black Lives Matter. There is not a major city in the US that has escaped some level of violence under of the banner of Black Lives Matter. The group has also engaged in numerous incidents of out-and-out terrorism with police officers being gunned down in ambush attacks in New York City, Dallas and Baton Rouge.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been dominated by the Black Supremacist ideology of hate groups such as the totally un-Islamic Nation of Islam. They teach that the Black race is a master race and the white race - particularly Jews - are an inferior devil race.

The Black Lives Matter movement has even gone so far as to coin the term; "White Privilege" in order to demonise the white race and hold it responsible for all the wrongs of society. To give you some sense of how hateful that is imagine if violent crime was openly described as; "The Black Disease."

Unsurprisingly Black Lives Matter's attempts to demonise the white race has prompted a backlash. The June 17th 2015 (17/6/15) Charleston shooting really should have been a wake-up call to American liberals that they need to condemn Black Lives Matter as the hate group it is and abandon the Democrats politics of division.

Instead though they used the Charleston shooting to double down on their campaign. It was used to launch a separate campaign to remove reminders of the Confederate States in the US civil war from the public consciousness.

This of course is nothing more then the Democrats attempting to erase their racist past. After all the Civil War was fought between the anti-Slavery north led by the Republicans Abraham Lincoln and and pro-Slavery south led by the Democrat Jefferson Davis.

The Democrat controlled state of Virginia has embraced this campaign with open arms. They have since voted to remove all reminders of the state and the party's Confederate past. This includes a statue of Democrat General Robert E. Lee in the city of Charlottesville.

On Friday (11/8/17) groups led by frankly neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville to protest the removal of the statue. For them the Democrats hatred and bigotry has been a powerful recruiting tool.

This protest was challenged in the Courts. However it was ruled that it was protected under the First Amendment protection on free speech. After all peacefully protesting the removal of a statue is hardly the most extreme act.

The protest march on Friday (11/8/17) passed off completely peacefully without anyone paying it much attention. The best response to people who are seeking attention.

The problem though arose in Charlottesville's Democrat Mayor Mike Signer. He called for people to descend on the city to oppose the march. At best this was done in contempt of the Court's ruling. At worst it was a deliberate attempt to use violence to deny civil rights to those who hold a different political opinion to him.

The call for protesters to oppose the march was certainly not done to protect the citizens of Charlottesville from any violence the marchers may have committed. After all the city has a police force for the that with a state police force and national guard in reserve.

Instead it was done to provoke a confrontation. That confrontation could then be used to exert pressure on President Trump - the bogeyman that America's new found tribes apparently Democrats to protect them from.

Mayor Signer though was disappointed though with Saturday's (12/8/17) events passing off relatively peacefully.

To put them in some sort of perspective at roughly the same time in the UK there was disorder between fans at a football match. That certainly didn't require round-the-clock cable news coverage.

President Trump also swiftly condemned the violence being carried out by all parties. That seemed a fair statement because watching the footage even I struggled to work out the political affiliations of each masked, club wielding hooligan.

As the day's events seemed to be winding down a car ploughed into a group of the protesters that Mayor Singer had called to the streets. This resulted in the death of one person and injured around 30 more.

With those familiar with riot control this is something of a nightmare scenario. If as an incident of disorder is winding down rumours start of a member of one of the groups being injured by the other the thirst for revenge can re-energise the rioters leading to worse violence as the night progresses.

This effect is so well known that the British police are trained extensively in just this situation. The two training scenarios they're typically given is either someone being stabbed or someone being hit by a car.

The driver of the car has since been formally identified as James Alex Fields Jr. However through his vehicle registration he was almost immediately identified informally.

The people making that identification also quickly found his Facebook page full of support for 2016 Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders. The delay in Charlottesville officials announcing his identity coincided with the period it took for that Facebook page to be removed.

Virginia of course was scene to the June 14th 2017 (14/6/17) Congressional Baseball shooting. That was carried out by James Hodgkinson. Another Bernie Sanders supporter.

In response to the events in Charlottesville the US Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation. This would appear to put Mayor Signer in an extremely difficult position.

The protest against the removal of the statue has already gone through the Courts and found to be protected as a civil right. The gathering of Signer's protesters had already been declared illegal by the police and therefore was not protected as a result. Therefore the only civil rights issue that seems applicable is Mayor Signers attempts to defy the Court ruling and illegally gather protesters.

So it seems that once again America finds itself at a watershed.

The Democrats can either recommit to their politics of hate and division. Or they can reject it and come out in condemnation of Mayor Signer's actions.

Meanwhile Obama's former Secretary of State John Kerry has been tasked with monitoring the Kenyan election. This is an old UN trick.

They take someone whose behaviour has given cause for alarm and put them in charge of a situation remarkably similar to their own alarming behaviour. They are then asked if they can identify any lessons that need to be learned.

16:55 on 13/8/17 (UK date).