that special machete place: special machetes are everywhere, except when they're not

I've been worried about my friends in Kenya, so it was quite lovely to get a few emails from Binyavanga and to see his op-ed in the New York Times.

I'm not sure exactly where he is right now, but these lines from his op-ed indicate to me that although he might not be completely alright in the grand scheme of things, he remains at the very least himself:

My further suspicion is that Mr. Odinga wants to sell to Kenyans and the world a sort of Ukrainian “people’s revolution” — where protesters take to the streets and change the order of things, and are seen to be throwing happy pink petals on television, so America can say, ah, the people have spoken.

But rather than matters leading to a popular but peaceful uprising against a flawed election, we are likelier to suffer an escalation of retaliations and a descent to that special machete place that nations rarely recover from.

That special machete place!? Throwing pink petals on television, so that America can say, ah, the people have spoken!? How the fuck did that get past an op-ed editor?

Binyavanga Wainaina's New York Times op-ed on recent events in Kenya.

THIS thing called Kenya is a strange animal. In the 1960s, the bright young nationalists who took over the country when we got independence from the British believed that their first job was to eradicate “tribalism.” What they really meant, in a way, was that they wanted to eradicate the nations that made up Kenya. It was assumed that the process would end with the birth of a brand-new being: the Kenyan.

Compared with other African nations, Kenya has had significant success with this experiment. But it has not been without its contradictions, though they had never really turned lethal until now.

...make sure you have a standing emergency plan that lets your loved ones know exactly what you are going to do and where you are going to be in case some crazy shit goes down.

It's hard for me to believe that just 12 months ago I was in an altogether different seeming Kenya. Of course, I was in a visitor's bubble: tourism, hotels, travel and the hospitality of knowledgeable hosts, all of which meant I had little exposure to the cracks and fissures in Kenyan society that have appeared since last week's election.