Re: The Independent State of Somaliland

Joseph Okumu,

That was a good writing full of intellectual and well researched facts. I could not have agreed with you any more. Capturing the Russia/USSR history way back from IVAN THE GREAT and upto Catherine the Great, history will cause you to remember that throughout the period of imperial Russia, peace to the empire came at a price.  Unitery States can be and are easily mismanaged, can be easy to loot and abuse.  In the case of Kenya, this has been done by the ruling tribes. Non-ruling ethnic groups are rewarded for their loyalty rather than individuals' skills and abilities.

Even near homogeneous people like Belarussia, Ukraine and Russia (all Slavonik) after many decades of living side by side discovered in the long run that autonomy was and is the only term of reference in creating good Governance. The great communist motto of "from each person by ability and to each one by need" never unified them in the 70 years of trying to be a single nation. The rest of Soviet states felt cheated by Russian empire.

Ukraine is still struggling to unite itself as a single state while facing the reality of life that East and West Ukraine are not in fact the same (PS west Ukraine was influenced more by Austria-German Empire). Orange revolution has come and created more disharmoney amongst Ukrainians so much so that every right thinking person has admitted that probably a Federal State of Ukraine may be the key answer to the current situation.

Kenyans, let us wake up to the truth of the moment.

The great buddhists always maintained in one of the "the Four Truths" that the pain caused by an act of another person is not on its own painful. The actual pain is actually carrying along in ones mind the cause of that pain. So if the ruling ethnic group has caused us pain, let us not debate about them, rather let us concentrate and use valuable time in finding the solutions to our pain. One of which is being a Federal / majimbo state.

Okumu Joseph has explored this topic in a very logical manner and I hope every interested person with history of the times will agree that he has touched topics of practical importance.

Oginga Ndeda
London