George G. Mbugua is a 42-year-old executive with two cars, a closet full of suits and a good job as the chief financial officer of a growing company.
His life has all the trappings of a professional anywhere. He recently joined a country club and has taken up golf.
But unlike anywhere else, this executive has to keep his eyes peeled on the daily commute for stone-throwing mobs. When he gets home after a long day, he has to explain to his daughters why people from different ethnic groups are hacking one another to death. Even his own affluent neighborhood has been affected. Some of the Mbuguas’ neighbors recently fled their five-bedroom homes because of the violence that has exploded in Kenya since a disputed election in December turned this promising African country upside down.
“Nobody’s untouched,” Mr. Mbugua said.
Of all the election-related conflicts that have cracked open in Kenya ”” Luos versus Kikuyus (two big ethnic groups), The Orange Democratic Movement versus the Party of National Unity (the leading political parties), police versus protesters ”” none may be more crucial than the struggle between those who seem to have nothing to lose, like the mobs in the slums who burn down their own neighborhoods, and those who are deeply invested in this country’s stability.
Read it all from the front page of yesterday’s New York Times.
Kenya’s Middle Class Feeling Sting of Violence
George G. Mbugua is a 42-year-old executive with two cars, a closet full of suits and a good job as the chief financial officer of a growing company.
His life has all the trappings of a professional anywhere. He recently joined a country club and has taken up golf.
But unlike anywhere else, this executive has to keep his eyes peeled on the daily commute for stone-throwing mobs. When he gets home after a long day, he has to explain to his daughters why people from different ethnic groups are hacking one another to death. Even his own affluent neighborhood has been affected. Some of the Mbuguas’ neighbors recently fled their five-bedroom homes because of the violence that has exploded in Kenya since a disputed election in December turned this promising African country upside down.
“Nobody’s untouched,” Mr. Mbugua said.
Of all the election-related conflicts that have cracked open in Kenya ”” Luos versus Kikuyus (two big ethnic groups), The Orange Democratic Movement versus the Party of National Unity (the leading political parties), police versus protesters ”” none may be more crucial than the struggle between those who seem to have nothing to lose, like the mobs in the slums who burn down their own neighborhoods, and those who are deeply invested in this country’s stability.
Read it all from the front page of yesterday’s New York Times.