Browsing by Author "Onyango, Godfrey, Okoth"

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    Political Violence
    (Tangaza College, 2009) Onyango, Godfrey, Okoth
    On 31'1 December 2009 at about 5 pm, the family of Mzee Joseph Mwangi Macharia after having a family get together was visited by a group of about 40 young people among them his neighbours. They said they wanted 4 heads from his house- his and his four sons'. As he pleaded for mercy one of them struck his son on the chest with a club and another shot him with an arrow. Another son was pierced with a spear and his throat cut. His daughter and her child were pulled out from their hiding and their throats were slit. So was his wife's throat. Mzee Macharia escaped into a nearby bush and watched as his house was set on fire...1 This testimony extracted from the Wald report shows how the contemporary human being has become so heartless and how violent atrocities against fellow human beings have become normal operations of human life such that human life is taken just for granted. Politically oriented violence has led and is leading to widespread deaths in a number of African countries notable examples being Chad, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Violence has become too common in Africa that it is almost uncommon for a political process to pass without noting any kind of violence associated with it. This phenomenon is a clear indication that there is a serious problem in our society which is acting as the motivating factor for this violence. It is this perceived abnormality that has motivated the researcher to carry out an in depth research into the social problem of political violence particularly in Kenya of today.