Life is just a Game

We are One

In late 2011, I remember watching a football match in Greece featuring the most decorated and successful Greek team, Olympiacos F.C versus the finest European team of our age, Arsenal F.C in the formers’ home ground, the Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus, Greece. It was a typical Champions League night and the game might have been but a far-fetched memory had not a moment of brilliance occurred as the game wore on. Arsenal scored through Yossi Benayoun with the assist coming from a certain Marouane Chamakh. Neither of them is a household name even though coincidentally Chamakh wore the number 29 shirt while the goal scorer wore number 30 on his back. But the significance of that moment of magic hit me on how football can be a unifying factor. You see, ladies and gents, Chamakh is a Moroccan international and was then the captain of his national team. Yossi on the other hand, you guessed it right is the captain of the national team of Israel from where he hails. A Muslim and a Jew linking up to inflict damage on the Greek champions. Such is the magic and power of football.

Gor and Ingwe fans United

Since time immemorial, sports and football by far has been used as a tool to bring warring communities together, preach peace and campaign for moral values and their practise. At times, sports has also served to divide people especially where competing teams and their loyal hordes of fans just can’t stand the sight of each other. Amidst all this, more positive than harm can be attributed to football and sports at large.

We all know the simmering tension and warfare experienced in many parts of the world but in the world of sports, there is no black and white, Christian, Hindu, Muslim or Jew. It’s an avenue where humanity’s greatest traits are exposed, where the simplicity of a unified world is demonstrated whether on a pitch, stage or even a swimming pool.

A great act of Kindness

Needless to say, it’s not always nice and smooth. Sometimes racism rears its ugly head and nationalism exceeds human value. But also in such a stage is where we can watch citizens of the most secluded nation on Earth, the North Koreans take on a football giant in Brazil, as it happened in the last world cup in South Africa. It’s also in sports that a Kenyan lady relinquished her sprint to victory in a marathon to help an Oriental man without arms to drink a bottle of water.

There are many other wonderful things and traits that are nurtured through sports. Ranging from team work, hard work, unity and respect both for self and others but that’s a point of discussion for another time. Until then keep it sporty and live out the values of the game, especially the gentleman’s game; football.

Till next time, I remain Njabia, the 3rd.

No need for Caption

Rumours are Spreading

False 411 alert

It is said that a rumour can go round the whole world while the truth is yet to tie its shoe laces. That is quite apt and true especially in the modern era. We live in the information age where all kind of information is accessible in both easy and swift means. Celebrities of our times must be glad that their antics and contribution to whatever they add to humanity can be relayed way much easier. But still, most must rue the power of false information especially using the powerful medium that is the internet.

Around 2009 when Kenya was suffering from the hangovers of dancing ‘kuku’, ‘helicopter’, ‘slide’, ‘mosquito’ and other forms of dance moves, including my favourite of all time, ‘kangaroo’, a new style of music began to emerge. You see, it was now the decline phase of the type of music the Kenyan urban culture had come to embrace; Kapuka when Sauti Sol burst into the scene. I remember a neighbour of mine back then that would play their solo album to no end and I couldn’t avoid their wonderful style of music as my sister was a big fan. Then was when I first heard a rumour that they were gay. I thought to myself that it was just a nasty rumour that would die soon but alas! It still thrives and has been amplified by the emergence of social media.

Maybe the 'Usher-like' dressing style backfired 

To be honest, I really do not know their sexual orientation and neither does it excite me. But this is a sad tale of the many baseless stories that surface and end on their own. I am grateful not to be a celebrity because some can be really nasty; from claims that one suffers from a chronic illness to death itself. How many times have you read somewhere that Will Smith passed on after a nasty fall from a cliff Australia or Lil Wayne is dead after shooting himself thinking he was lighting a joint of weed?

I do not the genesis of such but I presume it is ‘keyboard warriors’ who have too much to spare, a weird sense of imagination and an audience that is engrossed in knowing all the happenings of the so called ‘celebs’.

Some rumours are just silly. Messi to Chelsea, aha!

So Sauti Sol are gay because of how they dress? That’s plain shallow. Let us be constructive in our judgement of people. There isn’t even a need to judge because as Jesus said, ‘Ye first remove the log of wood in your eye before pointing out the speck in thy neighbour’s eye’...paraphrased of course, lest I be condemned of spreading a rumour from Biblical heresy.

Till next time, I remain Njabia the 3^rd.