Today we commemorate the day that Kenya attained internal self-rule, in 1963, a year before we got full independence from our colonizers.

#Madaraka is a swahili word for “authority”.

It reminds me of #Autonomy, an ethical principle in healthcare, which states (and this is heavily quoted from the webs) that “all persons have intrinsic and unconditional worth, and therefore, should have the power to make rational decisions and moral choices, and each should be allowed to exercise his or her capacity for self-determination.”

Of course this is usually weighed against any other competing moral principle(s), like beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice.

The whole concept gets me musing about whether these same principles should have counted (or if they did) even in the famed scramble and partition for Africa… Food for thought!

• Life out here