Food prices threaten world peace    April 20, 2008

School debates were noted for their either-or dichotomies. Fifteen-year olds fueled by heady promises that they were the leaders of tomorrow engaged in heated exchanges over whether Africa should opt for socialism or capitalism.

You racked your adolescent brains over whether we live to eat or eat to live. The thing about eating and living has been troubling my mind lately as I see a global food crisis looming in the horizon, casting a shadow right across the world.

The world is accustomed to crises. It is the nature of the planet we inhabit, and we’ve seen them all. Energy crisis. The threat of terrorism. The threat of global epidemics like the plague and SARs. One financial or economic crisis after another. And now an imminent food crisis. Throughout history, individual countries, from Ireland to China and Ethiopia, have known the pain of hunger and mass starvation. Many others only read about it. But all that has changed, and in the last couple of years, even the richest countries in the world have felt the pressure of rising food prices. No one has been spared. And there seems to be no solution in sight, as we haggle over democracy and other fine dreams.

In the last six months there have been food riots on virtually every continent, from West Bengal and Mexico last year to Egypt and Indonesia. More recently there have been riots in the poorest countries like Haiti and Burkina Faso. Demonstrations have rocked Cameroon, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Philippines, and been felt across the Gulf States. Italy has seen pasta price protests.

Elsewhere, supermarkets have witnessed panic buying over rumours of imminent price hikes. The IMF warns of an escalation in uncertainty and even the threat of war as millions find themselves unable to afford food. The situation is worrying, and the threats cannot be treated lightly. Consider that during the last year, the global price of wheat has risen by 130%, that of rice by 75%. At some point in Argentina, it was reported that tomatoes had become more expensive than meat.

In countries like Japan where overall inflation, excluding the price of food, hovers around 1% and the where deflation is a way of life, food prices have risen by an average of 15% in the last twelve months. Given that Japan produces only 40% of its food requirements and is as exposed to global food prices as any poor African or Asian country, the prospects are pretty gloomy.

Food production can barely keep pace with demand, due to growth in world population in real terms and also due to the emergence of a middle class in developing economies, which wants to eat better than their parents’ generation. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, demand for meat in China has grown by 150% since 1980.

Last year, floods destroyed crops around the world, from the UK to China and Australia, and vast sections of Africa. 10% of the UK wheat crop was destroyed in the 2007 summer floods. As a result, prices have continued to creep up.

Cutting down rainforests and devoting agricultural land to bio-fuels might have helped relieve the pressure on diminishing oil reserves, although going by current petroleum prices that remains a moot point, but more profoundly, it has exacerbated the food crisis. George Bush wants 15% of American cars to run on bio-fuel within the next nine years.

This has forced American farmers to divert 20% of the maize crop to bio-fuels, in the process leading to a shortage in food and doubling the price of maize. This has had a dire effect on many Asian, Latin American and African countries that rely on American maize. Blithely ignoring the dangers, India and Brazil, among others, are pledging to take land away from agriculture to bio-fuels.

Two hundred years ago, English political economist Thomas Malthus warned that the exponential population growth rate would get out of sync with the arithmetic growth in world food production, leading to catastrophe. It was a timely warning; although Malthus could not have predicted how industrial and technological progress could have boosted food production, and he somewhat overestimated man’s capacity to procreate.

The threat of insufficient food remains. But now, it emanates from factors that, to 18^th century folks, would have sounded like the stuff science fiction is made of. When Malthus was penning his doomsday scenario, cars powered by two cylinder gasoline engines were yet to start rolling down the streets of his native Surrey.

Sky-high oil prices and extreme weather aren’t helping either. So where does that leave us? It leaves us facing a food crisis of unbelievable proportions. It brings into sharp focus that old popular third form debate topic about eating and living. It evokes images of man reverting back to his hunter gatherer days, rummaging for scraps of food in wasted landscapes ravaged by drought and scorched by an unrelenting sun.

Democratic governments, as well as those that keep their people subjugated, could soon find themselves facing uncontrollable political activity. Instability in large economies like India and China could have serious repercussions for global peace. The case of the Haitian prime minister dismissed over food riots should force world leaders back to high school-type debates: to feed people or not to feed people.

Kenya faces a poverty of leadership  13 April 2008

After the Kenyan election fiasco, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, the two protagonists in the ensuing political soap opera spent weeks in acrimonious exchanges, trading demands and taking the country to the brink. They then emerged from conference rooms, chaperoned by the ever-diplomatic peace-maker cum king-maker, Kofi Annan, grinning and shaking hands, and announced that all was well.  

A calamity had been averted because they supposedly rose above the fray, put the interests of the nation above their own. And so it came to pass that two new-fangled heroes of the new democratic revolution basked triumphantly in the adulation that followed. The similarities in their own personal interests in power and wealth are almost identical.

I was slightly bemused but not altogether surprised when a friend got their names mixed up and asked: ‘What is happening in your country with this Raila Kibaki and Mwai Odinga?’ As this person inadvertently implied, they could well be the same person.  

What is worrying is not the potential identity problem, or even the fact that they seem to go round and round in circles before reaching consensus. Rather, it is the degree to which each is so beholden to his respective henchmen, and hence is held hostage to forces that purport to fight his battles and those of his party, in total disregard of the national good, that it does not bode well for the future.  

How can it, how can any power-sharing scheme work when it is so difficult to agree on how ministries might be shared? What might have been a simple arithmetic exercise gets lost in the political equation because ministries are not perceived to be what they really are: vehicles for mobilizing State resources for the development of the nation, but a proxy for individual fiefdoms.  

And what’s more, Kibaki’s creation of a mini-government was mis-guided and altogether in bad faith. It might have looked like a brilliant pre-emptive move at the time, but is tantamount to tying one arm around your back before climbing into the boxing ring. 

The unfolding of the situation now confirms to the ordinary mwananchi that all these politicians who are hell-bent on wrangling for power and positions have little interest in the future of this nation. If they did, if they cared about the livelihoods of millions who have to live under uncertainty and the constant threat of violence, displacement and utter mayhem, control over ministerial spheres of influence in a grand coalition government is secondary to the services those ministries provide. 

What we’re seeing in Kenya today is a poverty of leadership, a rudderless ship in which the captain is sleeping on the job, unable to rouse and call to order equally drowsy mates who are drunk on power from a lifetime of raucous partying. The lack of vision that has traditionally characterized the Kenyan political landscape is at its most glaring right now.  

Some months ago, someone wrote, tongue-in-cheek, that we should invite Britain to recolonize us. I’m not sure there would be anything in it for a colonial power as Kenya currently offers little in way of oil and similar vital resources. Perhaps we should ask Kofi Annan to come and govern as some sort of expatriate leader. After wading for several weeks through our political jungle, he has an excellent grasp of what ails this country.  

But Mister Annan has already done enough. It would be unreasonable to ask any foreigner to shoulder the burden of salvaging a political and economic infrastructure that has been damaged by our very own. At the root of the current problems is a lack of trust and goodwill, greed for power and poor leadership. Our politicians have failed to grasp that leadership is not merely about possessing power, it is about having the gumption and humility to take a step back, to compromise for the sake of a cause bigger than yourself. It is about recognizing when you and your selfish demands have become the obstacle to peace and progress, and then removing yourself or your demands from the debate.  

The Olympic torch has endured an ignominious journey on its way to Beijing, being hijacked and extinguished by pro-Tibet protestors in cities like London and Paris. The Tibetan uprising couldn’t have been better timed. After decades of trying to bring their plight to the international arena, Tibetans saw a window of opportunity, an opportunity to make the world understand their grievances with China.  

With only a few months to go before the games, there’s little time for China to come up with a lasting solution, and the hard line response offers little hope. The sometimes violent protests that have accompanied the Olympic torch are by no means a propitious sign about what to expect come August.  

Kids under pressure  6 April 2008

Are times getting tougher for the youth or is it that there’s more publicity about their problems today? Suicide pacts aren’t uncommon in Japanese history. In the past, people who wanted to end their lives in groups sought partners and engaged in correspondence through the post. With the advent of the internet and email, it has never been easier. Young people holed up in smoky, noisy cybercafés or in their rooms can easily find death partners and just get on with it.

Japanese suicides rates are amongst the highest in the world. With roots in hara-kiri, ritual suicide by self-disembowelment was seen as an honourable thing to do, part of the code of samurai warriors. It is hard to find any sense of honour today in cybersuicide pacts which were first reported in Japan but are by no means restricted to that country. These acts involve complete strangers who are usually but not necessarily suffering from clinical depression.

They are becoming a worrying trend, especially so for a society that prides itself as homogenous, harmonious, the epitome of stability and strong family values. The family institution in particular seems to be coming under immense pressure from many quarters. You have a numbing listlessness in young people who find themselves in a state of limbo, unable to connect with the ‘traditional’ values of the older generation or to find lasting meaning in the gritty urban existence that is characterized by superficial gadgetry.

We like to think of technology as a wonderful, liberating thing that makes our lives easier, by replacing brute force and muscle with sophisticated automation, gadgets that have revolutionized communication and indeed every aspect of our everyday life beyond Thomas Edison’s wildest dreams.

But technology has a lot to answer for, in the way it has stripped away our humanity, elevating superficiality from the quirky to the mundane, to the essence of our very existence, often blurring the distinction between reality and fantasy. Particularly vulnerable are the very young who get so accustomed to shooting down so-called enemy targets that they end up desensitized to the act of destruction and the reality of death. Picking up a weapon to harm or kill a real person becomes the enactment of a fantasy first experienced on a video game console.

And so it is that a young person who spends the whole night playing violent computer games wanders into the street in Osaka or Tokyo, bleary-eyed, totally spaced out as though on drugs, and attacks a complete stranger with a knife or pair of scissors. Others, for whatever bizarre thrill is gives them, just want to kill a complete stranger.

Some of the forces that drive people to these extremes are rooted in the marginalization of an under-achieving segment of society that gets swept aside by the fast and tortuous currents of modernization in a highly competitive society where success is tied to notions of face and family honour, and where failure is unthinkable. Unemployment doesn’t help, and when the rejection of the material world fails to translate into a life of leisure as it did for the sixties hippies, cyberspace becomes the only refuge.

But the dangers of cyberspace are well-documented. It is a world that draws in the unwary and exposes the young to predatory and exploitative cyber-scavengers.

Family pressure to succeed is an insidious source of trouble. Every parent wants the best for their offspring, but some just want their kids to be the best, and don’t realize that trying to be ‘best’ is not necessarily the best thing for the child. In recent years, Asia has seen several cases of parents using highly intensive home-coaching methods to get their children to set records by acquiring ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels at an age when they should be spending most of their time playing and discovering the joys of the world around them. Child prodigies become the toast of the town, admired and envied by all and sundry. They enter top universities at puberty.

Kiasu is the Singaporean notion of ‘the fear of losing’, which drives parents to impose unbearable study workloads on children with a view to making them excel. The child who has been pushed into studying from birth might enroll for a degree course in their early teens or younger and actually do well in class. But coping with the social and growing up pressures on and off campus is a whole different ball game.

Sometimes these kids rebel and self-destruct. The recent case of Sufiah Yusof is instructive. Growing up in a high-pressure study regime under an uncompromising father, the Malaysian girl went to Oxford to study mathematics at 13. Two years she rebelled against her parents, abandoned her degree and was recently found to be working as a prostitute near Manchester. The tabloids have had a field day, and Malaysia is in shock. But these parental pressures are unlikely to abate.

Sadly, there has been little reflection about the dangers of these oppressive coaching habits. The troubles of the better known Michael Jacksons and Jennifer Capriatis of this world should give pause for thought. Life as an adult or even a young adult is difficult enough without having to salvage a lost childhood as well.

Bhutan embraces democracy    30 March 2008

Bhutan is the latest nation to experiment with democracy. Theirs is truly an experiment as there has never been anything like it before. This country that sits high up on the Himalayas, right on the roof of the world, has decided it is time to savour this delicacy called democracy that the rest of the world is tearing itself apart for. And when the king says there’ll be elections, you know you’d better get yourself to the polling station. A 65-year old woman got into the news for trekking 600 kilometres over two weeks just to cast a vote. She once got car sick in her first and only car journey some years ago, and decided that vehicular transport was not for her.

Imagine walking from Mombasa to Nakuru just to cast a vote, mostly through barely penetrable forests and mountain passes in a country where the building of roads is seen as an affront to nature. One wonders how the woman would feel if the person or party she voted for failed to deliver.

She wasn’t the only one on such an extravagant journey of hope by all accounts. Since the powers that be decreed you had to vote in your area of birth, there was much to-ing and fro-ing. Many people saw the election as a chance for a family reunion. Interestingly, the reunions weren’t always amicable. In fact for many, the elections were an unfamiliar source of animosity for people who’ve been on a steep learning curve to appreciate the meaning of political parties.

In the interest of harmony, some agreed to split the votes equally amongst family members. A pragmatic approach in a largely Buddhist society. That was easy, as there are only two parties to choose from. That’s not an awful lot of choice. But it certainly makes it easier for people to experiment with something as alien as democracy.

Perhaps they’ve seen the damage that a proliferation of parties can cause where, upon the collapse of the one-party dictatorship in Kenya, every Njoroge, Atieno and Kibet formed a so-called party, many of which have continued to be pulled and stretched about like a canvas roof at a goat party in the rainy season.

There’s little to distinguish between the two Bhutanese parties, which suggests there would be little to be gained by having a multiplicity of mass mobilization vehicles for a community which is happy to resolve political differences that have been imposed upon them by simple arithmetic.

Meanwhile, European observers have been heard making grumbling noises to the effect that two parties aren’t what they would have preferred to see. They can always come back in five years time to see how two parties have faired before prescribing a model that is more consonant with their own multiple-voice sensibilities.

This is a country that has been known to take isolation to the extreme. The third king in the current dynasty, who started the process of modernization back in the late fifties and early sixties, might have achieved more had he not met an untimely death while receiving treatment in Kenya in 1972. He is credited with ending feudalism and improving farming practices through simple technology. The path to modernization has been a slow and measured one.

Radio broadcasts started in the early seventies. The first newspaper began publishing in 1986. Telephones were introduced as recently as 1989. Television has only been around for ten years; internet and cable TV in the last five years. The idea behind this hermit existence is to keep away foreign influences and unwelcome cultural, political and environmental contamination. But it hasn’t stopped the ruling class from absorbing foreign influences by studying in the West. 

It sounds quaint but rather unrealistic in this day and age to throw a cordon sanitaire around your country because of the fear of foreign influences. That said, it is certainly worth protecting the environment from the sort of degradation that often follows tourism and wanton extractive industrialization.

In spite of the tight controls on day-to-day life, on the media and so forth, Bhutan is in some ways a country ahead of its time. The king says he is committed to replacing the absolute monarchy he inherited with a democratic parliamentary model. He is a popular man who has endeared himself to the population by his preference for a simple life. He has given parliament the power to dismiss him.

In Bhutan, they prefer to measure their national wealth not in terms of gross national income but ‘gross national happiness’ whereby progress encapsulates spirituality, protection of the environment and good governance, among other things. These are interesting lessons for more established yet struggling democracies.

However, in the same way that broad economic statistics fail to capture the realities of the underclass, national happiness figures are just as inadequate. Ethnic minorities have little to smile about. They complain of discrimination and marginalization, and being forced to embrace the dominant culture. About 100,000 Nepali-speakers are languishing in refugee camps.

Some of these refugee camps have subsequently become notorious breeding grounds for insurgents. Drug abuse and high unemployment are on the rise, but are taboo topics. Perhaps with democracy they will now start talking about and doing something about these sources of national ‘unhappiness’.

Tibet crisis could be a public relations fiasco for Beijing games   23 March 2008

 The Tibetan crisis is once again revealing some serious weaknesses in the way China handles threats to its much-vaunted quest for harmony. The riots in Tibet have also put to the test China’s slogan for the games. ‘One world, one dream’. In one part of the Himalayas at least, that dream is fast turning into a nightmare.  

China’s military response has been true to form, uncompromising, and accompanied with the usual off-colour expletives that Chinese bureaucrats are particularly good at. They’ve described the Dalai Lama as a ‘monster’, ‘a wolf wrapped in a habit’ and some even less palatable terms. I’m not sure about this fascination with the word monster. A Barack Obama aide recently used it to describe Hillary Clinton and was subsequently dropped from Obama’s team.  

The riots are coming at a very bad time for China, while the world’s attention is currently focused on China’s ability both to host the games successfully and to address criticisms ranging from its failure to offer leadership on hotspots like Sudan and Myanmar. By imposing a media ban, and ordering foreign journalists out of Lhasa, the demonization of the Dalai Lama and the hard-line approach they have taken all suggest China has some way to go if it is to achieve internal harmony and the respect of the international community. 

It is a tight spot to be in for a country that aspires to position itself as the spokesperson for the developing world, as an alternative to Western (read American) hegemony. The Olympic Games celebrate human achievement, resilience and competition amongst friends. They are about countries competing in amicable rivalry.  

For troubled regions and warring nations, the games are an opportunity to find peace and reconciliation, to agree on a truce, to rediscover tolerance, indeed to unite a world that is torn apart by political strife and economic turbulence. Hosting the games is a once in a lifetime opportunity for China to demonstrate its commitment to world peace.  

The explosion of violence in Tibet not only threatens lives and regional peace but is also contrary to the very spirit of the games, especially the notions of peace and reconciliation which are in fact embedded in the Olympic Charter. China needs to address the long-standing grievances that have culminated in these protests. It is no good merely cracking down and talking tough. 

Basic tenets of diplomacy would suggest that whatever their personal feelings about the Dalai Lama, such feelings should remain preferably unspoken, in public, or should be expressed in dignified language. Some of utterances have clearly been beyond the pale, designed as they are for domestic consumption in a stubbornly global world where technology shows an uncanny facility to circumvent the most draconian controls on information.  

Beijing ought by now to learn the lessons of the collapse of the former Suharto regime and in particular how deceptively simple technologies like text messages played such a pivotal role in mobilizing a street revolution. The same goes for Tibet. You can cut off the formally constituted communication channels, chase away foreign journalists, block access to the internet and foreign TV channels; but it is a losing battle.

Information seems to have a life of its own. It seeps through the cracks, bypasses the controls and gets to those who need it, or is dispatched by those who have to. The mess that is going on in Tibet cannot be swept under the carpet. If it continues to simmer, it will also further alienate the Taiwanese who fear they might go the way of Tibet.   

China faces a risk of squandering international goodwill that would otherwise accompany the Olympic games; nay, the very goodwill that bestowed the chance to host the games in the first place, and which, even now, is loath to prevent the celebration of human achievement with talk of a boycott. With the games, China needs to abandon its feelings of entitlement and think more about its responsibility to the international community. By insisting on playing catch-up and displaying this uncompromising it’s-our-turn-now attitude, China denies itself the opportunity to exhibit the generosity of spirit that would temper the political arrogance that comes with economic might.    

A great country doesn’t need to keep proving itself. It certainly doesn’t need to feel as though it was condemned to live forever under the shadow of the West. China has much to be proud of. In less than three decades, although much work remains to be done in the political and human rights arena, its economic revival has been an absolute miracle. Millions have achieved the sort of social and economic freedom that was a mere pipe dream in the dark days of the inappropriately named Cultural Revolution and the reversibly named Great Leap Forward. 

A great leap forward has been achieved since the 1980s. But as every high jump, triple jump or poll vault athlete in Beijing this summer will testify, leaps sometimes precede a painful fall. The way Beijing handles the Tibet crisis will show whether this economic giant has what it takes to accomplish a soft international relations landing, or whether we’re headed for a public relations fiasco for games that deserve better, and unnecessary loss of goodwill. 

Thaksin opts to amuse with political football    16 March 2008

The return of ousted Thai Prime Minister to Thailand takes on a farcical element with every passing day. This is a man who came into power promising to clean up the country. He was loved and is still greatly admired by the poor folks in his province whom he won over with social welfare policies and a raft of goodies which the middle classes in Bangkok derided as unsustainable.

Then he ended up alienating everyone as his family’s acquisitiveness got bolder and bolder. The army decided enough was enough and sent him packing. However, the new administration is largely seen as being a proxy for Thaksin. When Thaksin breezed into town amidst a media frenzy, Prime Minister Samak Sundarawej looked like a man boxed into a corner, anxious to prove he really was in charge.

‘I’m the real prime minister!’ he snapped angrily, when a cheeky reporter asked if Thaksin was now going to head the government. ‘I’m no one’s nominee!’

It evokes images of Kibaki and Odinga. ‘I’m the Prime Minister!’ ‘Yeah yeah, but I’m the President!’ And so it goes on. Who’s really in charge?

For Thaksin it’s a little complex. With the court’s dissolution of his Thai Rak Thai Party (which means ‘Thais love Thais’; what a name for a political party!), he and about a hundred of his henchmen were banned from politics for five years, a futile gesture, some might say, because these rich players won’t stop exercising influence from behind the scenes in the shadowy world of Thai politics.

Thaksin claims he doesn’t want to be involved in politics any more, yet he continues to exude the aura and ambience of a top-level politician. The ruling party is filled to the brim with his supporters, some of whom are openly soliciting his advice, implying he’s getting ready to reclaim the power he believes was stolen from him. 

His return was well-calculated to both impress and charm his detractors. It was nothing short of a football charm offensive. As the owner Manchester City which is currently ranked at number 9, Thaksin returned to the capital, flanked by goalie Kasper Schmeichel and striker Kelvin Etuhu, a fantastic media coup for a football-crazy country.

If you’ve followed Manchester City’s fortunes recently, you’ll know they haven’t exactly been firing on all cylinders. Thaksin is none too amused. So while in the middle of not one but two corruption cases, he tells the court he needs permission to return to England to sort out that little mess with overpaid, underperforming players, well, not in so many words. What he actually said was he needed to go ‘tighten the bolt.’ I’m not familiar with that particular football expression.

It is hard to imagine how a man who thrives on power and political intrigue can keep a low profile indefinitely. First he’ll have to clear his name and then regain access to the US$2 billion the courts have frozen.

Meanwhile Malaysia has woken up to something of a political earthquake after Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s government’s appalling performance at the elections. Poor governance was at the root of Umno’s rout by a population that was getting weary of failed economic policies and a failure to address deep-seated racial tensions.

Few governments can survive the social unrest, real or latent, that often accompanies a prolonged period of high inflation hence tough economic times for the middle and lower classes, increased crime rates and an undercurrent of racial or ethnic discrimination. In Malaysia, it is the Indians and Chinese who complain of racial discrimination in the face of the affirmative action that favours ethnic Malays. Their protest vote was pivotal.

So profound was the defeat that even Mahathir Mohammed, that grand old man of Malaysian politics who talks like an honorary life Prime Minister, admitted he made a mistake in anointing Mr Badawi as his successor five years ago.

Now that Umno has been exposed as ineffectual and divisive, Anwar Ibrahim who boasts reformist credentials and has a jail record to show for standing up against his erstwhile benefactor Mahathir Mohammed, has now been thrust firmly into the limelight. His criticisms of government policies including racial discrimination, as well as poverty and crime struck a chord, which saw the Badawi coalition dealt an unprecedented reality shock.

Malaysia has enormous potential and a proven ability to deliver an economic transformation. One is often reminded that forty years ago, the Kenyan economic future seemed much brighter in comparison. The drive and hunger to compete with the best on the global scene took the country through a phase of industrialization that unfortunately started to stagnate with what seemed like a rudderless and complacent administration that failed to modernize its political and economic policies while they had a chance.

Maybe this is a wake up call at long last. But the question is, with Badawi reclaiming power in spite of the narrowest margins the party has enjoyed in forty years, is the party capable of reforming itself if it’s to reform the country? That remains to be seen. On the day Mr Badawi was sworn in for his second term, the stock market fell 10% before trading was suspended. An unmistakable warning sign if there ever was one.

Now the world knows Kenya  9 March 2008

If anything positive has come out of the recent crisis in Kenya, it is the free lesson in geography it has given the world. In Hollywood they say ‘any publicity is good publicity’. Anything to sell a movie, any notoriety surrounding an artist, just as long as it gets people talking, and buying tickets.

In politics, this axiom has to be taken with a bucket or two of salt. Negative publicity can be extremely damaging, especially for a country that depends so heavily on tourism. It is like reputation or trust. Both of which take a long time to cultivate, but can be destroyed at the drop of a hat.

While the real task of redressing past injustices, righting wrongs, and creating a cohesive nation-state starts now, we should be thinking of how to turn calamity into opportunity, not merely begging tourists to come back but demonstrating to both visitors and investors why they would find it wise to engage with the country, now that they know it exists. First you’ve got to prove to them that everything’s ok now, not through infantile platitudes by the State propagandists who masquerade as government spokesmen, but by demonstrating tangible outcomes.

Kenya now needs to build on the tremendous amount of goodwill shown by the world, as those who live in diaspora would testify. You go to church services and are moved by the prayers for Kenya, for the displaced people, for the sick, maimed and hungry. Pastors ask God to imbue the warring leaders with wisdom to look beyond their selfish quest for power.

It is quite a humbling and moving experience, especially when you’ve never heard anyone pray for your country before, obviously because we’ve not encountered tragedy on this scale before. At your place of worship, at work, or school, friends and acquaintances wish you well, ask after your people, express dismay at the intransigence of politicians and the shock of seeing all those horrifying images of violence and terror.

People ask you why these sorts of things happen in Africa. They find it totally incomprehensible how neighbours can rise against each other with machetes and crude weapons. They wouldn’t even know where to buy a machete. They’re not on sale in the local supermarket or the 7-Eleven convenience store. I don’t know if you can order them on-line, like on e-Bay or something. If they worry about violence, it’s muggings in dodgy neighbourhoods.

With a mixture of pity and shock in their eyes, people look at you and wonder if the violent streak is genetic, something that runs across the continent, from Sierra Leone and Liberia to Chad, Sudan, Congo and Somalia. No sooner had Kenya calmed down than Cameroon erupted. They wonder if it’s just a matter of time before the time-bomb in you explodes, after all, you’re from that awful place that remains amorphous and undefined.

Those who have followed the crisis are at least aware of the existence of a country called Kenya. So, when they plan their next holiday, they might think, yeah, that place where they had some troubles; it seems alright now? I find it interesting when people talk or write about Africa, as though it were one country. Maybe it should be; perhaps the Pan-Africanists know something the rest of us don’t.

From North America to Europe and Asia, they have these heart-warming little stories in local newspapers, TV and radio shows about our very own Teacher Sarah, Development Expert Wilhem or Nursing Student Miss Wong, recently returned from a trip to Africa, where he or she helped build schools in arid areas, vaccinated children against some deadly disease while looking out for hostile tribesmen.

Pastor Joseph is planning a church-sponsored trip to Africa. The radio chat show has free tickets for a show featuring drummers from Africa. Enter the competition now, and get a taste of Africa, right here in your local market square. Our local beauty queen is pictured here on a recent trip to Africa, watching lions dozing on the savanna.

It’s never made clear where exactly in Africa these wonderful events are taking place. The country is immaterial. It’s just Africa, a heaving mass of humanity on a gargantuan expanse of land that sits astride the equator, where anything goes. Yet they’re quite happy to say free tickets to Singapore for the first correct answer; here’s a group of volunteers tucking into a vindaloo curry in northern India; students have just returned from a skiing trip in the Swiss Alps; our very own black belt Watanabe coaching youngsters in the American state of Wyoming. The specificity is in such sharp contrast with the ambiguity and ambivalence with which Africa is portrayed.

It gets even more hilarious when Africans themselves succumb to this denuding of their country’s identity. As they savour their Californian Chardonnay or extra cool pint of Carlsberg they declare, it’s been some time since I’ve been to Africa; oh, I might be heading out to Africa this summer, how about you? They have become immunized from the constant and apparently needless repetition of their country’s name. Perhaps it is the fear that others might not recognize the place. Kenya? Is that near Johannesburg? There’s no excuse for such ignorance now.

Sovereignty and Kenya’s future          2 March 2008

My attention was drawn to a recent media report that former British Premier Tony Blair has been appointed a special adviser to the Paul Kagame government in Rwanda. Apparently, Mr Blair’s remit is to help the country’s economy recover from the aftermath of the 1990s genocide by attracting foreign investment.

This comes at a time when Kenya is hosting the foreign Kofi Anna-led team of eminent personalities struggling to resolve the stalemate between two warring parties.

So, what happened to all that nonsense about foreigners intervening in so-called national sovereignty? Have African leaders suddenly realized that there is nothing wrong with taking a bit of advice from beyond their borders? Clearly not, if the intransigence of the Sudanese regime is anything to go by, or in fact in the case of Kenya itself, where bloated egos have become such an obstacle to peace.

It is too early to talk about a sea-change in attitudes. But one thing is clear. The population is waking up to the reality that criticisms of so-called foreign intervention are simply lame excuses by hard-line politicians hell-bent on saving their skins and protecting their political careers while painting the foreign diplomat or politician as a despicable bogeyman.

The constant warnings and invectives that emanate from ministers’ mouths telling off these bogeymen and reminding them that Kenya is no longer a colony are nauseating and ludicrous in the extreme. Kenya might be an independent country, independent, that is from an ex-colonial power.

Unfortunately, we are by no means free of the plutocrat-kleptocrat regimes that replaced the colonial one. We should be even more wary of this homegrown type of maladministration which is able to sell itself as one of us, as our genuine spokesperson because it is racially if not ethnically at one with us. It is not a foreign entity, it is not a foreign master, but the occupant of our own State House and parliament, elected by us, and therefore, incapable of hurting our interests. Or so we’re made to believe.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu put forward an interesting concept which he termed ‘symbolic violence’. Nothing to do with violent mobs on the streets. If anything, the violence is so subtle you barely notice it because you play a part in approving it. Simply put, symbolic violence is the exercise of power upon a people with their complicit acceptance. Sounds like democracy, doesn’t it? You cast your vote, put us into power, so, you agreed to our ruling you, right?

Trouble is, the mechanisms of social control are not always explicit. And more ominously, symbolic violence operates by denying while simultaneously reinforcing troublesome realities like power imbalances, and in our case, one would argue, ethnic tensions, and the political structures that keep people divided and economic classes separate.

Because the ordinary man and woman is unable to participate in the corrupt economy that they see enriching the high and mighty, they nevertheless accept that corruption is the only way to overnight riches. It becomes the accepted norm, afflicting even school children who reject education for the pursuit of monetary gain. People see their leaders getting away with grand theft, arrogant talk, wanton ridicule of any outsiders who might be pointing out the emperor’s nakedness. Everyone assumes this is the national moral code. They lend their complicity to the venal administration, and ultimately succumb to the domination that they themselves help legitimize. Bourdieu called this reconnaissance sans connaissance, recognition without knowledge.

Once we’ve succumbed to misrecognition we cannot turn round and say, ‘we won’t accept these outsiders’ criticism and help’. Because to do so would be to admit that we’ve been hoodwinked. To accept Condoleezza Rice’s, Kofi Annan’s or Desmond Tutu’s claims that a culture of impunity and corruption is destroying our nation is to accept we’ve all along been misguided in our choice of politics, and that our leaders are not the demi-gods we’ve made them out to be.

Mental colonialism by our own leaders is a hundred times more insidious than control by foreigners because it is like a cancer buried deep within the living tissue of the nation-state. The cancer cannot be excised by a quick operation under local anesthesia, or by chucking the governor and his henchmen back to their country.

It requires a new form of recognition: recognition with knowledge. We must, as a people begin to question whom our leaders are speaking for when they say ‘stay off our national affairs’. Are they in fact equating ‘national affairs’ with their own vested interests? Sovereignty is not synonymous with the political space in which rival parties scramble over ministerial appointments and other goodies. Though it is about independent rule and power as exercised by a government free of external interference, under no circumstances can it be used to justify the service of narrow factional interests that override the national good. When this happens, the very legitimacy of the basis of power is brought into question.

When the people lose faith in their leaders’ ability to ensure peace and stability because the leaders are too busy fighting over power, when talks to resolve the current crisis threaten to degenerate into a circus, it should become clear to the leaders that this is no longer about them. It’s not about foreigners. It’s about Kenya’s future.

What role for China in divided Africa?   24 February 2008

Becoming a major player on the world stage is not for the faint-hearted, or the paranoid. For centuries, China kept itself isolated, afraid of contamination from the barbarians. In recent decades, however, China has struggled not just for acceptance into the international community, but for recognition first as the spokesperson for the developing world and more recently, as a power in its own right.

But what role exactly does China wish to play on the global stage, a stage that has seen entities like the former-USSR disintegrate and fade away into oblivion as the Cold War drew to an end?

China sees itself filling in a void that yawns wider by the day as both Russia and the European bloc of nations fail to provide a credible countervailing force to America’s hegemony.

But how well prepared is China for the sort of prominent role that super-powers crave? China might well enjoy economic prowess that shatters one record after another, from biggest this to fastest that. However, respect from the rest of the international community doesn’t come from creating super-multinational firms, having the fastest growth rates, being the largest consumer of resources and hence the world’s largest polluter. Respect, credibility and acceptance come from a morally-sustainable position in that relates to global leadership, social justice, peace and goodwill.

The first real test for China has to be Africa, in particular its handling of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, as well as its handling of the strongmen in Myanmar. China is a major investor in Myanmar, and also buys a third of Sudan’s oil exports. Trade pragmatism taking precedence over everything else might be good for economic statistics, but it raises questions about a country’s sensitivity to the plight of those who suffer repression in the hands of rogue regimes. If China could stop hiding behind the so-called ‘non-interference’ principle, and exercise a little more of its clout with Myanmar and Sudan, its credibility would be substantially enhanced.

This is where concerns about China’s ability to handle criticism become a matter of critical. The imminent Beijing Olympics have already generated a fair bit of controversy with the inevitable linking of sports to politics, something China rejects. Yet, as far as I know, China was among the nations that boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Iran and China cited ‘political reasons’.

So, at least on that occasion, China seemed untroubled by the link between politics and sports. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. China should not be surprised if critics now link the Beijing games to China’s policy on Darfur. In both cases the political issues touch on the much-vaunted national sovereignty, and reflect a widely-shared revulsion at the widespread abuse of human rights.

The critics that China is taking exception to include high-profile entertainers like Bono, Mia Farrow, George Clooney and Steven Spielberg, who has withdrawn his involvement in the games, thus incurring the wrath of Beijing. Nobel Peace Prize laureates like Desmond Tutu have also added their voices.

The games will in all likelihood go according to plan. China will obviously do well, and set new records in the medal haul. National pride will run high, the 5000-year old civilization will announce its arrival on the world stage, on its own soil, in the most majestic way imaginable. The withdrawal of the Swiss dressage team from the equestrian events to be held in Hong due to concerns about the summer conditions, and Haile Gebrselassie’s threats not to participate on health grounds have generated some adverse publicity for the games.

The pressure is intensifying, and the leaders in Beijing need to realize that this is not just a chance to showcase national prowess. In fact, any excessive jingoistic displays of national pride of the type we have come to expect from other superpowers, coupled with a failure to use that high-profile clout to bring pressure to bear on Sudan and Myanmar, will if anything, generate more negative sentiments towards China. China’s response so far has been to meet criticism with criticism, while reiterating the material support they have given to the people of Darfur. It’s not enough, and it shows that China needs a little more experience in handling criticism as it takes on a larger role in global affairs. Paranoia and defensiveness won’t help.

It is regrettable that Africa in particular has to look to China for some form of leadership in this crisis. It’s as though Africa itself has no voice, no courage, and no commitment to challenge a rogue regime that exists in its very heart. In the past, when the African political landscape was littered with dictators, the non-interference principle served as a convenient ploy to protect would-be human rights abusers from criticism. Today, we have a critical mass of legitimate administrations and respected leaders to spear-head measures that will bring about a resolution to the Darfur crisis. The fact that Africa has risen to Kenya’s help in its moment of need shows that it can be done. African can solve its own problems. Unfortunately, Darfur has been allowed to fester, as has Zimbabwe.

Teething democratic problems persist in East Timor   17 February  2008

Freedom from brutal Indonesian occupation was meant to usher in a new era in East Timor. Less than a decade ago, the future looked bright, the newest nation on earth enjoyed an outpouring of goodwill from the international community. Two of their heroes won the coveted Nobel Prize for their efforts to bring about a peaceful reconciliation.

Ironically, peace has remained more elusive than ever before. The young country has stumbled from one crisis to another. The instability cuts across factional vested interests and mirrors the divisions and prejudices that existed under Indonesian occupation.

Trading and business opportunities have been a source of contention. Chinese dominated whatever little trade there was under Portuguese rule. During the occupation, Indonesians mainly from Sulawesi, not surprisingly, took over. Large sections of indigenous people found themselves displaced from their lands by migrants, and by wealthy Indonesian militiamen and locals who worked for them. Decades of marginalization have now brought matters to the fore.

Of course the situation is more complex than that. But what is remarkable is that in spite of its vast gas and oil reserves, little has been done to translate political independence into economic and social opportunities. About half the population lives under abject poverty.

The authorities appear are unable to maintain law and order, and rebels forces have remained a major threat to stability. The sacking of half the army in 2006 exacerbated matters, with accusations of discrimination and violence that culminated in the attempted assassination of both the president and prime minister.

Here is a situation that is unfolding with frightening regularity in other jurisdictions. Under Indonesian occupation, it was understandable that anger would be directed towards the brutal regime. But with the common enemy expelled, the tensions that exist within the local population internally assume free rein.

People quickly forget that creating a new nation takes a whole lot of work, sacrifices and commitment to a common cause. Unfortunately, the divisions from decades or in this case centuries of colonial rule run so deep that they have become part of the national psyche. Political rivalries and greed for power do little to lower the temperature. The death of the rebel leader following the assassination attempt will take the wind out of the rebel forces’ sail for a while, but probably not long enough to invite a sustained period of quiet reflection. The international peace-keeping community led by Australian and New Zealand forces needs to ask itself some tough questions too, about what role exactly it is playing, and whether it can be more effective in assuring peace and stability, and facilitating meaningful change in this extremely fragile democracy.

*

Talking of Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Ruud has fulfilled yet another election pledge and apologized to the aborigines for the atrocities committed against them. As expected the apology singles out the ‘stolen generations’ who were taken away from their communities and forcibly assimilated into white society supposedly to civilize them by ridding them of their culture.

This act of contrition has generated a lot of debate, with some cynics wondering why an apology is being made in ‘their name’ while they had nothing to do with it. Others claim that mixed-blood children were taken away not merely to ‘civilize’ them but to protect them from the suffering they endured in their own communities. The truth comes in as many shades as there are commentators.

But the fact remains that whatever the motives for the forced removals, this remains one of the saddest chapters of Australian history, and the prime minister must be commended for showing the courage to apologize for the misguided policies and pain caused by the institution he now heads. It is a symbolic act that marks the beginning of a period of reconciliation, something Kenya could do with right now. The previous prime minister failed to appreciate this logic, and subsequently, his administration was marred by a perception of insensitivity, callousness and even racism not merely towards the aboriginal people but towards the immigrant populations from Asia. His failure to win the election and even more tellingly, to retain his constituency seat, was largely seen as a punishment for this hard-line position.

‘Sorry’ is the often the most difficult word to express, but it can be the easiest way to earn trust, to shed away layers of animosity and acrimony, to accept that mistakes have been made. But it is also a starting point, and now the hard work must begin. The plight of the aborigines, particularly those who live in tribal communities, is a lamentable one. All the statistics are stacked up against them, from the minute they are born, into excessively high mortality rates, to the higher chances of ending up in jail, as alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless, and eventually dying prematurely.

That this can be happening in a country as rich and as advanced as Australia is a shameful indictment. Previous regimes must be held accountable for the decades of neglect. The current regime will not deliver a quick panacea, but it has made an initial attempt to reach out to a hugely disadvantaged community. Giving some compensation would have lent the apology some more weight. More importantly, however, the world must watch and see what concrete measures Kevin Ruud takes to reverse the culture of deprivation and poverty.

The software of national consciousness     10 February  2008

At what stage does a society attain the level of political consciousness for peaceful democracy to flourish? It seems that such artifacts as parliament, a judiciary, and so forth are easy to create, and fill up with officials.

It is like putting in place all the right machinery in a factory, booting up the hardware, engines rumbling away, yet all they’re generating is heat and pollution.

You can carve up a country into provinces, districts, towns, villages and constituencies, but lines on a map do not a nation make. Hardware is all very well, but as the once mighty IBM discovered to its chagrin in the eighties, there’s that other thing called software without which all the hardware in the world might as well be chunks of metal and plastic casing at a scrap yard.

The software metaphor is a simple way to capture the massive idea of just what is missing in Kenya’s political consciousness, and indeed many other jurisdictions around the world.

Take Hong Kong. Much has been made of the idea that the territory is not ‘ready’ for democracy. Most of those making this claim are pro-Beijing politicians who are anxious to show off their one-China credentials, largely, it is assumed, because they want political and business favours from the mother country.

Not surprisingly, they tend to include tycoons who fear that the economic fortunes of the territory might be swayed by political ideals by so-called democrats rather than the pragmatic business philosophy that has dominated from the earliest days of British colonial rule. For the British, Hong Kong served as a milk cow that generated wealth from its unique location and identity as the place where east met west. With no natural resources to speak of, the bedrock of the economy was the people, their entrepreneurial flair, their preparedness to take risks, and their willingness to work really hard.

The fifties and sixties were a bad time, poverty was widespread, disease was rife, and the future looked very bleak. The colonial administration focused on creating an infrastructure, fostering investments, maintaining a low tax regime, and simply letting the people get on with it. The rest, as they say, is history. Crucially, the laissez-faire culture extended to the political arena. They didn’t appropriate land from any of the local communities as they did in Kenya, Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa.

In fact they had no need for land, and they certainly didn’t venture into South China to settle their farmers. A queen’s official in the early days of colonial rule dismissed Hong Kong as nothing but a ‘barren rock’. How wrong he was. For generations, people were permitted only limited freedom to vote for their leaders. Little or no political consciousness took root. Even today, political parties have struggled to prove they have any relevance. But now, people are saying they’re fed up of being denied universal suffrage.

This is where the question of readiness comes in. Do you create political parties from thin air? Granted, parties do exist, though sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between them. For those who are suspicious of universal suffrage, the problem is, how do you ensure that whoever rises to the top will maintain the system of enterprise that has worked so well? Will he or she pose a threat to industry, place the people’s rights, the environment etc above the interests of business, and in the process undermine the territory’s competitiveness?

Democracy in Hong Kong is therefore cast as a contest between ordinary people and social justice on the one hand, and avaricious tycoons on the other. It doesn’t have to be like that. The hardware of an electoral system will eventually come into effect, but the software of that vital cohesion between the classes will take a lot of hard work.

Supposing the British had gone about colonialism in Kenya the way they did in Hong Kong and the Malay peninsula? Certainly in the small territories of Hong Kong and Singapore, the agenda was largely trade, business and creating educational, legal and social systems that allowed people to get on with their lives. This infrastructural hardware has remained vibrant long after the British left, but the software of a thriving democracy remains elusive.

Those who have governed independent Kenya have failed to locate this vital nerve. When people destroy their towns and villages in the mistaken belief that they are driving away ‘enemy tribes’ it shows just how low we have fallen. The software that helps people to see they are a part of a rich and diverse cultural mosaic is simply not loading. The consciousness that would allow them to recognize that when one part of the country is hurting the whole nation is in pain, is sorely missing. It is said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. The world has many lessons for Kenyans who want to learn. You only have to look at our neighbours. You can create the most architecturally impressive parliament building on earth, the most majestic palaces, and fill them up with officials in fine business suits. But without the right calibre of occupants, without the cohesive consciousness that holds the nation together, all the ostentatious hardware is just bricks and concrete, as brittle as the pillars of salt in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Can sports save a nation?   3 February  2008

As chaos unfolds in Kenya, we must thank God for the African Cup of Nations which is a timely reminder that Africa is not about machetes, guns and blood. It’s about colour, music, dance and jubilation.

It’s a pity that the closest our own footballers can get to this carnival is a couple of feet away from their TV screens, where they can only dream of an opportunity to showcase their talents in front of the whole world, and wait for a call from a talent scout that will never come.

Watching some of these games, you could be forgiven for thinking you were tuned in to the English Premier League. It is amazing what African players have achieved and how they have so fundamentally changed European leagues that the Arsenals and Chelseas of this world find their the championship aspirations jeopardized when robbed of talismanic players of the likes of Kolo Toure, Essien, Drogba, Eboue and so forth. Even Sepp Blatter himself has been trying to urge Africa to reschedule the games to better suit the European clubs.

Such is the unifying quality of football that in World War I, enemies are supposed to have put down their arms during a Christmas truce to play football before resuming hostilities in the new year.

If Kenya had made it to Ghana, would the passion of the game have helped ease the current tensions? We might never know. First, we’ll have to raise the level of our game and stop missing out on all this fun. Whatever impact football might have, what we’re seeing is not the same country that rallies around its sporting heroes irrespective of their ethnic origins. For heroes can and do have that capacity to focus people’s minds and hearts on what their country can be. Unfortunately, the decline in the fortunes of our various sporting endeavours is symptomatic of an underlying problem such that when all hell broke loose, there was no sporting glory to fall back on.

Whether it’s football, cricket, volleyball, baseball or whatever, from China to India, the UK, Brazil and USA, you can see how sporting glory has this tendency to instill in people a sense of national pride, a faith and confidence in themselves as one nation, even when political tensions and poor political leadership become a major sticking point.

Some of these countries you see in the African Cup today have only recently emerged from decades of the ravages of civil strife, like Angola. Peace remains elusive in Sudan, but they’ve put together a reasonably competent side. What is our excuse?

*

The demise and burial of former Indonesian dictator, Suharto brings to an end a hotly debated era. Legacy is probably not something many leaders seem to care about a whole lot, certainly not if their actions are anything to go by.

Some are so driven by their quest to hang on to power at all costs that they don’t care how history will judge them. For dictators who are prone to rewrite history anyway, the logic seems to be: they will tell you how they wish to be remembered, if it matters that much to you.

Dictators often enjoy cult status amongst the downtrodden. They have this uncanny habit of manipulating the poor, throwing goodies their way, and assuring them of their love and dedication, while doing little to help them stand on their own feet.

In the case of Suharto, this becomes clear when you hear what ordinary people say. They talk about the wonderful days when everything was cheap, when they could afford to pay their bills and had a government that made life easy for them. They had no democracy, little in way of human rights and civil liberties. But that didn’t bother them. To them such rights were an unnecessary luxury when the main challenge was basic survival. The fact that anything up to a million people died under Suharto’s brutal regime doesn’t bother his supporters. They say some ‘mistakes’ were made. More like a million mistakes.

At Suharto’s funeral, President Susilo Bambang felt constrained to acknowledge the country’s ignominious past, but even he came up with some waffle about mistakes. One doesn’t speak ill of the dead; however, it is interesting how calls are coming from all quarters calling for forgiveness and about Suharto being ‘human’.

Forgiveness is nice, of course. But let’s see who is making the loudest calls for it. The family, as one would expect, are at the forefront. So too are the many cronies amongst the ruling classes who benefitted from the economic rape of the country. These two groups have the most to lose if they were made to account for their wealth. The solution for them is a collective amnesia, let bygones be bygones, and peace will prevail. The problem is, if the current and future governments fail to bring about a post-Suharto redistribution of wealth, the stability they enjoy now could be seriously jeopardized. Given the racial, and religious diversity in Indonesia, and simmering tensions from decades of repression, it doesn’t bear thinking about. As there isn’t much going on in football, the sport they are best known for, badminton, doesn’t quite conjure up images of carnival-like festivities.

What we need is a new start  27 January  2008

While the rest of the world battens down the hatches as a global recession rears its ugly head, Kenya grapples with issues of power that look increasingly archaic with very passing day.

Global peace is at stake. And we’re not just talking about fear of terrorism, burglars and marauding hooligans. Peace is about more than civil liberties and the freedom to vote. It’s about having sufficient protections from the turbulence of nature itself. It’s about freedom from want, and the capacity to fulfill the most basic human needs. It is also about freedom from the egos of those who preside over our lives.

The turbulence of the US economy is one of the biggest threats to world peace today. When the US economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches the flu. This time, the American economy is down with a bad case of pneumonia, self-inflicted through a nation-wide consumerism whose appetite for cheap credit is quite unprecedented in history.

The shrinking dollar has, for years, been a symptom of a deep malaise. But with the sub-prime crisis, America has now successfully exported its economic problems to the rest of the world. The problems in the American banking and financial markets might all seem too far removed from the ordinary Kenyan’s immediate horizon. 

Unfortunately, the tentacles of globalization ensure that the effects of a major economic crisis in one corner of the world are felt right across the world in no time at all. The two dozen or so countries stretching from Asia, the Middle East to Central and South America whose currencies are pegged to the green buck know exactly what this means perhaps better than most.

To protect their own currencies, they hold themselves hostage to the vicissitudes of US interest rates. The civil strife in Kenya is already causing serious havoc to the economy without these new problems which are likely to exacerbate unemployment and poverty.

We have an administration headed by a reasonably well-educated elite, all of whom would rather bury their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, hoping the troubles will disappear like the dew on the break of day.

The opposition are no better. Whatever colours they adorn themselves with, they cannot camouflage their true nature, which is that at the end of the day, they are reducible to what Taban Lo Liyong called eating chiefs. They’re all protected from global economic turbulence, from domestic violence, and have no worries about unemployment or being clobbered or shot by the cops. The crowds responding to calls for ‘justice’ on our streets and slums are not so lucky.

The quick fix is to say the elections were rigged, let’s hold fresh elections. Unfortunately, the rot goes to the heart of our half-baked democracy, and our failure to de-tribalize politics, and the presidency in particular.

We like to flaunt our fragile democratic credentials, and to mimic the more established western democratic models, yet we are closer in spirit and form to Asian countries like Pakistan, Japan and Indonesia where political credibility emanates from deeply entrenched factional interests, clans, ethnic or religious affiliations.

Our democracy, which people confuse with multi-party elections, is like the ill-fated biblical seeds that fell upon the weeds and thorns and failed to flourish. It is like the seeds that fell on rocky ground, where it was trampled upon by people who had no respect for it.

If we’re to build a viable and sustainable democracy, the ground must first be well prepared. The majority of our people live off the land, they can understand this logic. It is necessary to free our national consciousness from the ethnic chauvinism that reduces our sense of safety to a questionable belief in the collective tribal ownership of the presidency.

Perhaps we need a fairly basic model, one in which the president is elected by parliament, until such a time as the presidency is de-tribalized and political parties have ceased to be vehicles for advancing the interests of their patrons and become instruments of mass mobilization based on credible principles. The president then forms a government of national unity and we have none of that winner-takes-all-it’s-our-turn-to-eat nonsense.

Whatever fighting takes place would be removed from the streets to the confines of parliament. If greed for power is at the root of our problems, as is clearly evident today, then the presidency itself must be demystified. If the problems emanate from investing too much power into one position, with the obvious risk that at least some of it will go to the incumbent’s head, the position itself needs to be cut down to size, shorn of those trappings that mesmerize both the incumbent and the tribesmen frothing at the mouth eager for a feeding frenzy.

The current situation is unhealthy both for the country and for the president, who finds himself held hostage to the demands and expectations of a single community. There is no reason to keep subscribing to a system of governance which is ill-suited to the realities on the ground. Our conception of power, in particular presidential power, is over-inflated and unsustainable. And it is time politicians stopped thinking of leadership as an entitlement. It is, quite simply, about serving.

A world in search of change 20 January  2008

Everywhere you look, people are asking for change, some demanding it, others promising it. Some are prepared to sacrifice their lives, others can’ wait to sacrifice Sometimes it makes you wonder, change from what? Does anything really change for ordinary people? Is it merely a change of the guards?

It’s the new mantra for 21^st century politics. The message is the same; the methods vary enormously, from the inspirational and peaceful to the violent. In Kenya, unfortunately, the latter proved more alluring.

In Taiwan, voters have chosen to register their dissatisfaction with President Chen Shui-bian by dealing his Democratic Progressive Party a humiliating defeat in the legislative elections. No doubt this shows Mr Chen what to expect in the presidential elections a couple of months down the line.

With the Kuomintang assuming an absolute majority in the legislature, it is time for Chen to reflect on his pro-independence stance. The defeat of the DPP effectively amounts to a vote of no-confidence in the man and his policies. In recent years, President Chen has seen both his popularity and his reputation take a beating as people close to him, including his wife and son-in-law get mired in a spate of scandals and allegations of corruption.

Chen himself only remains untouched because he enjoys presidential immunity. There is a widespread feeling of unease about Chen’s failure to address economic issues and improve people’s welfare. That unease has not been helped by the murky financial shenanigans emanating from the office of the president. This is one of the things that have prompted the call for change. When the rot goes too deep, it becomes unbearably repulsive.

The thing I found interesting was the way the president and the Kuomintang presidential candidate reacted to the election results. There was no grandstanding, no overt acrimony or hostility and little of that naked hunger for power that we continue to see in Kenya.

Mr Ma Ying-jeou, who could well be president by Easter, said that in spite of the victory, they will remain ‘humble and keep a low profile.’ He also promised to work with small parties and accommodate dissenting views. The words of politicians must always be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, the humility was somehow refreshing.

Not to be outdone, the president was anxious to show his humble side. He announced that he was ‘deeply ashamed’ for the party’s humiliating defeat, accepted ‘full responsibility’ and promptly resigned from the party leadership. When will the titans of our benighted political landscape accept responsibility for the calamities they have caused our grieving nation, and hang their heads in shame?

Mister Chen sounds increasingly out of tune with reality with his unrelenting calls for independence. It’s possible this position resonates with a good number of his people. For many, however, I suspect there are more pressing needs, like employment prospects. In any case, it’s not as though China is an oppressive colonial power. If anything, they seem to enjoy a fairly robust democracy, which is only marred by the money-and-gangster element that characterizes much of Asian politics.

Foreign investors who have been shying away because of uncertainties surrounding Mr Chen’s pro-independence pronouncement will in all likelihood begin to knock on the door. China itself might reward the Taiwanese by facilitating more Chinese investments across the Taiwan Strait. They’ll wait to see how things pan out in the March elections, of course, but there’s little doubt, ‘change’ is now within reach. And we wonder why economic progress remains a mirage for the majority of our people.

In Hong Kong, the clamour for change is about having the right to vote for your own leaders. Currently the chief executive is ‘elected’ by a group of eight hundred individuals, who are selected from the business elites, and it’s hardly surprising that the chief executive is subsequently viewed to be beholden to the tycoons. It is a ludicrous situation, for one of the most advanced societies on earth.

Change is on the way, it seems. Beijing has determined that the Hong Kong people will be ready to vote for their leader in 2017 and for their legislators three years later. Many wanted the system to kick in five years sooner. Uncertainty surrounding the actual format and fears about ‘fake democracy’ sent them demonstrating in the streets, peacefully, I might add.

Someone should warn them that there is more to democracy than the right to vote. In spite of problems like pollution and congestion, Hong Kong has a lot going for it. This week it was voted the world’s freest economy, for the fourteenth year running, on a wide range of parameters, from trade and property rights to labour freedom and freedom from corruption.

The territory has always been managed by bureaucrats, professional, well-educated, well-trained civil servants, something the tycoons like because civil servants have little truck with idle ideological claptrap. The question is, will politicians come and spoil the party with misplaced fights about their right to govern or will they redress the social injustices and governmental paralysis that has kept the politicians in the tycoons’ pockets? The trouble with democracy is that you never know until you cast the vote. There’s no learning from others’ mistakes.

On elections and red herrings  13 January  2008

The election in Thailand barely a week before the ill-fated Kenyan one was deemed to have gone well, even though a number of results were subsequently nullified. There was a lot at stake, because no one expects the military to relinquish power easily. Yet, even the ousted Thaksin Shinawatra was confident enough of peace and stability to send his wife back to Bangkok to face the music for alleged corruption.

Meanwhile, I look at the USA and see Barrack Obama speaking like a real statesman, and I wonder how he might have turned out if Obama Senior had chosen to raise and keep him in our beloved Kenya.

It is time we got real. First, we must dispense with the lame excuse peddled by some historians that the so-called tribal tensions should be blamed on our former colonial masters. A teenage hooligan wielding a blood-stained machete would be amazed to know that a colonial cop miraculously placed it in his trembling hand thirty years before he was born.

At what point in history does a society exonerate former transgressors and accept responsibility for its own actions? How many generations must come and go before Kenyan politicians accept they’re not up to the task of unifying the nation? Might as well take two millennia, as I haven’t heard the British blaming any of their present troubles on the Roman invasion.

It is not that African leaders cannot unite their ethnic communities. It is simply that too many of them choose not to, because it serves their narrow self-interests to keep the people divided.

Yes, the British used a policy of ‘divide and rule’. But look what happened after independence. Jomo Kenyatta had a choice to break free from the psychological shackles of colonial oppression and establish a new order. Yet, in spite of his rallying call for ‘harambee’, the political ethos remained firmly wedded to a ‘divide and rule’ mentality, where the divisions degenerated from the tribal to the economic.

Arap Moi redefined ‘divide’ along ethnic lines and turned ‘rule’ into ‘misrule’. Mwai Kibaki maintained the ‘divide’ part but didn’t really do much ruling, at least when it came to corruption. He would have us believe he’s ready this time, though going by recent events, it is as the French say, ‘plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose’ (the more things change, the more they stay the same).

Raila Odinga offers himself as the new face of democracy. Neck to neck with Kibaki in the elections. But both men have let us down with their posturing and intransigence. Raila failed to rise above the violence and mass hysteria because it served his revolutionary instincts.

Before any members of the Opposition can claim the moral high ground, they should search deep in their hearts and reflect on the words of Samuel Johnson, who had this to say about patriotism more than two hundred years ago:

“To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend public happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errors and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion.”

Of course some governments can become so vile as to invite their own demise. Yet, Johnson’s point is clear, turning the masses against each other is unacceptable. Johnson goes on to warn about the false patriot who appeals to “the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally suspicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the profligate, who have no hope but from mischief and confusion; let his love of the people be no longer boasted.”

The disadvantaged deserve to be heard, to have their condition improved. But what we’re seeing is the blatant political exploitation of the poor. As a friend so aptly puts it, the tribal thing is just a red herring. It is politically expedient but intellectually dishonest to dismiss the mass murder of people from Central by their brethren from the Rift Valley and beyond as merely the result of tribal tensions created by the British.

We have to look at how previous governments have disadvantaged huge sections of the population by failing to deliver opportunities for a viable education, economic advancement, land ownership, employment and social justice. When a president surrounds himself with members of his own tribe, even without persecuting the rest, he sends out a signal that the king’s feast is reserved for a select few.

Unfortunately, the poor, not knowing any better, misinterpret this to mean that their entire tribe is locked out. Yet, if they looked carefully, they would see their own tribesmen on the roll of shame and grand corruption. They would also see they’re united in poverty and ignorance with a million others from so-called enemy tribes.

He is a scoundrel and loathsome fellow, who rises with malice, venom and crude weapons against his innocent neighbour, when he could be querying why the men and women at the banquet table have reduced him and his neighbour to pain and penury.

A tale of two countries   6 January 2008

What a start to the new year! The scenes of violence in Kenya sadly mirrored those in Pakistan barely a week earlier following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. It is not the kind of comparison I would have preferred to make. It is certainly not one that would have suggested itself a week ago. But it is one that seems inevitable today.

Two countries in search of the seemingly Holy Grail of democracy. United in needless bloodletting and the murky shenanigans of dark forces for whom the free will of ordinary citizens represents a threat to their existence.

But that’s where the similarities end, for while Pakistan has endured an uncompromising strongman in the name of President Pervez Musharaff for eight years, Kenyans thought they had consigned to the dust-bin of history the shackles of self-serving corruption-riddled misrule with the end of the discredited ‘nyayo’ error.

And Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki, far from being a strongman, actually often looked like a man who had lost the plot and was beholden to forces he was unable or unwilling to challenge, thus sacrificing the nation’s interests on the alter of self-preservation.

As fate would have it, it became clear quite from the early days of the Kibaki administration that corruption was too institutionalized and too much a way of life for a new and democratic space to thrive.

Granted, the economy on the whole showed great promise, although it is extremely doubtful whether impressive-sounding economic statistics meant a whole lot to the majority of wananchi who still subsist on less than the proverbial one dollar a day.

Kibaki’s complete disregard for the scourge of corruption during his first term, and the ease with which he was prepared to sweep it under the carpet in the hope that people would either stop talking about it or maybe merely shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives remained a sad reminder of the pathetic state of the political architecture in the so-called third world.

The oft-repeated claims of zero-tolerance on corruption were the perpetual empty rhetoric of a regime that had no courage to rid itself of serious shortcomings that threatened to undermine it.

The level of deadly chaos and violence Kenya has descended to is one that we have been spared up to now. It is the unfortunate situation that has unfortunately characterized many of our neighbours across the continent. Kenya has always been seen as a beacon of hope for sub-Saharan Africa, a haven of peace in which reasoned debate could be counted on to prevail over bloodletting.

Quite aside from the loss of life, destruction of property and the diminution of esteem in the eyes of the international community is the irony that the democratic gains of the last five years now stand a real risk of being rolled back by the very person who played such a pivotal role in creating an economically viable state. 

Allegations of mass vote-rigging are being discussed liberally in the international media. Whatever channel you switch to or newspaper analysis you read, the message is the same: the whole election process was deeply flawed and whatever happens in the coming weeks, this will remain a depressingly lamentable chapter in Kenya’s history.

The world is asking how could it have gone so badly wrong for a country that showed so much promise? If a country like Kenya that has traditionally been politically stable could fall so low, what hope for those for whom peace remains elusive, for those like Sudan where entire communities live in fear of brutal militia and authoritarian leadership?

Back in Pakistan the situation remains extremely volatile. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who was preparing to jump-start the stalled democratic process has plunged the country into a state of unprecedented uncertainty. The big question is whether there exists a reliable political will to stop the country disintegrating and being held hostage by extremist forces who have been blamed for the assassination.

The risk of a failed state is ominous not just for Pakistanis but for the world in view of the nuclear arms they possess. Like Mwai Kibaki, Pervez Musharaff has painted himself into a corner. But Musharaff’s problem is slightly different. Year after year he has promised to return the country to democracy.

Half-hearted efforts to give up his immense powers have left him in a position in which he is considered responsible for the current chaos. Whether he is being accused of failing to protect his opponent, or worse, the fact remains that in spite of his best intentions, Islamist extremists have continued to thrive, and have shown time and again their dogged determination to shape the political landscape in Pakistan.

Extremism in Pakistan is a bit like corruption in Kenya. That is not to say that corruption is not a problem in Pakistan. Au contraire, few countries can compete with Pakistan in the corruption stakes. The similarity I refer to is about the extent to which both are respectively so deeply embedded into the national psyche, that it will take a miracle to save the two countries. It gets even more tragic for Kenya that in this day and age, corruption and ethnic chauvinism remain the biggest challenges.