Posted by David Sibbald. I've spent a lot of time in Kenya over many years, I've got a lot of Kenyan friends from all sorts of backgrounds, I've got a house in Nairobi that I think of as home, but I still struggle to get my head around the disconnect between the politicians in this crisis and the people they allegedly represent.
The extent to which a zero-sum game is being played is jaw-dropping. Kibaki's decision to name his cabinet the day John Kufuor, the Ghanian president and head of the AU arrived in Nairobi to help facilitate talks and in particular his decision to appoint the third placed presidential runner Kalonzo Musyoka as his vice-president was incredible. News from Kibera yesterday from one of our employees was that the Kamba residents in Kibera (Musyoka's tribe) were leaving as they were now the latest targets from Odinga's ODM supporters.
The popular interpretation emerging in the western press is that extreme tribalism is the root cause of Kenya's now visible troubles and with that statement follows the easy link to comparisons with Rwanda. Kenya is not Rwanda, nor is it Sudan which has seen war for all bar 11 years since independence in 1956, with over 2 million dead; nor is it Somalia, a failed state, too insecure for most aid agencies to work in; nor is it the Congo with 5 million deaths between 1998-2007. Kenya has some serious problems to address in terms of ethnic tension and violence, but popular media linkage with the horror stories from other African states is just plain wrong.
The heart of the problem is and always has been corruption. "It's our turn to eat" is the popular rallying cry of all politicians in Kenya and it's really easy for the politicians to rally disaffected youths and organised gangs like mungiki to conduct their violence and intimidation. Very good paper from David Anderson at Oxford University on this subject http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9983
Kenya has the potential to be an example African state, but that ability lies with its people not its politicians. Half of Kenya's 34M population is under thirty, but even with strong economic growth of the past few years more than 50% of the population still live in abject poverty. This isn't compatible with a stable and secure society, this has to change and the growing middle class have to make that change because its just too much of a leap of faith to believe that the current crop of politicians will change their spots.
We've been part of a group of people trying to pull together a peace and reconcillation movement. Massive level of support for this and other citizen movements; non-political, non-partisan, just people expressing their desire to live in a peaceful, transparent society. We were scheduled to host a concert in Uhuru park this Saturday, http://www.joharidesign.com/index.html We had government permission for the concert, but it has just been pulled. Hopefully we'll have an opportunity to try again next weekend.