Wambui Mwangi
15 June 2008
opinion
Nairobi — I am finding it very difficult to join in the jubilation about Senator Barack Obama. Not that I want to deny the man his victory, but my impulse to celebrate keeps deflating on the idea that the best thing that happened to little Barack was not growing up in Kenya.
I have been imagining alternative trajectories for him if he had come to know the world through the eyes of a Kenyan citizen, if his mother and grandparents had not rescued him from our chaos and contradictions and brought him up somewhere his intellect and talent could grow.
If he had grown up here, and had he somehow managed to retain most elements of his current self, he would have been another outstanding, intelligent and competent Luo man in our midst: and he would have been killed.
Yes, we would have assassinated a Barack Obama if he had remained ours, with us, one of us here in this schizophrenic cauldron we call home. This is not going to stretch the imagination of any Kenyan - after all, when we had that incredibly good-looking and charismatic home-grown hero, Tom Mboya, we shot him to death.
And when that austerely intellectual and elegant leader, Robert Ouko, threatened to look overly intelligent to the world, we killed him too. We killed Pio Gama Pinto and we killed JM Kariuki. There is no reason to suppose that Barack Obama, whose integrity of purpose and stringent sense of ethics even his enemies concede, would have survived his Kenyan roots.
HE IS MUCH TOO INTELLIGENT, TOO charged with the promise of history, too bold in his claim to a shining destiny, too full of the audacity of hope, for us to have let him survive. Kenya would have killed Barack Obama, or at least his dream, as we inevitably destroy, in one way or another, the best and the boldest of us. Goldenberg whistle blower David Munyakei's challenge to his country to be bigger than our greed was met with a whimper, and then with rapid abandonment. We did not deserve him, either.
As for John Githongo, he should have known better than to take the idea of public ethics seriously - this is Kenya, after all. Let him enlighten people at Oxford instead; such considerations are too virtuous for us, too sensible, too conducive to a promising future. We do not even remark on the haunting wastage of all this shining accomplishment - Micere Mugo sings her lyrical poetry for Americans, and we do not even know enough to mourn the loss.
AND YET WE ARE ALL ENCHANTED with the power of the idea of Barack Obama, the hope of him, the beauty of his life's trajectory, the universe of possibilities and probabilities that it conjures for the least of the rest of us. If someone's cousin's friend's neighbour makes it to the United States... then we all have a chance. We have a strange predilection for schizophrenic loves and loyalties; we let geography dictate our alliances and imaginary lines decide our friends. It is as if our social contract states that here, at home, we are obliged to behave like fighting rats to each other but when abroad, when released from the shackles of kin and clan and conclave, we can fly and soar and master the sky.
When Wangari Maathai is abroad, we feel that her Nobel Prize is partly represented in each of our Kenyan living rooms; when she comes home, she is just another Kikuyu politico. We preen about our athletes winning yet another international competition to anybody who will give us half a chance, but when they are at home we turn them into more fodder for militias.
Caine Prize winners are Kenyan by automatic assent, but Binyavanga Wainaina is a Kikuyu writer when at home and Yvonne Owuor is indelibly a Luo - we shrink them to fit the midget-sized visions we have of ourselves.
IT IS CLEAR TO ALL OF US, AND THE evidence continues to accrue, that we have, collectively, a certain global competence, as Kenyans, that we produce individuals of substance and historical purpose.
Being Kenyan, however, we prefer to drown in the pettiness of our parochial quarrels when at home, and if one of us threatens to be too hopeful, too ambitious, too intelligent, too creative or too inspirational to fit into our trivial little categories of hatred and suspicion, we kill them, or exile them from our societies, or we just cause them to run away inside, hiding from us and from themselves the grandeur of their souls, the splendid landscapes of their imagined tomorrows.
Nothing but the worst for us, at home. We recognise each other by our most rancid rhetoric. We insist upon it, we cultivate it, we elevate it to an art form: Kenyan, and quarrelsome.
Kenyan, and clannish. Kenyan, and counter-productive. Kenyan, and self-destructive. Kenyan, and consistently heart-breaking. Genius everywhere, and not a thought to be had. Promise and potential everywhere, and not an opportunity to be had. Money everywhere, and not an honest penny to be earned. Helicopters aplenty, but no help for the needy. A land awash in Cabinet ministers and poverty.
I HAVE BEEN WATCHING KENYANS getting high on Obamamania, and I am wondering what we are so happy about? It is perhaps that we are beginning to acknowledge what we should always have known - given a half a chance, an ever so slightly conducive context, Kenyans are more likely to over-achieve than not. At the faintest provocation, Kenyans will leap past expectations without breaking their stride or breaking a sweat, especially if they happen to have escaped the imprisoning edifice we call home and found foreign contexts to flourish in, no matter how alien.
I went to a town in the Canadian Arctic once, in the far north, where in summer the sun shines even at midnight and in the winter the world is an endless landscape of ice and snow. Here, far, far away from home, where nothing was familiar except the gentleness of elderly Inuit women and the comforting weirdness of the white residents, I was told that the local dentist had, for many years, been a Kenyan. Everybody said he had been an excellent dentist, out there in the desert of the cold. I was unsurprised.
We are an adventurous people, we Kenyans, and we take to the world outside our home as if born to a conquistador culture - we are brave and brash and bold, out there. We buy and sell things, and make money at it, out there. We go to school and excel and cover ourselves with accreditations, out there. We win things, out there. We get prizes, out there. We are at our best, out there.
HOWEVER, AT HOME, FOR SOME REAson we refuse to either acknowledge or examine - we have chosen simply to set aside this capacity. Here, at home, nothing but the very lowest common denominator will do; nothing but the basest and most brutal aspects of our selves are to be presented to each other; nothing but the most cynical manipulation is the basis of our political space. We prefer to be ruled by individuals whose mediocrity is matched only by their mendacity, here at home.
We prefer to abdicate our adult responsibilities and capacity for reason to "leaders" whose lack of virtue is as legendary as our attractively exotic pastoralists. We do not only waste talent, here at home - we go out of our way to suppress and repress it. We do not only deny dreams, here in Kenya - we devour them, and ask each other, "Who do you think you are?" As if the success of another is an affront.
In Kenya, grand vision and soaring imagination is illegitimate; here, they just call you naive. Out there, you stand a chance of becoming a hero; at home, you will have nothing but the taste of ashes in your mouth. Mothers, take your children abroad.
Barack Obama has written two books, in which he discusses ideas. Ideas. This is a man with vision and conviction, and enough good ideas that even those who do not like the pigmentally-advantaged are listening, and changing their minds.
Even those who think that his name sounds suspiciously like a terrorist's are reading his books and listening to his speeches, and changing their minds. This is a man with interesting and inspiring things to say - which disqualifies him from any Kenyan-ness we would have liked to claim.
Americans like the image of them that Barack Obama has painted in words; which Kenyan leader would dare to build dreams bigger than his roots? Which Kenyan leader would ever be so foolish as to attempt inspiration instead of instigation?
BARACK OBAMA HAS SEDUCED THE world by the power of his persuasiveness, and while Kenyans raise another glass to the accomplishments of "one of our own," it seems clear to me that we gave up our rights to him when we gave up our hopes for ourselves. When we settled for incompetence, and corruption, and callousness, we defined ourselves out of his universe, and out of his dreams.
We rejected Barack Obama-ness when we allowed those pangas to slash our dreams, when we watched our hopes spiral away in smoke. We allowed the ones who had done this to become the only mirrors of ourselves, and then squelched our disgraced selves back to the mire of our despondency.
Barack Obama cannot be a Kenyan, and Kenyans cannot grasp Barack Obama's dream. We have already despaired of it, and of ourselves. His dream would have died with ours, here at home, here in the graveyard of hope.
But oh, how we yearn to see ourselves reflected in his eyes...
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well said my sister, there's a saying that goes a hero is never honored at home maybe, when he or she is dead. Kenya and the rest of black Africa suffers from the indignity of inferiority complex that has ravaged as to been a desperate race that is cursed. remember the so called elders are always seen to have answers to problems arising even it be the most stupid of solutions. you don't have to look far than Zimbabwe where old dog mugabe continues to hold on to power in the expense of his dying people. the young be they with bright ideas are always seen as "children", who got no say where elders are. this is a continued inheritance of a system that has refused to have an open dialogue with itself and continues to kill it's advancement with changing times. when we came overseas it opended us to how the great people think by disagreeing to agree mentality. why is it then, even when we get to learn this virtue and go back home, we refuse to work on it and continue to drag ourselves to the mentality of a slave master. a culture that refuses to grow is doomed and Kenya and Africa is unfortunate to bear this mistake over and over.
Umedinya point (infact, several points!!) and your eloquence in conveying those points is on par with BHO's eloquent speech on race that he felt compelled to give amidst the furore surrounding the paraphrasing of the "chickens coming home to roost".
I left Kenya to fulfill my dreams because I felt that I wasn't taken seriously and now one of Kenya's neighbours is reaping the benefits of my not inconsiderable talents.
When BHO, becomes the 44th president of the US of A, he will tell the leaders of Kenya in no uncertain terms to stop messing about. How is it possible that Kenya with a population of 36 million can have FORTY TWO ministries while Nigeria, with a population of 150 million has 20 ministries? It will cost Kenya $500 million to run that bloated excuse for a cabinet for 2 months and despite what the perpetrators of Goldenberg wanted the world to believe, Kenya does not have significant gold deposits!!
Raila Odinga while attending the World Economic Forum condemned African leaders in no uncertain terms on the for their silence on the shambles that passed for elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe. It remains to be seen whether he will be as forthright in tackling Kenya's myriad problems
What an incredibly well-written and thoughtful essay! As I read it from my American-African context, I read so much that I could have easily seen in Detroit or Chicago or Atlanta: reports of black people pulling each other down and stories of a level of in-fighting that only prevents each of us from realizing our dreams.
We have a saying here that black Americans treat one another like crabs in a barrel and we will pull down our brothers and sisters to prevent them from escaping. I cannot count the number of conversations my friends and I have held on how if we worked together more and fought against one another less, we could achieve so much more.
But that was then.
Barack Hussein Obama is the synthesis of the leadership qualities that the world needs in the 21st century in general and an exemplar of African leadership too. He is a model for us as African people as well as for what we as citizens of the world need to be to address the issues that face us. Now is not the time for looking back on the troubles we have seen; now is the time to look forward at the opportunities in front of us, to dream of how to realize them and then to work to make those dreams come true.
Change we can believe in, indeed.
I am a 52 yr old white female living in the state of Arizona in America.
I do not understand Kenya's focus on America's election.
This article reinforced my perception of the countries in Africa; it appears to be countries lead by men who kill the people for greed and power.
I read an article the other day of a wife of an opposition leader who had her feet and hands cut off and was burned to death in her home.
I have watch the movies Rowanda, The Last King of Scotland, Ida Amin and War Dance. I have read the book about a boy sholdier in Sierre Leon (sp?).
I feel so for the people of Africa. The world is in turmoil, and Africa seems to suffer more than most of the other continents.
I do not understand. If seems if women became the leaders of all the areas it would be a better place to live on this Earth.
Every Kenyan and African in world diaspora is proud about the presumptive United States' Democratic Party presidential candidate nominee. He is truly an enigma full of life, humor and exceptional oratorical prowess. Born of a Kenyan father who found his way to the States to further his studies and a white lady from Kansas, we should not trivialize Obama's US Presidential bid by altering biological, genetical and historical facts that he has nothing to do with Kenya.
Ironically, it is only in his father's country that Mr. Obama is not feted at all. Nigerians, Ghanaians, Jamaicans, Asians, Americans, Europeans, Ugandans amongst others are very proud of this enthusing African American of Kenyan ancestry who is only heart beat away from the "Washington Lawns".
Kenya is a nation state born out illogical negativism that moulded chauvinistic and latent tribal disparities orchestrated by the British colonial cabals. Such presumptuous ill inferiority complexes were as a result of political and economic negative competition.
Sadly enough, our independence luminaries failed to espouse a modern state freed from the tendrils of primitive cultural schizophrenia that has pervaded the country till today.
From a galaxy of articles I get to read on our local dailies, Obama's White House bid has been grossly trivialized. Keenly, writers from particular communities who feel are superior to Luos-Obama's father ethnic group, always insist on their articles that the adorable and charismatic Illinois Senator has nothing to do with Kenya. For over 15 years Barack Obama has been visiting Kenya and has acknowledged his other siblings who share the same surname, so who are we to deny him his ancestry? He is proud of his own blood relatives. He is proud of his late father who was ostracized. He carries the image and the name of his father whom some Kenyans doubt any linkages with this country.
The late John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of the greatest American presidents of the 20th Century. Oftentimes he was referred to as an "Irish American President". Never at one time did the Irish people seized to be proud of him. Barack Obama is Kenyan-African-American Democratic Presidential nominee.
Beautifully written and very sad. I'm an Irish citizen, and, without wanting to question the painful specificity of the recent Kenyan experience, I can imagine something in the same spirit being said here about President Kennedy's success back in the 1960's, a success that wouldn't have been possible had his family stayed in the inward-looking, post civil war Ireland of the time. Resenting and regretting your diaspora as well as being proud of them is something that is hard to acknowledge. Great article.
I might add that a lot has changed in Ireland since the 60's - I'm not sure how much President Kennedy directly helped in that, though seeing ourselves on a world stage was amazing at the time, only 40 years or so after independence from Britain. American political interest and political pressure definitely did help to end the violence in Northern Ireland in the 1990's, however - if a President Obama is willing to take an interest and spend political capital on Kenya, American help can genuinely change things, if there's political will on a local level too.
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I'm a native born Black American woman. And I believe that every creature, man and animal who resides on planet earth originated on the rich soil of Africa. My belief derives from my faith, and reading and teachings of God's Words in the Holy Bible.
This 'awesome' article will no doubt impel the 'soul' of any reader with an exraordinary spirituality - connection to God via the 'Holy Ghost Spirit.'
The issues discussed in this article concerning the harsh treatment of Kenyan natives by other kenyan natives is happening right here in America and other parts of the world. There are black families fighting among themselves due to jealousy and envy. And the bickering is stagnating their growth economically and educationally. Every ethnic group in this country is far better off than the majority of Blacks. Because we're too busy holding each other back instead of helping and supporting one another.
I sense the hurt and anguish of the writer of this article, the smae way I hurt when I see how my people treat one another, and then try to place blame on our white counterpart or some other factor.
Our state of being boils down to one main thing: and that is 'ignorance.' Ignorance breeds chaos and confusion. And the ability of one to think rationally and fair is diminished in confusion, causing people to become self absorbed and forget about external issues.
When Barack Obama first joined the presidential race and I listened to what he 'boldly, but intelligently' had to say to 'all' human beings my 'spirit' was jolted, and I've been supportive of him ever since. I believe because of his birthrights and biological make-up he was 'appointed by God' in this 'appointed time and season,' to help save the world from condemnation.
The dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not die with him in 1968, it is evident in Obama's nomination. Many of us black folk never thought we'd see Dr. King's dream come to fruition in our lifetime.
If we just keep the faith, keep praying and hoping in unison, and keep believing in 'miraculous changes' they will happen! Because God's Words are not void. I said that to say this to the writer of this article: Let your heart be not troubled, and don't ever lose hope. Keep encouraging souls through your writings and one day, just one day, you will see the fruit of your labor. If you don't, your offsprings will, even in Kenya.
Thanks again for the heartwrenching article. It deeply touched my soul, while reminding me that I have to keep on persevering through my individual efforts to bring about positive and productive changes at home and abroad. One day I will visit your country.