Wambua Sammy
6 November 2009
opinion
Whenever Libya's Col Muammar Gaddafi pushes African leaders to almost instantly form a United States of Africa, none of them tells him, in no uncertain terms, to get real.
Those who are opposed to the idea talk in the polite language of "gradualism" instead of telling the man to his face that a United States of Africa is neither desirable nor inevitable. At least not in the good colonel's life time. It simply cannot work with the Africa I know.
Many African states, starting with Kenya, and I could name more, are so hopelessly divided internally as to make the dream of a union of similarly divided nations outright bizarre. A United States of Africa will be just a magnification of ethnic clashes, suspicions and tensions across the continent.
There is a way of uniting Africa, though. It involves blood and iron, conquering state after and state and subjugating them to the African federation. Prussian Otto von Bismarck did it with Germans. In Italy, it was Giuseppe Garibaldi. In the US it took a bloody civil war. Unfortunately for the colonel, I don't see Libyan tanks rolling all the way to Cape Town in the near future.
The big men who partake of the colonel's largesse are not any different. Some will eat and pretend that they are beholden to his romanticism. Or is it pan-Africanism? And now that Gaddafi has swelled the gravy train by roping in African Kings, Sultans, Princes and Sheikhs, there is no telling who the next beneficiaries of the Libyan petrol dollar are. It could be African editors and priests. Or even matatu drivers.
Petrol dollars remind you of big money, which takes us to half-year trading results in this part of the world. Looking at them, it's obvious that the big boys in Kenya sustained superficial injuries from the global recession. Profits are being reported "in spite of a difficult trading environment" as if doing business has ever been a bed of roses.
Sometimes I think the insignificance of our economy -- on a global scale -- insulates us from the consequences of the recklessness of Western corporate nabobs: In London Canary Wharf restaurants will tell you that recession has never been so good.
"Five hundred (Sh62,000)-a-head meals of caviar and foie gras are back in vogue with bankers as profits begin to soar again," reports the Daily Mail. Taxpayer-funded bail-outs have brought banks back on their feet and dizzying bonuses are already being made. Let the wine flow.
I still remember the day, 12 years ago, when a GK Mercedes 280 SE was recklessly driven into one of those Jogoo Road shacks that masquerade as garages. The driver wanted a broken headlight fixed quickly. As the jua kali people worked on it I chanced on a document that showed a former State House administrator had bought it for a paltry Sh16,000. It was cheaper than the headlight. Pray, the cabinet ministers itching to buy their official cars don't have similar designs.
Today Nairobi's rock bands battle at it out at the godown. Sample the following names: Black Fog Angel, Bloodshed, Dove Slimme, In Oath, Jason & Jazz, Last Year'S Tragedy (Lyt), M2o (Music 2 Overdrive), Murfy's fLaw, Narcissistic Tendencies With Delusions Of Grandeur, Rock of Ages, Seismic Undying, The Beathogz, The New Kremlin Diamond Fund, Ueta. Wow!
Psst! "My names are XYZ," Kenyan university graduates routinely introduce themselves during interviews and expect to land a job. Kindergarten toddlers get it right. "My name is Koki Njuguna," they will tell you. Will somebody revive the Department of Adult Education please.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2009 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Behold the truth that Africa will be United States of Africa !!! The major blocks that are holding us a little bit backward towards gaining this ultimate unification are being working on as we speaks !!!!