A reaction by Muthoni to our earlier article posted by Pauline Onyango titled: Disrimination: When will it end in our society?
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I will react by analyzing the causes of societal discrimination on different levels namely: the Global, national and personal level. Poverty plays a key role and is the main thread weaving through these three levels, down to this unfortunate orphan denied a chance in college. At the global level, the rich countries continue to use all manners of financial power to buy our good brains, who should help us invent so that a poor continent like Africa can also be a competitor, and not a dependant on their handouts.
Poverty is present in the rich countries too among the socio-economically deprived natives and immigrants, who are highly discriminated differently.
At the national or country level which Kenya is referred to here, responsibility lies with the central government that is supposed to have quotas or provisions for brilliant children who need to proceed to college. But as well noted, Kenya is a country that favors the children of the financially able.
Down to the personal level, many of those who are born poor in Kenya, die poor. This is quite unfortunate, and there must be a turnaround so that every Kenyan is valued and can enjoy quality life, regardless of her/his socio-economic status. It is sad that economic goodies normally don’t trickle down to the poor in order to translate into wealth.
Some solutions: (1) The developed world still owes us a fortune in terms of helping us uplift our living standards. Why? Financially, people from these countries make billions of dollars on most of our natural resources, including patenting our trees for medicine in their countries, kikoi etc. Soon it might be our Nyatiti (kamba nane), after reading about the Japanese Luo-speaking woman who plays nyatiti and sings. Morally, they need to help us because they forced us to abandon our cultures (through slavery and Christianity), and now for example, many Africans live with borrowed accents when speaking the white man’s language. They left us halfway before completing their acculturation. The French even offered citizenship to Africans who could speak, dress and eat like them. The Europeans messed us forever by colonizing us.
(2) African leaders need to be aggressive in marketing themselves, our products and also be patriotic. The love for your country does not mean you become a tribalist, but would mean for example, that you do not sign contracts that will enslave your descendants by paying inflated interest rates to the IMF and the World Bank for another century, thereby perpetuating poverty. Recently, a Kenyan delegation to a tourist exhibition in Berlin was poorly rated for bringing the Maasai clad in their usual red regalia. People have seen this for years and is nothing new or exciting. We need to be more inventive because in this case, the Rwandese brought their dancers who stole the show and it was reported that the Kenyan stall could not attract people. Remember, Kenya is losing more tourists to Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa, who seem to have improved their standards and even advertize themselves on CNN.
I have said it here that without innovation, Kenya is heading nowhere. We need to reduce brain drain by capturing our scientists inside Kenya, so that they can generate knowledge to help us prosper. This also requires that there is good political governance which in return will bring harmony among people, thus reducing crime because there will be law and order. Good leadership is key, otherwise we shall continue losing smart brains like the late Professor Bwayo, a great HIV/Aids vaccine scientist who was recently shot dead by a reckless gun-totting young thug. The state of anarchy in Kenya is partly due to the retention of wealth in a few hands. A smart capitalist knows that wealth grows by distributing capital and goods to generate profit. However, most of our wealthy Kenyans tie their money in Swisss or offshore accounts, and continue enriching those areas. Rural-urban migration can be curtailed by erecting industries in the rural areas. We need to devolve most of our services so
that people do not have to travel to city and town centres. Basically, the central government needs a sound and fair macro-economic planning by putting the taxpayer’s money in the right areas of economic growth.
3. The personal level: I will not urge Kenyans to go out there and fetch jobs, because Kenya does not have numerous job opportunities. However, if wealth can trickle from the central government to the individual level, then micro-economic growth can be realized. The former Asian Tigers rose within the decade of the 1980s due to sound planning and investments, with the full support of their central governments. The model had its weaknesses, but the key is planning and prioritizing expenditure into areas of probable growth. Kenya is projecting the middle-income position among the less developed countries by 2030; it sounds like a joke. I guess this could be halved to speed up poverty eradication. But again, is this not the same Kenya which promised clean water to all citizens by 2000 but we still do not have it? The Asian Tigers fell economically in the 1990s, but once again, they are on their feet. In 2005, South Korea registered an increase of 21% in the number of dollar
millionaires, among the emerging economies. We need to ask ourselves, how within a decade they are once again an emerging global financial market. Kenyans need to love each other too, regardless of tribe or social-political differences, because the level of tribalism has risen so much that I am sure a look at a name will deny one a place at work or in school.
My levels of analysis are chained together because not a single solution can make Kenya a better place for all.
By Muthoni Kabara,
Published by African Press in Norway, apn, africanpress@chello.no tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525
