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At this rate, it's about time we
asked Britain to come back
Story by DONALD B. KIPKORIR
16. 02. 2008
Last weekend, I was invited to a private birthday party and in
attendance was a senior State House official who has been my
friend for decades. He told me that President Kibaki was to the
right of the centre and ODM leader Raila Odinga on the left, and
wanted to know where I stood. We agreed that I would answer him at
an appropriate time. I would like to, in these columns, respond
because the issue is a matter of public interest.
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta is sworn in as Prime Minister by chief
justice John Ainley at independence in 1963. Governor Malcolm
Macdonald had handed over the reins of power. Photo/FILE
Politics in Kenya has never been ideological and, therefore,
Kenyans do not belong to the centre, left or right. Instead, we
follow our tribal chiefs, whether they lead us up a rocky hill or
down a ravine. Moreover, the world is no longer dichotomised into
left or right; in fact, it is moving towards the centre.
It is political parties that espouse centrist policies that win
elections. Governments in Europe are centrist and the US will be
there by November.
When I object to Mr Mwai Kibaki’s alleged victory, it is because I
strongly believe that Mr Odinga won the presidential election.
In the flawed institutional systems Kenya operates under, I shall
support whoever Kenyans elect as president, and not one that State
House operatives and an amnesiac Electoral Commission want. In
announcing the result, ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu broke all the
provisions of the electoral laws and he should have resigned by
now.
But then, we need to ask ourselves if we have a nation-state
capable of nurturing ideological or institutional development. We
seem to be held in a hole and are continuing to go deeper. Mr Kofi
Annan is at a retreat with his mediation team to try to get us out
of the hole, but his effort may deepen our dilemma.
We are at a time when we must be dispassionate and clear in our
thinking and admit that Britain should come back and recolonise
Kenya.
In 1963, the Union Jack was lowered and the national flag raised.
We may have celebrated then and in the stillness of night honestly
thought we were destined for the stars. Maybe we were gazing at
the wrong stars where we have landed 45 years later.
As we went through primary school, our history teacher taught us
that we had fought for our independence. But this is no time to
question that part of the lessons; historians will do so in their
own time.
At that day we will know if fighting missionaries for opposing
female circumcision was part of the liberation struggle. What is
not in dispute in history, however, is that when World War II
broke out, a wind of change swept across St James Palace, London.
London and Washington were fighting the German blitzkrieg and at
the same time trying to hold back the spread of communism. It was
not a time to have enemies within the colonies.
Without appearing to be denigrating people who may have fought for
independence such as India’s Mahatma Gandhi, the sun was setting
on the British Empire. In 1947, the British colonial office made
it a deliberate policy to pull out of its colonies in an orderly
and managed fashion. In fact, Britain put its colonies in a queue
of self-rule. Kenya’s turn was to come even if we had folded our
hands.
But did our independence come too soon? I dare say so, and I
propose that one of the options we need to seriously mull over,
and so should Mr Annan, is that we pledge allegiance to London in
the mould of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Vanuatu.
All these countries, though independent, pledge fealty to the
House of Windsor. And there are many reasons that compel me to
appear so unpatriotic and to suggest that we swap our flag with
the Union Jack.
When I read in the media the other day that Igad member countries
are sending Foreign ministers prop up the Annan initiative, I was
torn between laughing and crying.
Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda and Somalia sent theirs. The four
countries are failed states, and do not know the meaning of
elections, and they are bottom in every global ranking of
achievements.
Their leaders are tin-pot dictators who brook no divergent view.
In Djibouti, a country that doesn’t have a secretarial college,
and whose only source of income are a Coca Cola plant and a French
naval base, you dare not discuss politics. Ethiopia restricts the
use of mobile phones and camcorders.
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni is an emperor. God help us
that these are the countries that wish to help us.
Finance minister Amos Kimunya and Central Bank governor have for
the umpteenth time told Kenyans that our economy is fantastic and
that its fundamentals are not affected by the current chaos. But
is this the truth?
Current world measurements of human development, governance,
corruption, economy competitiveness and foreign development
investment inflows put us at the bottom 15 in each category.
In fact, for destinations of investment, we are ranked the 10th
most dangerous country — lumped together with Chad, Iraq and Iran.
You don’t reinvent the wheel, so we should not shy away from
admitting certain undeniable facts, among them that while Britain
is the richest country in the world, we are at the bottom.
The latest measurements of wealth put Britain’s per capita income
at over the equivalent of Sh3.3 million, ahead of the US for the
first time in 100 years, and Kenya’s at a paltry Sh57,000. This
means that were we to share all the money we make in a year, each
Kenyan would walk away with Sh57,600 and a Briton Sh3.3 million.
Liberal democracy is the highest form of human political
development, and this political thinking has certain mandatory
imperatives that include the rule of law, a transparent and
independent judiciary, a vibrant civil society, genuinely free and
fair periodic free elections, accountability of security apparatus
to civilian rule and applicable law and supremacy of and fidelity
to the constitution. In Kenya, all these parameters are either
absent or falling short. We are a long way away from meeting the
barest minimum.
When Britain demands accountability in our processes, we shout
ourselves hoarse proclaiming that we are a sovereign state. The
same people who shout the loudest do not trust our education
system as their children are studying in Britain or the US. We
must walk the talk. British schools and universities are ranked
near the top in every score in the world.
We may rave and rant, but every country — from Albania to Zimbabwe
— wants to be like Britain and we want to know its language,
culture and commerce.
When we resubordinate ourselves to Britain, the only thing we
shall lose is our poverty and backward economy.
As said above, Canada, Australia and others have lost nothing for
being part of Her Majesty’s royal dominions. We will remain a
parliamentary democracy in its fullest and truest meaning, but
under a constitutional monarchy. Being independent and poor is
never a source of nationalism.
Haiti, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe which are so
passionate about their independence, cannot pay salaries of their
police or meet other financial obligations.
A walk through the countries is a walk through the Hall of
Shameless under kleptocratic despots.
A snail’s pace
In going against the buck to ask Britain to come back, we shall
jump the technology and development snail’s pace as our former
coloniser will be morally compelled to bring us up to the same
speed as the other dominions.
At the rate, we are developing and with our current mindsets, 100
years from now will find us with the same per capita income if we
will not have disappeared into small tribal chiefdoms.
As we search for elusive peace, let us also be proactively
pragmatic and admit our inadequacies as a nation-state. Forty-five
years later, and we still steal elections, kill one another,
practise negative tribalism and have no functioning road or rail
system.
Water and power are still be foreign to over half the population
Kenyans and we still suffer from malnutrition, while we spend tens
of millions of shillings a year in research and development. We
are independent indeed!
It is time we begged Britain to come back and even send a viceroy.
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