Is there going to be an Obama Revolution in Kenya?
What is an Obama Revolution in the first place?
It is clear from reading commentaries in newspapers and exchanges in various Kenyan blogs that Kenyans recognize that something needs to change in the way the country is being run. There is a clear voice of dissatisfaction uniformly emanating from a wide section of Kenyans that uniquely cuts through the old tribal and political alliances.
Three things have made this awakening possible:
1. everyone is in government: when you co-opt the opposition into the ruling establishment, you stop them from whining and criticizing where and when they normally would have. This has left the people as the lone voice capable of dissenting when and where necessary.
2. the rogue parliament: those who killed their neighbors to get their leaders in power now understand that all politicians are the same and they are only out to look after their interests. The Media Bill debacle has further given Kenyans a glimpse into the psyches of men and women whom they pay $15,000 a month to ostensibly represent them.
3. Barack H. Obama: Kenyans have seen that an election could be about issues. They have also witnessed the power of the people and the power of confronting old prejudices. Obama's effect will probably be more manifest among the young generation whose tribal allegiances are perhaps not beyond reversal.
Yet it is not enough for us to just know that we need change. We must also ask ourselves what we want for change. There are myriads of challenges staring at us and they have to be confronted but even before we begin, we first need to have a country, a united front where we truly are "in one accord." Nothing will move forward as long as we remain a disunited, patchwork of tribal chiefdoms that view each other with utmost distrust.
Now there is our task; we need a leader who will have the capacity to speak and be thought by the 42 tribes to be speaking for them. I know I am asking for something akin to a miracle, but that is why people need LEADERS and it is times like these that CRY FOR SUCH LEADERS. Someone with the interest of the country at heart and knows that regardless of the alliances needed to win elections, no part of the country is less Kenyan than the other.
President Obama has seen the need to unite America in order to deal with the economic crisis facing the country. He has actively sought that unity by making bipartisan appointments and preaching unity at every opportunity. America isn't nearly as badly divided as we are and neither do they face nearly as many problems as we do...then what makes us think that we can do anything without first uniting?
5 comments:
Dear blogger,
There are very few comparisons between Kenya and USA. These countries have different histories, institutions, culture and aspirations. I think that Kenyans should sober up, leave Obama alone and get on with mastering their own common destiny. Even though Obama's father was Kenyan, Kenyans world ever seem to conviniently forget that he left the young Obama fatherless and went on to marry several women.
I will return with ideas of what I think are the steps Kenyans should take in order to take control of their country for the first time because they never had it.
Dear anon 5:30
The point is not for us to expect any favors from President Obama but rather to examine whether the "Obama wave" which has been in evidence literally all across the globe, could be harnessed to birth fresh effective leaders in Kenya.
What interests me in Obama more than anything else is his message of unity. I think we needed that in Kenya like yesterday. Tribal fragmentation brought the country on its knees and took us back 50 years. Nothing will ever get accomplished in Kenya unless there is some measure of goodwill at least amongst the major tribes.
Don't be fooled by the cult of Obama! Aside from getting elected to political office and writing books about himself, his life accomplishments are relatively few. He speaks in platitudes which are for the most part empty. He talks about being his brother's keeper yet had he simply sent his brother George, who lives in Kenya a $20 gift, it would have doubled his annual income. His brother's keeper, hardly!
Men like Mr. Obama have come out of seemingly nowhere before. Some of them have been great (though I cannot name a single one) but history shows us the majority of them have been brutes. Just to name a few, names like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin and Jim Jones come readily to mind.
Kenya like any other country in this world has its problems. While its understandable that many in Kenya should be proud that a man of Kenyan descent has ascended to the heights that Barak has, don't drink the Obama kool aid! He got to where he is by being a very smooth talking Chicago thug politician.
Read the post at:
http://okinawaexpatriate.blogspot.com/2009/01/hosanna-obama.html
Mr. Okinawa,
Apparently, to an imbiber of a daily dosage of right wing talking points, being raised by a single mother on welfare, then going on to Columbia, then Harvard and becoming the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review, and then upon graduating magna cum laude, turning down a big law job to work with the people of South Side Chicago, is no achievement.
Of course Obama had to play politics to win. He into the habit of chanting bumper sticker slogans and made campaign promises some of which he has already reneged on. That is what Americans are conditioned to. That is what you have to do to win an election.
But in regards to his accomplishments, we can compare his to the all time favorite American president's...
"Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable"cill
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