June 10th 2009 President Obama embarks on a trip to Accra, Ghana and other Africans nations minus Kenya. The President praised Ghana as a role model in true democracy, and some Kenyans were just not going to take this affront sitting down.
With a human rights records that is abysmal at best, the Kenyan leadership should know by now that US presidents have a thing for human rights: just ask Sadam Hussein.
In a country where it is who you are descended from that matters rather than your abilities, I can see why there is a misapprehension...if you can call it that.
Kenyans danced and hailed Mr. Obama as the true son and representation of Africa. While Mr. Obama waltzed his way into the White House as the first African American US President, they hailed him mostly for who he was and not for what he had accomplished to get to where he was. Now that President Obama is calling on Kenya to 'shape up', the luster of the son of the motherland is beginning to wane: now he is not all that magical after all.
They did not know if Obama was for bigger government of smaller government; they did not know if he was pro or anti-abortion; they did not know if he was for cap and trade or cap and not trade or just trade or maybe just cap... and they sure did not know that he was going to declare himself champion of the gay cause in America: they would have choked on that one.
They knew hardly anything about the man, his beliefs, his political persuasions and they sure were not trying to find out. They knew one thing: Obama was their own and that was enough. They offered their support as a patronage; after all, one good turn deserves another. Who you are is something Kenyans do well: forget what you can do or what you know, but who you are and who you know is your only hope for a better existence.
They cried 'foul!' when Obama said 'shape up or I won't show up'. Why, how dare he? When they supported him not for what he believed or did but for who he was.
Obama must have missed the memo that listed down the expectations to help 'his people' of Kenya because he was one of them, and please don't anyone bring up their attainments, pursuits or record as a nation.
The cry went out, "Help us Obama, because we knew your father, and we know your grandmother and we even know what district your father belongs to". Unfortunately, Mr. Obama was looking at "What are you doing as a nation for the good of your citizens for me to stop by and give you all that positive PR?
Now they say, Obama is not that extra-ordinary after all, he was just in the right place at the right time and we have thousands of other 'Obamas' in Kenya who are even more talented than 'the' Obama is. Furthermore, if this Obama doesn't work out, we'll just churn out another 'Obama'; we have more where that one came from. Yes, and so we can; We may if we can get rid of the crippling machine that is the corrupt system that suffocates everyone and everything and ties everybody up in red, green black and white tape.
Any admonition to do better as a Nation should not be a call to defensive arms, but a call to do better from those on the outside looking in.
According to Transparency International: the global coalition against corruption, Kenya ranks an appalling 147 out of 180, well behind Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, India and Ghana which ranks 67. Well, some aide must have forgotten to alert Obama to remember not to look at such damning statistics and just come on out to Kenya and have a grand ol' time with the folks. Family is family right?
It is an indignity for millions to be subjected to an uncivil civil government whose wheels have to be greased by bribes else nothing gets done. It is unacceptable to dash the hopes of millions by promising change and delivering corruption and poverty decade after decade. It is the twenty first century in this brave new world and somewhere in Kenya, somebody has to fear for their lives for opposing a government that is a disgrace if not an outright sham.
So before coming down on president Obama for taking the Kenyan leadership to task for their horrid record on human rights, and before you write a scathing commentary on how you "Dont need Obama to show you how to make a great country"...yes, I read the Kenya Standard Newspaper July 10th 2009, thank you very much; Before you reprove him for articulating what is evident to the whole world, consider that Obama was not visiting to "show you how to style up"... He was asking a rather poignant long overdue question: What the hell is taking you decades to provide for your citizens a decent existence? This question has been asked by millions of Kenyans behind closed doors and many times in despair and even fear. Maybe it is a kindness for the President to ask it from the rooftops of the world. Maybe...just maybe he will shame you into 'styling up'.
The leaders of Kenya for decades have oppressed the average citizen who subsists on less than a dollar a day, while the members of parliament make more money than US congressmen.
Kenya is home to president Obama's father. Kenya is the land of Mr. Obama's ancestors... some of them at least; but Kenya is not the land of president Obama's work ethic. Barack Obama has had to work hard to become president of the United States of America, and making it through a grueling two years plus campaign across the US of A is no child's play. He worked hard and did not attain the presidency by wearing a T-shirt that says "I am from Kenya and I am brilliant". Whether you supported him or not, one would be overtly dishonest to say that Mr. Obama made it by chance or patronage. You get election landslides by hard work not tribal affiliations.
Pray, let the millions of brilliant Kenyans trapped in a decaying corrupt state and local government have the same opportunity that Mr. Obama had: the prospect to work hard and make it count.
After the 2007 disputed Kenyan election that was a display of greed, lust for power, a disrespect for basic human rights, cold blooded organized killings and a chilling reminder that freedom of anything in Kenya is limited to as long as you don't oppose a corrupt leadership too loudly.
In an interview not too long ago with allafrica.com, Mr. Obama said that Kenya's leaders "do not seem to be moving into a permanent reconciliation that would allow the country to move forward."
In Kenya the leaders are more concerned about being addressed as "Your Excellency", or "Honorable so and so" sheesh, even President Obama is not "His Excellency", he is Mr. President! And what excellency have you bestowed on 35 million people, O you few excellent ones?
The president also noted that the West Coast country of Ghana that he intends to visit "has now undergone a couple of successful elections in which power was transferred peacefully,"
Whilst president Bill Clinton's legacy in Africa was the Somalia Debacle and the abandoned Rwandan Tutsi to a hellish genocide, George W. Bush's legacy is extraordinary:
$15billion was made available over five years with a goal of providing medical care for 19 million people with HIV mainly in Africa and the Caribbean.
PEPFAR succeeds by combining enormous amounts of money to fund drugs and broadens assistance beyond the individual with HIV by supplying medical equipment and training very many health care staff members and by helping put children from HIV homes through school.
By 2008 PEPFAR's budget in Kenya was about $535million. This supplied ARVs, food and microfinance so that people that are infected can still make a living.
The head of the PEPFAR programme in Nairobi, said of the distribution of this aid to the needy that resistance was NOT in Washington; "the people we have to push are the (Kenyan government)health officials".
President George W. Bush quietly tripled U.S. aid to Africa.Another program in the Bush administration provided free bed nets in 15 African countries cutting malaria infections by half and saving the lives of millions of very young children. Malaria had been killing one million children under five years old every year.
Nobody danced on the streets of Nairobi and Kisumu, Kenya when George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004. Forget what George W. Bush did for Kenya: he was not 'one of us'...and forget what Obama intends to do or not do for Kenyans: he is 'one of us' and so the saga continues...
Mr. Barrack Muluka of the Kenya Standard: "Obama is only the latest custodian of American doublespeak"...Give me a break!
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