The Charter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to which he referred established the inviolability of colonial borders, to a large extent putting to bed a debate over how to undo the colonial legacy – the assembly of 32 heads of state and government who signed it in May 1963 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa basically decided not to.
According to Kimani, this was “not because our borders satisfied us, but because we wanted something greater forged in peace”. Renegotiating the boundaries and the colonial systems built on them was seen as not only a recipe for chaos, but also a barrier to “something greater” for the rulers (the preamble to the Charter prophetically begun with the words “We the heads of state” not “We the people”).
As the late Tanzanian leader, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, would later remark, once “you multiply national anthems, national flags and national passports, seats at the UN, and individuals entitled to 21 guns salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers, and envoys, you have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanised”.
Independence was thus little more than a coat of paint. Like their colonial predecessors, the shiny new states would continue to be built on extraction from the Africans. Independence would mean freedom for the state, not for the people. Along with “respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent existence”, the OAU Charter also enshrined the principle of “non-interference in the internal affairs of States” which meant rulers could do as they wished within the colonial borders.
In 2013, Kimani’s boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta, who, along with Deputy President William Ruto, had taken office while charged with crimes against humanity in relation to the 2007-08 post-election violence, successfully pushed for reassertion of impunity for heads of state at the OAU’s successor, the African Union.
Gathara, a political cartoonist whose portrait of Kimani we see above, is correct to point to these issues in his assessment of Kimani's address. In the first generation of African independence, most of the newly independent states quickly degenerated into personal or military autocracies, presided over by the likes of Idi Amin, Hastings Banda, and Jean-Bédel Bokassa. Even an internationally-respected leader like Nyerere worsened the economic plight of Tanzanians in attempting to implement his vision of African socialism, or Ujamaa. I will not attempt to comment on issues that must be addressed by Africans themselves.
What I will do here is to point out that much of the world's population lives within borders established by others. Canada's borders were set mostly by Great Britain in negotiations with the United States. The Alaska Boundary Dispute saw London settling the contested border between Alaska and British Columbia in 1903 in favour of the US, much to the consternation of Canadians. The Convention of 1818 had seen British North America ceding the Red River Valley south of the 49th parallel to the US in exchange for a smaller piece of territory to the west. Yet no Canadian irredentists exist to question or to reverse these decisions made in our behalf.
At this late stage in history, fully undoing the legacy of colonialism is impossible, especially if it entails massive territorial adjustments and the uprooting of settled populations. Better instead to make do with what we have inherited from our forebears, correcting the obvious inequities where we can, strengthening domestic solidarity, and building bridges among the communities of which we are part. If Kenya can manage to do this with its own and neighbouring peoples, it will have set a great example for the rest of the world.
3 comments:
Well put David. Is Patrick Gathara's response a case of damning with faint praise? He at least suggests that state-crafting must go deeper than merely a applying a post-colonial "coat of paint". Would Martin Kimani disagree? The UN Russian Ambassador's attempt to justify the attempt to coup the current Ukrainian Government by referring to the naïveté of Gorbachev and Schevardnadze at the time of the Soviet collapse assumes that the massive all-of-life consequences of that "naïveté" was primarily experienced by those aligned now with Mr Putin's Russia. I read the Kenyan Ambassador's point in terms of Putin's irredentist outlook that you had also raised. And thus we see the struggle with irredentism in the Gathara-Kimani exchange. And efforts to get beyond such "naïveté" or "dangerous nostalgia" in state-crafting must always have a local resonance - and Kenyans now look forward to an upcoming election (9 Aug). Election cycles in Kenya, as in much of Africa, struggle to overcome the regular emergence of irredentist civic violence. The Kenyan Ambassador's appeal is to a just multilateralism and Mr Gathara is right to draw attention to the Ambassador's own place in Kenyan politics. Hopefully Martin Kimani and Patrick Gathara can continue the exchange and confirm a deepened self-critical approach in their respective contributions to Kenyan politics that clarify and motivate the unavoidable task of all citizens in state-crafting.
While I agree that Gathara's reaction to Martin Kimani's condemnation of Russian invasion of Ukraine should not be taken lightly as it seems to embrace the colonial legacy in Africa, I agree with David that at this late stage in history, fully undoing the legacy of colonialism is untenable. This is particularly if it entails massive territorial adjustments and the uprooting of settled populations. We in Kenya after independence found ourselves legally settled in areas where others may have been unsettled by the British colonial regime. The Kenyan irredentist keep revisiting this and it has resulted to cycles of electoral violence the worst of it witnessed in 2007-2008. This then raises the question of how historical injustices should be handled. Yes David is right that instead of burying our heads in the dust we should work to improve on what we have inherited from our forebears, correcting the obvious inequities where we can, strengthening domestic solidarity, and building bridges among the communities of which we are part. Kenya has not managed to handle its historical injustices and that is why we hear of Gathara-Kimani sentiments. It has to listen and learn from other states otherwise the Kenyan irredentists will continue to wait for slightest provocative instances to cause confusion in all cycles of election just it is evident in the campaigns preceding the Kenyan general election in August 2022.
Thank you, Isaac, for your perspective.
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