After decades of famine, grinding poverty, colossal debts and enormous slum-growth, Africa is indisputably the worst casualty of economic globalization. As the region takes the further brunt of man-made climate change, the rich nations hold a moral responsibility to reorder economic priorities and coordinate a massive transfer of resources to the impoverished continent.
From day-one of the crisis that has gripped Kenya this year, much of the mainstream media has been quick to label the violence “tribal warfare,” while the top US envoy to Africa called the Kenyan clashes “ethnic cleansing.” The problem with those terms is that they don’t actually explain anything.
Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Kenya: four African countries regarded until recently as successes of political reform and economic progress, and with wider potential. They could - so it appeared - turn their respective regions in west, central, eastern and southern Africa around, and in so doing drive the continent forward. The resources are there: together the four contain more than one-third of sub-Saharan Africa's 750 million people and represent over half of its combined economy.
The conference of the African National Congress that was held last month was billed as a heavyweight contest between the party's president, Thabo Mbeki, and its deputy president, Jacob Zuma. The conference turned out to be much more than that. It was a complete rout, not only of the president, but also of his cabinet, the sitting national executive committee, and of Mbeki's economy team. The December conference saw the ANC swing from the centre towards the left, if one believes the rhetoric.
The protests and riots that followed the “stolen election” have shown the depth of discontent in a “stable” African country. Though the discontent has also laid bare festering ethnic tensions, the most striking thing is that the demonstrations and riots were an uprising of the poor and a demand for change and reform. This three-part article outlines Kenya’s present-day conflict, its inequitable system inherited from colonial rule and the country’s favoured position within Africa as a key ally of the West.
The ethnic tensions engulfing Kenya probably won't subside until its Kikuyu rulers, led by President Mwai Kibaki, relinquish some power and share benefits from the tourism-dependent economy's transformation into a regional trade hub.
To many people in the world - and even to many Kenyans themselves itself - the violence which followed the elections in Kenya on 27 December 2007 has come as a surprise. Unfortunately, it shouldn't have. The combination of economic and ethno-political factors in Kenya had created an explosive mix which was just waiting for the right - or rather "wrong" - circumstances to explode. The 2002 elections had been a lucky near-miss; this time, the favourable configuration that operated then did not repeat itself.
