by X.N. Iraki

Special to G21 AFRICA

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X.N. Iraki

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI - Every generation has its share of illusions, but some generations have more than their share. A generation can roughly be defined as being equivalent to 40 years. It is almost a generation since our illusions started. Some suggest the Kenyan illusion started before independence and human history itself is a race after illusions; call them by whatever name, happiness, equality, perfection, power, justice and so on.

Others suggest we chase illusions all our life until the grand illusion; death finally catches up with us. We reluctantly depart and leave others still after the illusion. With so scant information about what happens after death, we are safer if we stop here, and let that remain forever an illusion.

Our generation has had two great illusions; some fear a third one may just be about to arrive. The first illusion was the coming of independence. When the Union Jack was lowered, Kenyans celebrated the end of colonialism. Harold Wilson's wind of change had finally swept through Kenya. It was not long before the realities of the illusion finally set in. It started with those who fought for independence. Apart from the small pieces of land that they got, they got nothing else. Having got land, what they had fought for, they settled, scratched a living and waited for better times, waited for an illusion. It was not long before they realized that while they used the beehive as their post office in the forest, went hungry and died, the post independence rulers were in school -- after all the post independence period needed educated people. After independence, the freedom fighters could not return to the forest. The die was cast. Yet they were the country's true heroes, but they went unrecognized, even just the medals they never got.

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Yet every year, World War I and II veterans meet at various commonwealth cemeteries in Kenya to remember their days of courage and sacrifice. There are no monuments to the Kenyan Freedom heroes. History books have been unfair to them. Our leaders have been unfair to them. The younger generation, no wonder, knows more about James Bond than General Kiinie. (I would guess you have never heard of him! His real name is Njuguna Wa Gathogo, one of the Mau Mau Generals who currently lives near Nyahururu silently and unrecognized). His home is not far from JM Kariuki's home. JM is another unsung hero who predicted with strange accuracy the present economic inequality .The list of forgotten heroes is long and disheartening. No street is named after Robert Ouko. It seems to me that the World has always been unfair to fair people.

The post independence rulers [of Kenya] were the lucky lot. They had taken no risk to get their po sitions; it was not surprising therefore that some of them lacked the motivation and the determination to lead preferring to rule. They were not baptized by fire; they had not been "cooked" in the crucible of patriotism. The only example to follow was the former colonialist, who had trained them in his ways, including giving them colonial names. Like the colonialists, they wanted blind obedience and they got that at the price of national stagnation. This group of leaders had another advantage; few people understood what independence was all about, and its realities. Those who understood took full advantage in terms of leadership and wealth accumulation.

With divergent thought successfully curtailed, creativity, civilization's lubricant, was killed. Dissent, often another name for creativity at the political front was rewarded with detention, jail or exile. It seemed the only way to prove that you had power at that time was to inflict pain and suffering on other people. The reason why some leaders behaved that way may never be known. It may however be an interesting preoccupation for researchers, speculators and possibly idlers to try and explain. Chances are; that will become their illusion.

By the time the Oil shock of 1973 had taken its toll and the excesses of the coffee boom had run its course in Kenya, the grand illusion of the fruits of independence was ripe and the country was ready or found itself in act II.

The end of the Cold War hastened the arrival of act II. Just as the wind of change had led to independence, the end of the Cold War left the one-man rule in a precarious position. With unbelievable speed, parts of the Berlin Wall became popular souvenirs. The Cold War was over, without ever getting hot, without a bullet being fired. In former communist and pseudo communist countries, the old ordes gave way to new disorder. Some people suggest the Cold War left a vacuum, which the opportunists, mostly the political incumbents were quick to fill in. In Kenya, the one party rule came to an end, and that marked the start of another illusion- Act II.

Multi-party politics was supposed to usher in a new era, with more freedom, more transparency and accountability. Instead, corruption galloped. The incumbents as usual were best placed to take advantage. In the former Soviet Union, its satellites, Kenya and other countries that embraced market economy on nudging from the West, the incumbents realized there was an easy way to become rich, without taking any risks. Get state assets and sell them at throwaway prices to yourself or your cronies. Then use the proceeds to perpetuate yourself in power. Corruption became the leading enterprise after the end of the Cold War.

Despite the great expectations that the end of the Cold War would usher in a new world order, it instead gave the world a copious supply of disorder. There were no peace dividends as anticipated.

Independence was an illusion, Multiparty was an illusion, and both failed to raise the standards of living. Why? For one. the actors were the same, they were well versed with the art of getting their way, not the nation's way. They pursued their own interests' not national interests. Countries where leaders pursued national interests like South Korea and Taiwan are way ahead, on the path to progress.

Act III is already only on the stage. Starring NARC leaders. The big question everyone is asking is whether this act will just be like the others. Will NARC carry on the illusion from where the others left? For one, we should not expect a miracle. One retired politicians gave us a hint, though in a derogatory manner, when he insinuated that the next leader "will not give us honey". Few people will become rich because NARC is in power, In fact if NARC puts on the institutional discipline, it will become harder to become rich, and it will take longer to become rich, but those who become rich will be respected and their riches will last for more generations, something akin to the American rich men like Ford, Rockefeller or Bill Gates. With new things in order people will have to take risks to become rich. We hope the entrepreneur will now take his rightful place in the scheme of things. Thinkers will finally have their golden age.

But there are some who harbor an illusion that they will easily move from Mathare Valley (Nairobi's poor inner city) to Muthaiga (Nairobi's, rich suburb), though both are separated by a mental hospital. May be the new era means we can move from one extreme to the other without becoming insane!..

Some of the current leaders in NARC and elsewhere are well cooked and tested, some by challenging the past regimes; in fact some of them had made "Moi bashing" their career in life, until he pulled a hat trick. I guess some guys will get disoriented because of Moi's retirement. And whatever people say about the former president he deserves respect; he handed over power at noon and made every Kenyan proud. Some NARC leaders are "uncooked"; hence their race to issue statements that may easily mark the start of their end or question their political maturity.

If NARC will end Kenya's illusion in ACT III, its leaders must be selfless; they must put national interests above theirs. They must stop treating Kenya like a cow that everyone want to milk but no one want to feed. In fact one thing that I would like to hear from NARC government is an articulation of our national interests. May be once we know what our national interests are; we shall pursue them and subordinate ours to them. The "raw" NARC leaders must be cooked and fast too like those calling for a Moi follow up. Leave the former president to rest and before you pursue him, prove you are better! We all believed that without Moi "ye yote yawezekana" everything is possible -that might be another sub illusion. For now those who led in singing that song are at the helm, we are watching them, very closely. We need leaders who are tested and tested, by realities of life.

Traditionally war made leaders, but we cannot start a war to spawn leaders, after all, we have an over supply of leaders in Kenya, tested by poverty, by education, by detention and by overcoming life's great adversities. It is such leaders that we need to give a chance to end our great illusion. When America elected such a leader, Bill Clinton, from the Deep South, a self-made man, the whole world noticed. Despite some grumbling over the current NARC leadership-courtesy of self-interest, Kenyans got what they have longed for. Let us watch and wait. Adam Smith saw self interest aided by the invisible hand of the market as a necessary prerequisite for economic progress and growth. But with time the border between self interest and greed has been blurred.

Our past leaders have remained on the stage for too long. It is the time to get off the stage and give us pride, confidence and hope. For we all have only a few years to walk on this terrestrial ball. In these few years, we deserve, dignity, happiness and liberty, for as the matatu (Kenya's commuter taxis) men have always told us, though meaning something different -I am sure, "this is not a rehearsal", For each of us, our life is not a rehearsal, for NARC you can't rehearse you must deliver, but against the realities of politics, human nature, and history. On your marksä