Of the self-appointed experts on Africa

Editor, RE: “Mr President, they are hearing but are they listening?” (The New Times, September 26). ‘Left’, ‘right’, ‘centrist’, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’, and similar political labels really mean very little in American discourse today, or for that matter in the entire western discourse, if they in fact ever did. Thus, for me, Yale or Harvard—the intellectual bedrocks of the American elitism—are the Tweedledums and Tweedledee of the US Establishment and, by extension, the Global Establishment. And, like all dominant establishments down the ages, what they can’t stand are those who do not respect their designated roles but dare give lip when they have been ordered—repeatedly—to get in line and obey the orders of their betters, who of course know better what is good for everyone. President Paul Kagame’s singular sin—where these people are concerned—is that he takes democracy to literally mean listening to and responding to his people’s views and concerns rather than their own instructions. It doesn’t matter how many lectures he will give at how many Ivy League elite institutions. The people comprised of the likes of the Africanist anthropologist (i.e. expert) Dan Magaziner will always have absolutely no doubt they know better what your people deserve and how they should be governed than President Kagame or any Rwandan can ever do. Unlike you, me, or any unlearned Rwandan, they are real ‘experts’ specialising in your countries, you see. You are even negroes, from deep inside the Dark Continent! Am I being harsh in implying racism on the part of Mr Magaziner for his anti-Kagame diatribe? I don’t think so; if anything I am trying to be as restrained in my comment as I can, fully cognisant that this is a family newspaper. Mwene Kalinda

Opinions

Of the self-appointed experts on Africa