Dreaming of One East Africa

I am an apologist for a seamless commercial and social East Africa state in which citizens are not only free but proactive to initiate business interests and interact freely the way the European Union is turning out or how the one amorphous country the United States of America is. For reasons that abound however, am at best phobic to any idea of an elective East Africa government, at least during the next few decades, because I think we still have a lot of internal national political issues that need sometime to be got out of the way. Besides our shared interests in business and culture, the five political arenas are as diverse as they come. Tanzania has seen only one political colossus in Julius Nyerere’s Chama Cha Mapinduzi since its independence in 1961 (when it was Tanzania Africa National Union (TANU) before it merged with Zanzibar’s Afro-Shirazi Party in 1977) and after the strong proponent of Ujamaa realized that it was taking his cherished country in the direction he never wanted it to go, he paved way for its demolition and smoothed a way for capitalism which he had spent his life arguing against. Subsequently he resigned and organized a smooth electoral succession such that a semblance of a proper democracy despite the under the surface political ramblings of Zanzibar crises that have bubbled over every once in while only to settle back into a peaceful lull of political shadowboxing. Apart from the Zanzibar problem, Tanzania has managed to avoid the other colossal problem in politics, tribalism. After Uganda’s attainment of independence in 1962, what Winston Churchill called the pearl of Africa was indeed set to become the star of the show with an abundance of natural resources and good climate, until the conflict between traditional kingdoms and elective power of the state came to a head. The 1966 crisis, the founding president Milton Obote purged forcefully the King of the Buganda Kingdom to whom the largest tribe in Uganda belongs, and which gave the nation its name, before independence had been used as a proxy colonial administration for the Uganda protectorate. That crisis was the beginning Uganda’s can of worms. A few presidents later, Yoweri Museveni took power in 1986 and ushered an era of political change that has arguably remained up to today. Kenya’s story effectively began with forceful removal of the colonial administration through the Mau mau revolution and out of the respect and iron-fisted rule of the founding father Jomo Kenyatta and by extension his unlikely successor in President Moi, Kenya surpassed Uganda during its turbulent years to become an economic giant despite the fact that the problems at independence of inequality, tribalism, poor land policies and political dynasties never really went away. Rwanda’s problem of colonially instilled sectarian distinctions has prevailed in its sovereign history, peaking in the calamity of 1994 before an uncharacteristic peace was heralded by the Rwanda Patriotic Forces. Burundi’s political quagmire also resembled Rwanda’s except for the clean break from the past that President Kagame instituted in Rwanda that perhaps has not really happened yet in Burundi. In the commercial sense we badly need each other. Kenya and Tanzania need the hinterland market in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the pathway into Congo. Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda need access to the sea and Kenya’s goods or knowledge to make goods. In the socio-cultural sense, we are one because our national boundaries really are lines that divide similar communities. Border communities in the region have to live studying or working in different countries, parents are citizens of one country while children belonging to others. Tanzania may be a vast amorphous nation of “Swahili”, Rwanda and Burundi for Barundi and Banyarwanda, Ugandans of Ugandans and Kenya of Kenyans. But the Luo are Kenyan and Ugandan, the Banyarwanda are Ugandan, Tanzanian and Rwandan, the Luhya are Kenyan and Ugandan just to mention but a few. A Kikuyu living in central Kenya may consider himself different from a Munyakole from western Uganda, unaware that the name Mwenda may belong to either tribe. Our traditional communities are mainly organized into clans. We all call our cousins, brothers and our aunties’ mothers. In Kikuyu, the phrase “sit here” is “Ikara haha”. In Kinyarwanda – Icyara hano, in Luganda - Tula Wano in Luhya – Ihala ano. Besides, Swahili is widely spoken all over the region and in a decade, language barriers might pave way for the art of Swahili metamorphosis. There is a strong undercurrent in all the regions political problems – tribalism and sectarian differences, corruption, land inequalities.I would have loved for East Africa to elect one president with a region-wide presidential election but am not sure if I will live to see it. Each of our five countries still have major national issues to resolve internally, issue that require internal debate however fierce, before we can afford to dabble into regional politics. An economic union for as long as half a decade would suffice even before considering a serious political federation with centralized political power instead. Instead, to foster regional unity a representative body of directly elected individuals from national regions can dabble in matters of joint foreign policy and trade bargaining. The governments can work towards gradually harmonizing secondary and higher education to offer equal opportunities to job seekers while synergistically ensuing that a Rwandan student can attend a Kenyan university and vice versa. The proposed custom union and single currency will nudge us a step closer in that direction and the rest will be up to how eager citizens are willing to jump to cross border interaction and exploitation of available opportunities. kelviod@yahoo.com