Praying for the EU as we work on the EAC

Some people may not have noticed this but the death of Col. Gadaffi effectively marked the departure of Libya from the media radar, for now at least. Interestingly when the media crews folded their tripods and notebooks, the destination was not really Syria or Yemen but the capitals of Europe. In Europe the story is not about some ‘pro-democracy rebels’ fighting an oppressive regime and waiting for some good Samaritans to summon their leaders to the ICC and then effect a No Fly Zone. It is the future of what was considered to be Europe’s answer to the financial strength of the US, the European Union and its financial infrastructure better known as the Eurozone. Although the East Africans thought about and implemented integration long before the Europeans, ours collapsed in the 70s thanks in large part to the ego battles of the political leaders of Kenya and Tanzania, in that era, although most of the blame is often conveniently lumped on Uganda’s Idi Amin Dada. As the East African leaders Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), Daniel Arap Moi (Kenya) and Ali Hassan Mwinyi (Tanzania) set out to restart the East African Community, Europeans had the EU up and running. The decision to replace individual currencies with the Euro was a milestone praised by many, and talk of the EU replacing the US as the global economic power filled newspaper column inches. Fast forward to 2011 and the EU seems to be riding strong waves. The Eurozone is struggling to stay one unit as the so called “PIIGS” (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) continue to stretch the patience of the stronger economies bearing the burden such as France and Germany. Already Greece has had to replace its Prime Minister and by the time of writing this opinion, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi was also on his way out. Other leaders have even traded words we cannot call diplomatic, as they try to save the situation from getting worse. While all this is playing out, our leaders should be taking note. Many times we have talked of developing the EAC more on the model of the EU. Several summits have been organised in the different EAC capitals and resolution complete with time tables have been reached. However, even without looking as far as Europe, we can already see that at home things are not rosy. Already the timeline for implementing a single currency and central bank seems unlikely to be met. Talk of fast tracking the integration process has also gathered dust. For now, I think the smart thing is for us to go slow on the economic integration bit of things as we have seen that it is dangerous to have a single currency without a single government. We can however focus on several other areas that can make life better. Why do we talk of free movement of labour yet our universities are still charging discriminatory tuition fees for other East African students? Uganda has turned into some sort of higher education magnet with Kenyans, Tanzanians, Rwandans and Burundians filling their universities, something that creates a mini integrated community. However, every now and then you hear of the foreign students striking over the high fees they are told to pay. There are universities in Uganda where Ugandans are actually the minority. Such an opportunity for an integrated community of young people should not be frustrated by things like high/different charges for other East Africans. The opening up of most border points to allow for 24 hour movement and clearance of goods or travellers was indeed a step in the right direction. However, this only seems to have helped to increase movement of goods and people not necessarily the integration of East Africans. A Kenyan friend recently called the EAC, mere bluff. According to her there is no East African community if we still have to present our passports for stamping and to answer several questions about where we are going and what we are going to do there. I think small steps aimed at integration of people instead of grand ones aimed at merging economies and politics, should be the focus for now as we pray for the Europeans to solve their crisis. Email: ssenyonga@gmail.comBlog: www.ssenyonga.wordpress.comTwitter: @ssojo81