Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision

Look to the Dark Continent for light at the end of the tunnel. Cautiously.

There are a few parts of Africa falling even deeper into the abyss, but several important countries are coming out of their “Trumpian” eras. Understanding the difference might show the rest of us the way out.

Just as Africa leapfrogged land lines to have twice as many cell phones per capita as the U.S., so it is leapfrogging other aspects of modern life: like politics.

Trump may be more crazy, more dangerous but that’s only because America is more crazy, more dangerous than other societies, even in its most stable times. Crazy mendacious men in crazy places started years ago in Toronto and Australia, and several countries in Africa seem to be crawling out of this swamp right now.

In all cases the change started with people power. Politicians remained complicit until the very last minute, until the streets and media roared like Godzilla.

Democratic institutions didn’t seem to do the trick at first. Elections simply reaffirmed the evil, even “free and fair” elections. Courts wimped out. Strikes, boycotts and street protests alone moved the dial until finally, younger, more female and less entangled people percolated into power.

In South Africa the “post-Trumpian” era is firmly in place and looks promising. Prosecutions have begun as the slow process of determining culpability unfolds. Horrible policies promulgated either incidentally or on evil purpose are being reversed, and a sane regime is emerging.

In Kenya they’re moving from personalities to issues, and that seems especially hopeful. Kenya suffers from tribalism, racism, like none other. When that can evince itself, such as in an election, all hell can break loose. It became a civil war in 2007.

I was in Nairobi for the last election in 2017 and it was tense, but it was better I think than any expected. Tribalism was not conquered in 2017, but it was subverted so that a reasonable form of democracy could move forward.

In both countries, now, some of the principle culprits in the earlier disruptions are being brought to trial. In South Africa it’s quite likely that the former president, Jacob Zuma, and at least one of his sons will spend many years in jail. In Kenya mobsters that bankrolled much of the deception are also being prosecuted and mid-level thugs are fleeing the country before they can be got to.

Even in Ethiopia, one of the most iron-fisted communist countries in Africa, widespread street protests brought down one government this year. What replaced it is not necessarily any better, but the power of the people was clearly shown.

All of these things happened while America was sailing on the elixir of having elected its first non -white president. If Obama had not been around, I believe that Trump would have appeared a decade ago. Obama was something of an historical aberration, and he proved unable to move history. He simply delayed it.

So the message to Europe and America and the other parts of the world mired in mucked up political craziness is to protest, and to protest loudly.

I was particularly intrigued this week by an issue going viral throughout Kenya social media, the role of the church.

Few countries in Africa – indeed, few in the world – were as religious as Kenya. The Christian legacy is colonial, but the Muslim resurgence on the coast since the end of the Cold War was a new, organic phenomenon.

During Kenya’s troubled 1980s and early 1990s under the strongman, Daniel Moi, the churches kept him from completely destroying the country. A consortium of clergy at one point was the only opposition group he would listen to.

The “Square of Churches” across from a city park near the Intercontinental was where protestors could take refuge.

Nairobi today is an impossibly overcrowded, super busy, confusing city where it seems like every street is jammed with cars and construction and sirens and megaphones in a cacophony of unbelievable something-or-other. But come Sunday, you can hear the superb starlings whistle.

So it’s interesting that a closely followed Kenyan commentator, Gabriel Dolan, wrote last week, “Churches cleanse looted funds, fail in spiritual mission” as a part of a national, social media dialogue about the role of religion in post-Trumpian Kenya.

Dolan suggests that churches in Kenya were complicit in the country’s evil history, facilitating politicians’ evil ways, and that has extended into the current era where they now launder politicians’ graft. A suggestion like this made a decade ago would have doomed the author to anonymity for the rest of his life if not actually landed him in jail. And Dolan is white. And, Dolan is a priest.

I can’t say I agree with his analysis, but I’m uplifted by the reception Kenyans have given a white priest’s proposition. The fact that the role of the church in the Kenyan state is now being explored by the populace is a bright signal that times are, indeed, changing.

Perhaps we should explore that one here?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.