MUGO'S COMMENT'S ON SENATOR OBAMA

MUGO'S COMMENT'S ON SENATOR OBAMA Sept 25, 2006 19:05:20 GMT 3

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Post by adongo12345 on Sept 25, 2006 19:05:20 GMT 3

This is the speech delivered at Taifa Hall that still drives kina Mugo nuts.

It Is Courage That Will Bring Reforms:

The first time I came to Kenya was in 1987. 1 had just finished three years of work as a community organiser in low-income neighbourhoods of Chicago, and was about to enroll in law school. My sister Auma was teaching at the university, and so I came to stay with her for a month.

My experience then was very different from what it it has been on this trip. Instead of a motorcade, we travelled in my sister's old VW Beetle, which even then was already 10 years old. When it broke down in front of Uhuru Park, we had to push it until some jua kalis (roadside mechanics) came to fix it.

I slept on the couch of my sister's apartment, not a fancy hotel, and often took my meals at a small tea-house in downtown Nairobi. When we went upcountry, we travelled by train and matatu, with chickens and collard greens and sometimes babies placed on my lap.

Mr Obama
But it was a magical trip. I discovered the warmth and sense of community that the people of Kenya possess – their sense of hopefulness even in the face of great difficulty. I discovered the beauty of the land, a beauty that haunts you long after you've left.

And most importantly for me, I discovered the story of my father's life, and the story of his father before him.

I learned that my grandfather had been a cook for the British and, although he was a respected elder in his village, he was called "boy" by his employers for most of his life. I learned about the brutal repression of Operation Anvil, the days of rape and torture in the "Pipeline" camps, the lives that so many gave, and how my grandfather had been arrested briefly during this period, despite being at the periphery of Kenya's liberation struggles.

I learned how my father had grown up in a tiny village called Alego, near Siaya, during this period of tumult. I began to understand and appreciate the distance he had traveled - from being a boy herding goats to a student at the University of Hawaii and Harvard University to the respected economist that he was upon his return to Kenya. In many ways, he embodied the new Africa of the early Sixties, a man who had obtained the knowledge of the Western world, and sought to bring it back home, where he hoped he could help create a new nation.

And yet, I discovered that for all his education, my father's life ended up being filled with disappointments. His ideas about how Kenya should progress often put him at odds with the politics of tribe and patronage, and because he spoke his mind. He ended up being fired from his job and prevented from finding work in the country for many, many years. And on a more personal level, because he never fully reconciled the traditions of his village with more modem conceptions of family - because he related to women as his father had, expecting them to obey him no matter what he did, his family life was unstable, and his children never knew him well.

In many ways, then, my family's life reflects some of the contradictions of Kenya, and indeed, the African continent as a whole. The history of Africa is that of ancient kingdoms and great traditions; the story of people fighting to be free from colonial rule; the heroism not only of great men like Nkrumah and Kenyatta and Mandela, but also ordinary people who endured great hardship, from Ghana to South Africa, to secure self-determination in the face of great odds.

Hopefulness of post-colonial era

But for all the progress that has been made, we must surely acknowledge that neither Kenya nor the African continent have yet fulfilled their potential – that the hopefulness of the post-colonial era has been replaced by cynicism and sometimes despair, and that true freedom has not yet been won for those struggling to live on less than a few shillings a day, for those who have fallen prey to HIV/Aids or malaria, to those ordinary citizens who continue to find themselves trapped in the crossfire of war or ethnic conflict.

One statistic powerfully describes this unfulfilled promise. In early 1960s, as Kenya was gaining its independence, its gross national product was not very different from that of South Korea. Today, South Korea's economy is 40 times larger than Kenya's.

This fact is not due to lack of effort on the part of ordinary Kenyans – we know how hard Kenyans are willing to work, the tremendous sacrifices that Kenyan mothers make for their children, the Herculean efforts that Kenyan fathers make for their families. We know as well the talent, the intelligence, and the creativity that exists in this country. And we know how much this land is blessed just as the entire African continent is.

So what explains this? I believe there a number of factors at work. Kenya, like many African nations, did not come of age under the best historical circumstances. It suffers from the legacy of colonialism, of national boundaries that were drawn without regard to the political and tribal alignments of the indigenous peoples, and that therefore fed conflict and tribal strife.

Kenya was also forced to rapidly move from a highly agrarian to a more urban, industrialised nation. This means that the education and healthcare systems – issues that my own nation, more than 200 years old, still struggles with – lag behind, impacting its development.

Kenya is hurt by factors unique to Africa's geography and place in the world – disease, distance from viable markets and especially terms of trade. When African nations were just gaining independence, their industrialised counterparts had decades of experience building their domestic economies and navigating the international financial system. And, as Frederick Douglass once stated, "power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will."

As a result, many African nations have been asked to liberalise their markets without reciprocal concessions from mature economies. This lack of access for Africa's agriculture and commodities has restricted an important engine of economic growth. Other issues, such as resource extraction and the drain of human capital have also been major factors.

As a US senator, my country and other nations have an obligation and self-interest in being full partners with Kenya and Africa. And, I will do my part to shape an intelligent foreign policy that promotes peace and prosperity.

But Kenya must play its part; it cannot afford to wait for other nations to act first. The hard truth is that nations, by and large, will act in their self-interest and if Kenya does not act, it will fall behind.

It's more than just history and outside influences that explain why Kenya lags behind. Like many nations across the continent, Kenya is failing in creating a government that is transparent and accountable – one that serves its people and is free from corruption.

What Kenyans have accomplished since independence is impressive and inspiring. Among African nations, Kenya remains a model for representative democracy, a place where many different ethnic factions have found a way to live and work together in peace and stability.

You enjoy a robust civil society, a press that's free, fair, and honest and a strong partnership with my own country that has resulted in critical cooperation on terrorist issues, real strides in fighting disease and poverty and an important alliance on fostering regional stability.

And yet the freedom that you fought so hard to win is today in jeopardy. It is being threatened by corruption.

Corruption is not a new problem; it's not just a Kenyan or African problem. It's a human problem, and it has existed in some form in almost every society. My own city of Chicago has been the home of some of the most corrupt local politics in American history – from patronage machines to questionable elections. In just the last year, the Congress has seen a representative resign after taking bribes, and several others fall under investigation for using their public offices for private gain.

But while corruption is a problem we all share, here in Kenya it is a crisis robbing an honest people of the opportunities they have fought for and deserve.

While recent reports have pointed to strong economic growth in this country, 56 per cent of Kenyans still live in poverty. And I know most of the people desperately want to change this.

Corruption has a way of magnifying the very worst twists of fate. It makes it impossible to respond effectively to crises - whether it's the HIV/Aids pandemic or malaria or crippling drought.

What's worse - corruption can also provide opportunities for those who would harness the fear and hatred of others to their agenda and ambitions.

It can shield a war criminal like Felicien Kabuga who is suspected of helping to finance and orchestrate the Rwandan genocide.

Terrorist attacks like those that have shed Kenyan blood and struck at the heart of the economy are facilitated by customs and border officers who can be paid off, by police forces so crippled by corruption that they do not protect the personal safety of Kenyans walking the streets of Nairobi, and by forged documents that are easy to find in a climate where graft and fraud thrive.

In the end, if the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and promote their common welfare – all else is lost. And this is why the struggle against corruption is one of the great struggles of our time.

The good news is that there are already signs of progress. Willingness to report corruption is increasingly significant in Kenya. The media have been courageous in uncovering and reporting on some of the most blatant abuses of the system , and there has been a growing recognition among the people and politicians that this is a critical issue.

Among other things, this recognition resulted in the coalition that came to power in the December 2002 elections. The coalition succeeded by promising change, and their early gestures – the dismissal of the shaky judges, the renewed vigour of the investigation into the Goldenberg scandal, the calls for real disclosure of elected officials' personal wealth – were all promising.

But elections are not enough. In a true democracy, it is what happens between elections that is the true measure of how a government treats its people.

We're starting to see that the Kenyan people want more than a simple change of the guard, more than piecemeal reforms to a crisis that's crippling their country. They are crying out for real change, and whether one voted Orange or Banana in last year's referendum, the message that many Kenyans seemed to be sending was one of dissatisfaction with the pace of reform, and real frustration with continued tolerance of high-level corruption.

There is more work to be done and more reforms to be made. I don't have all the solutions or think that they'll be easy, but there are a few places that a country truly committed to reform could start from.

The temptation to take a bribe is greater when you're not making enough on the job, and the more people there are on the government payroll, the more likely it is that someone will be encouraged to take a bribe. So if the Government found ways to downsize the bureaucracy to cut out the positions that aren't necessary or useful, it could use the extra money to increase the other government officials' salaries.

The best way to reduce bureaucracy and increase pay is to create more private sector jobs. And the way to this will happen is when the rules of a society are transparent – when there's a clear and advertised set of laws and regulations regarding how to start a business, what it takes to own property and how to go about getting a loan. Clarifying these rules and focusing resources on building a judicial system that can enforce them and resolve disputes should be a primary goal of any government suffering from corruption.

The more information the public receives, the easier it will be for your Kenyan brothers and sisters out in the villages to judge whether they are being treated fairly by their public servants or not. Wealth declarations do little good if no one can access them, and accountability in government spending is not possible if no-one knows how much was available and allocated to a project.

Tribal politics has to stop. It is rooted in the bankrupt idea that the goal of politics or business is to funnel as much of the pie as possible to one's family, tribe or circle, with little regard for the public good. It stifles innovation and fractures the fabric of the society. Instead of opening and engaging in business, people come to rely on patronage and payback as a means of advancing.

An accountable, transparent government can break this cycle. When people are judged by merit, not connections, then the best and brightest can lead the country, people will work hard and the entire economy will grow. Everyone will benefit and more resources will be available for all – not just select groups.

One of the strongest weapons your country has against corruption is the ability of you, the people, to stand up and speak out about the injustices you see. The Kenyan people are the ultimate guardians against abuses.

The world knows the names of (Nobel laureate) Wangari Maathai and (former Ethics permanent secretary) John Githongo who are fighting against the insidious corruption that has weakened Kenya. But there are so many others, some of whom I'm meeting during my visit here – Betty Murungi, Ken Njau, Jane Onyango, Maina Kiai, Milly Odhiambo and Hussein Khalid.

There are also numerous Kenyan men and women who have refused to pay bribes to get civil servants to perform their duties; the auditors and inspectors-general who have done the job before them accurately and fairly regardless of where the facts have led; the journalists who asked questions and pushed for answers when it might have been more lucrative to look the other way, or whip up a convenient fiction.

And then there are Kenyan whistle-blowers who show us what is, so that we can all work together to demand what should be.

In today's Kenya – a Kenya more open and less repressive than in my father's day – it is courage that will bring the reform so many of you so desperately want and deserve. I wish all of you luck in finding this courage in the days and months to come, and I want you to know that as your ally, your friend and your brother, I will be there to help in any way I can.

Thank you.

Post by KOLONEL BRISK on Sept 25, 2006 18:32:12 GMT 3

Post by adongo12345 on Sept 25, 2006 19:05:20 GMT 3