This Picture says it all….
Street children in Mathare being forced to look for beheaded body parts by policemen (the police know better than to wade through that bacteria infected water)
I got into an argument last weekend with a bunch of kenyans about poverty and corruption in Africa. I said there was a clear connection between the two. They said inequality is part of every society. I said when 70% of the population is living in extreme poverty, that’s not inequality. That’s a complete breakdown of the system. One of my friends called me a socialist (a retort a found to be quite stupid) — most capitalist societies have a social welfare blanket that will provide the basic needs that people need to survive (things like food and shelter) — that’s not socialism. It’s compassion for your fellow citizens and an obligation that every society has to it’s people. It’s not about making everyone a millionaire. It’s about providing life’s basic needs.
I was listening to Lee Kuan Yew’s video again. In it, he said that if you go to Singapore today, you will not find beggars or homeless people on the streets. Why? is Yew a socialist? No. Singapore is a capitalist society, but for Lee, the idea that a single Singaporean citizen would be left to starve on the street is personally offensive to him and to his human soul. So, in designing his economic miracle program, he ensured that no Singaporean citizen would be left on the street to live like an animal, without food and without shelter.
The Kenyans I was talking to this weekend did not have this sense of compassion and they found nothing offensive about belonging to a country where 60% of the population live in such abject poverty.
What joy do you get driving around in a Mercedes Benz when you have to pass by hungry street children and women with babies on their backs begging for food. This is the feeling I get when I land in Kenya. You can talk about the stock market all you want, but at the end of the day, being surrounded by this kind of poverty everyday, will leave you with a sense of joylessness.
Africans need to start being offended by the plight of their fellow citizens, especially when we know that the “richest” Africans have stolen their money (this includes Kibaki. Oh yes it does!)….there’s a reason why the richest people in Africa all tend to politicians. That’s not a coincidence.
Man- you cannot possibly be a Kenyan. I get this same socialist nonsense all the time. Our problem in Kenya is that we think that if it is Anglo-Saxon then it is good. The US is our template for almost everything, neglecting the fact that it is the most backward industrialised country of all.
Your friends are probably uneducated, or Kenyan. Which usually amounts to the same thing. I will be writing an article now on the absence of a national conscience in Kenya, and the fact that there is no political left in Kenya.
Wanyama,
kenyaimagine.com
Stephen,
I disagree with you here completely. You say that India, China et al have developed a national conscience? Hmmmm India with a calcified caste system whereby 30% of its population is ‘untouchable’, and China with its forced labor camps and gulags? Don’t be naive.
There is no national conscience there, what the Indians and Chinese are trying to inculcate is ‘enlightened self interest’. If you are able to achieve a multiplicity of individual aspirations being met, then the individual ends up benefitting the most and this translates to the entire society. That’s why the Chinese are exporting inmates from their forced labor camps to Africa and Latin America, they’ll be less of a nuisance……..can probably make a lot of money abroad and in the process build the new Chinese empire. There is no altruistic conscience in that, it is pure enlightened self interest!
In Africa we have too little enlightened self interest and too much group identity that itself has become perverted. And I am not saying we should ‘individualize’ like the West, far from it, what I mean is personal accountability and reliance. I am not one of those who believe that Kenya’s poor are victims of circumstance, some are but MANY ARE NOT. They are just as exploitative and mean spirited as the next guy driving the Benz. Only difference they allow the Benz driver to become rich at THEIR EXPENSE rather than AT HIS.
Like 80% of india is rural and living in extream poverty…. But you dont’ see that in the news… It’s all PR…
Even the US, when Katrina hit absolutley poor people were scrambling around like cockroaches… It was the dirtly little secrete.
PR PR PR… when will kenya start promoting it’self and leave these imagages for NGO’s and the like.
I don’t recall mentioning India or China in the above piece about economic equality. I did mention Singapore and what Lee Kuan Yew had done, which I do admire. I particularly admire his emphasis on how personally offensive it is for him to see citizens of HIS own country living in squalor. It is what drove him to achieve.
Don:
80% of India is not living in extreme poverty. The extreme poverty rate in India is between 20 & 25% percent, which is much better than most of sub-saharan Africa. That 25% translates into a lot of people because India has a large population, but the Indian government has started a program of social welfare to prevent it’s citizens from starving to death. I will post an interview here given by India’s former finance minister where he talks about what India has done to ensure that fewer of it’s citizens are left to die because of lack of food or water.
Katrina exposed America’s underclass, but again…these people had housing and food (at least before the storm) and they also have it now. They may not be living in mansions, but they have the basics of life. There’s a difference between an underclass and abject poverty.
Sijui:
Everyone is for self-reliance. However, becoming self-reliant does take time and in the meantime (while you work on increasing the per capita income of individuals, you cannot allow your citizens to starve to death or to live in squalor without life’s basic amenities.
What I really admire is the Scandinavian form of capitalism or as some have called it: Capitalism with a heart. You allow the private sector to thrive, but you also understand that societies have an obligation to one another to ensure that their fellow citizens can afford the things that provide for human dignity.
High rates of poverty produce social anarchy, disorder, civil wars and chaos. This is what is happening to Kenya today and I blame Kenyatta, Moi and to a lesser extent Kibaki. The poverty does not personally offend them and this is Africa’s greatest shame.
What kind of quality of life will you middle class kenyans enjoy when you have to live behind walled in fences, with dogs and security guards. When you are afraid to drive at night because of armed carjackings. When you are afraid of being confronted by armed thugs at the gate to your mansions.
Africa is poor because people are not creating companies, which create jobs for people. They are stealing and creating nothing in the interim.
I could not agree with you more but where I disagree is assuming the situation remains static. It does not. Definitely Kenya has another 20 or more years to go to bring absolute poverty down to the low 20s, but inroads are starting to be made precisely because a large mass of Kenyans are refusing to remain catatonic in the face of immense challenges. Again, on such issues I throw the gauntlet down at Kenyans not at their leaders. People are saying that alteast 70% of the current parliament will be thrown out this December, if that happens that will be further proof that Kenyans are serious about expanding opportunities for themselves. IF IT DOES NOT HAPPEN, I will maintain the old adage, people get the leaders they deserve. Personally I am optimistic that if at least 25 to 50% are thrown out, the show is well under way on the road.
Hey, your right…. it is not 80% of india in poverty… need to get more current on my stats. Thanks for the correction.
Not all politicians are the richest in their constituencies-Kiraitu (when he was elcted in 1992) and Mwandanya are two egs where this is not the case. 2ndly, Brazil has higher inequality than Kenya. Many of us are offended by the poverty and problems faced by Kenya and a lot of us were born poor and have made it thru sweat and tears. The majority have not stolen to be successful. The issue of corrupt leadership is to do with a corrupt population that praises the Pattni’s, Biwotts of this world. And creating companies that generate jobs has more to do with infrastructure and the capacity of our economy to generate such comapnies.
Brazil does have a high rate of inequality although I’m not sure that their poverty levels are as high as Kenya’s just because they don’t have citizens starving to death (like you see in northern Kenya, coast province and even parts of Ukambani)
about the picture, i am a journalist and i was there. those street kids were not forced to look for the headless bodies. they did it at a price, the police pay them to do that. the money is then used to buy drugs. i was there i know. you need to close down you site with the kind of “holier than thou” kenya is crap” highhorse shit you are chuirning out. why dont you come down and help this street kids instead of complaining and writing blogg after blogg. i am sorry i stumbled on this site!