By Philip Ochieng, Nairobi
Doesn't any Kenyan know the extreme danger of allowing the American government's proposal to build a military base Kenya? Ambassador Johnnie Carson complains that I pose such questions merely because I hate "Americans". That is familiar obscurantism by the US intelligentsia. It uses the words "state" and "nation" as synonyms.
How can that be? The German nation lives in several states - including Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The British state embraces several nations - including the English, the Scots and the Welsh.
| Interesting interpretation. I can see where this is going... |
But the intelligentsia needs that falsity. It enables it to unload onto the American nation the horrendous crimes which the American state commits overseas on behalf of the corporations. I do not hate nations, tribes, clans and such other purely culturo-linguistic concepts. I leave ethnic chauvinism - and the racism which laces it - to the neo-cons, the televangelists and Heritage Foundation.
| They have those in Kenya? |
As a nation, America - a great people - do not wrong me. But, as a state - a purely politico-legal category, America certainly does. That's what I hate - not its nationality but only the hideous inhumanity of its system.
| Some of his best friends are Americans, no doubt... |
If they could shed their corporate media clutch to discover their own objective interests, Americans themselves would abhor the corporate state even more deeply. Many Kenyans - long-time victims of the same transnational media - believe the US hovers over the rest of mankind only to free, civilise, democratise and make it as rich as America.
| That's kind of like the view I hold, and I'm not even Kenyan... |
Because those media are deliberately silent on it, those Kenyans just cannot see the causal link between their society's skinniness and Anglo-America's obesity.
| Yep. We're playing zero-sum games again... |
They are so mesmerised by America's "success", they will give up important jobs at home to work as janitors in US megalopolises.
| That's quite true. It's the way lots of people start out. I had a girlfriend once who had held a management job with Citibank in Rio. She came to the U.S. because of the crime levels in the City by the Sea, and she was cleaning houses for a living. I havne't heard from her in years, but I'd bet that by now she's got a pretty comfortable business. I knew quite a few Salvadorans who were hanging drywall — I think speaking Spanish or Portuguese may be a job prerequisite for the trade. Most of them wanted to have their own drywall or construction-related companies when they'd made enough money and had enough contacts to start up. It's called ambition, and the willingness to do what's necessary to get ahead. Those who don't have it stay home. |
Such are the individuals likely to support Washington's pressure to set up a military presence here. Many are MPs and civil bureaucrats. The Cabinet may be a tad more enlightened. But even it has hungry members most likely to fall for a familiar White House bait.
| The Masses™, of course, do as they're told... |
As the official corporate voice, the US government will try to twist our Cabinet's arm by tying the military pressure to "aid" resumption by the IMF and the World Bank. If the Cabinet is still adamant, DC will not hesitate to push a few dollars into the pockets of key ministers - the hungry ones - to sanction that naval base. Cabinets all over the world have mortgaged away their whole countries to US and other Western corporate interests for 30 pieces of silver. Nothing is special in ours to make it the exception.
We can only hope self-interest of a different kind will prevail - the kind that recently forced Istanbul to reject a permanent US base in Turkey despite an attempt at a massive bribe. It was too dangerous. No matter how much the dollar offers, nothing can be more perilous than to allow a US military base in Kenya, especially in the present international security climate. Kenya is already a prime terrorist target. It is not that we have acted on self-interest to kindle the wrath of any terrorist group.
| "Don't make them mad at us. They might blow up more things than they already have." |
It is only that certain groups see Kenya as an accomplice in the US, British and Israeli corporate injustices in the countries which those terrorists hold dear - Iraq, for instance. To those terrorists, the US is the arch-devil and Britain and Israel are the devil's advocates. Kenya has massive British and Israeli investments - tourism, oil, agribusiness, chemicals, telecommunications.
| "We should get rid of all of them. Then maybe they'll leave us alone." |
Thus whenever terrorists attack us, it is US, British and Israeli property that they aim at, not ours. Yet, in the end, we suffer much more. What utter stupidity would allow a state already sitting on a powder keg caused by the devil to invite even more of it by allowing the devil a permanent presence? You will have pawned all your sovereignty and become a permanent US puppet. Even if you change your international orientation, the base will be here to stay. Ask Cubans and Guantanamo. |