29/01/08
I'm currently in Nairobi, Kenya, a country which has seen some horrific and well-publicised violence in the wake of the rigged presidential election just before the turn of the year. My first impressions of Nairobi, viewed from the window seat of a conspicuously empty Boeing 737, were positive. The early morning mist shrouding Mount Kenya formed a romantic image and the lush green vegetation and apparent signs of prosperity were in stark contrast to the burning, looting and shooting depicted on British television. There were ordered plots of land containing well-maintained houses, tarmacked roads and obvious signs of industry. Sleepy streams of cars and vans emerging onto the roads were signs that this would be just another day in a busy urban centre. A bustling city of 3 million inhabitants can't easily be brought to a halt, not when there are things to do, people to see, business to be done.
Yet despite these positive signs, a dose of realism couldn't be avoided. The Central Business District's row of modest skyscrapers had initially given me optimism, but couldn't avoid comparison in my mind to the Las Vegas strip, another row of highly visible buildings that I had seen from the air just a couple of months before. Those Vegas hotels, each one a flippant display of the wealth they generate from the recreational activity of tourists, made the Kenyan CBD appear very limited. A futile comparison perhaps, but nonetheless visually striking.
On the way to our accommodation we were happy to get our first small taste of African wildlife - a grazing giraffe near the airport - and gladly engaged our talkative driver in conversation about Kenyan politics. He described to us how little has changed in day-to-day terms since the violence began, but emphasised the disastrous impact of the violence on the tourist industry, a view corroborated by the evidence of our half-empty plane. His optimism that Kofi Annan would help to broker a solution was tempered by his recognition that once things have gone back to normal for Kenyans, as he thought they soon would, people internationally would nonetheless think very differently of Kenya for a long time to come. Those wounds would not heal quickly. His view, one shared by many here, is that the violence long ago ceased to bear a direct relationship to politics. While political grievances still play a part and were undoubtedly the initial trigger, the violence is also based on one or more of poverty, race and revenge. His view is that there is a hidden continuity; that these tensions were there prior to the elections but only now are manifested in violence. One thing that would keep Nairobi from constant trouble, he thought, was that people couldn't maintain the will or energy to protest when they were struggling for day-to-day sustenance. This was particularly so as the majority of violence within Nairobi takes place in the deeply impoverished slum of Kibera, an opposition stronghold. Many of his views were echoed by others throughout the day, although few shared his optimism about Annan's intervention. The violence too seemed to continue throughout the day as news came through of the assassination of an opposition MP last night, with subsequent violent reprisals ongoing today.
Back in our sheltered corner of town, a haven for westerners and NGOs, things were somewhat calmer although often surreal. At one point our driver pulled over his battered old car, with its inexplicable custom deep red velvet interior, to the verge of a busy carriageway and began to shout vigorously down the phone in Swahili, accompanied by the constant chaos outside and “Everything I do, I do it for you” by Bryan Adams on the car stereo. I think you get used to incongruity very quickly in Africa, but on the first day it still has the potential to make situations feel surreal.
It feels like I've been here for a week not a day, and it seems like we've done a lot more than we really have. At this stage I'm probably having quite a few thoughts about not much activity, but these first naïve thoughts in a new environment are good to reflect upon and record before they get replaced and forgotten.
Matt
