End black imperialism, bring back the white men in blue suits

Looking around East Africa, indeed Africa, you can see the diplomatic space has become quite black.

A few weeks ago, Nairobi was turned upside down with the MTV Africa Awards because two international music stars, Wyclef Jean and Akon, were in the house.

Last week, again things were heady.

World 100 and 200 metres champion Usain Bolt, and former British 110m hurdles star Colin Jackson were up and about on a conservation crusade.

A stir of a different type had also happened in Kenya a little earlier; US Under-Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson was in Nairobi doing the now standard American finger-wagging at anti-reformist Kenyan leaders, and announcing that some had been banned from travelling to America.

Americans seem addicted to finger-wagging.

Following Kenya’s post-election violence last year, the Americans jumped into the fray to end the mayhem.

Then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew in, and wagged her finger all over the place. Carson’s predecessor, Jendayi Fraser, a very stern woman, also came and wagged a vigorous finger at Kenya’s chiefs.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan led the Eminent Persons team that resolved the dispute.

The other prominent members of the team were former Tanzania president Ben Mkapa, and Graca Machel, good old Nelson Mandela’s wife.

A few years ago, there was a big story in Kenya when the World Bank representative Makhtar Diop held a party that his neighbour, First Lady Lucy Kibaki, deemed to be too noisy.

She went and put a stop to it. His successor was Colin Bruce, a man who also was frequently in the news —once, he even attempted a citizen’s arrest of a corrupt traffic policeman who tried to shake him down for a bribe.

The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has just left Kenya.

He arrived, so to speak, with arrest warrants in his suitcase for the perpetrators of the post-election violence.

What do all these people have in common? They are black.

The only arguable exception is Ocampo.

But even then he is, politically speaking, black because he is from a developing country, Argentina.

If this had been just 20 years ago, all these people would have been white.

African chiefs used to go globally native, when it was white men and women wagging fingers at them.

They would cry racism, imperialism, and neo-colonialism.

It often worked, because they would get a break, and solidarity from nationalist constituencies at home.

Today, when rich and successful black men like Bolt and Akon are the face of the “rest of the world,” all of a sudden the excuses disappear.

We cannot say we are wretched because we are black. You can’t accuse Annan of patronising racism, or Ocampo of neo-colonialism.

I don’t think African radicals and politicians very much like this world, because it has cornered them by taking away all their excuses.

If they had their way, they would recreate the old world ruled by white men with silvery hair, in white starched shirts and navy blue suits.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is executive editor of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media Division. E-mail: cobbo@nation.co.ke