Advertisement

EDITORIAL: Easter signals new beginnings and EA needs a fresh start

Saturday April 16 2022
Holidaymakers in Mombasa, Kenya.

Holidaymakers in Mombasa, Kenya. In many an African setting, the Easter holiday was one of those seasons of the year when people could afford to let down their guard and indulge in a few luxuries. Not so this year. PHOTO | FILE | NMG

By The EastAfrican

In many an African setting, the Easter holiday was one of those seasons of the year when people could afford to let down their guard and indulge in a few luxuries. Not so this year, with an economic upset at the micro level that has left consumers groping for the bare minimum of survival.

Across East Africa, Christians and Muslims are going through one of the most challenging holy months of Lent and Ramadan respectively. A combination of delayed rains and high fuel prices has driven up the cost of basic consumer goods, making this year’s penitence a fortuitous undertaking.

In macro terms, the biggest risk is that many more people will slip back into poverty, inequality will get worse and the risk of violent conflict will become more pronounced. The region’s usual suspects — South Sudan and Somalia — could see an upsurge in conflict and more displacement of people.

Amid all this uncertainty, the recent admission of the DR Congo into the East African Community gives hope for the future.

A larger playground will infuse new energy into the regional economy, but this will need to be nurtured with support to peacebuilding across the vast territory that has in recent weeks seen a flare-up in North Kivu.

That and the high octane election campaigns in Kenya make for a full in-tray as regional leaders prepare to meet soon for their first in-person Heads of State Summit in more than two years.

Advertisement

The leaders will need to overcome tensions within their own camp to present united ranks in the face of adversity.

The region's citizens need a reassuring message about the future prospects.

Rhetoric needs to be converted into reality that allows them to tap and actualise the opportunities of a geographically larger and culturally diverse East African Community.

That calls for more economic convergence and daring experimentation with the freedoms of movement of people, capital and establishment.

It is fallacious to expect this to happen in an orderly and smooth fashion — dynamic change rarely does. But out of the ruins of social and economic realignment, peace, stability, growth and prosperity will be the yield. That is if governments are willing to get out of the way and overcome their fears of what might go wrong.

East Africa’s socioeconomic and political agenda is so much in need of redemption that the old might need to die to give birth to the new. The story of Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection is a lesson in new beginnings.

His death gave birth to a new social order that liberated the underling and united a diverse people across the world around the common idea of a loving and enabling deity.

East Africa could use a dose of such courage and social reconstruction. The region has so many moribund structures and policies hidden behind national interest.

They have held up progress, deferring into the uncertain future benefits that should have long accrued from regional cooperation. These need to be demolished.

Advertisement