As Safaricom’s excellent recent video homage to our nation reaches an emotional and goosebump-popping crescendo, we are told: “This is for Kenya, for what we can do. This is for you.”
Beneath the staccato beat and emotional images of children and artists, dotted across beaches and rural countryside, there’s the invocation of “rule-breakers” and “imagineers”; there’s a time lapse which crystallises the speed of our fast-moving capital city, Nairobi. There are children at school, with their lives ahead of them.
It’s no surprise that, between Facebook and YouTube, ‘This Is For You’ has been watched more than 300,000 times. Those are viewing figures even ‘Superman’ javelin thrower, Julius Yego, would be happy with.
But as the thrill of patriotism evoked by the story subsided and my smile wore off, I pondered: this video is about more than just advertising. It’s about who we are as a people and as a nation. So what does it mean to be Kenyan in 2015?
To some, we are an assembly line of Olympian gold medal-winning runners; you can add history-beater Mr Yego’s feats at the IAAF Championships recently in Beijing, to that long list now.
To some, we are home to jaw-dropping savannahs and the best safaris in the world: the Masai Mara’s wildebeest migration has attracted tourists from the farthest corners of the planet.
Kenya has morphed into a home for the good and the great: in ideas, such as M-Pesa; in award-winning, innovative business people; and in Lupita Nyong’o, who walked away with an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress last year. You can add business heavyweights such as Manu Chandaria, Vimal Shah and Dr. James Mwangi to that list – amongst many others.
All of them achieving greatness; all of them Kenyan.
To still others, mentioning no names: we’re a #hotbedofterror. You know who you are.
So the jury is out on who we are: as Kenyans, as a nation, we stand on a precipice of hope.
But we know deep down, it could go either way. Or, in US President Barack Obama’s words: “Kenya is at a crossroads – a moment filled with peril, but also enormous promise.”
Deep down, all of us know that in order to build a national value system we are proud of, we need to answer the what, the how and, crucially, the why.
We are paying heed to this “enormous promise” – our Vision 2030 blueprint – or our so-called what. There’s no doubt we understand the ‘what’: we need more roads, railways that connect south to north and north to south, ports, airports, water and sanitation facilities. We need a helluva lot of the ‘what’.
But, arguably, we are still grappling with the ‘how’.
Chinese-built-or-funded infrastructure projects will have limited impact if the only legacy is bricks and mortar. A systems-based approach that nurtures young talent, linking them up with internships, and builds an entrepreneur-centric ecosystem, is how we can build the New Kenya.
This ties into the how.
The Ministry of Tourism’s recent about-turn over enlisting CNN to ‘sell’ Kenya was triggered after the #hotbedofterror gaffe, but are adverts really the best way to sell our nation in the first place?
Like the world’s best institutions, we must build from within.
And when we look within ourselves – at the man-in-the-mirror – sometimes the image is not as attractive as we hoped because what’s staring back is a darker picture. This is because there are five ills that bedevil Kenyan society: tribe. Religion. Money. The propagation of Corruption, with a big, fat ‘C’. And status. These amount to “a plague on both our houses”, to quote Shakespeare: just like the warring families in Romeo & Juliet that led to Mercutio’s death, we are fighting ourselves.
We all want to belong. After all, we are all human, but in this desperate longing to belong, we’ve developed a society where tribe becomes the solid structure we hold onto; we have myriad religious leaders, saying one thing in public and doing another behind closed doors; money has become the most-trusted ally of belonging, irrespective of how it was derived. In short, no one cares because of the status it brings us. Somewhere in the middle is that dirty, big word: Corruption.
As a result, issue-based politics will also remain an elusive goal and the sling- shooting that has defined our politics for too long, will win out.
But it need not be this way.
The creation of a national value system is key because we will no longer need to look externally to validate ourselves.
Yes, we need tourists to return to our coast. Yes, we need the international visitors who have become so besotted with Kenya in years past, to return.
But whilst we are trying to create new heroes, we need to think about those that already exist here.
I would champion a how that links Vision 2030 to our daily lives and use billboards to promote ambassadors – the Yegos of this world, and the rest, and celebrate our SMEs, too – rather than existing as an opaque document. We need to bring Vision 2030 to life: for the kid-on-the-street; for you and me; for us and them.
But the boomerang in our national value system, is that we focus on building and building, but do we know the rationale that underscores everything: in short, if we’ve got the what and the how, do we understand the ‘why’?
The ‘why’ is about aspiration because people need to climb to the zenith of business in Kenya. The why is less about who we are now, but who do we want to be?
It’s a saddening trend that Kenya still boasts a scarcity mentality, which we need to solve. Such a mindset is characterised by envy and the wish-him-or-her-ill brigade.
This doesn’t just exist in Kenya, of course, but if we are to collectively bootstrap ourselves to success, then we must create an environment of collective prosperity. It exists because we do not have a national value system.
There are still sadder trends. As an entrepreneur who has grown a pan-African business over the last 15 years, the scourge of corruption is more visible now than it has ever been. It’s a bleak comment to make, but it has become so entrenched and normalised. I’ve had heart-to-heart conversations with countless entrepreneurs who can attest to this culture of scavengers and predators. It’s the easy route and, in spite of these conditions, the eagle has to find a way to fly.
But there are lots of positives. M-Pesa changed the banking industry. Huduma Services, recently chronicled in the Harvard Business Review, has transformed the way we interact with Government. These are worldwide innovations being used as a template for nations lightyears ahead of Kenya.
The Italians are known for their passion, good weather and style. Being British denotes a love of football, mild manners and a dry sense of humour. But just what does it mean to be Kenyan?
All of us live with the responsibility that this country was lent to us by our children. I am here because, one day, many years ago, someone had a dream for me. My dream – our dream – has to be realised in leaving our kids, and our kids’ kids, with a national value system that inspires and will propel all of us forward to greatness.
The actions this Government is taking bespeaks a drive towards the New Kenya: harder, better, faster, stronger. To borrow the narrative from that emotional Safaricom video: this is for me and you; for us and them. It’s for all of us. This is for you.
So, Mr President and every Kenyan who cares about this country: what next?
*This article was originally published in Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper
