Mr. President,
On the eve of you first visit to
Tanzania I find myself called as if by fate or Providence to write this open
letter to you as the leader of the Free World. In 2008 when your predecessor
President George W. Bush made the first official visit by a sitting US
President to the country I had the opportunity to write another open letter to
him; it is in the same spirit I find myself writing this one. Welcome to the
Beautiful Land of Tanzania where the natural beauty of the land is
supernaturally paired to the charm of its people! Karibu Mr. President!
It’s an encounter of two unequal
partners When an American President meets a Tanzanian President there would be
an illusion that the two countries are somewhat equal – in any measure. It
would be an illusion highlighted by the pomposity of the occasion but in all
reality it’s would be an encounter or a meeting of sort of two – friendly – but
unequal partners. On one hand the world only true superpower in all its
economic, military and cultural spheres; on the other hand, one of the poorest
nation on earth; economically a non-entity, militarily an irrelevant one;
culturally a confused one.
Mr. President, think about this if
you will- just for your amusement; US Federal budget is almost 4 Trillion US
Dollars this year while that of Tanzania -passed few days ago - is only about
16 Billion US Dollars. To make a contextual comparison – the US defense budget
is in the high ends of 500 Billion Dollars which makes the Tanzania national
budget 31 times less than that of one US federal department. Even when
comparing Tanzania’s national budget to that of the US Department of
Agriculture budget still the Tanzanian national budget is dwarfed at the ratio
of 1:9. So, Mr. President, when I say it’s an encounter of unequal partners I’m
not just using some semantics; I’m stating a factual reality.
Forgive me Mr. President, I would
describe the engagement or encounter between Tanzania and the US to be similar
to an encounter between an elephant and an ant where by an ant has been led to
believe- by the elephant mind you – that he was meeting an equal partner. This
was said to be true simply because they both share the same jungle or share
some common interests, interests that highly favor the elephant. In that
encounter I pity the ant!
What happens after you leave?
Mr. President when you leave next
week and you are back in DC much will be said in Tanzania of your visit. Some
would say it was “highly successful” and “very beneficial” to the country and
its people. I’m quite sure some of our elite and carrier politicians will speak
of so many agreements that the US entered with Tanzania, or some aid package
that you brought or a new program for Africa that the US pushed and Africans
happily accepted. Indeed, to our ruling corrupt elite the success of your visit
will only be described in terms of dollars! What you brought and how much your
administration promised to Tanzania will be the only measure of the success of
your visit and may be rightly so. But, is that the measure Tanzanians will use
to gauge how beneficial your visit was to their lives and their daily
experience in Tanzania? I’ll argue probably not.
A year after your visit or so, the
Tanzanian people will look back and ask themselves whether their lives have
been transformed for the better or they are still the same. I'll propose to you
Mr. President that your splendid visit will be considered to be a total failure
if after few years from now the following areas in the life of Tanzanians would
not show a tangible improvement:
1. Any improvement in the quality and
infrastructure of education. With a literacy level at 70%, and a failed
education system what would education system in Tanzania look after Obama's
visit? Well, I'll bet none of the agreements (bilateral or private) entered
between Tanzania and the US during your visit was targeted towards education
reform.
2. Would there be any improvement in
the protection of civil and human rights? I know you have made the issue of gay
rights a cornerstone of your international aid policy. While this might make
sense to you and your US supporters to a Tanzanian this has nothing to do with
his or her daily experience. When it comes to human rights and civil rights
Tanzanians would want to see how their security organs are reformed and how the
government deal with political dissent. There is a bill now in the pipeline
that would ban political demonstration in the country. If this bill passes then
Tanzania would have gone to the politics of colonial era. Would the US support
such a move? Would the US remain silent? Or, the US would only be vocal when it
comes to the so called "gay agenda"?
Just to be on the record, Tanzanians
have been very tolerant to their gay brothers and sisters. There is no lynching
or even such homophobic attacks around the country that one would see in the US
or Europe. The question of decriminalizing homosexual acts still remains the
choice of the people. So far, I don't think there is any case anywhere in
Tanzania where a consensual gay people are facing criminal charges. However,
there are a myriad of cases now pending or going on where political dissidents
-some senior leaders in the opposition -are facing charges simply for
exercising their civil rights.
3. How the Tanzanian government has
reversed its troubling attitude and trend toward independent media. Last week
the Committee for the Protection of Journalists - an International organization
based in New York - wrote a letter describing the deteriorating freedom of the
press in Tanzania. I'm quite sure the US Embassy has documented similar trend
over the past few years. What would the situation be after a year since your
visit? Will the Tanzania government supported by the US government continue
with its assault of the free press?
4. In the past few years especially
after the 2010 General Election the Tanzanian security organs (Police, Intelligence
Service as well as Secret Branch) have continued to harass political opponents
and some section of the press. We have seen what I would call as a politically
compromised state organs acting with almost absolute impunity against the
people. Last week's order by the Prime Minister to the security organs to
"beat up" any one considered to be a trouble maker or a threat to
national peace instead of using legal tools came as a shock to some people. But
to some of us who have noticed this trend it just confirmed our fears; the
state organs in Tanzania are above the law and will act with absolute impunity
against the citizens in the name of "safeguarding peace and
tranquility". If the kidnapping, torture and harassment of political
opponents of the government continue unabated would we say a year from now that
Obama's visit was a huge success or we would lament the opportunity lost?
5. If a year or two years from now
the majority of Tanzanians still live in primitive housing, in unplanned
neighborhoods and continue to struggle with issues of energy, clean water and
access to better health services then how can we praise your visit? Of course,
by that time some American companies would have been awarded concessions in
Rare Earth Minerals, Gas exploration, Uranium exploration etc. but what if all
that means absolutely nothing to people who live in squatters? Well, The US and
Tanzanian governments can sing about how much FDI has been injected in the
country but what if it doesn't change the lives of those people at the very
bottom of economic and social status?
6. How corruption has been tackled in
the country. Of all man-made calamities that faces Tanzania and unquestionably
most part of Africa corruption stand alone in its impact, depth and
stubbornness of defeat. Tanzania like many African countries is permeated in
all levels of its government by corruption to the point that President Kikwete
himself one time said that up to 20 percent of budget allocation ends up in
corrupt hands; that’s about 3.2 Billion US dollars every year goes to corrupt
public officials –some probably are at the forefront of you visit!. After your
visit and before you leave office in 2016 what would be the level of public
corruption in Tanzania?
Mr. President to me and possibly to
many other Tanzanians it is in these areas that the success of your visit -the
encounter with America - would be weighed against. When all is said and done,
the Tanzanian people would look as if in rearview mirror your visit in the
light of the positive impact it had made or not made in their lives. Not only
would they say that when Obama came to Tanzania it was incredibly memorable
even the famous Ocean Road was renamed to bear his name but also that the
trajectory of national discourse was clearly positively and permanently
altered.
Anything less than that would lead
people to speak of your visit in terms of other hyped up visits and conferences
of the past – such as the Sullivan Summit, the World Economic Forum, President
Bush’s Visit, or President Xi Jinping’s Visit. This will be plainly true
regardless whether there are countless contracts and agreements entered which
would benefit the American worker. Your visit will be judged not by how many
new jobs you created in America (of course my American friends will beg to
differ) but by how many people were lifted out of the misery of condemning and
perpetual poverty in Africa during your administration. President Bush actions
helped reverse the HIV/AIDS trend in Africa and Africans will forever remember
him for that; but yours will be judged even more pointedly.
As we marvel at the splendor and
grandeur of America’s mighty displayed so marvelously at our present, as we
admire a descendant of an African leading the world mighty power right in front
of our eyes we hope and pray that the visit would impactful not just to this
generation of Tanzanians but also to those yet born and their posterity. In
Roman times when Caesar visited a land nothing remained the same for better or
for worse, I hope your visit will not be remembered for the worst it had left
behind. But if at the end only the Americans benefit and if only American
companies reap the fruits of your visit then as I said above; I still pity
the ant.
Karibu Sana MMM (BGM)
Detroit Michigan
USA
No comments:
Post a Comment