Kenya’s ex-President, Daniel Arap Moi, wants the Government to ban the country’s “mushrooming” crop of vernacular radio stations, according to Saturday Nation of May 31, 2008. His reasons for this are that they are giving rise to “tribal chiefs”, and are fanning ethnic animosity by serving as vehicles for divisive politics. He justifies his call with the example of Rwanda in the early nineties, when broadcasts from such stations prompted anarchy and a genocidal orgy. The catalytic factor there, however, was not the existence of the stations per se but rather the assassination of the Rwandese President, Juvenal Habyarimana, when his plane was downed as it approached Kigali. The culprits remain at large still; as well camouflaged now, perhaps, as when they carried out their murderous act in 1994.
Still, the ex-President has a valid example. This is reinforced by Kenya’s own experience in January and February of 2008, particularly in the expansive Rift Valley. Protests against the announced presidential election results quickly took a violent turn. The violence then quickly became inter-ethnic because, in the eyes of ODM supporters in the Rift Valley and parts of Western Province, the “stolen presidential election” meant that there was not going to be a resolution of the land issue this time either. There was not going to be a resolution, just as there had not been during the 24-year presidency of Arap Moi, himself a son of the Rift Valley -- a 24-year reign during which Moi was, indeed, l’état.
The land issue – precisely who (or which ethnic community) really was entitled to the land that colonial farmers left behind at independence, or soon thereafter? -- had remained unresolved for much longer than the 24 years, in fact; that is, since independence on December 12, 1963. During the 2007 campaign, ODM supporters had been promised by their political leaders, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that this time around the issue would at last be resolved, upon the much-anticipated victory of ODM’s presidential and parliamentary candidates. This time, the justice that Moi had failed or neglected to dispense for 24 years would e dispensed, with finality.
Needless to say, then, the inter-ethnic violence in Kenya was triggered by a disputed presidential election result, and by adverse message it signaled vis-à-vis the land issue, not by the existence of the radio stations as such. There have been claims, to be sure, that certain radio stations in the Rift Valley and elsewhere did prompt their listeners to xenophobic pillage and murder – and revenge. In Rwanda, fortunately, such urgings were recorded by those who would subsequently prosecute the perpetrators. I am not aware that similar recordings exist in Kenya to serve as evidence for the prosecution – perhaps I have not paid sufficient attention to the adduced evidence. If such recordings exist, they should be used in court without fear or favour.
The said Saturday Nation issue reminds the reader that Moi made a similar but unsuccessful banning call in August 2000, when he was still president, arguing that radio stations should broadcast only in English and Kiswahili – Kenya’s official and national languages, respectively. But his own Minister for Information at the time, Mr. Johnstone Makau, would hear none of it, arguing that “vernacular is part of the Kenyan culture.” It is intriguing that Moi allowed his minister to win that particular argument.
That “vernacular is part of the Kenyan culture” is precisely the point, but we can say more: These radio stations are the only viable, nearly always-on and commute-free channels of contact with the world beyond the confines of the village for a wide cross-section of Kenya’s rural communities, where English and Kiswahili remain at the margin of daily life. They are an indispensable source of broadcasts rich in locally relevant content: news (local, regional and national), announcements (including funeral announcements, the occasional obituary and visits by dignitaries and government officials), entertainment (particularly music, comedy and story-telling), radio-evangelism, language-teaching (particularly of urban youth, since many of these broadcasts reach urban areas as well) and the growth of the vernaculars themselves, as broadcasters struggle to domesticate new concepts or standardize usages arising from day-to-day local living or from farther afield. Lately, mobile phones (some 13 million Kenyans have them now, out of a population of 35 million) have emphatically arrived to challenge the vernacular radio stations as channels of communication, but not in the domain of impersonal or mass communication.
Vernacular radio stations are tailor-made avenues for reaching members of local communities during emergencies and disaster situations, and should be recognized as such in emergencies, scenario-building and disaster plans. When easily accessible and trusted information sources, and easily understood messages are at a premium, vernacular radio stations are an asset, not a liability.
What is more, these stations already offer sustainable jobs to more Kenyans than, I believe, are employed abroad in our embassies and high commissions. They also extend marketing and advertising channels to parts of the Kenyan market which manufacturers and service providers, usually based in the cities, would find it harder to reach than they now do. Viewed thus, they are an essential component of wealth-creation in the country. Demand for their services grows demand for radios and batteries, thereby further sustaining local industries and jobs, to the extent that these are not undercut by subsidized or cheaper imports.
The foregoing suggests that the use of vernacular radio stations in ways that subvert the national good tends to coincide with the onset of transitional periods, or periods of high anxiety that cut across ethnicities and regions to engulf a whole country – such as during general elections. If that is the case, then the challenge to policy-makers is how to put in place measures that effectively monitor and punish, early enough, errant stations in their specificities – during those periods of great risk. The policy solution should not be unimaginative and too unself-critical. We should not impose blanket punishment against vernacular radio stations as a generic category, in the mistaken calculation that one offender implicates and damns all. During periods of normalcy, live and let live is clearly the norm across the country – and should be the catch-phrase.
In conclusion, it needs to be said that to ban vernacular radio stations would be to ban the future, or certainly to attempt to do so. In the sense that these radio stations are almost by definition, given their foregoing characterization, an integral part of the African renaissance -- which several thinkers have been calling for or endeavouring to realize, in our time. That is, moreover, if one defines the African renaissance as the simultaneous re-flowering and re-configuration – indeed, the elevation (or levitation?) to a distinctly higher plane – of the African way of life, and of the associated modes of expressing it.
Showing posts with label 2000. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2000. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Hillary Clinton for VP?
With the campaign season winding down for this year's nomination of the Democratic Party's flag-bearer, media attention has increasingly turned to the question of who is to be the Presidential nominee's running-mate. That nominee is most certainly now going to be Barack Obama, but is Hillary Clinton a suitable nominee for Vice President?
Many arguments have been put forth in the print and electronic media (including the blogosphere) in support of her nomination as the party's candidate for VP. Let us recall a few. Some argue, even insist, that this is the only way that her millions of ardent supporters -- women, working-class whites and older (baby-boomer) voters -- will vote for the Democratic ticket. Related to that, others point out that if she is not part of the ticket, then she (or the Clinton family as a whole)will not campaign with any enthusiasm for their party's nominee. As an aside, it is pointed out that Al Gore lost to Bush II in 2000 at least in part because he did not make full use of the magic of Brand Clinton.
Moreover, since she has proven to be "more electable" than Obama, she cannot simply be ignored. Indeed, Obama's impending victory at the party's convention in August will be a hollow one, it is argued, because he has failed to win the swing (or red) states which a Democrat must win in the general elections this November to enter the White House. These states include West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio -- not to mention the other must-win states such as California and New York, both of which Hillary also won. And if Florida and Michigan votes were to be discounted, and their delegates not fully seated or not seated at all at the Democratic convention, then the party would essentially be giving the nod to an impostor whom the voters will duly reject in November. So the argument goes, notwithstanding the fact that Obama has so far actually won more states, more pledged delegates and more popular votes, and is leading in the superdelegate-count. In fact, his lead is mathematically insurmountable for Hillary.
Hillary insists that she is not a quitter, and that she will fight until the party officially has a nominee, before which the matter of Florida and Michigan must be resolved. Even before it is, however, she is already claiming to have the majority of the popular votes cast -- that is, when you include, yes, Florida and Michigan. Despite party rules and tradition which give the nod based on delegates, not popular votes, she would like to rewrite the rules and the tradidion, presumably just for this campaign season, to have as the criterion for nomination the majority of popular votes cast. Conveniently ignored, for the moment is that though Gore led Bush by some 500,000 popular votes in 2002, Bush became president because the law gives the nod to the candidate who has the majority of votes in the electoral college, adding up to some 270 votes -- not the popular votes.
Lately, however, Hillary has begun publicly to acknowledge that the odds of her winning the nomination are slim, but she fights on. However, some in her campaign team have begun pushing for her nomination for VP. Even her husband, Bill Clinton, has begun quietly to spearhead the campaign for the number two slot for her. He is doing so while insisting that she is the one the party should nominate for President if it is to have any reasonable hope of returning to the White House after the November election.
Many in Obama's camp, and many non-partisan commentators, have a different view. They believe that Hillary's negative poll-rating (lately in the upper 60s), partly related to her campaign style, her years as a Washington insider and her husband's record in the White House, would be a real drag on Obama's campaign and Presidence -- predicated as it is on change ("Change You Can Believe In"). It would represent, so the argument goes, a return of sorts of the Clintons (and related scandals)to the White House. Obama would not be his own man -- the Clintons would constantly try to upstage him, and Bill would continue to speak, in calculated but always deniable ways, out of turn. In effect, he would be an elephant who would soon run out of China -- and run Obama out of the China Shop (the White House); but none too soon for Hillary to launch her campaign for 2012.
The notion that Obama needs Hillary for victory in November must be interrogated in context. Yes, JFK chose LBJ as his running-mate in 1960, despite the viciousness of that nomination season. The duo did win, but to say that they were not real buddies is to understate it. Kennedy was assassinated in Texas (only incidentally Johnsons' home-state)in 1963, and Johnson became President. He was sworn into office while airborne -- somewhere between Dallas and Washington, D.C. -- on the same Air Force One that was returning the slain President's body back to Washington, D.C.
Johnson and RFK did not see eye-to-eye -- at all, it seems -- and there are many who would argue that the blame for this must be apportioned equally. Johnson won the 1964 Presidential election with a landslide, with Hubert Humphrey (not RFK) as his running-mate, for his own full term. He was entitled to stand again in 1968, but chose not to after (after, as many observers might insist) RFK declared his own candidacy. And then, of course, RFK was assassinated, in California. Johnson did not change his mind about standing -- probably weighed down by the Viet Nam war.
Hillary has lately used RFK's assassination as one reason for her continued campaign for the Democratic nomination. This has sparked off a firestorm. But she pleads innocence, arguing that she harbours no macabre wishes. This, her campaign insists, is not one of the big thunderbolts from the blue sky -- bigger than Obama's comments about "bitter" (and presumably mostly white) rural folk who cling to religion, guns and even bigotry; and bigger than Rev. Wright's rantings -- she had on her mind which might strike Obama and force him out of the race. She needed to be there, as an active candidate, when that hopefully happened -- lest some other (less worthy? less entitled?)candidate jump into the fray. It was, rather, merely a factual but probably ill-considered reference to how long earlier contests (including her own husband's in 1992)have lasted. Ill-considered in May even, as it turns out, after she had made the same reference last March!
I think Hillary and Bill are too selfishly calculating for her to be Obama's running-mate. It seems that they would accept the VP slot only because it would further their interest; and that interest does not necessarily include Obama's victory in November 2008, or possible re-election in 2012. In fact, his victory would be her final loss -- and Bill's. So who says that as nominee for Vice President she would campaign energetically for the ticket's victory this November. And even if they were to win in November, what assurance is there that there would be no persistent attempts to handicap Obama in order to ensure her own ascendancy in 2012? I think that this kind of thinking must have informed LBJ's choice of a running-mate for the 1964 elections.
There are pundits who point out that the Clintons did not fully involve themselves in Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000 -- though, in their view, it was Gore who chose to keep Bill on the sidelines. Probably there is some truth in that -- the same truth which explains why McCain is not too keen to have Bush II publicly involved in his campaign. Other pundits claim that the Clintons were not really enthusiastic about Kerry's bid in 2004, either. In both campaigns, it is pointed out, Hillary's own presidential ambitions could only be furthered by Gore's and then Kerry's failures.
Now, available evidence amply shows that these ambitions of Hillary's were alive and kicking even while the Clintons were still in the White House. I may add that they probably give the definitive reason why she did not leave Bill (and the White House) after the Lewinski scandal. To do so would have been to abandon her own self-constructed future, a future which Obama out of nowhere now stands in the way of -- insolently, disrespectful of proper pecking order.
Let me illustrate my own unease with Hillary being Number Two with the contents of an excerpt from Sally Bedell Smith's book For Love of Politics which appeared in the Vanity Fair edition of November 2007 [the book itself was scheduled for publication in February, 2008]. I have read the excerpt,not yet the book. What does Smith say? Despite some kind of written "pre-nuptial" between Bill the President and Gore the Vice President, Hillary invariably stood in the way; "She was the absolutely necessary person he had to have to bounce things up against, and he was that for her." So the constitutional two-some of President and Vice President became a three-some, with Hillary's inclusion in the making of all major decisions. No wonder she claims to have the experience which Obama does not have -- and which David Gergen, a Presidential advisor, considered then a "rolling disaster".
Smith notes, however, that Hillary's political life reached a milestone on November 6, 1998 -- the day Senator Moynihan declared that he would not seek a fifth term in November 2000 as a Senator from New York. Since the Clintons had already been eying that seat for months, it took her only a few days after the announcement to decide that she would run for that seat. Smith adds that as a sitting President, Bill was in a unique position to boost his vice-president's candidacy, "But in 1999 those resources were diverted from Gore to Hillary 'in a big way'" -- and, Governor Mario Cuomo had noted then, the "implications for Gore [were] very serious."
"Not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner" for Gore, Smith says, "she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president" -- who had announced his own run for President in June 1999 (while the Clinton family was away in Europe). And even before Hillary's senate campaign officially kicked off, she had on one occasion insisted on being invited to a Gore fund-raiser organized by Gore's wife Tipper and her friends in Los Angeles. She was, only to ask for donations for herself from the same audience -- in front of Tipper! That was not to be the end of her, and Bill's, mean-spiritedness.
Smith observes that Bill's behaviour throughout 2000, the last year of his own presidency, "betrayed ambivalence about a Gore victory, at least one earned on the vice president's own terms." This behaviour manifested itself in "making passive-aggressive remarks, belittling Gore in private, grabbing the spotlight with his own star turns, and continuing to argue his innocence in various scandals."
And Hillary's own Senate campaign interests increasingly collided with Gore's presidential ambitions, as was dramatized in September 2000 in a tussle over who should publicize the Federal Trade Commission's report on violence in the media -- the First Lady running for Senate, or the Vice President running for President. To beat her to a limelight which she insisted on sharing -- if necessary, a negotiated sharing -- Gore and Lieberman (his running mate) secretly arranged a New York Times newsbreak, which appeared in the morning of the same September 11 when the FTC report was scheduled for release.
On election night in November 2000, Hillary won her Senate fight, while Gore embarked on a month-long "political purgatory" on account of the Florida recount, which eventually gave Busth the presidency. But, "Almost immediately [after Hillary's victory, and presumably before the Florida recount was completed] the rumors started about a Hillary presidential candidacy in 2004 or 2008," Smith points out.
As I have followed the contest during this primary season on TV and the Internet, and in the print media, I have come to the conclusion that, like many others, that Obama must look for another running-mate. If Hillary wants to be president, it shouldn\t be on Obama's stabbed back. She can leave him alone to fail on his own this November. Then she will be free try her luck again in 2012. I have seen a list of 5 or so perfectly capable running-mates for Obama.
Many arguments have been put forth in the print and electronic media (including the blogosphere) in support of her nomination as the party's candidate for VP. Let us recall a few. Some argue, even insist, that this is the only way that her millions of ardent supporters -- women, working-class whites and older (baby-boomer) voters -- will vote for the Democratic ticket. Related to that, others point out that if she is not part of the ticket, then she (or the Clinton family as a whole)will not campaign with any enthusiasm for their party's nominee. As an aside, it is pointed out that Al Gore lost to Bush II in 2000 at least in part because he did not make full use of the magic of Brand Clinton.
Moreover, since she has proven to be "more electable" than Obama, she cannot simply be ignored. Indeed, Obama's impending victory at the party's convention in August will be a hollow one, it is argued, because he has failed to win the swing (or red) states which a Democrat must win in the general elections this November to enter the White House. These states include West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio -- not to mention the other must-win states such as California and New York, both of which Hillary also won. And if Florida and Michigan votes were to be discounted, and their delegates not fully seated or not seated at all at the Democratic convention, then the party would essentially be giving the nod to an impostor whom the voters will duly reject in November. So the argument goes, notwithstanding the fact that Obama has so far actually won more states, more pledged delegates and more popular votes, and is leading in the superdelegate-count. In fact, his lead is mathematically insurmountable for Hillary.
Hillary insists that she is not a quitter, and that she will fight until the party officially has a nominee, before which the matter of Florida and Michigan must be resolved. Even before it is, however, she is already claiming to have the majority of the popular votes cast -- that is, when you include, yes, Florida and Michigan. Despite party rules and tradition which give the nod based on delegates, not popular votes, she would like to rewrite the rules and the tradidion, presumably just for this campaign season, to have as the criterion for nomination the majority of popular votes cast. Conveniently ignored, for the moment is that though Gore led Bush by some 500,000 popular votes in 2002, Bush became president because the law gives the nod to the candidate who has the majority of votes in the electoral college, adding up to some 270 votes -- not the popular votes.
Lately, however, Hillary has begun publicly to acknowledge that the odds of her winning the nomination are slim, but she fights on. However, some in her campaign team have begun pushing for her nomination for VP. Even her husband, Bill Clinton, has begun quietly to spearhead the campaign for the number two slot for her. He is doing so while insisting that she is the one the party should nominate for President if it is to have any reasonable hope of returning to the White House after the November election.
Many in Obama's camp, and many non-partisan commentators, have a different view. They believe that Hillary's negative poll-rating (lately in the upper 60s), partly related to her campaign style, her years as a Washington insider and her husband's record in the White House, would be a real drag on Obama's campaign and Presidence -- predicated as it is on change ("Change You Can Believe In"). It would represent, so the argument goes, a return of sorts of the Clintons (and related scandals)to the White House. Obama would not be his own man -- the Clintons would constantly try to upstage him, and Bill would continue to speak, in calculated but always deniable ways, out of turn. In effect, he would be an elephant who would soon run out of China -- and run Obama out of the China Shop (the White House); but none too soon for Hillary to launch her campaign for 2012.
The notion that Obama needs Hillary for victory in November must be interrogated in context. Yes, JFK chose LBJ as his running-mate in 1960, despite the viciousness of that nomination season. The duo did win, but to say that they were not real buddies is to understate it. Kennedy was assassinated in Texas (only incidentally Johnsons' home-state)in 1963, and Johnson became President. He was sworn into office while airborne -- somewhere between Dallas and Washington, D.C. -- on the same Air Force One that was returning the slain President's body back to Washington, D.C.
Johnson and RFK did not see eye-to-eye -- at all, it seems -- and there are many who would argue that the blame for this must be apportioned equally. Johnson won the 1964 Presidential election with a landslide, with Hubert Humphrey (not RFK) as his running-mate, for his own full term. He was entitled to stand again in 1968, but chose not to after (after, as many observers might insist) RFK declared his own candidacy. And then, of course, RFK was assassinated, in California. Johnson did not change his mind about standing -- probably weighed down by the Viet Nam war.
Hillary has lately used RFK's assassination as one reason for her continued campaign for the Democratic nomination. This has sparked off a firestorm. But she pleads innocence, arguing that she harbours no macabre wishes. This, her campaign insists, is not one of the big thunderbolts from the blue sky -- bigger than Obama's comments about "bitter" (and presumably mostly white) rural folk who cling to religion, guns and even bigotry; and bigger than Rev. Wright's rantings -- she had on her mind which might strike Obama and force him out of the race. She needed to be there, as an active candidate, when that hopefully happened -- lest some other (less worthy? less entitled?)candidate jump into the fray. It was, rather, merely a factual but probably ill-considered reference to how long earlier contests (including her own husband's in 1992)have lasted. Ill-considered in May even, as it turns out, after she had made the same reference last March!
I think Hillary and Bill are too selfishly calculating for her to be Obama's running-mate. It seems that they would accept the VP slot only because it would further their interest; and that interest does not necessarily include Obama's victory in November 2008, or possible re-election in 2012. In fact, his victory would be her final loss -- and Bill's. So who says that as nominee for Vice President she would campaign energetically for the ticket's victory this November. And even if they were to win in November, what assurance is there that there would be no persistent attempts to handicap Obama in order to ensure her own ascendancy in 2012? I think that this kind of thinking must have informed LBJ's choice of a running-mate for the 1964 elections.
There are pundits who point out that the Clintons did not fully involve themselves in Al Gore's presidential bid in 2000 -- though, in their view, it was Gore who chose to keep Bill on the sidelines. Probably there is some truth in that -- the same truth which explains why McCain is not too keen to have Bush II publicly involved in his campaign. Other pundits claim that the Clintons were not really enthusiastic about Kerry's bid in 2004, either. In both campaigns, it is pointed out, Hillary's own presidential ambitions could only be furthered by Gore's and then Kerry's failures.
Now, available evidence amply shows that these ambitions of Hillary's were alive and kicking even while the Clintons were still in the White House. I may add that they probably give the definitive reason why she did not leave Bill (and the White House) after the Lewinski scandal. To do so would have been to abandon her own self-constructed future, a future which Obama out of nowhere now stands in the way of -- insolently, disrespectful of proper pecking order.
Let me illustrate my own unease with Hillary being Number Two with the contents of an excerpt from Sally Bedell Smith's book For Love of Politics which appeared in the Vanity Fair edition of November 2007 [the book itself was scheduled for publication in February, 2008]. I have read the excerpt,not yet the book. What does Smith say? Despite some kind of written "pre-nuptial" between Bill the President and Gore the Vice President, Hillary invariably stood in the way; "She was the absolutely necessary person he had to have to bounce things up against, and he was that for her." So the constitutional two-some of President and Vice President became a three-some, with Hillary's inclusion in the making of all major decisions. No wonder she claims to have the experience which Obama does not have -- and which David Gergen, a Presidential advisor, considered then a "rolling disaster".
Smith notes, however, that Hillary's political life reached a milestone on November 6, 1998 -- the day Senator Moynihan declared that he would not seek a fifth term in November 2000 as a Senator from New York. Since the Clintons had already been eying that seat for months, it took her only a few days after the announcement to decide that she would run for that seat. Smith adds that as a sitting President, Bill was in a unique position to boost his vice-president's candidacy, "But in 1999 those resources were diverted from Gore to Hillary 'in a big way'" -- and, Governor Mario Cuomo had noted then, the "implications for Gore [were] very serious."
"Not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner" for Gore, Smith says, "she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president" -- who had announced his own run for President in June 1999 (while the Clinton family was away in Europe). And even before Hillary's senate campaign officially kicked off, she had on one occasion insisted on being invited to a Gore fund-raiser organized by Gore's wife Tipper and her friends in Los Angeles. She was, only to ask for donations for herself from the same audience -- in front of Tipper! That was not to be the end of her, and Bill's, mean-spiritedness.
Smith observes that Bill's behaviour throughout 2000, the last year of his own presidency, "betrayed ambivalence about a Gore victory, at least one earned on the vice president's own terms." This behaviour manifested itself in "making passive-aggressive remarks, belittling Gore in private, grabbing the spotlight with his own star turns, and continuing to argue his innocence in various scandals."
And Hillary's own Senate campaign interests increasingly collided with Gore's presidential ambitions, as was dramatized in September 2000 in a tussle over who should publicize the Federal Trade Commission's report on violence in the media -- the First Lady running for Senate, or the Vice President running for President. To beat her to a limelight which she insisted on sharing -- if necessary, a negotiated sharing -- Gore and Lieberman (his running mate) secretly arranged a New York Times newsbreak, which appeared in the morning of the same September 11 when the FTC report was scheduled for release.
On election night in November 2000, Hillary won her Senate fight, while Gore embarked on a month-long "political purgatory" on account of the Florida recount, which eventually gave Busth the presidency. But, "Almost immediately [after Hillary's victory, and presumably before the Florida recount was completed] the rumors started about a Hillary presidential candidacy in 2004 or 2008," Smith points out.
As I have followed the contest during this primary season on TV and the Internet, and in the print media, I have come to the conclusion that, like many others, that Obama must look for another running-mate. If Hillary wants to be president, it shouldn\t be on Obama's stabbed back. She can leave him alone to fail on his own this November. Then she will be free try her luck again in 2012. I have seen a list of 5 or so perfectly capable running-mates for Obama.
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