Ahmedinejad, in Obama's Fatherland

In August 2008, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, paid a state visit to Turkey. Prior to the visit, there was much debate in Turkey concerning what the visit portended.

Last week, the Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, paid a state visit to Kenya -- the first by a Turkish head of state. He came bearing gifts.

Hot on his heels, Ahmedinejad began his own two-day official visit to Kenya yesterday (Tuesday, February 24th), as the first stop in his two-country African journey, the other being, bafflingly, the Comoros. He also came bearing gifts, and the promise of improved contact.

Kenya has a long historical link with the middle east or Asia Minor as a whole. However, I see no triangular geopolitical connection, or timing, in the Iranian's visit to Turkey, and in the near-simultaneous Turkish and Iranian state-visits to Kenya? Was Kenya discussed in Ankara? I don't think so -- but you never know, Obama being who/what he has become. Was America? Perhaps. Is Kenya growing in stature, given its strategic location? Perhaps not, but it should be. We, another lot, will make it.

What is certain is that there has been no public debate, none at all, in Kenya concerning either visit. One would have thought that Ahmedinejad, in particular, would come in for some heated commentary. There have been private conversations, to be sure, about what Obama (what America) might think about all this. But Iran and Turkey are our long-standing trading contacts. And both leaders have been a study in proper diplomatical protocol and personal humility while here, as far as I can tell.

Most important of all is that Kenyans love and welcome those who, unlike the Artur Brothers, visit them with a clean heart. They love Queen Elizabeth, for example. They didn't care much for Presidents Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, who, while visiting East Africa, avoided Kenya like the plague while they were in office. Obama was here in 2006, as Senator. So was Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt a hundred years ago (in 1909), after he had left the White House. That was just eight years after the Uganda Railway reached Kisumu (that same rail by which, upon arrival in Mombasa, Roosevelt travelled inland to Nairobi), eight years before my own father was born in Seme (some 35 km from Kisumu), and eleven years before Kenya became officially a British colony. In his wonderful and really, really captivating 2008 book, Kenya: A Country in the Making 1880-1940, Nigel Pavitt notes that Roosevelt stayed in Kenya for eleven months, shooting game and doing stuff. He had some wild ideas of his own, but his "relaxed, friendly manner" earned him many settler admirers here. Pavitt's book is proof that seeing is truly believing the magic that's Kenya (click here for a review of the book).

Is there, though, any message for Obama in Ahmedinejad's visit to Obama's fatherland? A sort of ugali or pilau diplomacy, perhaps? A possible coffee or chai tete-a-tete? An exploration of contact opportunity in a country of contacts and contrasts?

More to the point, is there any gain to Ahmedinejad in his visit, at this time? I'm still scratching my head. He did come because he was invited -- invited to come at a time of his choosing. What I know is that, while he is here, Tehran is scheduled to commission its first nuclear power plant; built, ostensibly, to generate electric power for the country.

Iran has a historical trade and cultural link with Kenya, particularly the Kenyan coast -- which traces as far back, perhaps, as AD 600 to AD 800. A number of Kiswahili words, in fact, have Persial roots; and there are people, Kenyans, on the Kenyan coast with Iranian roots.

Iran has been a major proponent of "Dialogue among Civilizations" -- a drive which predates Ahmedinejad's Presidency. It was Mohammad Khatami, a former Iranian President, who coined the term to counteract Huttington's more confrontational idea of Clash of Civilizations. Khatami persuaded the UN to declare 2001 the year of Dialogue among Civilizations. There was going to be an "Indian Ocean Rim" component of this dialogue, we had been made to understand. Alas, 2001 was also to become the year of 911, and this really muddied the waters.

May the dialogue begin anew, and perhaps here!

Nuclear Energy For Kenya? Not For a Long While!

It was surprising to read in one of the local dailies yesterday that the Kenyan government delegation, led by the Prime Minister, which was attending the Investment in the New Kenya conference in London, had asked UK investors to help Kenya develop a nuclear energy sector.

It was surprising on several grounds. First, the debate on the merits and demerits of nuclear power generation in Kenya has not even started here; certainly not in the public domain. This means that Kenyans are nowhere near reaching a consensus on this controversial and even dangerous idea; and that the consent of the governed is even farther from being sought or secured. Second, and following from the first, this news was breaking in London, not Nairobi -- which is not the way to go about such consequential matters.

Third, the timing of this nuclear idea could not have been worse -- and this makes both the idea and its timing patently frivolous. Why do I say so? One has simply to consider the idea in the context of the raging controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the long-running geopolitical tensions fuelled by North Korea's nuclear programme (which is now to be scaled down or even, hopefully, wound up), to arrive at this unhappy conclusion. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it is reported that the audience which heard the Energy Minister's (Kiraitu Murungi's) suggestion, which was supported by the Prime Minister (Raila Odinga), responded with "laughter."
I read that laughter to signal both surprise and discomfort.

The arguments advanced for the nuclear option were essentially that: (a) it is a significantly cheaper source of electricity than hydropower; and, b) the sources of hydropower are under threat from the wanton destruction by Kenyans of water towers, the emblematic one being Mau Forest. This suggests to me that if the water towers were to be secured against destruction, then the case for the nuclear option, at this time, might not be persuasive simply on the grounds of its relative cheapness -- and when there are viable alternative sources of energy (such as geothermal, solar, wind and even coal).

So, why has the leadership failed to secure the water catchment areas -- and why are they not embarrassed to own up to this failure, and to see it for what it says about them and us? The answer, my friends, as one might say, is blowing in the uncertain political winds.

Let's face it: It is not yet the time for nuclear power generation in Kenya, and it is not likely to be before 2050. The home-grown technical expertise and capital base for such a venture are simply not there yet -- and are decades away from being in place. Kenya does not yet have a private sector entity with the muscle to do so, and the public sector is paralyzed by self-interest and private deals -- which are not in the public interest. If we were to go for nuclear energy now, we might in effect be doing it for other interests with greater financial muscle and political motivation: such as Libya's sovereign wealth fund, to which we seem to be surrendering everything that matters lately (oil pipelines, oil refineries, petrol stations, hotels and prime city plots).

The level of corruption in the country remains too high to allow for the safe introduction of nuclear technology at this time. One remembers, for example, that we could not, in the recent past, ensure the procurement of appropriate water purification chemicals, instead of plain chalk. How, in this kind of atmosphere, are we going to ensure the safe keeping and disposal of spent nuclear fuel-rods? And how are we going to protect the public from the dangers of radiation leaks and other accidents arising from a dysfunctional and intrusive polity? In whose parochial hands are we going to insist that the contracting for -- and, more importantly, control of -- nuclear facilities must always be?

The national political tectonics are also still too volatile to have such a facility in the country, which might be the focus of attention of warring ethnic bands. Before we can start serious planning, let us go through another three to five general elections to have some clarity about the stability and direction of our political culture and institutions. In the meantime, let us empower our universities to build up a critical mass of expertise in this and related fields. And let us allow time for our private sector to mature and acquire the requisite capacity. In the meantime, let us fully exploit our potential in hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, coal and fossil fuel.