Kenya’s Julius Yego poses next to a monitor showing his world-leading throw of 92.72 metres at the recent IAAF Championships in Beijing. Yego and other Kenyan global icons should be used as ambassadors to further the implementation of Vision 2030. PHOTO | AFP
As Safaricom’s recent video homage to our nation reaches an emotional and goose bump-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 “imaginers”.
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 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 others, we are home to jaw-dropping savannahs and the best safaris in the world. 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 James Mwangi to that list – among others, all of them achieving greatness; all of them Kenyan.
To others still, mentioning no names: we’re a #hotbedofterror. 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 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 east to west, ports, airports, water and sanitation facilities. We need a lot of the ‘what’. But, arguably, we are still grappling with the ‘how’.
Chinese-built-or-funded infrastructure 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, sometimes the image is not as attractive as we hoped. This is because there are four ills that bedevil our society: tribe, religion, money and the propagation of corruption.
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 human, but in this desperate longing to belong, we have 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 is 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 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 the Coast. Yes, we need the international visitors who have become 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 uses 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 child 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, 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.
The ‘why’ is less about who we are now, but who do we want to be? It’s a sad 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. The mentality exists because we do not have a national value system.
There are still sadder trends. As an entrepreneur who has tirelessly 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 talks with countless entrepreneurs who can attest to this culture of scavengers and predators. But there are lots of positives. M-Pesa changed the banking industry.
Huduma Services have transformed the way we interact with government. These are worldwide innovations being used as a template for nations light years 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?
The action this government is taking bespeaks a drive towards the new Kenya: harder, better, faster, stronger. To borrow the narrative from the 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?
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.
Mr Macharia is founder and CEO, SevenSeas Technologies (SST) Group.
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