MUGA:Trump and the end of African self-contempt

I can still remember a rather uncomfortable discussion I had with an American journalist in the period immediately before the 2013 general election.

What he wanted to know was just how it was possible that someone who had been indicted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, could possibly be a viable presidential candidate.

He had in mind our immediate former president Uhuru Kenyatta of course. And in his view – and it was a view shared by many others across the globe – the mere existence of an ICC indictment should have immediately disqualified Uhuru from running for president.

And that a second ICC indictee, William Ruto, was to be Uhuru Kenyatta’s running mate now took the whole issue beyond anything my friend would possibly consider as comprehensible.

In such a conversation it is hard not to defend your countrymen and to insist that they must be considered innocent until proven guilty. For what he was criticising of course was not the two indictees, but the Kenyan political and legal system.

A system which – I insisted – despite all its flaws, had a momentum towards peace and stability, and so irrespective of who was elected president, not very much would change in the way the country’s affairs were managed.

I thought of this conversation from just about a decade ago, earlier this week as I read of first, how former US President Donald Trump has been indicted of multiple charges in multiple US jurisdictions.

Prominent among these is his indictment in Fulton County, Georgia, where, along with 18 co-defendants, he faces “more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his electoral defeat in the state. It is the fourth time this year Trump has faced criminal charges.”

So says the CNN website. 

The other news from the US is that although Trump did not bother attending the recent debate hosted by Fox News for leading candidates for the Republican Party nominations (which are still almost a year away), he is so far ahead of his rivals for that nomination, that – in most feasible scenarios – they have no chance of catching up with him.

Also, Trump's fundraising for the presidential race has only accelerated upwards since his indictment.

In short, on the one hand, the US courts find that he has a case to answer on dozens of criminal charges. And on the other, his supporters are now, more than ever, determined to return him to the presidency.

This reminds me of yet another conversation I had with one of my many friends in journalism, this time one from West Africa. The conversation took place a few months after Trump was sworn in back in January 2017, following his astonishing defeat of the heavily favoured Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

And I should point out, since I must assume that most Kenyans are not personally acquainted with West African journalists, that they tend to have a level of passionate engagement in the politics of their various countries, that you will rarely see in Kenyan journalists.

Anyway, to my friend, Trump being elected president was a source of deep relief. And I can here only summarise his elaborate views rather briefly.

He pointed out that for many years, he along with many other journalists, writers, and thinkers in his country, had been tormented by this question:

“What really is wrong with us? Why do our people so often vote in leaders who it is perfectly obvious are only seeking high office in order to benefit themselves, their families and their clans or tribes? Why is it that an idealistic aspirant for the presidency of any African country is not only doomed to ignominious defeat, but is actually considered to be a figure of fun, a joke, in the eyes of many of his countrymen?”

But Trump’s elevation to the US presidency had brought my friend’s anguish to an end. After years of longing for the day his own country would evolve into “a mature democracy like America”, he had just seen the Americans vote for a man like Trump to be their president.

To my friend, this marked “the end of African self-contempt”.