Searching for the Soul of East Africa

STATE OF
EAST AFRICA
SEARCHING FOR THE SOUL OF EAST AFRICA 2007
Presented by Aidan Eyakuze
SID East Africa
October 2007
East African Scenarios Project
Key Question:
„What will become of the East African region,
peoples and institutions?‟
Process:
Seven Workshops (Feb 2005 – Apr 2007)
Outputs:
State of East Africa Reports (SoEARs)
Research Compendium
Scenario Stories
Rationale for SoEARs
• Information, Insight, Imagination
• SoEAR 2006 - Trends, Tensions and Contradictions:
The Leadership Challenge compilation and analysis of
data for over 100 indicators. Highlighted tension
between:
– Growing human needs and the declining capacity of natural
environment to meet them
– Communities, linked to competition for limited resources and
resulting in high and low-intensity conflict
– People‟s aspirations and the harsh reality of daily experience
• Data represented the formal face, quantifiable side of
the EA region
SoEAR 2007
• Hard data does not capture the full complexity
of human society, interaction and evolution.
There is much more to the East African region
than meets the „statistical‟ eye.
• SoEAR 2007 aims to:
– Explore these intangible realities;
– Understand their contribution to regional
integration, and
– Insert them into the ongoing debate
The Tension of Two Worlds
• We straddle two worlds
– That of our ancestors and our deep history
– That of rationality, logic, measurement, modernity
• Reflected in the dichotomy between formal
and informal (institutions, ways of being,
relationships)
• We are constantly navigating and negotiating
between these two worlds; they co-exist, with
varying visibility and influence, but cannot be
ignored
State of East Africa Report 2007
• “Searching for the Soul of East Africa”
• An exploration of the content, process and
outcomes of this navigation and negotiation.
• 7 essays and 18 cartoons reflect on themes
around regional integration.
• Key questions:
‘Who are we and what shapes us?’
• All contributions explore through different entry
points how synthesis and arbitrage are
shaping our region
Synthesis
• The integration of two or more pre-existing
elements which results in a new creation
Arbitrage
Synthesis
Arbitrage
• Playing off the difference between two
elements for private gain or advantage
Ethnicity & Race:
The Curse of East African Politics
• Ruling classes in East Africa are adept at dividing the citizens
to guarantee the permanence of their rule (Arbitrage)
• East Africa has two tribes, the rich and the poor.
• East Africa is racist and this racism is out in the open in
relations between Africans and East African South Asians
• East Africa without ethnic and racial communities is neither
possible nor desirable… [they] are here to stay. The burning issue
is not the existence of these communities but the politics around
them.
• How can East Africans address the challenges of ethnicity and
race in the region? What type of conversation is necessary?
(Synthesis?)
Shoeshine Boundaries, Postcard Cities
& Villagisation of the City
• Typical EA city is a
contradictory picture
• Postcard section:
geometrically organised,
relatively affluent, better
serviced (welfare, sanitation,
security)
• State: provides, protects,
regulates, arbitrates,
provides a human outlook
and works in favour of
those who live there
Shoeshine Boundaries, Postcard Cities
& Villagisation of the City
The „other‟ side: disorderly,
unplanned, unsafe, underserviced „informal‟ section
where the poor and newlyarrived villagers eke out
their lives
Arbitrage: State intervenes
selectively usually in favour of
the Postcard citizens
State: neither protects
rights nor provides services,
perforated at best,
selectively dispenses law
and order.Vigilantes rule,
self-help mechanisms
provide livelihoods
Shoeshine Boundaries, Postcard Cities
& Villagisation of the City
• Boundary policed by an army of shoe-shiners who:
– Keep aesthetics: entrants to the Postcard must not look
dusty, muddy or poor
– Cash-in on aspirational yearnings of the visitors to the
Postcard
– Remind us of the link between the Postcard and the
shanty-town
• Future of our cities must transcend the Postcard and
attached shanty-towns. Our cities must become the
locus of the region‟s creative energies where we can
all enjoy and contribute to the liberating effects of
urban life. (Synthesis)
People who aren‟t afraid
of East Africa
• Kenya „loses‟ Ksh 2.3 bn ($34m) to Uganda in fees
for university and secondary education each year.
The number of students seeking tertiary and
secondary education in Uganda stands at 16,000.‟
Kenyan Asst. Minister of Education to Parliament, June 8, 2006
• East Africa has probably the largest and most
efficient cross-border transport system in Africa.
Dozens of buses cross our borders every day.
• The Bagisu (Uganda) and the Luhya (Kenya) meet
and agree on a time and a place and all matters of
ritual regarding the annual circumcision
timetable…the knives never come out at an hour
and a place that has not been agreed.
People who aren‟t afraid
of East Africa
• East Africa is not just a bureaucratic construct that
only comes together when the leaders meet at their
quarterly summits to define its „rules‟; it is a day-today experience for thousands of its citizens
• The citizen-driven dynamics shaping the contours
that the official architecture of the EAC will follow
are numerous…
The individual intent may be arbitrage, but the outcome
is synthesis
„One Network‟ and „Just Like Home‟
EA Mobile Phone Subscribers
(2000-07)
2000
9,000
2005
8,000
Latest figures (Dec 06-Mar 07)
8,000
7,000
6,500
Thousands
6,000
Subscribers (2000-2007): 420,000 to 17.7
million
5,000
Turnover (Sep 2006): $1.1 billion
4,000
Gross Margins: exceed 40%
3,000
2,594
2,000
1,000
426
127
111
127
39
16
239
-
Kenya
Tanzania
Uganda
Rwanda
Burundi
„One Network‟
and „Just Like Home‟
• 2000-07: explosive growth in mobile phone
subscribers in EA; 420,000  17.7 million;
• Revenues $1.1 bn (Sep 06); Burundi GDP (2005):
approx. $800m
• Telecom firms are arbitraging (One Network).
• Strategic scheming is of no benefit to telcos
unless the consumer is also benefiting. Will this
lead to synthesis?
• 18 million subscribers + 7 networks + 100 banks
= EA Monetary Union?
Dancing to a cross-border beat
• John Ngereza, Les Wanyika, Sina Makosa;
Tanzanian musician who pioneered a wave of
migration by musicians around East Africa in
search of a fan base from which to make a
living (arbitrage)
• 1970s-80s: hottest bands in Kenya were not
Kenyan but from around the region
• Today: EA Bashment Crew, Uganda’s Chameleon
sings in Kiswahili, EATV as a premier conveyor of
youth popular culture
Takeu/Utake, Kapuka, Boomba, Genge,
Bongo Flava
„Today the youth of East Africa proudly share
home-grown music, from Bongo Flava in
Tanzania, to Luga-Flow in Uganda and HipHop in Kenya. Even Taarab music has found a
hip-hop innovation in Taarap!‟
Juma Mwapachu, EAC Secretary-General, April 2007
In searching for the soul…
„There are therefore both positive and negative
memories in our consciousness, which constitute a
single whole which we can interrogate in the search
for solutions. These two elements in our
consciousness are not opposites, but two sides of
the same memory that are represented in our total
consciousness. They can only be separated with
great injury to our psychic well being, which is even
now manifesting itself in the current conflicts.‟
Prof Dani Nabudere, Afrika Studies Centre, Mbale
Asanteni
STATE OF
EAST AFRICA
SEARCHING FOR THE SOUL OF EAST AFRICA 2007