The British Parliamentary Democracy and Failed Colonial Experiments in Africa
I have always referred to
Kenya as a failed colonial experiment. What the British, and later with the
support of Americans, wanted to build didn't work. Sorry! We already need a
spare polity. No amount of repairs can save Kenya as currently constituted. If
diseases and mediocrity due to collapsed health and education systems won’t
destroy us then terrorism will. If theft of public resources won't kill us
mediocrity in management of public affairs will. If human induced disasters like the Patel dam won't finish us, poisoned foods will. But. What
should worry is not that Kenya is actually a failed experiment but rather that
what we have seen unfold in Kenya for three decades is a norm than it is an
exception. Now. Thing is, we worried too much about our predicament, e.g.
navigating the 2017 general election and the shenanigans that followed, such as
the infamous handshake, that we hardly noticed leave alone have an opportunity
to mourn the degeneration of the empire and the death of British parliamentary
democracy. What shall we tell the toddler sons and daughters of South Africa
now? Or the grownups of Nigeria or Zimbabwe? That we were wrong or that the
British lied to us?
The British Parliamentary Democracy and Failed Colonial Experiments in Africa
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
August 06, 2019
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