Dr. Nyaga Mwaniki

By JIM GENARO

Though Nigeria and Zimbabwe share a great deal of common heritage and similar histories, the two East African countries have taken widely divergent paths that have led to great economic and social disparities today, according to Dr. Nyaga Mwaniki.

Mwaniki is an associate professor and acting head of Western Carolina Universityís anthropology and sociology department. He presented a talk titled ìA Comparison of Developments in Kenya and Zimbabweî at the World Affairs Council of Western North Carolina on Nov. 12.

About 150 people attended the talk at UNC Ashevilleís Owen Conference Center.

Kenya and Zimbabwe both were colonized by British companies. However, at the time, Mwaniki said, Kenya ó then known as the ìEast African Protectorateî ó was of little importance to its colonial overseers.

ìKenya was just a territory to pass through to Uganda,î Mwaniki noted. ìWhat was important was Uganda.î

The British could relate and work better with Uganda, which was ruled by a king with whom they could negotiate. By contrast, he said, ìKenya was a country that did not even have chiefs.î

Eventually, the Imperial British East Africa Company, which was charged with overseeing the territory, went bankrupt as a result of its failure to find gold or other valuable minerals there. This paved the way for Kenya to become a British colony in 1920, Mwaniki told the audience.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe ó then called Southern Rhodesia ó also was being settled by the British. The British South Africa Company colonized the territory and a large influx of white colonists began to settle the countyís highlands ó the most fertile and temperate parts of the country.

White settlers also moved in large numbers to Kenya.

ìSo itís not surprising that the two countries became known as ëwhite menís countries,íî Mwaniki said.
In both countries, independence from the colonists was hard-fought. In that struggle, each country saw the emergence of a strong political leader ó Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe (1980-present) and Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya (1964-1978).

Both men were highly educated, Mwaniki noted. Kenyatta was an intellectual and an anthropologist, he said, while Mugabe holds seven degrees, including several he earned while in prison.†††

Though both men are considered ìfreedom fightersî in much of Africa, this notion is questionable in Kenyattaís case, Mwaniki said.

Unlike Mugabe, Kenyatta did not actually take part in fighting, but was more of a political and philosophical leader.

And while Mugabe was highly influenced by Marxism and Maoism, Kenyatta was a capitalist and a staunch defender of property rights, Mwaniki said.

ìKenyatta was a conservative, from an African point of view,î he told the audience. ìHe never deviated from the capitalist-development ideology.î

Meanwhile, Mugabe is mostly a ìcloset Marxist,î who has never really been able to implement his socialist ideals, Mwaniki said.

This ideological divide between the two men accounts for much of what transpired as the two nations dealt, in the aftermath of independence, with the issue of redistributing land that had been occupied by white settlers.

In both countries, whites owned the bulk of the good land. Despite being a minority in Zimbabwe, European settlers owned more than half the country.

As a result, native Africans were forced to live in overcrowded conditions with high unemployment and civil unrest.

In the 1920s, this unrest had erupted into violence as the Africans undertook a large-scale effort to drive the whites out.

Later, as the countries began to redistribute land, Kenyatta promoted a policy of buying back land from willing white settlers, whereas Mugabe sought to take the land by force.

Mwaniki said that at the heart of the debate was the question posed by many African nationalists: Why should white colonists be paid for land they did not pay for when they settled there?

Kenyatta argued that reconciliation was an important step in Kenyaís moving forward. In his first speech as prime minister of the newly independent nation, Kenyatta welcomed white residents to the new Kenya. This peacemaking gesture was derided by many Kenyans who harbored anger toward the colonists, Mwaniki told the audience.

Nonetheless, it set the tone for a process of reconcilliation that has contributed to Kenyaís vitality and relative stability today.

In Zimbabwe, on the other hand, Mugabe sought to force whites out of the land they had occupied.

ìHis attitude was, ëIn the first place, this was our land ó why should we pay for it?íî Mwaniki said.

Though the land transfer went smoothly at first, Mugabe began sending armed soldiers to invade and occupy white farms.

Furthermore, he used the land as a political tool, giving properties to those favorable to his administration.

In the aftermath of its gaining independence in 1980, Zimbabwe appeared to be making great strides, Mwaniki said, ìan example of what African countries can be.î

However, in time, Mugabeís violence and corruption began to wreck the countryís economy, rendering it ìanother failed new African country,î he added.

He then took questions from the audience.

A female student asked Mwaniki, ìWhat are other countries doing about it and what are other African leaders doing?î

ìItís really a shame,î Mwaniki replied. He said that African leaders often are unwilling to criticize each other because of their own shortcomings.

ìMost of them have been hypocrites or dictators or mismanaged their economies,î he said.

The student then asked whether Zimbabwe should ìlook to the Westî for help.

ìThe West has given up,î Mwaniki responded. ìMugabe has not helped,î he added.

Mugabeís one-party system, Marxist rhetoric and chaotic land-transfer program have alienated Western nations and led to aid cutoff, he noted.

ìIsnít there a lot of corruption (in Kenya)?î a man asked.

ìWhy open up a can of worms?î Mwaniki joked.

He said that corruption is rampant in Kenya ó probably even more so than in Zimbabwe.

Only Nigeria has more widespread corruption than Kenya, he added.

A man asked about the productivity of farms run by native Africans in Kenya and Zimbabwe, as opposed to the productivity of their white predecessors on the land. Suggesting that the Africans had failed to be productive on the same land that had thrived when white farmers tended it, the man asked, ìWhy arenít they producing corn as well?î

ìHaving land is one thing, but having the resources to make that land productive is another,î Mwaniki answered.

In Kenya, Africans had been prohibited from growing corn, coffee and other profitable crops that the white settlers grew.

Furthermore, in Zimbabwe, land was more often granted to Mugabeís loyal deputies than to people who necessarily had any agricultural experience.

In many cases, several tracts of land are owned by a single person, who cannot utilize all of them.
However, Mwaniki added, even under white rule, much of the settlersí land was underutilized.

A man asked about the rights of indigenous peoples in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

Mwaniki replied that racial tensions still exist, but that Kenya has fared much better in developing a harmonious relationship between whites and blacks.

ìIt really is a very multicultural country,î he said. Kenya has large populations of Europeans, Indians, and Arabs in addition to native Africans.

ìTo what extent are these other non-African groups participating in the government of Kenya?î a woman asked.

Mwaniki answered that whites play central roles in agriculture, administrative positions and even politics.

Meanwhile, Arabs are very active in the countryís economy, he said.

Most of these people are Swahili ó an ethnic group descended from Arab merchants who intermarried with coastal Africans but maintain an essentially Arab culture.

The countryís diversity also contributes to a very complex set of laws. These include African customs and Islamic Sharia law, as well as the countyís national statutory law, which Mwaniki called ìthe unified law that nobody listens to."