Tuesday 22 January 2008

Wonders will never cease!

Let's be blunt. Not a small amount of the political commentary in the Western press about the recent troubles in Kenya has been drivel. The kind of drivel you could only be dreamed up by a hack who spends his time behind a desk in some cosy corner of London and chatting with like-minded friends in trendy wine bars.

It was a lovely surprise to read one of the best stories explaining some things to a Western readership in one of the worst offenders, the Guardian.
"The EU has only 23 languages; Africa has at least 2,000. Kenya alone has 40. Like an imagined Europe unified by force by outsiders, Africans played no part in the creation of their nation states. Their boundaries were drawn on maps in Europe by Europeans who had never even been to Africa and with no regard for existing political systems and boundaries. Half a century later, Africans were given flags and national anthems, airlines and armies and told they were now independent; Kenyans, Nigerians or Chadians."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,,2235987,00.html

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