The Midas Touch

When Kamau Kingara was gunned down within the shadow of the presidential residence it seemed Kenya was doomed to descend into lawlessness and violent anarchy. That Kingara and his murdered friend were both campaigning against the police for illegal killings suggests that the brazenness of the attack was meant to send a message.

To their credit, the people have not been intimidated into helpless passivity. The day after the execution protesters had to be subdued by the Nairobi police who fired tear gas at students and demonstrators. But such is the tragedy that has befallen that once proud and possible land-- a legacy owed to the corrupting influence of the New World Order. As Professor Ali Masrui warned prophetically at the 23rd Congress for of the Society for International Development nine months after 9-11: "it is not just capitalism, which can be globalized. Anarchy can also be globalized. There was a time when we only knew that when the United States sneezed, Africa and Asia started coughing and shivering. But there are now signs that when Africa and Asia are in pain, it may not be long before the United States has a headache."

It was Kingara's determination to ameliorate Kenya's ills brought on by a quarter century of graft and corruption followed by the dictates of the imperial World Bank and the IMF's 'free market principles' engendering state sanctioned theft that led to the creation of his people's foundation.

About the Oscar Foundation
The tale of the social, political & economic woes & suffering that poor Kenyans are undergoing needs no retelling. The pains, fears and anxieties being experienced are written all over their faces. The question is, who will supply the true light? Who will lead the change for national salvation?

Kingara had framed his vision of OFFLACK poignantly-- "to translate into a fact the fictitious phrase that every man is deemed to know the law and that every man knows his rights and obligation and can seek justice through the law."

It has become common wisdom for us "westerners" to blame Mugabe for bringing Zimbabwe to its present abject despair. Never do we consider the possibility that the country's dilemma stems less from Mugabe's "racist misrule" than his stubborn resistance to accede to the New World Order. Europe grew rich exploiting Africa's riches. It is not preposterous to suggest that the anarchy that has spread from Rwanda to Zaire and now reaches to Sudan and the tragedy of Darfur is a result of the continent's former colonial masters sowing chaos. As observed from Lebanon to Iraq to Equatorial Guinea a country in chaos is easy to loot. When we view the anarchy taking hold across poor countries against the backdrop of our lawless bankers it comes clear that the New World Order is little more than a scheme for global extortion.

Here is how an astute Zimbabwean sums up the neoliberal game plan.

Kenya has a humanitarian crisis and the United Nations is appealing for US$390.05 million.

What has happened to all the World Bank/IMF loans that have been put its way by the friendly West? Is Kenya on sanctions? No! Does Kenya have commercial farmers? Yes, in the Rift Valley. So what has happened to the productivity of these farms that Kenya is now looking for $172.75 millions in food aid? Has there been a land reform programme in Kenya? No, the peasants are still disposed of their lands.

If Kenya has a humanitarian crisis whilst it enjoys the goodwill of the West, then it does not bode well for Zimbabwe under the financial plans of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T.

The West's strategy is to borrow money from China/East at a low interest rate and then re-package it as an IMF/World Bank loan and give it to Tsvangirai at very high interest rate. There goes our Chiadzwa diamonds for free. Has Tsvangirai got any Plan B at all?

Western countries have now ditched the free market economic fundamentals that have led their economies into free fall and are now fervent adoptees of State Capitalism as practiced by China and India (which appear to have weathered the economic tsunami much better than the West).

Ten years ago Kenya was being touted by the World Bank and IMF as a model for neo-liberalism. But prosperity cannot exist where there is no stable government-- yet it remains the great wish of our global capitalists to undermine the democracies of weaker states. The consequence of that strategy has been presaged by the Greeks. Kenya now turns its eyes to the ever more powerful East. As Herodotus and Ovid explained, in the end Midas was blinded not by his gold but by his own short-sighted greed.