Kudos for Dikembe Mutombo

Following is a speech I gave at the January 25, 2011 awards banquet of Athletes for a Better World. That organization honored Dikembe Mutombo with the Wooden Cup for his humanitarian work, especially the hospital he built, in his home country of the Congo.

Good Evening, Bon Soir, Hamjambo, Mbote

I have just greeted you in four of Africa’s thousands of languages. The Africa that Dikembe Mutombo represents is diverse. There are thousands of languages, thousands of vibrant cultures, thousands of different traditions scattered across the vast continent. The variety of differences and the contrasts are astounding. Some nomadic pastoralists herd cattle, camels and goats as they have done for centuries, many millions of Africans subsist on the production of their small farms, but others grow cash crops like coffee, tea or cocoa and sell it to the world’s market. Many more millions now live in cities where they eek a living from road side stands or the lucky ones have wage employment in the modern sector. Roughly speaking about half of Africans are Muslim and the other half Christian. Yet where ever Africans are, or however they worship, Africans retain profound links to their families and communities.

Values, such as those that undergird Athletes for A Better World, are indeed universal. Thus, Americans and Africans have many values in common, but how we emphasize them may differ.

Africans place a special value on family. In America we think of our families as Mom and Dad and the kids. We have grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins some of whom perhaps we rarely see. So our universe of relatives – especially those we interact with frequently – is fairly small. In contrast African families are huge. Mom and Dad usually have about seven or eight children and there may be another eight or more step- brothers and sisters. Children are celebrated. In the Central African Republic, for example, on the national day when awards are handed out to politicians, diplomats and generals, one of the most celebrated distinctions is that of “mama decoree” given to mothers who have successfully raised at least eight children to adulthood.

Usually an African family lives in a village and since large families have been present for generations in the same place, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of nearby kin. Family members look out for each other. No one lacks for advice, or shelter or food or help when needed with crops or cattle. These days when more and more children go to primary school, families rally to provide school fees, especially for those who go on to high school and beyond.

Africans respect their elders, folks who have gained experience by living out their lives. Their status is high and their wisdom applauded.

Being in a family entails obligations. Just as American kids have – or should have – some regular chores, Africans kids do too. Boys look after the cows or goats, girls fetch water and mind younger siblings. There are many other tasks. Living in a family where everyone has to contribute enstills a strong sense of responsibility to others. And as a child’s horizons expand to the larger community around him, this sense of responsibility also expands.

It is a two way street. The family and community expects a continued sense of involvement and support from those individuals it has nurtured and who have gone on to bigger things. They become role models not just for family, but for their community and in Mutombo’s case for an entire nation, if not a continent, of youths. In turn individuals who have registered success in life, also feel the obligation to give back. This completes the circle of strong family and community values.

We see clearly that Dikembe Mutombo has given back and that he plans to continue to do so.

Most governments in Africa, including that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have not provided sufficient or adequate medical services to their peoples. Continent wide – infant mortality is high, life expectancy is low. Prenatal care is non-existent and mothers and infants suffer accordingly. Poor sanitation, contaminated water, and malnutrition compound all maladies. Children succumb to diseases like measles, malaria and dysentery. Tuberculosis, pneumonia and now AIDS afflict older folks. In many areas it is not that the population is underserved by modern medical establishments, it is simply that they are not served at all. Thus, wherever a church mission, an individual or a private foundation steps forward to fill the void, the impact on the community is miraculous. All of a sudden there is care, medicine, and expertise.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the political class, that is the men and today a few women, who have risen to power and status are often referred to as “big men.” It’s a phenomen not unique to the Congo, after their election to Parliament my Kenyan and Ugandan friends would pat their big bellies and proudly state, “I am eating.”

Although the term “big men” has some derogatory meaning embedded in it – just as our term for political “fat cats” does, it does reflect the reality that these individuals do have the opportunity to improve life in their communities. Of course, many have done that.

Mutombo at 7 feet 2 inches is obviously a big man physically, but he has a big heart too. And he arrives on the scene as a big man without derogatory inferences. His giving is from the heart, his giving is in accordance with the values of family and community that are intrinsic to him.

It is entirely proper that a values oriented organization like Athletes for a Better World honor Dikembe MuTOMbo’s contribution and engagement in seeking to make a better world.

Thank you.

The Clouds Beneath the Sun - a book review

This is my review of The Clouds Beneath the Sun, by Mackenzie Ford, Doubleday, NY, 2009.

This novel is set in Kenya in 1961. Although fiction, the author clearly draws upon the famous Leaky family for inspiration. The fictional Deacons are all noted paleontologists . Philandering patriarch Jock is recently dead, but wife Eleanor carries on afterward and runs the dig in the Kihara Gorge (read Olduvai) with an iron fist. One son, Jack flies his own plane and is involved in the politics of the emerging nation. Another son, Christopher, as well as other characters filter in and out of the story.

The plot circles around a beautiful newly minted PhD, Natalie Nelson, who, carrying quite a bit of her own emotional baggage, joins the excavation. She witnesses events surrounding the murder of a colleague and is subsequently drawn into a twisting drama as she decides whether or not to testify. Because the alleged murder is Maasai, in whose territory the Kihara Gorge lies, in testifying she might put the whole excavation site and its valuable finds at great risk. The story is compounded by a love interest and fraught with jealousies – both personal and professional.

I found a great number of nits to pick in this otherwise fairly well paced novel. First the author sets the book in 1961, well before independence, but then goes on to mention on several occasions contact with the American or Dutch embassies or the British High Commission. Flatly put there were no such diplomatic establishments prior to independence.

Secondly animals; the author cites listening to the chimpanzees in the middle of the Serengeti (none live there), the snorts of “water” buffalo (Africa’s buffaloes are cape buffalo), lions mating in groups (doubtful, I have only seen them in pairs), and a preposterous scene wherein Europeans try to save wildebeests who are crossing the Mara river in the thousands by lassoing them and hauling them back to shore (unbelievable).

Thirdly airports; the author asserts that Kilimanjaro is the closest airport (except it did not exist in 1961). He also uses Nairobi International (really known then as Embakasi) as the strip from which Jack flies. Private aircraft on internal flights would have come and gone from Wilson Airport. The author also alludes to a number of private jets parked at Nairobi International . It turned out later that he needed this fiction for the plot, but it is doubtful if there were really such aircraft around in 1961 – remember, it was just the beginning of the jet age for commercial aircraft.

I could go on, but will conclude by commenting on the beautiful photograph on the jacket of the book. It is one of a couple sitting in camp chairs with the majesty of Kilimanjaro behind them. Wonderful, except for the fact that unless it is printed backwards, the picture was taken from Tanzania. Kibo peak is on the left and Mwenzi on the right. You cannot get that perspective from the Kenyan side.

Enough already! Despite my fault finding (I enjoyed looking for them), the book was okay. I do not especially like romances and there was certainly a lot of breast heaving introspection in this one, but there was enough of a Kenyan setting, a murder mystery, trial shenanigans and links to politics to keep my attention. I did not like the ending.

Waiting for the Mango Rains

Following is my review of Waiting for the Mango Rains, by Jon C. White, publisher unknown, available from Amazon.com

First a disclaimer, I knew Jon when he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Central African Republic in the 1970s and I was a junior officer at the U.S. embassy. Obviously, he drew from his experiences in promoting fish culture in writing this novel. Although like all good novels it is set realistically in, in this case, the turbulent history of the CAR during the epoch when megalomaniac president Jean Bedel Bokassa was elevating himself to become emperor, the plot and characters in the novel are, of course, fictional.

The author sets the scene when his protagonist Nick D’Amato accepts a position to go to the Central African Republic to take up responsibilities for USAID as a fisheries extension agent. Nick confronts Africa in all its wooliness. He is scammed at the airport upon arrival and briefly jailed. He is welcomed by a jaundiced American diplomatic community who are caught up in their sybaritic life style. (Even though this portrait adds to the story, as an aside, I cannot help but wondering if Jon really saw us in such a negative light.) While waiting in the capital and organizing his kit, Nick gets glimmers that all is not what it appears to be – with his assignment and within the nation more broadly. Anxious to maintain his power, in addition to the secret police, Bokassa has resorted to intimidation and control of the populace via the dark powers of juju men and mystical marabous. Of course, Nick will encounter such witchcraft.

But first, Nick does move to M’baiki, about 60 miles south of Bangui in the edge of the great Congo basin forest. There he begins the job he was assigned, the rehabilitation of a fish station. Ponds need to be re-built, stocked and extension work begun. (The reader will learn much about the technical aspects of such operations.) Nick gradually becomes involved with the local community – his foreman, a cook, the nearby French priest, market mamas – and along the way he meets a beautiful local lady and falls in love. As he becomes more enmeshed in the community, he becomes estranged and ignored by the few French residents and U.S. embassy personnel. (In short, Nick went “local”.) The plot continues to twist throughout with sinister machinations of the sorcerers. Nick and his family are targeted and risk becoming victimized as the political temperature of the nation heats up. The story builds up nice tension, before an acceptable denouement.

Author Jon White has done a commendable job in realistically describing what life is like in a small African town. He portrays encounters with Central Africans sympathetically, in accurate fashion and from both sides – their puzzlement and misperception of outsiders as well as Nick’s lack of understanding of the forces that motivate them and their lives. Over, time, of course, Nick gains greater insight along with the recognition that he is what he is and can never become what he is not. This is a lesson that most Peace Corps Volunteers learn and appreciate.

Appeasing the Spirits - Across the Cultural Divide in Kenya

Following is a piece I wrote for the Foreign Service Journal, October 2010. I was the U.S. Consul in Mombasa at the time of the event described.

At the consulate in Mombasa, Kenya in the early 1980s part of our regular maintenance on housing involved pumping out the septic tanks. Paul Mwana, my general services expert, arranged to have the city team composed of Digo tribesmen, the only ones who did this work, do the job. Most houses had large tanks for sewage storage that were accessed through a slab in the parking area. The task went well until the team arrived at the house occupied by the Lt. Commander supervising naval construction and his family. Upon recognizing the house, the septic men adamantly refused to proceed. Paul reported back with some dismay, but both of us knew the cause of their refusal.

The house in question was just across the street from mine. It was a pleasant villa on spacious beautifully planted grounds. Yet, a year or so earlier when I was looking for houses to rent in a tight market, it was readily available. It turned out on account of a tragedy.

The house had been owned and occupied by an older Asian couple. Apparently, two killers arrived at the house early one evening. They found only the cook at home, so slashed him with machetes murdering him. They waited and when Madame returned from her bridge game, they killed her. They waited even longer until the man of the house returned towards midnight and they killed him. The killers stuffed at least the first two bodies into the septic tank.

Since the perpetrators of the crimes were obviously not there just to rob the premises (they had ample opportunity to search and sack the house after the first death) it was assumed that the murders were a contract hit. Furthermore, police supposed that motive arose because the old man was allegedly involved in various commercial transactions, some of which were shady deals related to gem stones. (At the time rubies and tsavorite were mined and marketed illegally.) Perhaps some deal went awry or a large sum of money was thought to be available.

One of the killers was later apprehended and confessed to the crime. However, he never implicated whoever might have ordered it done. The case remains unresolved.

The specter of the triple murder kept the house empty before the Navy family arrived and was, of course, the reason for the refusal to pump out the septic tank. Once I learned of the murders and before I signed a lease, I contacted the Navy couple to apprise them of the house’s history. They said to go ahead and rent it. I did and they were quite happy there.

Paul proposed a solution to the septic pumping quandary. He suggested that we employ a Digo traditional medicine man to perform a purification ceremony that would placate the spirits of the dead. He assured me that once properly accomplished; the workers would undertake the task of pumping the tank. I concurred, so he found the right “practitioner” and negotiated a fee for his service, plus a goat and a chicken for sacrifice.

It was an odd ceremony. With the workers in attendance before the open septic tank in the sunlit parking area flanked by blooming red, white and purple hibiscus and bougainvillea, the “doctor” chanted, invoked his authority and called on the spirits to depart. He sacrificed the goat and chicken (later eaten) and sprinkled blood. Once the proper deeds were done, the site purified and the spirits appeased, the tank was subsequently cleaned.

I decided that we could not detail the services performed, or the goat, on the invoice for reimbursement as that would certainly raise eyebrows in the embassy’s financial office, so we called the transaction “special cleansing services.”

History and Hogwash in the Congo

A review of The Great African War – Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006 by Filip Reyntjens, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

It is hard to get a handle on this book. It provides a decent chronology of events – of the wars and the politics in the greater Congo region - during the years it covers. Most all of that information was drawn from the public record. The book is replete with footnotes citing this or that news story, UN papers, NGO treatises or subsequent academic studies. Ergo, the overall thrust of the work is - as noted above - a decent history. However, the interpretation of events, especially the impetus behind them and the motivations of the actors involved, be they governments, political parties or individuals is where the analysis begins to come apart.

Author Belgian academic Filip Reyntjens is well qualified to write this history. He lived in and worked on Congolese, Rwandan and Burundian issues for years. Yet his anti-Rwandan bias jumps out. Throughout he portrays the then-and-current Rwanda Patriotic Movement government as a gang of wily calculating evil persons led by the devil incarnate Paul Kagame. Reyntjens’ exuberance in condemning the regime in Kigali tracks the view espoused in other European academic circles. It has a racist tinge to it along the lines that Africans should not be competent enough to make their own decisions and mistakes. Secondly, an underlying revelation comes in a footnote late in the book wherein Reyntjens admits that from 1995 onwards, he was denied permission to enter Rwanda. I suppose that his lack of impartiality in relating what transpired is his way of getting back.

An even more grievous bias (at least from my point of view) is Reyntjens’ strong anti-American conviction. He accuses the U.S. of masterminding the first part of the 1997-98 war, of providing advice, guidance, intelligence, men and materiel to the RPA/ADFL effort. Simply stated that is hogwash. Reyntjens’ buttressing footnotes cite third and fourth hand sources suggesting that America was behind the anti-Mobutu effort. (Perhaps on account of wishful thinking on the part of sources and Reyntjens collectively. They all seem to love conspiracy theories. ) Even though this assertion is made early on in the chronology of war, there is no follow on proof, or even further allegation. Apparently just as vaporously as the American interest was in directing the conflict, it disappeared; never to have been involved in subsequent issues of refugee massacres, repatriations, maneuvering or king making with regard to internal Congolese politics. Nonetheless, Reyntjens sticks to his thesis blaming America (by supporting Kabila)for “durably destabilizing the entire region.” While I might be open to the proposition that the U.S. by reacting or not to individual events as they unfolded sent signals that played a part in the various outcomes – outcomes that were, of course, unknown before they occurred - but I categorically reject the notion that some carefully calculated long term policy conspiracy was afoot. Interestingly, Reyntjens even quotes two distinguished former Assistant Secretaries of State for African Affairs (Messrs. Cohen and Crocker) to the effect that the U.S. would not be capable of such shenanigans, but he goes ahead anyway and asserts it as fact.

I am further personally offended as Reyntjens’ used out of context quotations from my memoir (In the Aftermath of Genocide: the U.S. Role in Rwanda) to support his thesis, even going to the extent of calling me a “liar” regarding America’s role. How would he know better what the U.S. knew or did? Reyntjens also scoffs at statements made by Assistant Secretary Oakley, USAID administrator Brian Attwood, his deputy Dick McCall and Ambassador for War Crimes David Sheffer. Typical of these sorts of allegations that the U.S. blatantly covered-up misdeeds was one when I attributed the murder of Spanish MSF personnel in Ruhengeri in 1997 to Hutu insurgents. A finding that I have seen no evidence to refute. Reyntjens stated that years later an RPA turncoat (back to Hutu power) said that the RPA did the crime. Also, that version was accepted by a Spanish court in 2008 (a court notorious for seeking to indict RPA personnel for war crimes.) Why not state that a difference of view existed rather than excoriate one conviction?

My animosity aside, let’s get back to the book. Reyntjens imputes a lot of motives to various actors, but does not seem to have any real insight into their internal calculus, especially with regard to the RPM, but also with respect to Kabila himself. Reyntjens repeatedly cited then Vice-President Paul Kagame’s July 1997 interview with the Washington Post as most revealing of motives and intentions (which it was), but other inside scoop is simply missing. Instead the reader is overwhelmed with a narrative buttressed by documents produced by those with an axe to grind - Hutu exiles, human rights groups (such as Amnesty International that among its valid reporting were a series of diatribes actually written by Hutu power advocates) and would- be policy wonks. Reyntjens put his spin on such documents to make his case. For example in one instance, he seized on unattributed sources citing off hand remarks by a Rwandan official to the effect that it had “solved the Zaire problem” as evidence of a policy of hegemony in the region. While there is ample evidence that Rwanda did want to dominate the sub-region in order to protect - and later to enrich – itself, Reyntjens’ use of unqualified footnotes gives the impression that more valid documentation on events actually exists than is the case. In another gratuitous case, he footnoted the “possible” existence of a US plot to assassinate Kablia. What is the agenda here?

I found the most interesting part of the book to be the chapters on Congolese internal politics and conflict in Kivu in the years leading up to the transitional government. This is one of the first detailed accounts of such events, so stands – so far - as a valid chronology.

Again my reservations notwithstanding, this tome has relevance to the history of the Great Lakes region and the long series of conflicts that have troubled it. I would caution readers to note the biases flagged, not to accept Reyntjens as the final word, but to balance their education on this turmoil by seeking out other accounts. Let’s not fall into the trap of history that Napoleon feared when he said that history is a set of lies agreed upon.

Looking for Lovedu

A book review by me of Looking for Lovedu – Days and Nights in Africa by Ann Jones, Alfred A. Knoff, New York, 2001.

The strange title of this travel book is explained early. Lovedu is a small kingdom in what is now South Africa ruled presently and historically by a queen endowed with diplomatic prowess and rainmaking powers. An overland journey from the U.K. to South Africa to seek out this queen is the (somewhat contrived) motivation for the book. The saga traces the route of author Ann Jones and her traveling companions, first young Brit Kelvin Muggleton and later Caro and Celia, who bash across Africa.

The first part of the trip was accomplished by Muggleton and Jones alone across the Sahara, the Sahel, along the west coast and then traversing the Congo basin to Kenya. Anecdotes of being on the road are, of course, the grist of the story with a special focus on the theme of women’s roles and their lack of political or economic power in the societies that the intrepid travelers briefly brushed in their headlong rush southward. The rush too became part of a gender conflict as the story pitted the reflective author who sought to slowly absorb the continent against headstrong Muggleton who, consumed with vehicle tasks, just wanted to get there. This drama played out predictably as the two repeatedly clashed. However, because of their joint commitment to the safari, they had to find ways to stay together, and to move ahead, especially when confronted with enormous mud holes in (then) Zaire.

This partnership lasted only as long as Nairobi. There, after a respite Jones enlisted an Aussie, Caro, and a Kenyan, Celia, to continue with her. Although the gender issue disappeared, philosophical differences of how to travel remained. Nonetheless, the ladies managed to voyage south, ultimately to meet with the mysterious queen. By then author Jones had sorted out her complex feelings about Africa and gender roles on the continent, but she found some solace in achieving her goal.

All things considered this is a pretty standard travelogue. Anecdotes of encounters are sandwiched in among pithy historical sketches of the countries visited. The travelers had many encounters with grasping officials, poor roads, sand in the Sahara and mud in Zaire. Yet they enjoyed warm hospitality in countless villages and missions along the way. Jones blamed western exploitation of Africa – slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and the bad habits Africa’s contemporary elite learned from former masters – for the woeful state of the continent. But throughout she also applauded the virtues of African society – patience, palaver, decorum and social coherence.

Note from reviewer: I read travel-in-Africa books because I too have driven the continent from Cape to Tangiers. The poor roads I experienced in the Congo in 1970 have obviously gotten a bit worse, but the other aspects of travel – brief but sometimes memorable encounters with people – remain the same. On a long journey like this, the trip becomes the thing and experiences mount up. It is, as Jones found out, vital to have convivial companions. Travelers have a marvelous window on Africa, but not the in-depth immersion in culture that time in a specific place allows. Put the two together, and you’ll be wiser for it.

Footsteps

This is a book review of Footsteps, written by Kirsten Johnson, published by Plain View Press, Austin, TX 2009.

RPCV Johnson drew extensively on her early 1980s tour as a Harambee school teacher in the Meru area in writing this novel. A novel it is indeed, but the story revolves around and is clearly designed to illuminate very real issues for African women – girls education, circumcision, early marriage, too many children too fast, loveless marriages, the clash of tradition and modernism, work or stay in the boma, AIDS, wife inheritance, and the list goes on. In fact, it is remarkable that most of these issues are dealt with in the book.

The protagonists are two sisters, Kanini and Gatiria, raised in a traditional homestead on the dry plains east of Mount Kenya. The family has very little interaction with the outside world, but that world progressively creeps in often destroying the harmony (real or imagined) that eons of tradition have established. The first hurdle is that of female circumcision that Kanini reluctantly undergoes. The process, the ceremony, the value and the result are described as the girls ponder the issue and share their views. In this, as in almost everything that follows, Kanini is tradition bound whereas Gatiria is the modern girl/woman who defies her parents and her community on almost every score.

Readers follow the two through subsequent trials and tribulations with their family, husbands, colleagues, community and the wider world beyond. The setting is impeccably drawn, descriptions apt and conversations generally vivid and credible. Johnson indeed captures the mundane reality of hardscrabble life, grinding poverty and the tenacity of rural inhabitants. Her portraits of people and places – a doddering grandmother, co-wives, an autocratic father, their family compounds, ramshackle primary schools, bustling market towns, stupefying matatu rides – are excellent. She delves into the Tharaka/Meru culture and provides solid background for understanding the issues as seen by her Kenyan characters. She credits wisdom when due, but does not disguise ignorance – the conviction, for example, that AIDS was brought to Kenya by American sailors – because, in fact that belief retarded local action in the face of the calamity. Although there is certainly an underlying conviction (even a crusade) on the author’s part that traditions that hold women down ought to be modified, yet she tries to be evenhanded in at least understanding why such practices exist. Without doubt, she pays homage to the value of friendship, especially between women, because ultimately that is the coping mechanism that makes life bearable.

For those who know Kenya and the struggles that Kenyans, especially women, encounter on a regular basis, this book will remind you of the difficulties they face. For those who want to learn more about why Africa sometimes seems mired in the past and only slowly moving forward, this book elucidates some of the reasons.