In a week when many Kenyans are still reeling from the shock of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga failing to be elected as the next chairman of the African Union, I suddenly remembered an incident from a visit to South Africa, which might in a small way help to explain that outcome.
My theory is that Kenyans are more likely to win a global electoral contest than a purely African one. For we are not very popular on this continent.
The incident which first gave me this insight occurred when I was attending a conference on the latest medical advances in the fight against HIV-Aids, held in Johannesburg, well over 10 years ago.
We had journalists from all over Africa in attendance. And one of the journalists from a West African country was complaining angrily to a group of us, during lunch, that he had been spoken to rudely by one of the hotel staff.
I tried to calm him down, explaining that it must have been an unfortunate misunderstanding, as the staff at the sort of upscale hotel in which we were staying, are rigorously trained to be courteous to all and any guests.
But to my surprise, not only did he stick to his guns, but the other African journalists at the table sided with him in condemning “these arrogant South Africans.”
As the discussion continued, I was even more surprised to learn that there are three African countries whose citizens are famous all over the continent for their arrogance: South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.
I was told that South Africans, proud of their nation’s wealth and advanced infrastructure, treat other Africans as their “poorer relatives”.
Also that Nigerians are notoriously over-aggressive and generally obnoxious; plus of course, my friends declared, you cannot ever trust them.
And as for Kenyans, I was to learn that we are offensively condescending in our attitude towards Africans from other countries.
That we tend to “put others down” as apparently, we Kenyans “like pushing people around”. But only Africans, not Europeans or Asians. That we, above all, feel that we can only be compared to “mzungus” and not other Africans.
And that when any of these journalists ever had to transit through JKIA, they approached this trip with dread, as they were likely to be treated badly by our airport staff, while the European tourists who were in the same queue at the airport, were approached with subservience.
I would not even be telling this story, if it were not that – back in my conference-attending days – I was to hear this same assessment over and over again, if the topic came up, in discussion with journalists from other African countries.
And I was assured that this was not merely what such journalists believed. Their lower cadres of political leaders (ie those who were not senior enough to get the full VIP treatment when visiting a foreign country) held much the same views.
I eventually got the impression that it was effectively, a whispered elite consensus in quite a few African countries, that these unflattering generalisations about South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, were perfectly valid.
Those who shared their anecdotes about their ill-treatment at the hands of Kenyan airline crews, airport staff, and hotel staff, invariably ended their account with, “Of course you are not like those other Kenyans.”
It is a surreal experience to be in Berlin, for example, chatting with your fellow Africans, and to be told – intended as a compliment – that you are not as arrogant as other Kenyans. I should add that these journalists had not in any way interacted with ordinary Kenyans, but only with – as I have noted – the staff of Kenya Airways, JKIA, and the many three-star hotels in Nairobi.
That conference in Johannesburg was over 10 years ago. And if such negative opinions about us and our country have all this time been floating through sub-Saharan Africa, then no Kenyan was ever going to win any continental popularity contest.
And I am inclined to suspect that the outcome of that electoral contest in Addis Ababa, for the AU chairmanship, was more of an anti-Kenya vote, than a pro-Djibouti vote.
Wycliffe Muga is a columnist
