Kenyans must let go obsession with status symbol

One of the national trends among the Kenyan elite in the last decade or so is the obsession with status symbols. It might be one of the lasting legacies of 70 years of colonialism. I however find this obsession with status symbols paradoxical because in the last decade or so, we turned East, where status is less of a concern.

Before turning East, we had crossed the Atlantic and got Americanised. America has less emphasis on status symbols. Her war of independence included doing away with British class system.  A good example; when former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Kenya in 2008, she was just referred to as Condoleezza Rice, not Dr Rice or Professor Rice , though she was a professor at Stanford.