The new excuse for everything, 'it's because of corruption'

While the newly-arrived expatriate might not personally see any instances of grand or minor corruption in his first days in Kenya, he will nevertheless hear others explain to him the prevalence of this vice, and he will constantly come to believe in its ubiquity. Very soon, he will look at every perceived flaw in Kenyan society and tell whoever is listening that “this is because of corruption!”

If a hospital isn’t built, it’s ‘because of corruption’; if the neighbouring plot is grabbed, it’s ‘because of corruption’; if Nakumatt runs out of cans of White Cap lager, it’s ‘because of corruption’. And so on.

Indeed, some things are ‘because of corruption’. But the newly-arrived expatriate must know the limits of his right to criticise. Even when he is justified in spotting, say, corruption, his Kenyan colleagues will tut and sometimes actively tell him off for cultural insensitivity, for ‘having no right to judge’, for being, well, a completely offensive, typically obnoxious foreigner.

To be fair, they’re often right.However, when the President of the United States of America flies in on his spaceship, drives to Kasarani Stadium in his Batmobile and begins to condemn Kenya for being ‘corrupt’, he is cheered to the high heavens, as if he has brought the Wisdom of Solomon to cast upon a benighted land.

On hearing this, the expatriate is not at all happy, and in something bordering jealousy will tell everybody who’s watching the speech with him, “I could have said that! In fact, I have, and you all told me I was an arse!”

“You are an arse,” reply the expatriate’s colleagues, quietly, in their heads. The expatriate believes that he’s viewing an instance of grand hypocrisy, of double standards, of failed introspection. But what he’s really observing is Big Man syndrome, sycophancy, money-and-power worship and celebrity idolisation.

You see, my dear expatriate colleague, there is a truth in Kenya that is as true here as it is elsewhere: A small or poor man or woman can speak all sorts of truths about corruption and power, but will not be listened to; however, if that same truth is uttered by a chap driving a platinum-plated Bentley, and who has also been on the television, well, it will be heard! The irony is that nine times out of ten, the Big Man speaker might himself have made his vast fortune by corrupt means, meaning that we’re listening to the very man we shouldn’t be listening to.

But this is no more a concern to the Kenyan as it is to the Englishman who does the same in his own country when celebrities or big name politicians say they’re going to do this or that. Just as the British expatriate in Kenya thinks he has some special ability to see Kenyans’ hypocrisy, the Kenyan in Britain would very swiftly be able to spot British hypocrisy. It’s a case of ‘In our own country, we’re innocent and abroad we’re sages’. We’re never either really.

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