Yes to Washington-London-Tel Aviv, No to Riyadh-Beijing

By Donald Kipkorir

Our relationship with Washington, London and Tel Aviv, may at times be tempestuous but is eternal. Our friendship with Riyadh (Kuwait sings to its tune) and Beijing may look rosy now, but it is all hormonal and transient.

We have to look beyond our immediacy and focus on our long-term goals. If we love Kenya more, we will never abandon our true friends for new ones. But we can cultivate new friends without abandoning the old.

Truth be told, China and Saudi Arabia will not assist us in achieving our national goals and aspirations. Without the support of America, Britain and Israel, Kenya will never achieve Vision 2030 or even Vision 3000. They say history and statistics don’t lie. And politics. We share same history, culture and legal system with America, Britain and Israel. Britain gifted us its language and legal system. America and Israel have tweaked their legal systems, but they still share the broad principles of Anglo-Saxon law.

This legal system is underpinned in constitutionalism, three arms of government, independence of the Judiciary, periodic elections and accountability in leadership. These are the hallmarks of liberal democracy agreed by many scholars to be the highest form of human civilisation.

Saudi Arabia and China are not liberal democracy or any shade of it. Saudi Arabia is the last feudal Kingdom in the world that doesn’t even allow women to drive.

World terrorism, including the recent Westgate Mall attack, is by young impressionable youth some of them indoctrinated and financed by Wahhabis followers, a conservative wing of Sunni Islam of Saudi Arabia. China thinks democracy and human rights are a privilege of the State.

America and Britain are our biggest investors. Israel has always watched our back. The world economy turns on London and New York. Every global transaction is dollar-denominated. The world runs on dollar trading. Chinese Renminbi and Saudi Arabia Riyal, are useless paper outside their boundaries.

China may be the world’s second biggest economy in global terms, but at personal level, China is as poor as Jamaica. The per capita of Chinese is US$8,700 and ranked 98 in the world. USA, Israel and Britain each have per capita in excess of US$35,000. Can China be our friend when it is building Dar es Salaam to be the biggest port on the Indian Ocean? And when it is building the oil pipeline from Sudan oil fields to Port Sudan? Poor Mombasa and Lamu!

Can we really benefit from our friendship with the Arabs and Chinese? Nyet! Saudi Arabia sits on oil and nothing else. Human civilisation is run on innovation, industrialisation, education and culture incubated in the universities. Any rankings of the world top universities will always have America, Britain and France at the top. America, Germany and Britain control over 60 per cent of world patents. Patent is the mark of innovation. Since inception of Nobel Prizes in 1901, 561 have been awarded, and USA citizens have received 270, Britain 101 and Germany 76. What skills and technology will China and Saudi Arabia gift us?

On Israel, our relationship is more complex. Kenya claims to be 80 per cent a Christian nation. If this be true, then we have no choice but to stand by Israel till the Armageddon. If it wasn’t for the then League of Nations and the push of The Earl of Balfour, Israel was to have been established in present day Uasin Gishu County.

Our President, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta has the Executive authority to guide our foreign policy, but not at the risk of undermining our eternal sovereign will.

The future of Kenya will always lie with the West. We can dance with the dragon under the Aladdin lamp, but without forgetting that the Statue of Liberty, Westminster and the Sea of Galilee is where we belong.

The writer is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya