Great Summer Reading: It's Our Turn to Eat

"When I shared a beer with a Great Lakes intelligence chief befriended in a presidential waiting room, I knew that one day I'd probably come across his name in a human rights report, fingered as the man behind some ruthless political assassination" (Wrong, 2009, p.16).

Before heading off to grad school in mid-September, I've read a lot of books this summer that I've been meaning to read for a while. Out of all the books, I would highly recommend Michela Wrong's "It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower." Through the courageous story of John Githongo, Kenya's former anti-corruption czar and the whistle-blower, Wrong highlights the problems of corruption, tribalism, and western aid (all intertwined) that plague Kenya. The author argues that root of the corruption problem is tribalism, which can be traced back to Kenya's colonial past. As the Anglo-Leasing and Goldenberg scams indicate, Kenyan politics centers around strong ethnic affiliation and competition amongst different ethnic tribes breeding the "it's our turn to eat" mentality.

The book also emphasizes the role of international institutions including the World Bank and Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) in perpetuating Kenya's corruption. Wrong points to the close relationship between the Kenyan government and the bank, whose director rents a house from President Kibaki. Despite Britain's High Commissioner, Edward Clay's actions to expose the Kenya's government's corruption, DFID turned a blind eye to the truth and continued to disburse aid.

Below is an interview on Guernica with journalist and author, Michele Wrong:
http://www.guernicamag.com/spotlight/1069/githongo_yes_but_dambisa_is_wr/

As Wrong points out in her interview, nothing has changed significantly in the aftermath of the late 2007/early 2008 election fiasco. She notes that Kiraitu Murungi, a key player involved in the Anglo-Leasing scandal, works for the government again (in the energy ministry), as do many other top ministers and civil servants and most certainly, Mr. Kibaki himself. While change certainly won't come overnight, there is hope as Githongo proves.