Downtown Nairobi, Friday noon, a massive billboard looms over the traffic near Ngong. Its message is politically sponsored: on it, Kibaki is holding page-one of the new Constitution. A red arrow points to the paper in his hand, followed by the words, "katiba yangu" -- my Constitution. Strangely, not "katiba yetu," our Constitution. A stab at individualizing the fragmented-nationalistic? Then, in huge letters below the photo: MWENYE-NCHI SIO MWANA-NCHI. "Being in the country doesn't make you a citizen." Lately, I've been seeing manifestations of that two-sided phenomenon of national pride/ xenophobia everywhere I look. It strikes me mostly as a top-down initiative -- an attempt by the bwana wakubwa (big men) to coalesce this fractured country, just in time for the next elections, by fostering more hostility toward tourists/ immigrants/ wageni.
Earlier this month, flying Switzerland-Nairobi, I was asked to produce my return ticket before boarding the plane headed for Kenya, request of the Kenyan government. Apparently, too many wazungu were coming into the country, falling in love with it, and never leaving. I had only bought a one-way ticket (confirming those suspicions!) so I was sent to an interrogation room. Got out of it by assuring them that I planned to put down my roots in Tanzania -- as for Kenya, I'm just passin' through.
It's weird, as an American, to be on the other side of the fence (America as fabled Promised Land, keeping everybody out southside. Now my "Zion" is the other side of several borders: legal, cultural, relational). While recognizing that I still have it easier than almost anyone else in terms of global mobility/ border permeability, I often feel unwelcome in the places I want to be my home. That billboard in downtown Nairobi put my greatest unvoiced sorrows into clever Kiswahili. But hamna shida -- I don't think think that billboard, or the anti-foreigner rhetoric I've been hearing in the airwaves, is really representative of nationwide sentiments and attitudes. As I saw in Mombasa last summer, generosity and inclusivity abound, at least in the people and communities I was lucky enough to intrude upon.
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