Baba speaks out of turn in his threat to drive Meg Whitman out of town
The doyen of opposition politics Raila Odinga aka Baba has told US diplomat Meg Whitman to "shut up" over some unstated slur on maandamano. He called her "rogue," and reminded her that Kenya is not a colony of the United States.
The comments elicited a standing ovation in Eldoret, where the devolution conference has been ongoing, possibly because very few of those present have the gall to make such pronouncements, given the Americans' alacrity to respond in kind, if predictably, by denying such individuals visa to enter their country.
But Baba being Baba, he can say anything and nothing much will happen to him. That's the sort of power that makes others cower in their boots.
I like it that he referenced "colony" in his comments, because we behave like we are an extension of US capitalist system. Did we not cede ground, just months ago, and had GMOs introduced to the country, without any public participation, to pave way for US multinationals to saturate our soils with grapes of wrath?
Yet, Baba was possibly speaking out of turn in his admonition of Whitman; he should let her say her piece, uncomfortable as it is, about maandamano, and he will have an opportunity to turn her into a maandamano issue.
That way, both will have an opportunity to exercise their democratic rights without infringing on others' freedoms.
That's what the principle of live and let live entails. Or, if Baba wanted to say something profound, he could have invoked the words of Martha Karua: America is not my heaven, which she used to dispel fears of visa denial, some years back.
