Don’t forget to smile for our visitors. It is your patriotic duty to grin and bear it!

Nothing brings out the best in us more than the need to impress visitors. It arises out of basic human psychological motivations to gain approval, acceptance and validation from others.

This urge is what drives many of us to spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need to impress people who don’t care. It might be the only reason we evolved to wear clothes in these hot and humid tropics!
 
The ongoing Non-Aligned Movement summit is the latest fete for which we’ve broken the bank to impress visitors. Roads have been closed (thankfully only intermittently), swept and washed – in some cases to reveal tarmac long caked under layers of mud. Unsightly buildings have been pulled down.

In some parts of the city, one can walk and talk on the phone without the fear of donating it to the city hawks, thanks to armed guards at every street corner.

Typically, we had to do things at the last minute. Grass, trees and flowers were being planted in the hours before the start of the event before being watered and willed to grow quickly.

The race to complete the venue, which appears to have been largely won, should have been a marathon, not a sprint.  

Many of these improvements will outlive the visitors and will be enjoyed by even us, the unwashed. Their excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, will not leave with the freshly laid tarmac or the long-delayed but impressive-looking airport departure terminal. There are better options for fridge magnets.

This begs the question: If we can fix and wash roads for visitors, why can’t we do it for ourselves? And if we can build a convention centre in under two years, why does it take more than twice as long to do the airport departure terminal, or – infamously – two decades to do the 21-kilometre Northern Bypass?

The delays are easier to answer; incentives. One can, and perhaps even should, question the public-private partnership model used, the financing, the selection et cetera of the vendor for the convention.

But a vendor whose earnings are dependent on getting the thing built will burn both ends of the candle. There are no contracts committees or lengthy bureaucratic processes in the way.

NSSF projects, on the other hand, for example, last much longer because of the many cooks (sometimes even crooks), and because any “private incentives” are at contract award, not completion. 

The rest of the question is more complicated. Part of the answer lies in a deep-seated self-hatred that we carry around un- or sub-consciously, and which finds expression in glamourising a lot of what is foreign, and demonising much of what is traditional – or as we like to pejoratively call it, “local”. 

Our forefathers sold entire kingdoms for beads, mirrors and trinkets because of this “maalo”. They were fascinating objects to look at, no doubt, but had little functional value. A magnifying glass could allow you to observe the remarkable features of an ant – but was absolutely hopeless in helping you see your chief who was plotting with these “guests” to kick you out of your throne and grab your lands.

More than a hundred years later, we have done little to disabuse ourselves of it. We take pride in affecting the accents of foreign languages.

We trample upon the ways of our forebearers, which were steeped in humanity, care for the tribe, and a sense of community. Instead, we embrace the uber-individualistic, extractive, and dog-eat-dog exploitative ways of others. 

We swoon over foreign “investors” and shove incentives down their throats while local businesses are strapped into the straitjackets of unpredictable value chains, their feet weighed down by the ball and chain of contract enforcement, while they are drip-fed from the poisoned chalice of expensive capital.

We disguise this hatred of ourselves with the feigned love of others. We prostrate ourselves and beg for foreign investment then wonder why a lot of it fails, flees, or flails when it runs head-on into the stonewalls of absent rule of law, unskilled labour and low local purchasing power.

We forget that a lot of what we needed was always here, in and among us. We were always our best assets. We were always going to produce the highest return on investment.  

Investing in ourselves, of course, raises expectations. Once we do a road in weeks, we can never justify taking years to do a similar one. Or letting those in place fall into disrepair. If we deploy guards to suppress street crime and keep visitors united with their phones and laptops, who will guard the ‘honourables’ when normal service resumes?  

It is easier to close a few roads and maintain decent traffic flow for a few days – much harder to keep boda boda riders and entitled politicians and public officials from hurtling down the wrong side of the road for the rest of the year. Impressing visitors is easy – and we really hope that our visitors enjoy their stay here – but keeping citizens happy and in line is a full-time job. 

To you who live here, enjoy the washed roads and organised traffic while it lasts. And, as guided by the Minister of Information and National Guidance, don’t forget to smile for our beloved visitors: it is your patriotic duty to grin and bear it. 

Mr Daniel K. Kalinaki is a journalist and  poor man’s freedom fighter. 
[email protected]; @Kalinaki