Why do we keep making one step forward and two steps back?

WHAT A week this has been. My mind has been oscillating from one issue to another eventually living me with a throbbing headache for most of the mornings. I have spent time observing and analysing several issues and trying to think them through with little success. I do not even know where to start from. I know this space is for regional issues but the massacres in Egypt cannot be ignored. One day we were all glued to our screens as Al Jazeera was showing the epitome of the “Arab Spring” but lately we are seeing a national army killing its own people and a country literally burning to the ground. I do not even know what to make of events there anymore. Tanzania’s expulsion of people of Rwandan origin left me wondering more about what this whole East African Community idea that our leaders are known to talk about really means. What does it really mean when our leaders attend endless EAC summits, sign documents and pose for cameras and then turn around and hound people off ‘their’ land? If we cannot accommodate fellow East Africans how can we even dream of an East African Community anyway? We all know that when the whites sat in Berlin to draw our current borders they never organised a referendum to ask people which side of the line they wanted to be at. That is why at any border you are likely to find people you may wrongly refer to as “illegal immigrants”. The Maasai are in Kenya and Tanzania, parts of northern Tanzania seem so Ugandan that Idi Amin considered getting them back. In some cases the divide affects even families. A one Aggrey Awori once contested for Uganda’s presidency at a time when his older brother was a vice president in Kenya! The size of Rwanda in relation to its population density and the troubled political history means that people of Rwandan origin can be found across any of their borders. In Uganda the constitution even recognises the Banyarwanda as one of the ethnic groups that make up Uganda. Expulsion of people yet we have clear ambitions of integration is simply ironical then. What I also found wrong were some of the responses to the issue above. Andrew Mwenda, a renowned Ugandan journalist, tweeted thus: “Kikwete is a shame to Africa. Now he is evicting ordinary Tanzanians of Rwanda/Tutsi ethnicity! And international media is silent. My question here is why do we have to call on the international media all the time? What is the local and regional media doing to address such issues? How come many people still do not know the difference between being Rwandans and Banyarwanda? How many times shall we say that it is the role of the media to demystify the issue of East African integration?” As the debate continued on Twitter, another friend suggested that “perhaps what we need is a CNN/Al Jazeera style network that covers African issues...” I have heard this call before that Africa needs its own Al Jazeera but to be honest such a development would be no development at all. For years the African continent has remained misunderstood and misrepresented because we have allowed others to always group us as one homogenous land mass. We forget that actually Egypt is more Middle Eastern oriented than African. Al Jazeera is credited with giving a favourable news angle to the Arab world not to the whole of Asia. CNN has done the same for America but not North America. In other words we do not need a station to cover the continent. We need regional stations that cover regions like West Africa, Arab North Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa better. Interestingly, just before I sat to write this piece I was in a commuter taxi and throughout the journey the radio had two gentlemen analysing the English Premier League and even giving minute details about teams like Stoke City. They informed us of which players are good at what and even how old they are. I was left wondering why radio stations that remain the most effective communication tool in this region now dedicate hours and hours on pre-match and post-match analysis as well as full live commentary for English Premier League games when the same cannot be done for local issues. The TVs on the other hand are bombarding us with Spanish Telenovelas and Nollywood movies whose quality leaves a lot to be desired. And you wonder why we keep making one step forward and two steps back? Blog: www.ssenyonga.wordpress.comTwitter: @ssojo81