The streets of Nairobi are awash with blood and tear gas, and the world’s liberal pundits are, predictably, wringing their hands. A proposed US-led quarantine protocol to contain a potential Ebola outbreak has ignited protests that have turned deadly. British aid agencies are on alert, waiting to be dispatched into the maelstrom. But let us not pretend this is a simple tragedy of misunderstanding. This is the predictable consequence of a post-colonial, post-credible world where good intentions are the paving stones to perdition.
The US plan, as leaked, reeks of Victorian-era quarantine colonies, a sanitised version of the lazarettos of old. Kenya, a nation still wrestling with its identity and dignity, sees it as an affront. And the mob, as mobs do, has responded with fury. Three dead, dozens wounded. The US embassy is a fortress. The British High Commission is issuing warnings. But the real question is not how to pacify the protests. It is why we are surprised that a people tired of being treated as pawns in a global health chess game would react with violence.
Consider the historical parallels. The Fall of Rome was not a single cataclysm but a thousand small failures of communication and respect. Rome’s barbarian neighbours were not always barbarous; they became so from the arrogance of Roman administrators who thought they could impose order without understanding the soul of the people. Sound familiar? The US and Britain, with their high-tech disease control and epidemiological arrogance, are playing the same role. They see a virus threat. Kenyans see a violation of sovereignty. And when a population feels its nationhood is being eroded, bloodshed is never far behind.
This is not a defence of protest violence. It is an indictment of a global elite that has forgotten the art of persuasion. We have traded diplomacy for diktat. We have replaced negotiation with notification. And now we reap the whirlwind. British aid agencies, with their Union Jacks and their good hearts, will soon be on the ground. But will they be met with gratitude or with stones? If history is any guide, the latter.
The language of public health has become the language of empire. 'Quarantine' sounds clinical and necessary. But to a Kenyan, it sounds like 'curfew,' like 'intervention,' like 'you are not capable of managing your own affairs.' The US should have foreseen this. But then, foresight is a luxury for those who study history. And our leaders, it seems, have forgotten the lessons of the Opium Wars, of the Scramble for Africa, of every time a well-meaning power tried to impose a solution on a people it did not respect.
What is to be done? First, the US must scrap the current plan and start anew with Kenyan authorities as equals, not as subordinates. Second, British aid must be offered with humility, not as a patronising rescue mission. Third, we must all accept that the era of unilateral benevolence is over. The mob in Nairobi has spoken. The blood is on the hands of those who thought they could dictate without dialogue.
I expect to be called a cynic, a relisher of disaster. But I am merely a student of cycles. The Roman historians knew that when the centre loses its moral authority, the periphery rebels. Our centre has lost its moral authority. And Kenya, like many others, has reminded us that the cost of arrogance is always paid in coin that is red.
