Kenya Give Us A Moment to Pontificate?

For the most part our contact with the outside world is limited – phone calls from family, large envelopes with month old copies of Sports Illustrated and the equally-delayed issues of Newsweek (international edition) courtesy of the Peace Corps. The only real regular source of current information comes from BBC World and Radio France International (RFI), both of which feature Africa-oriented programming and both of which have been dominated by the ongoing violence in Kenya over the last month.

So in the interest of ongoing commentary on the life of an American in Africa, we thought a blog post about our impressions about the conflict vis-a-vis our existence here in Benin would not be too out of place.

First off, for all those concerned about such things it is worth saying up front that we have been kept abreast of the situation of the Peace Corps volunteers in Kenya and that the extensive and well-practiced security measures are being employed to protect them. We’d tell you more but I’m not sure what would get us in trouble with administration – better not to press it.

Now what does this then mean for Benin, or more directly how likely is it that this kind of thing could happen here ? What has been most interesting has been the reports of specific incidents, how certain acts were carried out and in what settings. Some of the building conditions (cement housing with metal framed doors and windows), instruments of aggression (the ubiquitous machete) and fault lines (tribal/ geographic/ religious) are much easier to comprehend now. How a town can be wiped off the map in a matter of hours doesn’t seem as astonishing, or that the chaos can turn once peaceful neighbors against each other in a basic fight for survival.

Could it happen in Benin ? Maybe, but hard to see it happening at least while we’re here. Much of what fueled the violence there was a history of one group usurping all the political/ economic/ military authority. Benin is in a pretty good place in that while some groups, specifically the Fon and Nagot in the South have played a more dominant role in commercial development, the country’s largest single economic sector is the cotton industry in the Bariba North.

The same balance has been struck politically where there have been a higher quantity of career politicians and bureaucrats from the South, but the two most influential presidents in the post-communist era have been Mathieu Kerekou and Boni Yayi from the Northern Attacora and Borgou respectively. Furthermore, the military, traditionally the largest instigator of sectarian strife in Africa since the end of colonialism, is not dominated by any one group and insists on carving out as much of a national identity as possible.

As of now it is hard to see Benin going the way of Kenya, but then again Kenya had long been considered one of Africa’s bright spots (in retrospect, it seems Kenya’s economic success tended to distract from its less than ideal political situation). If we were to guess, it would be an economic destabalizer rather than a socio-religious one that could set Benin off. Unequally distributed revenues from any discovered natural resources, or possibly a political leader whose patronage gave discretionary spending power to one group that already has notable economic advantages. But neither of those things seem likely, at least not in the next few years.

So what then is the lesson learned? Its something we’ve heard a lot lately, but simply put its that culture matters and that our multi-race, religious diverse communities are the exception, not the norm.