The travel posters from Kenya are all “Out of Africa” beauty, safari paradise shots and handsome Masai tribesmen with their red robes and spears. And for decades, Kenya was held up as East Africa’s great hope for democracy and development.
But in the last month, after a disputed — observers say stolen — presidential election, the “great hope” has descended into bloody tribal reprisals and ethnic cleansing.
It’s bad for the country, the region, and for U.S. hopes of a bulwark against terrorism in East Africa.
This hour, On Point: we go to a shaken Kenya, and the roots of the crisis.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Jonathan Ledgard, Nairobi-based Africa correspondent for The Economist magazine.
Kenda Mutongi, associate professor of history and chair of the Africana Studies department at Williams College, she grew up in the village of Maragoli, near Kisumu, Kenya. She is the author of “Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya” (2007).
Steve Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
Tags: Africa, crisis, economics, Kenya
