Ardhi House along Ngong Road in Nairobi. Photo/FILE
By Macharia Munene
Japan is concerned about its image and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears to be rebranding Japan in Africa.
In Nairobi, this effort is reflected in the
activities of Atsuko Kashiwaguchi, outgoing political officer,
defensively engaging people she perceives to have unflattering opinions
about Japan.
She twice came looking for me at the university to
“discuss” some of my views on geopolitics. One of her last acts,
prodded by Japanese language instructor Katsuji Nakamura of USIU, was to
organise a public assessment of Japan’s relations with Kenya.
The symposium revealed things affecting Japan’s
image. The experiential discussions portrayed the positive but did not
touch on what ails perceptions of Japan-Kenya relations.
The story of Yoshiyuki Sato’s 50 years of business
innovations and enterprise in Kenya was thrilling. Dennis Awori’s
revealed Toyota’s expansion plans in the region.
The scholarly session brought out the fact that
Japan is poor at marketing itself and tends to assume that its work is
self-evident.
Subsequently, Kenyans often give credit to China
for some work done by Japan. It does not seem interested in letting
people know of its activities.
In addition, having seemingly ignored scholarship
on Kenya/African relations with Japan, little literature in English
exists on Japan and Africa. With hardly anything to read on Japan,
besides technical brochures on JICA and TICAD, the Japanese remain
mysterious.
Part of the mystery is Japan’s attempt to be part
of the conceptual West, although being geographically in the East.
Emerging from World War II psycho-politically cowed, it managed to
conquer the world economically by flooding the globe with quality and
reasonably priced goods.
In Kenya, Japan contributed to the growth of the
matatu industry with the ever present Nissans ferrying people from and
to every corner that buses could not.
Geopolitically, Japan came up with its own
innovation of Africa “Summit” diplomacy by inaugurating the Tokyo
International Conference on African Development, TICAD, in 1993.
The TICAD process raises Japan’s international
profile even as it seeks alternative sources of energy, and Africa
appears to be that source. Other powers then copied Japan and started
holding their own African “summits”.
Japan, however, finds difficult to escape
entrenched paternalistic Euro habits of purporting to preach to Kenyans
while ignoring their own poor governance and corruption.
The corruption disease afflicts both the Africans
and the “donors” but the Euros are good at blame shifting and sanitizing
their misdeeds by baptizing them “national interests”.
Accusations of corruption, with Japan caught in
between, became shrill after 2002 when fresh procurement procedures were
applied as previous English virtual monopoly of supplying security
vehicles and drugs was reduced.
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