WE NEED LOLLIPOP DIPLOMACY

The American Ambassador is an irritant who should either shut up or ship out. Or should he? I have some thoughts. One, we are a very proud nation; a proud people. And when an alien lectures our leaders, we get violent.

More so if the alien is right. This ambassador guy is right, but his approach is naïve. He is bullish, patronising and eager. Or maybe he is following orders from cousin Obama? Zero! This man has misadvised Washington. He must have told them that “mukoras” in government understand only one language: The whip. On this, he is wrong.

Naive approach

He is like this South African farmer and his young labourer in Grahamtown. One morning, the farmer woke up to find the labourer down with an axe lodged in the middle of his head. He kicked the poor fellow twice to see if he was alive.

To his surprise, the chap responded. Unbothered, the farmer left for work. After all, he reasoned, the labourer could not survive. When he returned home late that evening, he kicked him again to see if he had died. Amazingly, and hours later, the fellow was still conscious.

Shocked by this, he decided to have his evening beer first. Later that night, he took the labourer to hospital. They extracted the axe from his head and the man made a full recovery.

What is the moral of this story? Two things. One, no amount of pain will put a nation down. Not Kenya. In December 2007, we had an axe lodged in the head. It is still there. In fact, Mr Raila Odinga went to New York with an axe on his forehead. And we share in his pain. Especially the ridicule and humiliation over the Barack Obama luncheon.

In my view, and like the African labourer, we will survive the pain. Two, and in the meantime, we must ignore irritants like this ambassador. This is why. As we wriggled in pain in December 2007, President Kibaki was sworn in at night. We were in shock.

But the good ambassador was the first alien to acknowledge the false victory. Like the Boer farmer, maybe he did not care. Or maybe he lacked in judgement. My hunch? He has poor judgement. And because of this, he has misled his government. Issuing threats to our leaders can only turn the public against the Americans.

Because of his actions, we are even prepared to tell cousin Obama to take a walk. On this, I could also be wrong. This is why I will flip my argument now. Maybe this “ambassador guy” is right. And maybe our leaders are “mukoras”. What is more: they have no self respect. This brings me to my second thought. During President Obama’s inauguration, we were not invited.

But our Foreign minister insisted on going to Washington. Then he attended a disgraceful ‘‘street party’’ next to the ‘‘real party’’ at the White House. We were embarrassed beyond. We looked disparate and jilted. We forgot. Now Mr Odinga has revived the memory. His desperate attempt to meet President Obama was pathetic.

First they removed his name from a list of guests invited to a luncheon at the White House. He was not embarrassed. The brother persisted. Next, I believe he ‘‘cornered’’ cousin Obama on some corridor at another luncheon. They exchanged niceties, took a photo and that was all. Now his media spin doctors are telling us that they held “discussions” over Justice Ringera and sundry. I do not believe them. The Prime Minister is being cheap.

No dignity, no pride, no shame. And if this is true, allow me to make my point. When you lose your self respect as a nation, you will be treated like dirt. But there is also a lesson for the ambassador from his boss. When it comes to our leaders, the ambassador uses “cowboy diplomacy”. He is tough; he is rough. What President Obama used on Mr Odinga is “lollipop diplomacy”. It is superior; it is soft power. He made Mr Odinga feel important, not threatened.

Yet all he did at the “corridor meeting” and the photo shoot was to give the Prime Minister a “lollipop”. And this art of “political seduction” is what the ambassador should learn from his boss. Instead of “cowboy diplomacy”, he should try “lollipops”!

Allow me now to give my third thought. Generally, our leaders are charlatans and the world is laughing at us. What is more: they are confused. The Prime Minister told us that the US has a right to ban Kenyan leaders. I was shocked. Maybe the “corridor meeting” with President Obama mesmerised him. Now President Kibaki disagrees.

He has taken issues with the US for threatening our leaders. However, the disrespect we face and the “cheapness” of our leaders begs for a new vision. And this is my third thought. Across the entire nation, small groups are gathering to craft a vision and groom a leader, maybe a presidential candidate. To determine whether the emerging leaders are fake or not, I suggest we use the Nine Tests of Confucius.

According to this thinker, this is how we will know a servant leader: “… send him to a distant mission to test his loyalty. Employ him nearby to observe his manners. Then give him a lot to do in order to judge his ability.

Suddenly put a question to him to test his knowledge. Make a commitment with him in difficult times to test his ability to live up to his own word. Trust him with money to test his heart, and announce the coming of a crisis to test his integrity.

Make him drunk to see the other side of his character and put him in female company to see his attitude towards women. Submitted to these nine tests, a fool will always reveal himself!”