Africans with Asian eyes. Yes, they exist. Because the Asians came to the East African coast a long time ago. Even for the white Europeans.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SWAHILI CULTURE
The African coastal inhabitants have always focused on the outside world, beyond the horizon into the sea. They had hardly any ties with the interior. For hundreds of years, Arab, Persian and Asian merchants had been blowing in their sailing ships on monsoon winds, only to leave with merchandise a few months later. They found an inexhaustible wealth of cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh. Asian perfume makers paid large sums of money for small amounts of the fragrant ambergris that erupted stranded whales. At that time a sailing ship could transport 80 tons. Enough to furnish every room in the palace of an Indian grand prince, and enough to deliver the sex drive-inducing rhino horn to a dozen sultans.
Since about a thousand years ago, Arabs have been mixing with Africans, from which the mixture of Swahili originated. But the whites (Portuguese) and Asians (Chinese) also visited the then flowering centers of Lamu and other islands, and left parts of their DNA in the genes of the inhabitants. History gave the coastal culture a unique mixture of races and tribes.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SWAHILI CULTURE
The African coastal inhabitants have always focused on the outside world, beyond the horizon into the sea. They had hardly any ties with the interior. For hundreds of years, Arab, Persian and Asian merchants had been blowing in their sailing ships on monsoon winds, only to leave with merchandise a few months later. They found an inexhaustible wealth of cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh. Asian perfume makers paid large sums of money for small amounts of the fragrant ambergris that erupted stranded whales. At that time a sailing ship could transport 80 tons. Enough to furnish every room in the palace of an Indian grand prince, and enough to deliver the sex drive-inducing rhino horn to a dozen sultans.
Since about a thousand years ago, Arabs have been mixing with Africans, from which the mixture of Swahili originated. But the whites (Portuguese) and Asians (Chinese) also visited the then flowering centers of Lamu and other islands, and left parts of their DNA in the genes of the inhabitants. History gave the coastal culture a unique mixture of races and tribes.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KENYA AND CHINA
At the train station at Miritini, not far from Mombasa city, is a bronze statue of the Chinese explorer Zheng He, who traveled to the Kenyan coast in the 15th century. One of the ships of his mighty armada was wrecked and the crew swam to the islet of Pate, part of the Lamu Archipelago. The statue of He in Miritini was made in China, with Chinese materials, by Chinese artists. And there it pinches in the relationship between Kenya and China, or in a broader context between China and Africa: the African part of the growing cooperation with China is far too small. This stings many an African, and this discrepancy sours the relationship.
Koert Lindijer, Africa correspondent for NRC, nrc.next and NOS Radio. Photo by Andy Troy.
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“A CHINESE NEVER ASKS YOU,” HOW ARE YOU? “IT IS ALWAYS:” HOW ARE THINGS? “
Kenya was late in embracing China. Forty years ago, relations with China were based on ideology. So the Chinese built a railway in socialist Tanzania, in order to give the states around racist South Africa a way out to the sea for their goods. The railway line built by China from Mombasa to Nairobi does not have such an ideological label, but it does have a hefty price tag. It will take Kenya at least another ten years to pay off the $ 3.8 billion railroad and that is why until then the management will be done by the Chinese, in addition to the Kenyans.
GROWING TENSIONS
That stings the Kenyans. Why do the Chinese always put their stamp on their projects so strongly and take our jobs, they wonder. “Kenya Airways recently flew with great fanfare to New York for the first time,” Joseph Kamau, a trader in Nairobi, told me recently. “The pilot and the entire crew were Kenyan. So why are the train drivers on the train Chinese? ”
I met Joseph Kamau in Nairobi on Lithuli Avenue, where he runs a shop selling computer equipment. All its wares come from China. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese came to Africa with the Chinese investments. In the towns along the railway there are yellow buildings and yards, where the Chinese workers close themselves off. The Kenyans see little of these indentured servants, they live separately on their own yards and hardly show themselves. The private Chinese who came to trade, however, are a thorn in the side for many Kenyans. “A Chinese never asks you,” How are you? “It is always:” How are things? “They never invite you for a cup of tea, they never get social. As soon as they see an African, they say, “Buy from me, buy, buy.”
So purely a business relationship: not out of love, but for money. There is nothing wrong with that, that is how the (capitalist) world works nowadays.
INCREASING DEBT Burden
It does mean that African countries have to be on their guard. Because the debts of African countries have risen dramatically in the last ten years and although only part of this belongs to China, the question arises whether such a debt burden is sustainable. Yes, says Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. His thought is: Kenya is making a major industrial leap forward, and borrowed money is needed for that. The railroad and other infrastructure projects will pay for themselves. That could take years and Kenya is in danger zone economically due to the rapidly rising debt burden to China. That amounts to ten billion dollars. After Angola and Ethiopia, Kenya in Africa owes the most to China.
The Chinese “turn of the century invasion of Africa” touches a sensitive chord in the white West. “New colonialism and imperialism,” warn commentators and politicians. You also hear more and more of these kinds of sounds in Africa itself. Perhaps. But Western kriek on developments in Africa nowadays sound increasingly hollow. For of all the outsiders who came to African shores over the centuries, the whites exerted the longest and probably the most disastrous influence. Western modesty seems appropriate here. Meanwhile, with the dramatic Chinese increase in influence, the white influence on Africa is declining dramatically. And now then, one wonders.