Does Mrs Clinton really know someone everywhere she goes?

During Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, I was continually amazed at how, whichever state she happened to be in, she would engage in manic waving and pointing at someone in the crowd whom she appeared to recognize.

Given that this was done from under bright spotlights that must have made it more or less impossible to see anyone at all in a large audience, I assumed that she must have been acting on the advice of image-handlers, who thought it might work in her favour if she were seen to have friends everywhere she went.

Now that she's US Secretary of State, such a ploy would seem to be even more pointless, but a picture in today’s Daily Telegraph shows Mrs Clinton engaged in identical manic waving at someone a crowd in Seoul, Korea – which has got me wondering whether she really does have a global network of friends or suffers from some kind of obscure Pavlovian response whenever she finds herself in front of a crowd.

Personality cult as an antidote to tribalism?

One thing I had not expected to be reminded of in Kenya was the ubiquitous official portraits of ‘THE LEADER’ that used to adorn shops and public places in communist countries like the former Yugoslavia, where you could hardly move without a picture of Tito (left) bearing down on you.

Thirty years on, I felt a similar sense of unease on seeing Kenya’s dubiously ‘elected’ President Kibaki (right) beaming benevolently down on me from above the reception desks in hotels, and various other public places.

Did this mean, I wondered, that the personality cult was being revived and imposed from on high by a ‘leader’ keen to bolster the shakiness of his position?

Apparently not, according to the locals I raised the question with. The framed pictures of Kibaki are put there by smart business people (at their own expense) to insure themselves against anyone jumping to the conclusion that they might be actively opposed to the new power-sharing settlement between Kikuyu and Luo politicians.

Most of the Kenyans I spoke to were despondent about the continuingly negative influence of tribalism on the country and its failure to develop a genuine national sense of identity (a criticism that had got Barack Obama Snr. into a a great deal of trouble after independence). They also expressed considerable admiration for neighbouring Tanzania, where Julius Nyrere’s anti-tribalism and linguistic reforms were far more successful than his socialist economic policies.

More about how Nyrere’s approach to independence differed from that of other post-colonial leaders can be seen here, but the following excerpt from it provides a neat explanation of his achievement:

‘Tanzania distinguishes itself from its regional neighbors in many ways, one of which is its political and civil peace. Uganda lacks unity and has been characterized for years by internal strife and civil war. The current situation in Kenya demonstrates that Tanzania's neighbor to the north deals with its share of unrest. The repeated story in most all of independent Africa is one of civil conflict and tribalism. Tanzania should be no different. With its nearly 130 different tribes, the country of Tanzania could be riddled by the same kind of tribalism, but it is not. This is in large part to the work of Julius Nyerere.

‘Nyerere made a number of strategic moves that have provided Tanzania with political stability. The most important of these was to establish a Tanzanian national identity. Nyerere did this primarily by leading the nation to adopt Swahili, a native Tanzanian language, as the country's national language. Swahili gave Tanzanians a distinctly African identity, distancing them from the colonial powers whose rule had just recently been removed. Unlike the language of English (the administrative language under the British protectorate), Swahili was something indigenous.

‘Nyerere's policy of socialized education was the means of disseminating the language to the whole nation, but it was already widely used throughout the country before it was ever taught. Swahili would not be simply a regional language; it would become the national language of education and commerce, and for many, the language of daily life.... Part of being Tanzanian became speaking Swahili, so the language served to unify a tribally diverse nation.

‘Since the decade of independence (1960's), Africa has become known for civil strife rooted in tribalism. One tribe wrestles for political power over another, and a country's democratic system becomes the stage for inter-tribal warfare. Tanzania has avoided much of this because of the purposeful leadership of Nyerere to develop a truly national identity.’

Kenya holiday reading

One of my more childish habits is to take books on holiday that vaguely relate to the location – so I read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin on a Greek island and Death on the Nile while cruising along the Nile in a paddle steamer very similar to the one in the film.

We’ve just got back from a couple of weeks in Kenya, where the obvious book to take was Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father.

Apart from being a fascinating and well-written story, it had the unexpected bonus of prompting staff in the game lodges to engage me in conversation about the new president. The pride of Kenyans in Obama’s success is palpable and I can’t imagine that I'd have learnt about this or about how the Luo, his father’s tribe, are regarded by those from other tribes, if I’d been reading something else.

Nor would I have learnt from one of my hosts which nationality of visitors he regarded as the most difficult - where 'difficulty' was defined as their insisting on getting out of his Land Rover to be photographed with (highly dangerous) buffalo. When he told them they were breaking the most important rule of all and asked them to get back into the vehicle for their own safety, they refused by saying "we've come here to see the animals, not you."

News of their misconduct quickly reached the game wardens, who came to the guide's rescue by rounding up the tourists and depositing them on the first plane back to Nairobi.

This has provided me with a new dinner party quiz game, which is to invite people to guess which country they came from. Visitors to the blog are welcome to join in by adding their own suggestions, though I haven't yet decided whether or not to make the answer available to a wider public!