What Trump win would mean for Kenya and world

When Barack Obama swept to the presidency in November 2008, millions around the world were pleasantly surprised by the improbable rise of the son of a Kenyan father to the most powerful job on earth.

The world’s attention is again fixed on America as the Obama succession contest takes shape but, this time, there is mainly confusion, apprehension and even fear about the equally improbable march to the Republican nomination of Donald J. Trump.

What will it mean if the billionaire, who has run a campaign based on inspiring hatred against minorities and promising to implement the most extremist policies imaginable, actually wins the race to the White House?

It is a question which has begun to exercise minds around the world after a presidential run once dismissed as a stunt and a joke rapidly evolved into a movement which might install in the White House a man conducting a deliberately fear-mongering, protectionist and nationalist campaign.

“There is little doubt that we would enter a period of great uncertainty and upheaval if he wins,” says Zaddock Syongo, the immediate former policy adviser at the ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

“When you look at his words and actions, such as his most recent threat that his supporters will riot if he is not given the Republican nomination, then you have to question whether this is someone who would respect the current rules-based international order.”

Mr Syongo predicts a time of confusion and turmoil in the months following a confirmation of a Trump presidency, especially if he goes ahead to implement some of his wilder policies.

It is easy to see why many are worried because America’s influence extends to most corners of the world.

According to the 2014 census, there are 121,300 Kenyans in the US with some experts estimating that up to 30,000 live illegally in various American cities.

Those migrants make a huge contribution to the Kenyan economy. According to the World Bank, Kenya was the third highest recipient of remittances in Africa in 2015.

LIFE BECOMING DIFFICULT

Kenyans abroad, mainly in North America and Europe, sent back Sh163 billion, an amount bettered only by the Nigerian and Ghanaian diaspora communities.

Many Kenyans in the US, especially those without the right papers, might find life suddenly becoming difficult for them because the biggest issue Trump has run on is a promise to deport all illegal immigrants.

Many economists have pointed out that this would have an effect both ways, sending back millions of undocumented immigrants but also depriving America of a vital source of affordable labour and, therefore, weakening the US economy. But what has shocked many is not Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric but the crudeness of his words.

He opened his campaign by promising to kick out illegal immigrants from neighbouring Mexico, saying many of them were drug dealers, rapists and criminals. Amid a media storm, many expected him to back down but he instead dug in and he has gone on to use even more vulgar language against his critics.

On Thursday, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Mutuma Ruteere, issued a statement expressing concerns about rising levels of extremist rhetoric in politics.

“We see an alarming increase of hate and xenophobic speech echoing across the globe. Political leaders, public figures and even mass media stigmatise and scapegoat migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and foreigners in general, as well as minorities,” read the statement co-signed by Mireille Fanon Mendes-France Chair of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent and the Chairperson of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, José Francisco Cali Tzay.

The experts expressed concern over recent calls by politicians and officials for the mass arrest and deportation of foreigners. “This sort of behaviour encourages acts of violence against vulnerable people,” they complained.

Although they did not single out any country for mention, it was clear they were concerned about the rise of intolerant elements on the political scene in many parts of Europe and now in America.

Perhaps the most sensational campaign promise by Trump has been a threat to bar all Muslims from American soil, including American citizens returning from holiday abroad, a pledge which has been criticised and ridiculed even by fellow right wing Republican candidates.

Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar told the Sunday Nation that Trump’s rise offered a chance for American society to look itself in the mirror and assess many assumptions it held before.

“The fact Trump has gone from strength to strength despite the expectations of many that he would fade reveals something about the psyche of Americans. The bottom-line is that his message is connecting and that shows how people have been brought up to have a very limited world view and to believe the many stereotypes that are trafficked around.”

He said Trump had “unearthed a very raw fear” of foreigners among Americans something which needed to be addressed honestly instead of holding on to “what some call the politically correct, non-racist pretence of the past”.

Last week, the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist magazine, listed the election of Trump as one of the biggest risks facing the global economy in the next few years.

The unit said Trump’s election could start a trade war with other players on the global economic stage and it would also give a huge boon to extremist groups seeking new members.

Trump’s reckless remarks about Muslims and Islam and his impractical proposal to ban all Muslims from stepping on American soil would be a gift to “potential recruiters who have long been trying to paint the US as an anti-Muslim country. His rhetoric will certainly help that recruiting effort,” said Robert Powell, a manager at the EIU.

RELEASED PROPAGANDA

In January, Somalia’s militant al-Shabaab group released a propaganda video urging American Muslims to join the terrorist organisation because they were unwanted in America, something his expected Democratic rival Hillary Clinton had warned about in a debate on December 19.

“He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists,” she said.

On the economic front, a trade war between China and America could actually end up benefiting Africa as the two superpowers clash in their ongoing battle for influence.

“The Americans have been complaining about China’s presence in Africa but that would obviously deepen with a president like Trump who, for all intents and purposes, sounds like someone who admires Apartheid South Africa and doesn’t mind policies rooted in discrimination,” says Mr Syongo.

Mr Syongo noted that while President Obama could come to Kenya and credibly deliver lectures on issues such as ethnicity and graft, America would likely surrender its place as a global leader and exemplar with Trump as president.

More broadly, countries like Kenya and many other African countries which receive substantial funds from the US, especially to cater for the health budget, would probably have to find ways to raise that money domestically. Trump has consistently stated in interviews that he will fund his programmes by cutting waste and foreign aid.

That could have a direct effect on programmes which have traditionally enjoyed support from both Republicans and Democrats, such as the funds allocated to the Global Fund to combat malaria and HIV/Aids.

OUTLANDISH PLEDGES

All of this, of course, depends on two unknown factors – whether Trump can win the General Election (most pundits expect him to bag the Republican nomination but are unsure about his election prospects) and whether he is really serious about some of the seemingly outlandish pledges he has made.

In a January 30 editorial, the New York Times revealed that Trump had all but admitted in a meeting with editors of the newspaper that he was lying and posturing to win votes.

“Mr Trump talked about the art of applause lines. ‘You know,’ he said of his events, ‘if it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’ and they go nuts. ”

A related, more complex and always controversial issue is the one of racism, with many analysts seeing the rise of Trump as being underpinned by a core of voters that has never reconciled itself to Obama’s rise to the presidency.

The journalist and lecturer Jill Abramson has argued that some decisions by the Republican-dominated Congress such as their recent move to refuse even to consider a nominee by President Obama for the Supreme Court will inevitably be viewed as “disrespect tinged with racism”.

Another reading, offered by the long-time Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod, is that America has always elected contrasting characters to the White House, swinging between careful, deliberative individuals to chest thumping warmongers every eight years or so.

“Beyond specific issues, many Republicans view dimly the very qualities that played so well for Mr Obama in 2008,” he wrote. “Deliberation is seen as hesitancy; patience as weakness. His call for tolerance and passionate embrace of America’s growing diversity inflame many in the Republican base, who view with suspicion and anger the rapidly changing demographics of America. The president’s emphasis on diplomacy is viewed as appeasement.”

He added: “So who among the Republicans is more the antithesis of Mr Obama than the trash-talking, authoritarian, give-no-quarter Mr Trump?”
Ultimately for Kenya and other electoral democracies, the lesson to be drawn, say analysts, is the danger demagogues and extremists pose to social stability.

“Many politicians in Kenya, even at the local level, represent very little except manipulating expectations of those on the lowest prisms of our societies,” says Omar.

“When you look at the bigotry on social media, it’s just appalling. We need to strive for a higher form of politics.”