As I was waiting for my interview with David Anderson, at the 
Oxford African Studies Center, I was reading Decolonization & Independence in Kenya, 1940-1993 (edited by B.A. Ogot & W. R. Ochieng').
In the section on the period between 1978 and 1988, I found this chapter. The first paragraph seems particularly relevant to what is happening in Kenya right now.
Here's what Ogot, director of the Institute of Research and Postgraduate Studies at Maseno University College had to say...
The histories of most societies indicate that, in working out developmental priorities, the sequence is usually from the economic and technological priority to social concerns and finally to cultural problems.
The predominant emphasis on output goals, such as capital formation and the raising of gross national product (GNP), soon leads to problems of social justice: equity and human rights. In other words, the reckless pursuit of wealth, unaccompanied by broader social objectives, aggravates social tensions and generates disharmonies and conflicts which are bound to have unsettling effects on the social order.
Often, during these first two stages of development, the cultural objectives of development are either left undefined or stated in very general and vague terms. It is usually when forces of destabilization are unleashed that societies are forced to show some concern for culture. This normally means making an attempt to find an alternative approach to development, and a realization that the concept of development itself is value-loaded.
In short, it is during this third stage that societies realize that the development paradigm is not an economic matter but a cultural one.
Anderson has a more political take on the current conflict. The transcript of our lengthy interview is coming to you next.
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