The Global Fifth Estate

The Global Fifth Estate: Diaspora freedom, borderless-wealth, lifestyle and influence

Sam Mwaka-karama

The state has always had private individuals as friends: These were always ordinary people who did what state machinery weren’t mandated to do… they were shadowy nondescript characters who somehow interacted with leaders [in the olden days – they even arm-twisted individuals under secret instructions of some top leaders] they went for whatever a certain leader wanted and got it – drove around in fancy personal cars. Flew abroad and returned with duty free items the leaders need and may want. They ran secret errands for the big men or made it easier for lower or mid-range foreigners or organizations to access a particular leader or the state; introducing business contacts or managed whatever business for a leader – the ordinary private friends of the leader often organized foreign shopping trips for the leaders’ families; helped with tedious documentations and, tracked the trunks or containers shipped. The errand runners go-for nearly everything the leading family needs or want done.

These sort of contacts and influences of these men [and sometimes women too] are fairly widespread across the world. They were the positive small players who unofficially spread an ‘unseen partnership’ among the men at the top between various countries.

 In the earlier days of African Independence, it was possible for them [unseen partnership makers] to quietly acquire property for a leading family [even royalty] in a city of another country; with understanding between the men at the top who often became partners in such ventures and investments.

When Africa was still vulnerable to coups or military takeover – this sort of networking provided the convenient clandestine logistics, for safe passage, even quiet exiled settlement in another country; not only for the overthrown leader, but also for a whole lot of their relatives and followers… and the same network [sometimes] enabled the underground channels, for able fellows among the exiled group, float a struggle to fight for a return; these are the characteristics of the ‘unseen partnership’ in some cases activated between early African leaders by influences of certain individuals, in the first three decades of African independence; personalized friendships existed between and among some leaders. Ugandans have walked through these tracks with their colleagues – especially when things went wrong and many Ugandans needed support and help.

 This phenomena happens all over the world with deferring levels and degree of impact – but the created [networks] remain a unique diasporas phenomena that for some, have built valuable ‘unseen wealth’ that have over the many-many years become solid visible and perfectly legal property and business assets and investments in a friendly foreign or neighboring country or in some far away country; many rich people around the world [with some luck] made it in this way.

This is the story of fundamental worldly exile; Diasporas life and wealth making. This is the positive story of the ‘Fifth Estate’; the story of the unseen tentacles of influences that have over the past 50+ years of African and Asian independence intertwined with the state becoming an enormous global influence.

Many Asian investments in Africa linked to leaders [back in their home countries] have been the humble initiative of individual non-state ‘unseen influences’ perhaps started in exile… between Asian countries and some Arab countries; cross-country investments between the leading families in each other’s countries are the mainstay of strong national economic ties that enable and ensure mutual development and common peace.

There is strong spillover of these sorts of influence peddling and search for personal wealth creation and developments between leaders and their families in Africa - from the more affluent Asian and some [positive] Arab countries.

The less affluent Africans are still slow to understanding these aspects of Globalization: the leading family wealth interests and the State and country development interests; even tentatively accepting the two as detached from each other and yet secured and complimented by one another - that a leader can use his legitimate earnings in government service to develop family farm, industry and property honestly and bank-ably… these are still virgin fields of thought many traditional thinking African leaders are yet to scale over and accept as normal…

Donor Blackmail and stigma…

Unlike the Asian and Arab experiences in worldly affluence, few African leaders contemplate personal family investments in foreign or neighboring countries… This is largely because the ‘donor countries’ and groups have blackmailed the African leaders against ‘personal wealth interests’; anti-corruption watch-dogs set-up by donor countries threaten and disgrace leaders who seem to be wealthy.

The donors invade foreign banks and fish-out money belonging to former African leaders on the flimsy claims and accusations that they were money obtained from [public development funds]… in certain instances the accusations of the donors were right – however, African leaders should take heed and visibly create their family wealth and build their homes and properties conspicuously [documented from scratch] to deter donor sponsored stigma on their wealth at some future point…

The problem with the old African leaders [1960s/70s/80s] was of cause ignorance or little knowledge; they mostly believed in amassed cash wealth abroad – and have no defendable personal family investment portfolios or farming and ranching activities at home to show as source of their wealth – so the donors ignite local oppositions and syndicate human rights organizations paid by the donor countries to lead the campaign to disintegrate a leader’s wealth-base locally and financial banking status abroad. Shame-faced African leaders [cocoon] their thinking so much that they are defenseless when the donors bring-out the guillotine accusations. The average African leader is not a sport; they don’t see that the claims and accusations are a generalized affront against everything potentiality out of Africa.

The educated Whiteman will never believe that an African has intellect; that given level ground and exposed to equal resources Africans might play the better game – is what the Whiteman perennially fights against. Their strategy is rendering African leaders disgraced! With all due respect to the white race I prefer to tell the truth and shame the real devil in them that spew hate and confusion over nonexistent accusations and stigmatizations.  

The donor countries are on another kind of [in-direct] protracted war: a major programme to ‘keep Africa poor’- to the donors Africa must never get to know how real wealth is made. And if you are careless they waylay you at some point; remove the support and protection you enjoyed while in leadership and throw you down… African leaders are yet to learn how to off-set them and insure your post leadership days; create family wealth that are not challengeable by the Conrad Adenoids of this world.

And if a leader’s village home was weed overgrown and fake looking… then he didn’t have the business acumen to create a wealth base at home – so the donors get the legitimacy to invade his bank accounts abroad – neither did he build a mall or plaza, even industry with a loan from a local or foreign bank; so where does his money come from? What services was the leader rendering to his country outside of his state duty? Such leaders become vulnerable to ‘corruption’ accusations and donors might wrestle his finances down and confiscate them – as ill gotten wealth, probably from donor funds.   

The overseas and local factor   

Between Asia and Africa: Diaspora returns in terms of wealth and influence to the home and neighboring country differ from one country to the other; depending on the sense of organization and loyalty to culture from a variety  of country and tribe backgrounds of the individuals. Asians are certainly in the lead  here – they turned around earned Diasporas wealth [including those earned in East Africa] into investments in Europe, Ireland, Britain, Canada, Australia, US and in some South American countries. This has placed vast share of the enormous global business in the hands of Diaspora Asians who have the superstructures for manufacturing at home and products distributions network worldwide.

Potentially, this should also have been the direction Africans abroad, might have wanted to explore if it wasn’t for overly localized thinking rendering Africans abroad marginal players and non-players at all. The Africans perennially mulling over their vain claims of [non-existent] political victimization at home – when actually they were just sweet-toothed eaters and burping nibblers hooked-up to goodies and comfort abroad, and little else.

Few African exiles in Europe and the Americas actually manage to pull out of the magnet of comfort and good feeding in the diasporas; so that what Asian and Arab diasporans achieved since World War Two – that revolutionized development in their regions [though with extreme difficulties] in certain countries who have reservations and suspicion of western ideas…

Even then, the exile or Diaspora  contributors have changed and developed Asia and the Arab world despite overwhelming and sometime deterrent religious extremism and conservative thinking that the west eventually overcame with decades of [constructive engagement] devised during the Henry Kissinger’s [Shuttle Diplomacy] – which helped the Asian and Arab diasporans soften the ground enough to be trusted with their western friends and their proposals that slowly changed that vast part of the world… making a kind-of business as usual atmosphere [following formation of OPEC] that had affected especially Arab mentality towards the west and the world at large - that al Qaeda actually managed to defused and dismantle much of that ‘constructive engagement Kissinger diplomacy’ will remain the myth of history hard to understand.   

The new African leadership

The local African factor is ever bleaker: the influence and network of [unofficial local contact] used by African leaders outside of the state is diminished! The [unseen partnership] phenomena ended with leaders of the 1960s, 70s and 80s… contemporary African leaders openly use state functionaries even to handle hidden family investment interests at home or in another country or abroad.

This has impacted rather negatively – considering fact that it cuts-off certain build-up of personalized friendships that were developed in the long past; the subterranean current of influential friendship between personalities at the top of neighboring countries is suddenly gone!

Even as the EAC fast-tracking narrowed down the country relationship gaps with better legislature formulated to finally cement the E A Community ties.

Sometimes one gets the vague notion that – while the positive aspect of the ‘Global Fifth Estate’ are gaining in creating the network of contact and [somehow even forging friendship on personal levels with African leaders] there is nevertheless an existing factor of the same; developing the proverbial [negation of the negation]: ‘We want you but we don’t like you’. So that the flow and fluctuation of movement and information in the interactivity of African neighbors’ citizens carry both negative and positive effects; what breeds mutual suspicion and distrust.  

And so just like the EAC process of unification that is being developed amidst ‘expulsions’ of the neighbors’ citizens… AU itself still has massive hurdles to clear. Some African countries are still bundling the other’s citizens on the old beaten-up ‘panda gari’ and we think ‘officially’ the unification of Africa is a workable project? If our leaders do not get the interest of setting-up personal family shop in his neighbor’s city… how will the neighbor country’s peace or no peace ever matter – to whom?

The informal bridge of ‘unseen friendship’ among and between leaders is missing – the potentials of the positive aspect of the ‘Fifth Estate’ has not been encouraged by the contemporary leaders of the East African Countries – we are united by treaties, principles and policies, but the leaders have no personalized investment interests in the others country.

Between us the positive aspect of the ‘Fifth Estate’ is therefore inactivated, while the ‘Global Fifth Estate’ is boldly and actively spreading business interests of foreign leaders, who are forging personal friendship with our leaders - into our countries – and we will never be able to contemplate exchange of personal family investment interests [among our own leaders] within our region - we still believe that only corporate and industrial investments [cross-border] between us will guarantee peace and unity in our region… we are wrong.

The issue is: in order to off-set potentials for donors’ accusations in the future… African leaders must invest openly their family business interests. So that those [developed world stigma-tizers] who feed on the blood of the stigma – in donor countries will be exposed as well and, their heinous crimes of sponsoring violence and terrorism become prosecutable crimes and also exposed – African women are coerced into promised jobs abroad that become sex-slavery; in modern Europe. African women even born in European exile by African parents are turned into sex-objects and drug addicts… heinous crimes openly committed by the stigma-tizers in their own countries that are prosecutable; are covered-up by the human rights sponsors themselves – when will African leaders stand-up and create counter accusations instead of religiously “go marching in” to the ICC.   

What is the ‘Fifth Estate’?         

‘Fifth Estate’ is that body of undefined individual or group used by the state in errand that are outside official known duty of state functionaries; to run any form of errand for a top leader, to help run personal family business within, in another or neighboring country on behalf of any leader, his family or any member of state – such unofficial personalized service provider to a top leader and family - is an entity I call the ‘Fifth Estate’.

In Africa, the best example of the ‘Fifth Estate’ is a negative one - the story of the friendship between a Kenyan leader and a vicious criminal known as “Mark Twist” – the criminal was known to have carried-out some errands, for the leader, in exchange for his freedom after an arrest and that started a friendship that lasted several years.

About Two decades after demise of Mark Twist and the old leader; in October 1995 about ten thousand criminals were forgiven and sent home to rehabilitate themselves back to positive community mentality acceptable to their country… within a few years the criminals created what the world know today as “Mungiki” a crime based organization with tentacles in every government office, institutions, companies, industries, NGOs and have since crept into Embassies and International agencies with offices in Kenya – it is said that to go past an Embassy gate or have your documents carried from there to the inner office for visa, you would have paid well. Inside, to access the diplomats for an interview you pay – Mungiki has become the [buffer between] you have to “respect” to get your visa or any other whatever services you want from any office in that country.

Mungiki influence now border on lobby groups and community concern entities… its strong point is therefore business with support from the state since the mostly criminal founders were under-educated people. Mungiki is the legacy of Mark Twist; created by unseen, unofficial friendship and sympathetic influence that materialize [between leaders and ordinary people] for services privately in the interest of the statesman – That is the [negative or positive] factors of the ‘Fifth Estate’.

These undefined contacts that conduit subterranean friendship influences [outside the state or rigid religion] between leaders so that below the hardness of policy and state function and diplomacy, there is soft footedness and humanity that make ordinary movement, freedom and daily business of citizenry supple and easy – these unofficial contacts have maintained business between leaders for centuries right across the broad spectrum of civilization’s history: but I believe it had never before been called by the acronym I have created – The Fifth Estate.

 Without the subterranean friendship players between and among leaders of a given region: chances are ideologies, principles, policies, white papers and legislatures and policies might more often threaten to grind relationship between countries to a halt; even where well defined treaties exist. The ‘Fifth Estate’ always exists in infinite and diverse potentials to be made use of or ignored by leaders. They are common place people every leader always encounter them one way or the other.

Leaders must always have personal business interests in the next country, a second country, or even an investment abroad… it is the safety valve; because elites are entitled to invest their income. Leaders with little or no personal business investments in the regional community countries might encourage too much selfish country pride that eventually may turn events in the community altogether negative even perhaps counterproductive – what do we really want, a self integrated, consolidated EAC economy – really?; then why not try investing or starting a small family business activity in the neighbor’s country? In the interest of local regional citizens who tend to move about freely and blandly. Why not take your family to explore endowments of your neighboring country – spend your holiday there and see their country side? – I think it is a blatant lie no-one wants this Unification!

Negative aspect of the Fifth Estate

When leaders don’t even visit their neighbors [I am not talking about state visits] relationships might just about remain perfectly official to the letter. However the problem with that is fact that the ordinary citizens who embody the tentacles of the Fifth Estate [like it or hate it] in its negativeness and in its positiveness - might stumble on something and spark a situation – like the Mungiki nearly created a bloody scene on a tiny island between Kenya and Uganda on Lake Victoria in the recent past.

Similarly, a Ugandan General and Minister once lost his entire consignment of Sugar reportedly imported from Brazil – his transit consignment was entangled in the tentacles of Mungiki at the port of Mombasa – according to newspaper reports the Kenyan criminals cannibalized the entire import and, were protected by the state; newspaper reports and investigative stories followed the controversy closely and, legal battle supposedly ensured with the Ugandan minister attending the “Kangaroo Court” that had become Radio Fm laughing matter for a long time.

That was the power of the Fifth Estate; the General had no chance however, had the minister been able to established his business interests in Kenya properly, Mungiki might have not created the loss of his import consignment the way it happened – to me I see that the EAC has a big problem because the negative aspect of the Fifth Estate; the criminal entanglement is already very widely spread and, to Kenyans there is an accepted patriotism to Mungiki that cannot be challenged by law or bureaucracy of any sort. ***

The Author is an Independent Thinker, Blogger and Book Author