Blogger Dikembe Disembe ROASTS Prof. Irving Rotberg as controversy stokes Obama visit to Kenya

By Shem Beverton Mukalo

Firebrand leftist and socio-political buff, Dikembe Disembe, has consciously opted to venture into dangerous territory miles beyond the terrorist-ridden shores of Kenya.

Writing for Kenya Today, a leftist blog ,the former Moi University student leader, dropped an intellectually fatal bombshell on a towering target in an unflattering review.

The target of his vicious intellectual musings is not one of the dwarfs masquerading as intellectuals: Gaitho et al,but an infinitely gifted scholar long established in the consciousness of the global public. Prof. Robert Irwing Rotberg.

Proffessor Rotberg is not your ordinary scholar, his grasp of global dynamics is legendary as evidenced by a trail of ground-breaking articles and books on foreign policy and politics. His latest article titled :”Going to Kenya is a dumb idea, Mr. President.”, and advising against the impending Obama’s visit has put him on Dikembe’s cross-hairs.

The article, published by “Politico”, an American newspaper, has yielded a fitting rejoinder from Dikembe in a sarcastic review titled “President Obama’s Coming to Kenya is Indeed a Dumb Idea”.

The review starts off on a softer tone giving the reader the false impression that the budding scholar(Dikembe) shares Rotberg’s sentiments in totality.

From the outset, Dikembe concurs with Rotberg to the extent that Obama’s visit confers undeserved legitimacy to the Uhuruto regime and corrodes U.S credibility as a human rights champion.

On the question of the implications of the visit on the ethnic tensions between communities,the two scholars don’t see eye to eye.Rotberg argues :

“President Obama naturally and appropriately will want to visit his paternal homestead in the Luo heartland. But travelling there will plunge the American president deeply into ethnic politics in Kenya, and do nothing forinter-group harmony in that volatile country. Visiting afterthe end of his presidency would not show such favoritism (whether intended or not) to one side in a divided Kenya. President Obama, deft as he is, needs to avoid putting himself or his office into the middle of any ethnic and electoral animosities that still linger. . .”,

With this argument,Dikembe pitches for  a counter-argument. Prof.Rotberg exposes his utter ignorance of ‘contentious issues’ in contemporary Luo-Kikuyu relations in all facets of Kenyan public life.

It is his (Dikembe) view that the visit has no bearing on ethnic relations.

Rotberg makes another intellectual blooper casting aspersions on his colossal credentials. He claims that protecting Obama on Kenyan soil could prove a tall order.This earns him another salvo from Dikembe who wonders how a powerhouse of U.S calibre, with nukes, would fail to guarantee the security of her president.

The towering professor faults the announcement months before the visit arguing that it gives jihadists ample time to do something nasty.He further argues that Obama should visit deserving nations such as Malawi,Nigeria or Botswana.

Dikembe rubbishes these arguments quipping that they represent the crassest rendition of “American exceptionalism”.  He writes, “While Rotberg calls himself  ‘Africanist’, his opinions are crassest rendition of ‘American exceptionalism’ – the self-evident truth that Americans occupy some exalted pedestal in the international scheme of things – and thus must always be ‘aware’ of its actions: that visiting Kenya, in 2015, is such a ‘dumb idea'”

While Prof. Rotberg is yet to respond to this trenchant critique of his rather naive assessment of the impending Obama’s visit, the review catapults Kenya’s most controversial pundit, itching to engage his intellectual muscle, into another sphere all the more daunting.