Martin Kimani, permanent representative of Kenya to the UN, defended the territorial integrity of Ukraine against the attacks of Russia which he condemns and the event prompted him to do a little history lesson, on “the danger of nostalgia“, the temptation to say that “it was better before“, and to do this, he took an example from what Africa has suffered.”I’m not teaching you anything by reminding you that our current borders were not drawn by us, they were born of the collapse of colonial empires and were decided by distant capitals, Paris, London, Lisbon, all in defiance peoples that they have, in fact, separated, divided, moved away. Yet today, on each side of the borders, in each African country, live people who share a culture, a history, a language and powerful ties.“
If you’re gonna listen to any speech about #Ukraine let it be this one.
The Kenya ambassador to the UNSC perfectly explains how people across Africa understand Ukraine, and what the Kremlin’s acts of aggression mean in our post-colonial world. pic.twitter.com/0gTuAni0DC
—Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) February 22, 2022
Martin Kimani explains that after decolonization, each people could have reconstituted its former territory, redrawing the map of the entire continent. Instead of that, “rather than looking back and sinking into a dangerous form of nostalgia, we have all chosen to look ahead, to the future, and to respect the only charter that can unite us, that of the United Nations. Do not mistake yourself, adds the ambassadorour borders do not satisfy us, we simply aim higher, bigger than the map, we aim for peace”.
If a border divides, Martin Kimani replies that we must cooperate, maintain cultural, economic and linguistic ties, work together and respect each other. A border is never perfect, rarely fair or satisfactory, but to cross it is war, it is failure, it is “the wayhe concludes, towards domination and oppression”.
And Martin Kimani knows what he is talking about, since before bringing his country’s voice to the UN, he was in charge of the fight against terrorism and extremism in Kenya, and he graduated from King’s College London in war history. His advocacy has reached far beyond the UN circle since, on Twitter alone, he has been seen by more than five million people, shared hundreds of thousands of times, hailed, applauded, thanked for his righteous words, and this reminder that we have never founded the future by brandishing the past, and that war is not peace.