If you haven’t already picked up Vanity Fair’s Africa issue, make sure you do so. To my and others’ surprise, the issue covers pretty well rounded views on Africa despite the magazine’s commercialism. Included in the issue is a story about Kenya’s “equity generation”. Written by Kenyan author/journalist Binyavanga Wainaina – who is also profiled in another Vanity Fair feature on Africa’s literati – the article focuses on young people who have survived the hard last years of President Daniel arap Moi’s Kenya that ended in 2002 and are now driving Kenya’s economy. The Wall Street Journal’s Informed Reader summarizes Mr. Wainaina’s article further, and points to a complementing Economist magazine article on the subject.
“Where the country has done well, it is often despite rather than because of the government. When Kenyans have been able to do things off their own bat, they have invariably done better than when they have been locked into state-controlled schemes.†— Robin Moroney (The Economist)