To East African outsiders, it’s a spat; to us, this is how we talk about ourselves

East African Community presidents at a summit in Kampala, Uganda in February 2018. Flare-ups between East Africans are often set off by state actions and geopolitical rivalries. FILE PHOTO | NMG

What you need to know:

Tanzania came down hard, banning Kenya Airways and other carriers from the country. Over a month later, and that’s where we still are

It started in late July when Kenya released a list of countries whose passengers would be permitted to enter the country when commercial flights resumed on August 1, after months of a shutdown to battle Covid-19.

Tanzania, where the government stopped releasing Covid-19 data in April, wasn’t on the list. Kenya said the list was evolving, but it was too late.

 Tanzania came down hard, banning Kenya Airways and other carriers from the country. Over a month later, and that’s where we still are. A recent report said Rwanda Air was moving in to pick up the pieces. (The ban has now been lifted after Kenya included Tanzania on the list.)

That spat brought with it a regular feature of the fraught marriage that is the East African Community – name-calling.

Patriotic Kenyans on social media said things like Tanzania has an inferiority complex, were small-minded, and ruled by an archaic party. Equally patriotic Tanzanians called Kenya corrupt, greedy, and riven with tribalism.

These wars happen mostly between Tanzania and Kenya, and have a long history dating to the late 1960s Kenya of Jomo Kenyatta and Tanzania of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and will take a long time to erase. But it’s not the only regional fight. Especially on social media, though less frequent, there are keyboard wars between Kenya and Uganda, and sometimes Uganda and Rwanda, especially over things like border closures.

However, while these flare-ups are often set off by state actions and geopolitical rivalries, they are not the main reason they take place.

Less dramatic, and therefore they never trend, are the constant stories East Africans tell themselves. If you follow social media closely, almost on a weekly basis, every East African will have fellows claiming that their people are the “most creative” in the region. Often because of a clever video that went viral, some internationally recognised innovation by one of its citizens, or a book.

East Africans also like, from time to time, to claim that their women are the most beautiful or fashionable.

And there is a lot of infrastructure, and concrete and mortar nationalism. Perhaps excluding Burundi and South Sudan, every other East African capital has claimed to be putting up the tallest building, and the best road intersection or bridge in the region.

Kenyans, particularly, and in recent years Ugandans, like to claim the other countries in the region “fear” them. Tanzanians and Rwandans are more likely to say the rest “envy” them.

A lot of these claims aren’t true. Or, at least, they can be established by a tape measure. The tallest building in East Africa cannot be a matter of opinion. Most creative or innovative? Surely, we can look at patents registered, books published, count the songs made, and the products that have come to market.

The best/corrupt government? We have factors we can look at it – health indicators, learning outcomes, corruption measures, and so forth. Harder to measure, but not impossible.

Most beautiful women? Too subjective, not worth fighting over.

So why do we tell these stories, and sometimes lie to ourselves? Because we need to feel good about our countries, and fill the void in pride created by national failures. They are also, some of what makes us East African.

The author is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3