What is the Western Entitlement Syndrome?
If this article is a little to abstract or ambiguous, ask questions in the comments thread and I will gladly make sure you get what I’m trying to say.
In the interests of ensuring that everyone understands everyone as much as possible, I will write about something today that I have chosen to label:
The Western Entitlement Syndrome

But Mwangi What is the Western Entitlement Syndrome?
I am so glad you asked. It should be noted that this syndrome is most visible in either people who are from the West AND (this is important) people who are Westernized, i.e. anyone from a city is at risk of getting this disease. The Western entitlement syndrome is a rather complex thing that has a few parts:
It is the genuine heart felt belief that goodness and blessings are a birthright for the simple fact that I was born. This is coupled with a belief that God, the world and everything in it is on one’s side and anything that isn’t one one’s side and/or takes away from the goodness is either an obstacle that must be eliminated or a weird, creepy thing that must be ignored.
As I said, it is a complex thing (and I was too lazy to split it up into parts and explain each different part) and so to illustrate just what this syndrome looks like I will tell you a couple of stories:
The Young Men Who Thought they Were Supermen
I remember back when I was still in high school I went to this house party. It was in a small secluded home at the very top of a dark, well forested mountain. I showed up in there with three of my “brothers from the motherland” determined to make cross-cultural exchange a double entedre.
I was the loudest, most obnoxious fellow in the room. And after singing, hugging, grabbing, joking, huffing and puffing, I packed my bags because I was going home alone. As we were packing up to leave a panic hit the party.
Are those Boys Mad?
It turns out that the girl hosting the party had had a spat with three vveerrrryyyyy drunk boys who had attended the party and somehow the boys decided that the way they would get vengeance would be by trying to take the 5-10 kilometer extremely-convoluted-and-pitch-black hike down the mountain on their own. Well, their technique looked like it worked because this girl was horror stricken.
The Search Begins
We packed my friends saloon car with 5 males and 2 girls and off we went in search of these three young men, as the rain came pouring heavily down. We screamed their names and drove around for close to an hour and a half before we found the first boy. Soon after we found the second.
The Third is Always the Special One Isn’t He?
I will never forget the way we found the third one. I want you to imagine the Blair Witch Project or the Exorcist. The world around us was in a blanket of darkness but for the meagre lights of my buddy’s Nissan Silvia. As we descended down a hill, at the very bottom of it, the spotlight rest on a what-the-heck-is-that-doing-in-the-middle-of-nowhere street post that had two signs, one pointing to the left and one to the right. Leaning against that pole, completely drenched and looking like he was among the walking dead was the third boy.
Success
I don’t even know if he was fully conscious as we brought him back to the car and put him in the backseat. Feeling very much like self-sacrificing heroes, me and my buddy got in the trunk of the car so that these boys could have room in the back seat.
What I have never forgotten about that day, aside from the hyperbolic drama, was the last thing the third boy said to me just as we were dropping him home:
Thank you. I didn’t know what I was thinking. You know we thought we were superman. We thought we were invincible.
Hmmmm
God My Provider

If you have no understanding of Christian faith or theology, see you in the next headline below…….
Of late, I have been going to church and church related events A LOT. One thing that seems to come up over and over and over and over and over and over again is a little process that I like to call cognitive dissonance that probably should never have happened in the first place:
Step one: People in churches all over Australia reach out to people by telling them that, “God and His love will fulfill your every want and need and so surrender to him and he’ll give you everything your heart hungers for.”
Step two: People join the church believing and expecting that now that they have “surrendered” they will get everything they want and need….ooohhh, I “need” a car, a flat screen, a mouse trap, an X- box 360 (Wii is way better but whatever)
Step three: Tragedy strikes: They get sick, lose a job a car or a nail.
Step four: They cry out for God to fix it
Step five: He doesn’t
Step six: They get very mad because God isn’t some vending machine that pops out miracles every time they pray and actually brings pain to their lives.
Step seven: They realize that God won’t always provide and either really struggle with this or leave the church.
Now I know a lot of folk reading this raised in a third world country, when they read step 6 said:
Well, d’uh ( In Indonesia this means bye, seriously try it go to an Indonesian and say da! ) ! He runs the Universe, He does what He wants, when He wants and sometimes we are beneficiaries, some times we are not. But he isn’t here to be our vending machines.
And yet, a lot of folk out here struggle with this. Why?
Because of the Western entitlement syndrome
So What’s Your Point?
I really have no point. I just wanted to put a post out there and make you aware that this exists. That some people really do think that human rights ARE intrinsic human rights not limited to the UN conventions but also including material prosperity and health. Is it wrong? I don’t know. Is it real? You better believe it and you best find a way to handle it. Our complaining won’t make it go away…………………..
To hear more about what I have learned from 6 years + of being an African immigrant ensure you stay in the loop via RSS or email .
Have an empathetic day, Mwangi
Festival of Creative Arts (FCA), this weekend bring you Nuts & Our Husband has gone mad again.
Nuts will be showing at the French Cultural Center from the 3rd to 6thJuly.. Our husband…will be showing at the Kenya National Theatre from 4th to 6th July
Charges are:
Adults : Ksh. 400
Students : Ksh. 300
Advance : Ksh. 300
They have a special offer of Ksh. 600 if one buys tickets for both plays.
The Anglo Leasing scandal which happened during President Kibaki’s first term and where Kenyans lost billions of shillings is now long forgotten.
But what should interest Kenyans more is what was done to cool off things then because history is about to repeat itself on hapless Kenyans.
Those who know the president are well aware of the fact that he is very slow to make decisions. This has both advantages and disadvantages as any good manager will tell you. One of the huge disadvantages is that in our fast-paced world of today delayed decisions can be disastrous. But I digress. What I wanted to say was that at the height of Anglo Leasing, there was pressure for days which turned into weeks and finally the Finance Minister then Daudi Mwiraria resigned over the still unsolved scandal. This was followed by the resignation of the then energy minister Kiraitu Murungi (whose voice was clearly heard in one of the Githongo tapes asking the ethics PS to go slow on Anglo leasing culprits). Note that the two ministers were not sacked. They resigned.
It was not lost on close observers that both ministers had sworn never to resign (just like Amos Kimunya has done. In fact he has said that those calling for his resignation should themselves resign). But after a brief meeting with the appointing authority they emerged with a different mind set. The president hates to fire anybody and that is a serious management weakness.
The resignation of a cabinet minister was unprecedented in the history of Kenya at the time and therefore the public was very excited and happy. The end result of this was that information released later on the Anglo Leasing scam was mostly ignored. Kenyans never got to the bottom of Anglo Leasing and Mwai Kibaki survived to fight another day.
We all know what happened next. The two gentlemen sneaked back into cabinet after being given a clean bill of health by the anti corruption jokers led by one Aaron Ringera.
Now folks, watch carefully. The same thing is about to happen. This is almost a certainty and the only thing nagging the president’s close advisors now is whom to replace Kimunya with. Yep, shifty-eyes-blind-side-winger Amos Kimunya is going to be used as a sacrificial lamb.
But what must really be nagging Kibaki insiders is the fact that there is the annoying possibility that the ODM arm of the coalition government will push for one of their own to take over at Treasury which will in fact be a very smart move because it will appease ODM supporters who will no longer be interested in getting to the bottom of this Grand Regency saga. PNU chaps will then just fall into line. Or divert attention by making noise about the appointment. Perfect. Just perfect. There are too many possibilities in the star-studded ODM camp for the Finance portfolio starting with Prof Anyang Nyong’o.
The other advantage of appointing from ODM is that it may just cause this 6 month marriage to be finally consummated. Very strange marriage this coalition thing, imagine there has been no sex happening! What kind of marriage is that?
And so Mwai Kibaki will survive yet again.
Muta-do?
P.S. I am certain of one thing. Mwai Kibaki has lots of regrets over decisions that he made last year in the run up to the ill-fated presidential elections (including the current Grand Regency thing and many other issues that will emerge in due time. But if you want to know them early you can read my latest raw notes).
I am sure he has fantasies all the time about the comfortable slow life in retirement that he would have been enjoying at Othaya now while Raila Odinga would have been sweating it out by now and seeing his popularity dip from some very high and impossible expectations Kenyans had. Problems like the current oil price crisis and rising food prices would have ensured a very rocky beginning indeed for the ODM government. The people would have been saying that Kibaki’s rule was better. I can almost see some MPs making noise in parliament about President Odinga and saying that he does not know any economics like Mwai Kibaki did.
But alas last year Mr Kibaki did not want to go down in history as the first one-term president ever in Africa, nothing else mattered. Now he has to pay the price.
Life is really fascinating ain’t it?
Breaking News at 6:22 PM
Parliament has just unanimously passed the motion of censure against Finance Minister Amos Kimunya. A sweating Kimunya at one point even had to invoke his wife and daughter in an emotional defense that lacked substance. The drama continues to unfold. The big question is will kenyans get the answers or will the resignation of Kimunya close the chapter?
Ah, Outkast! Genius!!
© M for tHiNkEr'S rOoM, 2008. |
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