Chapter 3 of the book Adventures and Reflections:

Building Trust

It was dark in Naivasha, so I had to walk slowly and carefully to my tent. Suddenly I saw a large, dark object in front of me. What was it? A bush? A big stone? It was moving. A hippo! It started to chase me and I quickly ran away and hid behind a tree. Apparently I had trespassed on its territory.

The next morning I took the car and drove to Ol Moran on the Laikipia plateau. When I was working in Kenya, I didn't have much need to go on safari, I saw wildlife every day anyway. On the savannah, giraffe, zebra and elephant were common.

The plains below Mount Kenya were home to several different ethnic groups: Pokot, Samburu, Kikuyu and Turkana. But relations between them were not always peaceful. Young men from the Pokot and Samburu made a sport of stealing cattle from the other communities. This was a kind of initiation rite, a way of proving their manhood. There were also regular conflicts between nomads and farmers. During the dry season, the nomads would take their cattle to the farmers' ponds and destroy their fields, leading to skirmishes.

That is why our organisation launched a project to prevent conflict by removing the causes of conflict. By building dams, we provided water for livestock that no longer had to cross farmers' fields. We used excavators and bulldozers to build earthen dams to collect water from torrential rains. At the same time, we installed hand pumps that could be used for human consumption. We used a water drilling rig to drill through millions of years of geological strata. We reached a bygone world of vegetation and rivers. It had been covered by lava flows and had become excellent water-bearing strata. We found traces of gold in one hole, but it proved difficult to extract in significant quantities.

One day, my colleagues and I were trying to move our machinery to repair a water dam. We were a bit lost, but we saw a shepherd tending his cattle, so we approached him to ask for help. He was dressed in traditional Maasai clothes, and I thought that here was a man living a simple life close to nature. I was quite surprised when he replied in fluent English and told us that he usually worked on Wall Street in New York. He was just back home in Kenya on holiday to look after his cattle.

Talk about being blinded by stereotypes, I thought as I sat in the car driving back to Ol Moran. It was quite fitting that one of our activities was aimed at tackling this very problem. We had another strategy for building bridges between communities, and that was to strengthen the Kenya Red Cross Society. One of its core principles is impartiality, which means that it does not discriminate on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, religion or political opinion. When it comes to alleviating people's suffering, these are irrelevant. So if we could get young people from different ethnic groups involved in the organisation in different ways, they could get to know each other and build friendship and trust. So we tried to strengthen what is called civil society through a common and neutral institution. Specifically, we built a community centre with an office in Ol Moran.

As I was inspecting the building, I was told that a bulldozer had broken down, so I had to go to Nairobi to buy spare parts. I took the beautiful road through Nakuru where I saw zebras and baboons and a lake that was all pink from all the flamingos. I also drove along the beautiful views of the Rift Valley and the Longonot Volcano. As I approached Nairobi, I had to adjust to the hectic pace of driving. In particular, I had to watch out for all the minibuses making sudden turns and stopping to pick up passengers. I got a bit lost on a four-lane roundabout with no road markings and was stopped by a policeman. He looked at me sternly and informed me that I had broken the law. I had learnt that the best way to deal with such situations was to be small and humble and admit the offence, but insist on paying the official fine. Then the officer had to fill in a long form, which he had neither the time nor the inclination to do. Why bother if he wasn't going to get a "little gift"?

Corruption was widespread in Kenya, and the country scored poorly in Transparency International surveys. It was almost routine for police at roadside checkpoints to get a little chai ('a penny for a cup of tea') when they stopped minibuses and lorries. Many officers even thought they were doing a good deed by accepting bribes. For example, if a speeding driver was fined 10,000 shillings, wouldn't it be more decent to let him off with only 500 shillings? Corruption had many consequences, some of them downright dangerous. What was the point of having a law requiring drivers to pass a driving test if it was possible to "buy" a licence? Imagine if the examiner also got his job, not because of his competence, but because he was a relative and good friend of the head of the traffic department. As a result, there were drivers on the roads who did not know the rules of the road. So misplaced friendship and courtesy could be a danger to the whole community. Almost everyone in Kenya complained about corruption. Everyone understood that it would be better if everyone obeyed the law, but somehow they were stuck in a destructive pattern of behaviour.

After buying the gears for the bulldozer, I went back to the field and continued working on earth dams, wind pumps and solar pumps. Working along the Tana River gave us a special little lesson in building trust. One day the well-digging team found a little baboon whose mother had been run over by a car. We took him in and named him Charlie (after the great scientist Charles Darwin). At first he was terrified of all the strange creatures and clung to blankets and anything soft. But he soon began to trust us and we were able to bottle feed him. A herd of baboons gathered in the trees around our camp, chattering incessantly. They seemed to think we had captured Charlie. A large male baboon attacked, but I scared him off by shouting and waving my arms. After a few weeks we released Charlie to a primate sanctuary. We later heard that he had managed to re-adapt, but that he had adopted some 'human habits'. What that meant we never found out.

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Many developing countries were artificially created by colonial powers in the 19th century. Borders were arbitrarily drawn and it was common for several peoples with completely different languages and traditions to end up in the same country. Look at the border between Kenya and Tanzania, for example, and how it curves around Mount Kilimanjaro. It is said that the German Kaiser Wilhelm told his British grandmother Queen Victoria that it was unfair that she had two mountains, Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro. Why couldn't she share one? Victoria replied: "Wilhelm likes everything high and big," and so she had the map redrawn, with no regard for the people who lived there.

You can play with the idea of what would have happened if it had been the Africans who colonised Europe and created countries in any way they wanted by drawing borders with a ruler. What if the border between France and Germany had been drawn by making a straight line between, say, Antwerp and Zurich? What would have been the political consequences? The relationship between the tribes of Europe is problematic enough.

In order to gain control as easily as possible, colonialists often pitted ethnic groups against each other, allowing one to dominate the other. The Belgian colonialists in Rwanda classified ethnic groups according to the Social Darwinist ideas that were in vogue at the time. It is not unlikely that this was one of the causes of the genocide. When these countries gained their freedom, they were in a terrible position. The task of building trust in common and neutral institutions was enormous, and far more difficult than in countries where people already had a natural sense of belonging. Those with collective memories of humiliation seem to find it particularly difficult to break the bonds of mistrust. Does this mean that we should blame colonialism for all the problems of these countries? No, of course not, but it is no exaggeration to say that the attitude of the colonialists was not very helpful.

In his book Social Traps and the Problem of Trust, Professor Bo Rothstein examines what creates a general sense of trust. A society in which people say they have a relatively high level of trust in others works much better. In Sweden, people pay taxes because they trust that others pay taxes. And they trust that the money will be used for common purposes such as health care, education and so on. The "high trusters" have better finances and are healthier and richer than the "low trusters" who live in societies with discrimination and no rights. Above all, democracy works better in a high-trust society.

What people do will depend on what they think everyone else is doing. If people think others are cheating, that leads to everyone cheating. Rothstein argues that rational self-interest is useless in this context because it may actually be rational for individuals to cheat, at least from a narrow perspective. There is no point in trying to be the only honest person in a corrupt society. He writes: "Why cooperate loyally with a state that you perceive to be genuinely corrupt, and why behave honestly when everyone you know, your neighbours, friends and colleagues, are cheating? Who wants to play the role of the naive fool?" You end up in a "social trap" where everyone loses, even though everyone knows they would benefit from trusting each other.

How do you build a general sense of trust? Political scientist Robert Putnam argues that participation in voluntary organisations is the key to building public trust. When people participate in choirs, sports teams, clubs, environmental organisations and various associations, they learn to help and trust each other. Involvement in organisations also provides a greater insight into political life and how society works. So it is through civil society that democracy and trust are built, says Putnam.

But his ideas have also been criticised. There are organisations like the Red Cross that are universal and welcome people of all cultures and religions. But there are also organisations like the Ku Klux Klan that seek to sow distrust and hatred. Some churches try to build bridges, while others believe in the salvation of a small, select group. Sports organisations can create camaraderie and cooperation, but they can also have their fanatical supporters who create hatred and violence. So civil society is a double-edged sword.

Rothstein's analysis takes us in a different direction. He argues that what matters is a sense of having been treated fairly by the authorities. He shows that trust in society's administrative and judicial systems is essential to escape social traps and build public confidence. If we cannot trust police officers, civil servants, doctors and teachers, we cannot trust people in general. A society stands or falls on police and civil servants who do their job and do not take bribes. What matters most is equality before the law, fairness, objectivity and impartiality.

Imagine that a person living in relatively simple circumstances is tempted to accept a relatively risk-free bribe of such a size that it would enable him and his family to live in great prosperity for the rest of their lives. What could persuade him to resist this temptation? How can he be persuaded to listen to the inner voice that prevents him from doing things that harm society?

Those who believe that we will survive death probably also believe that one day we will be held accountable for our actions. Perhaps one day we will have an evaluation of how we have played our part. This belief gives a sense of "total transparency" and that nothing can be hidden. Atheists like to point out that belief in an afterlife can encourage suicide bombers. But belief in ultimate responsibility can probably also be a trust-building factor.