In the Saturday
Nation of 6th March 2010, my esteemed colleague,
Tom Odhiambo, wrote an article titled “Dying of tribes is the only way to end
tribalism”. The issues he raised continue to be pertinent almost seven years
later, and were as pertinent more than four decades before he wrote the
article.
Odhiambo
suggests that the concern over disappearing “tribes” might be a worry of the
“superior tribes” feeling uneasy that such a disappearance will leave them
without someone to feel superior to. I would encourage Odhiambo to look at
another possibility - that Kenyan minority ethnic groups feel strongly about
the orosion of their identities as distinct cultural communities, and that they
have a right to feel that way. Take the Yaaku community which was featured in
the same Saturday Nation: they desire to maintain their identity, but are swamped
by cultural and economic forces way beyond their control.
Odhiambo goes on
to suggest that we would all be happy to wake up one morning to find that we
all belonged to one “tribe”. This view seems to be based on a very high premium
on social cohesion at the Kenyan level. What it fails to acknowledge is that
Kenya as an entity is a colonial imposition which is not even one century old,
having been conceived in 1920 when the said territory was declared to be a
British colony. Why, then, must we feel obligated to maintain and enhance a
colonial identity? What prevents us from building a strong multi-national state
that respects our cultural diversity and ensures that each and every cultural
group gets a fair share of the state’s resources?
Did we fight in
2007/2008 because we belonged to different “tribes”, as Odhiambo and those who
share his view seem to think? Far from it: we fought because greedy politicians
over-stimulated our ethnic sensitivities, and duped us into believing that
their interests were our own.
In his
celebrated 1994 essay, “The Politics of Recognition”, the Canadian philosopher
Charles Taylor correctly observed that demand for recognition of cultural
groups is given urgency by the link between recognition and identity. Taylor’s
thesis is that members of a cultural group can suffer real damage if the people
or society around them mirror back to them a demeaning picture of themselves.
Consequently, urges Taylor, due recognition is not just a courtesy we owe
people; rather, it is a vital human need.
Odhiambo’s
vision of a “tribeless” Kenya is inspired by the tired Western liberal
democratic thought, which advocates the autonomy of the individual, ignoring
the fact that individuals’ decisions are influenced by their cultural
backgrounds. Again the Canadian Charles Taylor would be of real help to
Odhiambo when he (Taylor) notes that the so-called difference-blind approach to
politics tends to negate the identity of groups by forcing people into a
homogeneous mold that is untrue to them. Minority cultures are then ‘forced to
take alien form’, that of the dominant culture. The supposedly fair and
difference-blind society is then not only ‘inhuman’ (by suppressing
identities), but also ‘highly discriminatory’ against minority cultures.
Odhiambo correctly
points out that there are many Kenyans today who are not happy to be identified
with their purported ethnicities. However, from this fact it does not follow
that we ought to obliterate ethnic identities from those Kenyans who are happy
to retain them. The more reasonable inference would be that we ought to be
tolerant of both perspectives.
For Odhiambo,
members of smaller communities such as the Suba and the Tachoni have no basis
for fearing being swallowed up by their more numerous neighbours. Such a view
is quite typical among members of larger communities who are not motivated to
delve into the real concerns of their minority counterparts.
According to
Odhiambo, the questions asked in the process of obtaining identification cards
today are evidence that ethnicity is fading out: really? Is Odhiambo aware of
the fact that the Kenyan establishment has always preached against “tribalism”,
only to be guided by it at every turn in the public policy road?
It is time to
abandon the rampant denial of Kenya’s ethnic diversity, and to appreciate that
if properly managed, it is an asset rather than a liability. Remember how the
Communist countries tried to suppress religion? The result was the astronomical
growth of underground religious organisations. We are in real danger of
watering negative ethnicity through the persistent moralising against
“tribalism”. Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki all moralised
against it, but all that moralising did not avert the near cataclysm that was
the post 2007 elections crisis. Let us therefore get out of the denial trap,
and arduously work towards a society that fosters tolerance and fairness to all
its members - both those who love their ethnic identities and those who prefer
to disown them.
Reginald M.J.
Oduor, Ph.D.
