We Must not be Forced into an Ethnically-Blind Kenya

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.

 

Why I Do not Make New Year Resolutions

I have not made a single New Year resolution for more than sixteen years now. However, I do not condemn those who do. Nevertheless, I wish to give four reasons why I do not make such resolutions.

First, I do not make New Year resolutions because I do not wish to blindly follow the crowd. The easiest way to live is to do what most people do without asking why they do it. To some extent this is understandable, because from childhood we learn a lot of what we do and believe by imitation. My two little boys want to “work” at my laptop because they see me busy at it; one of them has even declared that he will go to work, get money and buy me a toy! Nevertheless, now that I am a grown up,  I need to chart the path of my own life, and a major part of this endeavour is to determine to desist from acting in certain ways simply because most people act so. I therefore do not make New Year resolutions because I do not wish to be a conformist, but rather a reformer if not a revolutionary. History is made by the few people who dare to be different in the name of personal and social progress: the vast majority who keenly but uncritically conform to tradition are only its backdrop. 

Second, I shun New Year resolutions because they very often arise from baseless optimism. To be sure, I have met a few people who carefully choose their New Year resolutions based on an incisive evaluation of their lives, and take concrete action to implement them throughout the year. Nevertheless, for most people, such resolutions are borne out of the illusion of "new beginnings". Thus year after year, as December draws to a close, I hear politicians declaring that the “New Year” will be markedly different from the old one - that it will be a year of reconciliation, or of resolutely fighting corruption, or of addressing whatever other pertinent issue about which the citizenry has been pressurizing them, only for them to revert to their bad manners within a week or two. As for the vast majority of the citizenry, exhausted by the pressures and disappointments of the last twelve months, they are excited, declaring that the year that is beginning will certainly be better than the previous one. They make New Year resolutions, but by the beginning of April, many of them have forgotten their resolutions, or if they still remember them, they sadly have to admit that they have long abandoned them in practice. It is also very rare to find anyone reviewing how well they did with the resolutions of the year that is ending: why? Because this New Year resolution thing is very often about baseless optimism without real determination to see through the implementation phase. I often imagine that if a “New Year” was a person, I would tell him or her, “Enjoy the fondness with which you are being treated on 1^st January, but also understand that in the next twelve short months those who lauded you will be keen to dispose you as though you were a filthy garment or used tissue paper!”

Third, I do not make New Year resolutions because I wish to focus on lifelong objectives rather than those of a mere twelve months. Placing undue emphasis on a single year misses the point that what I am today is the result of years of my good and bad decisions, and what I will be twenty years from now, if indeed I still have that much time, will be the result of numerous decisions that I make over the coming nineteen years. What I want to keep asking is “Who am I?” “What is the purpose of my life?” “Is my lifestyle aiding me in achieving the purpose of my life?” Such questions cannot be addressed adequately through the making of New Year resolutions, but rather through deep soul-searching that soberly assesses the past and projects into the possible future. Thus instead of New Year resolutions, I want to be guided by awareness that grows into understanding and crystalises into genuine conviction; for genuine conviction translates into lifelong practice. Thus if I am overweight, I need to be aware of the extra Killos by standing on a weighing machine; I then need to understand the debilitating effects of carrying those extra Killos around day and night (dangers of systemic diseases, many of which result in early, or even sudden death); the understanding grows into a genuine conviction that I must take decisive lifelong action to keep my weight at a healthy level, and this will result in lifelong action to control my weight (diet and exercises), rather than a New Year resolution that I will break by April. This process is helpful whether I am dealing with personal financial management, use of time, hot temper, or the many other challenges that I may confront.

Fourth, I avoid New Year resolutions in pursuit of cultural decolonization. Making such resolutions entails conceding that the European New Year is also my Luo New Year. The declaration of a day as the beginning of a “New Year” is always based on a religious calendar that is tied to certain religious events. The Wikipedia article titled “Gregorian Calendar” lists the numerous religious calendars in the world today. Thus most, if not all, religions have their own distinct calendars. The calendar by which 1^st January is declared to be the beginning of a new year is based on European religion (and here I do not mean the teaching of Jesus Christ, for He is not a European). Recognising 1^st January as the beginning of a new year is paying allegiance to European gods, ancestors and kings.  As clearly indicated in the Wikipedia article I have just cited, the names of the months of the year that we use today are all in honour of European gods, ancestors and kings to whom I owe no allegiance:

• January: Janus (Roman god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings).
• February: Februus (Etruscan god of death) Februarius (mensis) (Latin for "month of purification (rituals)" it is said to be a Sabine word, the last month of ancient pre-450 BC Roman calendar). It is related to fever.
• March: Mars (Roman god of war).
• April: The Romans thought that the name Aprilis derived from aperio, aperire, apertus, a verb meaning "to open".
• May: Maia Maiestas (Roman goddess of springtime, warmth, and increase).
• June: Juno (Roman goddess, wife of Jupiter).
• July: Julius Caesar (Roman dictator) (month was formerly named Quintilis, the fifth month of the calendar of Romulus).
• August: Augustus (first Roman emperor) (month was formerly named Sextilis, the sixth month of Romulus).
• September: septem (Latin for seven, the seventh month of Romulus).
• October: octo (Latin for eight, the eighth month of Romulus).
• November: novem (Latin for nine, the ninth month of Romulus).
• December: decem (Latin for ten, the tenth month of Romulus).

In another article titled "Names of the Days of the Week", the Wikipedia informs us that those are also all in honour of European gods.

I do not wish to suggest that I have any power to change the reckoning of years, as well as the names of months and the days of the week: I must relate to my employer, to the marketplace and to the state in terms of those foreign categories. What I have power to do, and what I am doing, is to preserve my liberty, as far as I am able, by refusing to conform to European cultures in personal aspects of my life about which I have considerable latitude to do things differently.

In sum, my view is that life is too short to be wasted on New Year resolutions whose practical lifespan is likely to be one to three months, and that are not solidly related to my long-term past and future. Instead, pursuit for awareness, understanding and conviction leading to decisive lifelong action is the way I endeavour to go. Every 1^st January the sun rises just the same way it does every other day, but the decisions I make daily affect the quality of my life and the lives of my family, friends, neighbours, country, and humankind as a whole.

Reginald M.J. Oduor, Ph.D.

It is High Time We Set Up a Citizens’ Memory Bureau

As we draw closer and closer to the General Elections, politicians will invariably pick on a few issues with which to lure voters towards themselves.  As a result, the memory of many voters concerning the vital issues about which they intended to bring their tormentors to book at the ballot box will be very easily forgotten.  Yet in view of the fact that we lack a workable Recall Clause to tame our elected leaders during their term in office, it is crucial that we maximize on the power of the ballot.

A short trip down Memory Lane reveals a long list of political, social and economic injuries inflicted on us by most of the current key contenders for power, both in government and in the opposition.

Is it wise to gloss over the fact that the self-professed human rights activists of yester-years have become today’s big bullies in power, violating the right of citizens to express themselves through strikes, demonstrations and public rallies?

Must we not ensure that at the polling booths we take note of the fact that our M.P.s have proved that when it comes to matters of raising of their salaries and allowances, party divisions evaporate, and only reappear once they have concluded that particular illegitimate house business?

Perhaps most crucially, dare we forget how politicians regularly dishonour MOUs which they sign just before elections?  Can such people be trusted to deliver on the promises they have now begun to make to us?  Furthermore, does deliverance lie in the quarters of an opportunistic “Third Force” waiting on the wings to strike a bargain with whichever of the two “horses” carries the day?

Yet despite their plethora of political misdeeds, these power mongers know with certainty that they have one reliable way of escape from the voters’ wrath - the voters own short memory.  No matter how gruesome their actions, the politicians only need to wait a few weeks, and the worrying event will fly out of most Kenyans’ memory.  They can then present themselves as far-reaching reformers or champions of human rights, and they are sure to have an enthusiastic audience from many of us.  We are then in danger of swallowing their lies and catapulting them to power to increase their salaries, and to sustain the rampant systemic injustices.

Consequently, I suggest that we as Kenyan voters set up a Citizens’ Memory Bureau, charged with the responsibility of constantly reminding us about the shortcomings of our incumbent and aspiring leaders.  However, politicians would certainly seek to infiltrate and divert this bureau, as they have done with other civil society outfits.  We must therefore see to it that the board of this organisation consists of people from across the political divide, along with professionals of divergent political persuasions.  In this way, we shall ensure that the shortcomings of both government and opposition are equally highlighted, thereby enabling voters to make informed decisions.

Let us then not be carried away by the numerous “visions” and manifestos characteristic of electioneering seasons - those are merely products of technocrats geared to lure the voters.  Instead, we must look long and hard at the past in order to make the right decisions for our future.    For as the Jewish people say, it is in forgetting that we go back into captivity.

 

Reginald M.J. Oduor, Ph.D.

We must Face Up to our Multi-ethnic Reality

At the dawn of independence, our political leaders told us that we needed to build a united “nation” – one in which we accepted each other as equals, regardless of factors such as race, creed and ethnicity.  However, the reality has been far from that ideal.  It is common knowledge that all the three regimes that have governed our motherland have engaged in open ethnic bias, while preaching an anti-tribalism message.  This has resulted in heightened inter-ethnic tensions in contrast to pre-colonial days, when our various communities engaged in some cattle raids and inter-ethnic skirmishes, but also in trade, technological exchanges and intermarriage.

What compounds our problem is that one of the easiest rallying points for politicians to marshal a following is the idea of ethnicity.  It is for this reason that they seek to be installed as “elders” of their communities.  From that vantage point, they can go to the negotiating table with other “elders” in the hope of clinching selfish deals.  Thus the very people who claim to be solving the problem of “tribalism” are the actual cause of it, engaging in what some social scientists have referred to as “politicized ethnicity”.  Yet common sense tells us that the Malaria parasite cannot itself be the cure for Malaria, and so our opportunist politicians cannot help forge real communication between our various ethnic groups.

Who can deny that lucrative parastatals and key ministries have almost always been headed by people from the ethnic group of the man in the “big house”?  Who can gainsay the fact that key positions in our security services have very frequently been held by people from the sitting presidents’ ethnic groups?  Who can disavow the fact that the allocation of our country’s resources has been skewed towards the regions from which the heads of state have hailed?  Yet the same appointing authorities and their associates trumpet how “de-ethnicised” they are!

After the 2007/2008 post-elections crisis, some politicians took this empty moralizing a notch higher by trumpeting the purported need for legislation to outlaw “tribalism”, and by overseeing the establishment of the "National Cohesion and Integration Commission". Such politicians claim that they are “nationalists”, that is, people who believe in working towards a de-ethnicised Kenya.  This pervasive hypocrisy has now resulted in unnecessary euphemisms such as references to “residents of central Kenya” instead of talking about “Kikuyus”, or “residents of Nyanza” instead of mentioning communities such as Kisiis, Kurias and Luos. This kind of euphemism is most painful when journalists report the inter-ethnic clashes that flare up sporadically in various parts of the country.

The term “nation-building” refers to the endeavour to forge a single “people” out of an ethnically plural society.  Yet we need to re-evaluate the rationale for such a venture.  Social theorists are agreed that among the key features of ethnicity are common history, material culture (tools, artwork etc.) and language.  These shared elements result in a feeling of community, even kinship, so that all those in the group see themselves as an “us”, as opposed to the “them” – those outside the group.  A successful process of nation building would therefore have to eliminate the “us-them” dichotomy.  Yet such elimination cannot be achieved by legislation, as laws cannot uproot the deep attachment that people have to their culture.

Think of how the criminalization of religion in Communist countries only resulted in its flourishing underground, while the “freedom of worship” in the West has not abated the march towards post-modern secularism.  This should tell us that legislating against “tribalism” will only cause the phenomenon to gain an unprecedented vitality in the underworld, and to erupt with vigour and venom at an opportune time.  To resume my medical metaphor, a drug wrongly administered can actually cause resistance in a pathogen instead of eliminating it, thus even encouraging it to reproduce faster.

In sharp contrast to the centuries’ old strong historical and cultural cords that bind members of an ethnic group together, the idea of Kenya is less than a hundred years old, having only been introduced by the British colonialists in 1920, when they renamed the then so-called East African Protectorate to Kenya.  Think of how difficult the quest for a Kenyan national dress has been: we all know what Maasai or Turkana or Giriama dress looks like, but there is no Kenyan dress to talk about – we can only try to design one now.  Consequently, we should be wary of any politician who tells us that he or she is first and foremost a Kenyan before being a Digo, or Kikuyu or Luo.  In fact it has now become abundantly clear that most, if not all, of the politicians who shout loudest against tribalism are the chief perpetrators of it.

It is therefore high time we boldly acknowledged that Kenya is not a nation; rather it is a multi-ethnic state.  Once we do this, we can undertake candid debate on how to manage this reality to the advantage of all involved.  It will then not be necessary to deny that Ford Kenya enjoys massive Bukusu following, or that the Orange Democratic Party has overwhelming Luo support, or that KANU has a vast Kalenjin grassroot base.  Instead, we shall put in place the legal framework for coalitions among the various parties, rather than camouflaging such alliances under single parties as happened with NARC in 2002, and with Jubilee and CORD in 2013.

Once we openly admit and accept the fact of our ethnic plurality, the ground will be ready for discussion on how the various communities can work together.  The 2002 elections in which Kibaki was more popular in Luo Nyanza than Orengo, and in which Raila was briefly a darling of many Kikuyus because of his support for Kibaki, would then be the rule rather than the exception.

We also urgently need to strengthen democracy within the ethnic groups, or else our acknowledgement of our ethnic diversity will merely be fertile ground for opportunists to present themselves as ethnic chiefs.  Thus the dizzying and almost unchallenged hegemony of the Odinga family in Luo Nyanza, the close to divine status of Moi among some sections of the Kalenjin umbrella of ethnic groups, and the breath-taking veneration of Kibaki in Nyeri must be replaced by vigorous internal debates to determine the political destinies of the various communities.  Once this is done, the communities can then be engaged in inter-ethnic negotiations with a view to identifying ways through which they can be of mutual benefit to one another.  If this process goes on long enough, ethnicity will become a peripheral issue in our collective psyche, as various ethnic groups gain a deep appreciation for one another and other concerns take centre stage.

Due to our politicians’ persistent but empty moralizing against “tribalism”, it is now widely believed that once ethnic sympathies are eliminated from our midst, all our political tensions will be buried in the sea of forgetfulness.  Those holding such a view will do well to look at Somalia, where for more than two decades Somalis have been maiming and killing fellow Somalis, despite belonging to one ethnic group.  For the fact of the matter is that it is part of human nature to cluster, if not as ethnic groups, then as clans or families or genders or members of a religious faith or of an economic class.  What we urgently need is a workable long-term formula of managing such clustering instead of denying it. We must begin to ask, without shame, camouflage or euphemism, how fairly the country's economic and political resources are being shared among its various ethnic groups. Let us stop living a lie.

 

 

 

We Must Teach History like Never Before

Over the past few decades, the international financiers who call themselves “donors” have discouraged Third World countries from promoting the humanities and social sciences in institutions of higher learning. Their view is that such subjects are irrelevant, if not an outright waste of time, for countries striving to feed and clothe their impoverished populations. Yet human beings are not merely organisms desiring food and clothing; rather, they are also rational and emotional beings whose quality of life is greatly enhanced when these two latter faculties are developed – and this is where the humanities and social sciences come in.
What is more, a mature citizenry, one capable of making intelligent choices, knows its history, social dynamics, fine art, literature, and its philosophical orientation.
Let us therefore resist the forced death of the humanities and social sciences by insisting that our young people have a right to holistic education – not merely training that moulds them into cogs of international capital.

Reginald M.J. Oduor, Ph.D.

Let Us Take a Long Term View

Following the Westgate tragedy, many Kenyans have been very excited about the prospect of a more united country. The "We are One" motto has so reverberated across the country, that anyone who suggests that we might not be one after all is considered to be a pathological enemy of unity and development. Yet we must all come to terms with the fact that even after the August 7 1998 bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi's City Centre and the death of more than two hundred people, there was a feeling of unity in the country; yet that sense of unity was not strong enough to avert the 2007/2008 near-civil war. Let us then enjoy our sense of unity, but strive to address the issues that really divide us.