I grew up being told that Luos were clever but addicted to showboating; Kambas were clean but stupid; the Maasai brutal and backward; people from the Coast were lazy; while we Gikuyus were ambitious and a tad dishonest. In a Kenya where the president’s marital wars impact national politics more than his economic policy, it is not strange that the personal becomes the political. The jokes I heard at home have now become phone texts whose intention is to drive us into tribal camps pitted against each other. The enemy increasingly is not ODM as a political party – it is the Luo, the non-Gikuyu. The opposition’s intention (many Gikuyus are starting to believe) is not to win an election and lead with different ideas and policies; no the aim is to destroy the country and us along with it. It is a fight to the last, the winner takes all and everyone else is damned. As a mugikuyu, I think it’s important for our country to have a Gikuyu political grouping that vocally refuses to merely toe the tribal line. It is not that the opposition leadership is not driven by similar ethnic mathematics, but rather that the trend – seen in the 2005 referendum – is of the rest of the country aligning against a perceived Gikuyu determination to hold onto power at all costs. This is going to hurt Gikuyus not to mention the country in the long term, possibly violently. The bigger the segment of Kenyans willing to give their support to candidates for non-tribal reasons, the closer we will be to a peaceful, strong democracy.
Recent mobile text: “Nari Koruo Kibaki arendia nyamu ici cia ruguru (meera) nakuu Thailand. Tutiguo tutari ona imwe. kana tugiciheane ouguo tuhu? Ukuuga atia weemundu wa Mumbi?” (If only Kibaki was selling these Luo animals to Thailand (like the elephants that the Kenya Wildlife Service controversially wanted to sell to zoos abroad) Or should we just give them away for free? What do you say child of Mumbi?)
Delivered with a laugh and a wink just as it was when I was a child.
Two years ago, I interviewed a woman who was imprisoned in Rwanda for having participated in the 1994 genocide. She has remained vivid in my memory for a curious remark she made when I asked her how far back the genocide’s planning started. “The war,” she said, “started when I was a little girl in the 1970s and other children would tease me for having Tutsi legs…” Two decades later, the length and thickness of your legs marked who died at many a roadblock. Imagine for an instant one of those children that did the jeering and teasing, now an adult with machete in hand faced by an ID-less girl with long, thin legs.
Kenyans have been toying with the flames of hatred for decades now, imagining ourselves to be immune to the violence that has engulfed our region since independence. “We are special, Kenyans are just different,” said a friend of mine last night as we shared a beer, “we can never become like Rwanda or Uganda, we like peace too much.” I thought that she might have forgotten to pick up the Sunday Standard to read stories of tribal clashes in Rift Valley and Laikipia. But she does know of them, but prefers to remain a fully paid up member to Kenya’s national amnesia and head in the sand approach to the consequences of our politics. Like the people of Ivory Coast thought they were different when looking to the Biafras and the Liberias rejecting outright that they too were vulnerable to the same logic until they plunged into a massive civil war.
Let us be honest and acknowledge that our political parties are not expressions of ideological or policy differences. Instead the leaders of ODM and Narc-Kenya are in a fight to the death for a politics they envision as a system of spoils.
This fight to get a larger slice of the ‘cake’ has been growing in divisiveness and hateful rhetoric. We are like infants drawn to touch a flame or driven by a horrid fascination with what lies beyond the cliff’s edge, curious perhaps to test the limits of our peace after decades of tut-tutting at the many wars in our neighborhood. Past clashes at the Coast and the Rift Valley are our version of dipping our toes into hot water to test its temperature. But beware the push from behind by our politicians who would have us dive in if it protected their positions. We may (thank God) not become a Rwanda but we can easily create a country balkanized along tribal lines. Where a Gikuyu cannot peacefully live in the Rift Valley or a Kamba work in Kisumu and a Luo settle in Mombasa.
The December 2007 elections approach after three years of intense campaigning and politicking. President Kibaki has dropped in and out of public view; the Cabinet has been reshuffled; high-level resignations and firings for corruption have occurred; a constitutional referendum has come and gone; while political alliances have been dissolved and elsewhere reconstituted. The lightning and thunder of these events has been directed by the elite’s simple calculation of tribal alliance. On the one side is the Narc-Kenya camp which identifies itself - and is identified by many Kenyans - as pro-Gikuyu. Its public utterances are aimed at winning next year’s elections against the leaders of the Orange Democratic Movement. Kenyans know that what is said by politicians in newspapers and on television, and which a non-Kenyan might imagine to be news, is actually then re-interpreted by most of us to fit tribal frames. It is in this decoding that ODM is increasingly perceived by many Gikuyus to be an existential foe, not just an electoral one. To be anti-Kibaki, if we keep to our present path, is going to be regarded by Narc-Kenya’s supporters as inimical to their existence and survival as a collective: the first step toward violence.
In politics perception is reality. And the reality of politics, its fundamental meaning, at those rare moments when it enjoys the greatest clarity to the greatest numbers, is that it is the contest between friends and enemies. Many Kenyans, especially the Gikuyu middle class to whom this letter is directed have chosen their friends and enemies on the basis of tribal loyalty and identification. Beyond the much repeated admonitions against such politics, I want to suggest that we have dipped our toes into dangerous waters. It is not that the rest of Kenya is not tribalistic or that the higher reaches of ODM are in anyway driven more by the national interest than are Kibaki and company. My point is that the regime in power for better or worse is tying its fortunes to the fluid but popular identity of ugikuyu and betting that it can remain in power in our name. That politics will continue to be the struggle between friend and enemies will never cease to be the case. That this struggle is subject to the principle of escalation, when one side enmity and its resulting actions is intensified by the others, and holding out the perpetual possibility of a ‘war of all against all’ is also unavoidable if we accept that politics is the battle ground against enemies. How we define who are our friends is therefore the determinant to the shape of the struggles to come and the constitution of the armies that will march.
Since our independence, and arguably prior to it, Kenyans have only rarely experienced the high ground of politics when the enemy stands out in stark relief. Our nationalist writing of history suggests that this is what the Mau Mau war represented but then we all know despite our history curriculum that in reality the rebellion was never an act arising from a national consensus. In fact the nationalization of the Mau Mau has not allowed a national sharing of rights and privilege, but rather has rendered invisible other anti-colonial movements that existed, and served as a shield to the powers that have placed themselves at the head of the nationalist line against democratic opposition. But we do have national moments, when Kenyans feel themselves to be part of a nation, and these for us who do not shirk from the notion of politics as enmity are clearly to be identified in moments when the opposition is in view. We feel Kenyan watching the Olympics five thousand meter final and seeing the Ethiopians trying to surge ahead of our compatriots. In a similar way, we felt Kenyan during the 2002 election period by identifying the enemy as Moi’s mercenary regime and its attempt to survive its term limit. We united against its narrow tribalisms, its cynical henchmen and its attempt during the 1990s to rob us of all hope and saddle us with corruption as a permanent state of being. That precious moment of nation-hood, which we all recall with nostalgia, is now only alive in the fleeting moments when we watch a race or the Harambee Stars. It has been swamped by the struggle against tribal enemies.
The private jokes about un-ambitious Luos and admonitions against an overly ambitious Raila Odinga are the symbolic roots of a growing public chasm between us Gikuyus and other Kenyans that is being actualized in the conduct of this ‘Gikuyu’ government. Those jokes and stereotyped opinions function to enlarge the tribal space while shrinking all the other identities (marriage, church, profession, neighborhood, economic class etc) that Kenyans share. The individual despite his membership of and loyalty to different groupings is coming to be strictly enfolded (perhaps imprisoned is a better word) in a single tribal collective, ugikuyu, that owes loyalty to those within – no matter their crimes or failings. Its character is oppositional to ODM, its language that of the victim so that it in not unusual to hear prosperous and powerful relatives of mine refer to the Gikuyu as victims of a political process that seeks to destroy us or consign us to the dark margins. At some point, as the electoral battle heats up, it is possible that this feeling of victimhood will escalate beyond the outcome of polls or the chance to ‘eat the cake,’ and into a perception of physical threat: that an ODM government would kill Gikuyus. It is here that the real danger lies. Yet the inevitable outbreaks of violence in political rallies in the coming year will be identified by many a subtle demagogue as evidence that a victory for ODM is tantamount to a clarion call for anti-Gikuyu violence.
Societies that have become engulfed in political violence rarely get much warning. This is because its lead-up is characterized by the political rhetoric of reasonableness. Prolonged political conflagration is far less the province of the foaming-at-the-mouth ideologue, the hater, it is to be found among the ‘reasonable.’ The Kibaki government and its supporters dress in the robes of order and reason. In this tribalized atmosphere, they charge their opponents with being the armies of disorder and unreasonableness. It is us versus them, and no other political ground to stand on is identified as viable. We are reasonable, they are unreasonable. Since we are for good schools, Kibaki, safe streets, prosperity, honesty and ugikuyu, they can only stand for failing schools, insecurity, Raila, Luo power and dishonesty.
I occasionally ask Gikuyu supporters of this regime to describe to me what they mean by order. They identify it with the reigning in of law-breaking matatus, the campaign to beautify Nairobi (by painting buildings, sweeping streets and planting flowers on roundabouts) and the destruction of slums, ugly kiosks and the aggressive pursuit of squatters. Order in other words is a paintbrush and a rungu. It did not strike a close relative of mine that it was unreasonable for squatters in a Nairobi slum be given ten minutes warning before their shacks were bulldozed and razed to the ground by thugs hired by the landowner and acting with the assistance of the police. We speak the language of reasonableness knowing full well that its actualization is unreasonably violent and unjust. But politics is not shooting fish in the barrel, the bulldozer and the askari’s rungu carrying forth our Gikuyu version of order will not always be met with entreaties and tears. The enemy too is subject to the law of violent escalation and will with time gain the will to resist, which in turn will drive the regime to send in even more bulldozers and bigger rungus. The Gikuyu middle class’ uncritical identification of its interests with those of the Kibaki regime will only make it seem that those rungus are wielded by us rather than by a narrow group of people who want to hide among us while pursuing their own selfish ends.
Hopefully I am wrong about the turn to violence that our present politics will lead us to. But consider again, for a moment, what the politics of either-or lead to. While we take possession of reasonableness and order, refusing to believe that other Kenyans are also driven by similar desires, we will eventually conclude that the only way to hold to these hopes is to bring others – those ‘beasts of the west’ – have to be brought to order. And this as I have mentioned before, by virtue of the shape and history of our state, which retains all its colonial trappings and tendencies, will be a recipe for our supporting violence and the disenfranchisement of our ‘enemy.’
The propaganda to come will go beyond humorous abuse to sinister whispers of what Raila and others have planned for Gikuyus should they win. A pamphlet that was found in Rwanda immediately after the 1994 genocide had this to say about how to motivate Hutus to loath their Tutsi neighbors and countrymen:
Never underestimate the strength of the enemy, and never overestimate the intelligence of the target audience. Strive in your language to identify the enemy with everything feared and loathed. Lies, exaggeration, ridicule, innuendo—all ably serve the ultimate aim of winning over the undecided, sowing confusion and division among the opposed. And this freedom from the confines of truth opens up a powerful technique for sowing fear and hatred: ‘accusation in a mirror.’
Accusation in a mirror. Remember this tactic: what we are told about the motives of ODM and Raila will often be exactly what the Gikuyu xenophobes have planned for others. That way, they will continue to present themselves as (potential) victims and the most cynical acts of manipulation and even violence that they initiate will be framed to seem as reactions to the ‘enemy.’
I do not want to end on such a pessimistic note, and I pray that I am wrong in believing that a nation cannot play with hatred and tribal division without being plunged into some degree of violence. And no, I do not think that we are on the way to becoming a Rwanda or a Congo. But I do know that one week of tribal clashes in Nairobi is all it will take to forever change our country for the worse.
I am proud of my family’s entrepreneurial courage, my being raised to be ambitious and forward looking but I recognize that these are not exclusive Gikuyu traits. I love one-man guitar; feel a twinge when I hear Kenny Rogers; and have acquired a great hunger to own land of my own. But I have lived in Nairobi and elsewhere long enough, among many people from other parts of the country and the world to know that I share these interests with others who were not born in the shadow of Mt. Kenya. A failure to take this into consideration in the coming year, by joining ranks with a supposed Gikuyu regime will only ensure that I am not true to my life. And that I will betray the ideals of flexibility and open-mindedness that my Gikuyu mother brought me up with and that have allowed me to thrive in Nairobi and abroad by being open to others with whom I share so much.
Tags: Baldwin, militias, violence
34 Comments
You know, I have always been the arrogant Kenyan when speaking to or otherwise interacting with other Africans. You know the type - ‘We Kenyans do not know how to fight’; ‘Kenyans are too sensible/gullible/foolish to ever engage in war’. So why do I feel afraid? Maybe it is because there is now a frisson of ethnic hatred (is this too heavy a term?) that has never seemed present before. Maybe I am too young to have seen worse in Kenya, but there now seems to be a seriousness about tribal exclusivity that never seemed present when we were growing up (or maybe I was too ‘babi’ to notice it then). Maybe it was because we were ensnared in the benign cocoon of a dictator who would never leave except on his own terms, so tribal hatred was restricted to the small (tragic, yes, but small) clashes in the Rift and at the Coast. Maybe it is because now the tools available to Moi are not available to Kibaki, and these will be the first elections we are approaching without hint of a clear winner, but without the remarkable unity we had last time to accept one. Maybe you and I, Marto, are just being alarmist and pontificating from comfortable perches abroad and Kenya will muddle on as it always has, absorbing more and more pressure and resolving less and less history, but without the nerve to ever let it blow up. Perhaps I will still be able to remain the arrogant Kenyan in January 2008.
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Maybe we are like Iraq, the ethic hatred and conflict existed and it took the Americans to pull back the covers to expose it. I just hope the wounds have not festered like they have in Iraq and the patient will need an amputation.
I applaud you MMK-thank you!thank you! for in this post everything you have said captures the expression of my heart to the letter
I WOULD LIKE the next general elections to be fought on the platform of ending tribalism, destroying corruption and the economy-in THAT order
Any takers?ODM?Narc-K?others….
Only then will i truly jivunia kuwa mkenya
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Boss, you have nailed this one! You show that the situation is scary because it is not mere tribalism that threatens, but the combination with desperate power seekers. What chills me to the bone is how you show that these text messages are the same or become Rwandese pamphlets.
Read it again: it is not tribal or regional voting that is the problem, it is the reckless method that is being employed to stoke the flames
@alexcia
I’ve always been called an optimist-in-fact i’ve been called naive ALOT
But i have a dream; i believe its worth fighting for, its this- the end of tribalism-(the hatred)
-sigh-but i guess i’m just pontificating from my comfortable perch abroad, not making a difference at all
i don’t mind regional voting, if its the norm worldwide
Let me quote alexia “Uncle joe is advancing the cause of Kikuyu hegemony, while Binya is responding with a Kenyan answer from the Kikuyu perspective as if Kikuyu vs Kenya is a legitimate contest/conflict, actually it will be more like a massacre at the polls”
it is this kind of talk that is stoking the flames of fire in kenya where a victory of 51% to 48% in a referendum that the president didnot campaign for is called an electrol massacre.If mmk and bivanga were indeed serious they should set alexcia staright.
to the writer of this post shame on you for stroking the very embers you claim to be against .addding a constant supply of firewood and petro is just as dangerous as the politicians that start this tribal fires shame on you .
This is why it is vital, in the long term, to revitalise cross-class and cross-tribal institutions. Bring back the NYS: a year of living in harsh conditions + close proximity with people from other tribes is the best way to break down the particularly stupid form of tribalism we’re lumbered with.
I’m troubled by the exchanges spurred by the past three entries. I have been trying to pin down what so disturbs me. Could it be the absurd posturing, be it for or against ethnicity, for or against class, for or against “new” divisive identities, say, liberal and conservative? Why my nagging sense of the refrain “tumbo mbele . . .” as I read the exchanges?
Is it my own dissatisfaction with an incredibly masturbatory political discourse, albeit couched in rational and even high-falutin’ terms? And, I must confess, much of what I read felt like a jerk-off competition: my grasp of history is broader, my linguistic resources are vaster, my political acumen is better, my rational capacity . . ., add a category.
While offered in the spirit of critiquing our current leaders, something about the tenor of exchange, the extravagance of the claims, the emotion behind the claims, real or not, seemed to replicate the structural problems for which we excoriate our leaders. I could envision the leaders of the New Africa asking the same dog-chase-tail questions in the same manner, all while enjoying the benefits of their new lifestyles.
If nothing else, we’ve inherited a political culture of negativity: we are against tribalism, against corruption, against nepotism, against disease, against hunger. And so we should be. But we cannot sustain a negative national vision. Negativity is not a vision.
We need an affirmative vision. More, we need leaders who can articulate a compelling, affirmative vision that begins to solder fractures that have never made sense.
hi,
great piece- how about some paragraphs though- i gave up halfway as i was getting cross eyed trying to read, and VDU’s dont really support following your reading with your finger.
thanks
Keguro i dont know about masturbatory political discourse but i sure do agree with the fact that we do need an affirmative vision. More, we need leaders who can articulate a compelling, affirmative vision that begins to solder fractures that have never made sense.
and to that i would like to end with a quote from my last exchange with binyavanga and notethat this was indeed one of the few areas where we came to an agreement and i qouteuncle joe said “For the road to function is long.
Your road and motive to challenge discussion, to challenge a new generation of leaders to dream is good. All I am saying is inject some hope, inject some good don’t make their dream a nightmare.
Yes speak about the challenges, yes speak about the truth but cant we be a generation of hope and love too .Not demonizing leaders though old .Cant we be different tribesmen happy to be Kenyans, laughing and sharing with each other and not at the other .Cant we accept we are different from each other but realize that we do love each other .Cant we be different but sprinkled with a little love and a lot of hope.
I said it before I have no reason to apologize. The difference between you and me is that I feel and love, love my tribe, love my country but most importantly I love the truth. You claim that our politics larks “petho” and talk of my political fantasies of liberal and conservative. Because I have lived abroad for too long lakini brother wacha nikwambie ukweli wa mambo. It is up to us to make our politics have petho. To change from the past and dream of pethos.
Accommodation and death you say .Maybe we just read it differently… I dream of an accommodated pethofull working politics one of conservatives like me taking on liberals like you. Both sons of mumbi divided by ideology but bringing glory to Kenya .And death oooh sweet death to hate and division. To the death of personality politics and event politics. A dream of policy politics and of the battle of ideas. All is not lost all is not lost….. listen to the wisdom of your uncle my son .
This life doesn’t have to be so harsh and gloomy as you want to paint,a smile amongst the tears is all I ask. Congratulate on the economic growth and free school for all. Talk of the gains and freedoms we now have AND DON’T FORGET THE FLOWERS TOO .I hope that this is not a middle class petho am trying to force ON you .but a smile , a tear and a massage of a better tomorrow for all… that all this uncle can share .Remember I said at the start have no fear… this storm will pass.Dont make permanent decisions in a passing moment the country is still young .. Cant we all hope
Binyavanga said…
In a way I hear you here bro. I agree we need to start to affirm even the small sparks in our system - and this was the sensibility I carried into 2002. So far though, what I, and others have realised is that though many Kenyans are keen for this, our leadership (ODM and NARC KENYA) are still stuck on the old ways of doing things - and are really pacifying us b pretending to talk the talk and walk the walk - while contorting manenos - and more disturbing is the revival of ethnic Gikuyu paranoia and GEMAism that has clouded any optimism that we had - that sensibility is so posonous, so remembered as an insane time in Kenya by those who did not benefit fro it, it threatens to take our future back to 1969 - and turn a new generation of young Gikuyus into not people “proud of their tribe” but people who hang onto their tribe because ” the tribes will come and maliza us” - that mentality is the last barrier of a desparate class of people who thrived the old way, and who want to pass on paranoia so nothing new comes in the future.
The only possible thing tacit approval of this can bring is violence.
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Alexia i have told you once , i have told you twice. when grown folks are talking keep quiet!i think you well documented position especially concerning jews on your blog says what kind of person you are.let grown folks speak
Joe and Alexcia - Chill. Insults must be clever. The more vicious you feel, the cleverer you must become. It is the only rule here…
Its impossible to read this thing, my head started hurting on line 20.
If we pleaded for some paragraphs, could we get them?
Please please pretty please? With a cherry on top?
I would love to comment but cannot get past line 20 to read the rest of the (great) ideas and commentary in here.
Thanks.
I have followed the tribal debate with great interest. I must agree with the author that there is a nagging fear that i just cant dispel.
I am willing to bet that Rwanda, burundi, and all other civil war-torn countries never thought it would be that bad. Iam sure they at one point thought we too peaceful a people, sure we talk alot but cant really back it up. If we are so peace-loving and cant fight each other then why Molo, Njoro, Lamu, why the interpeople catle rustling, why?. We need to recongnize that we are not special,and yes it could happen to us. I need to be Kenyan, Meru then Chogoria else we will subdivide to tribal then intratribal as in mugikuyu wa ku? Nyeri /murang’a or wherever.
Our words are potent so kindly lets as the good book would have us do “season our words with salt” else we are doomed(God forbid!)
off the soapbox now
Disclaimer:I am neither from the house of Mumbi nor from the west. I am against tribalism in all its shapes and shades but these few facts makes me wonder, and maybe my Agikuyu brothers who are true to themselves may just ponder on these (false hope, i know, since mass hysteria always prevails)
(i)Should not the house of Mumbi love and make heroes of the Odinga family?
-why, Oginga paved the way for Prez kenyatta in the 60’s and recently Raila “assisted” Prez Kibaki to restore the cake to the house of Mumbi
-Their actions have always benefited the house of mumbi, never the Luos
- how quickly he whom the people of central demanded to address them as a hero (”njamba”?), has turned to be a beast?
(ii)Have the Luos ever lorded it over the house of Mumbi? Is it not perhaps the other way round?
-based on this and (i) it seems to me it would be more understood if the Luos were against the Agikuyu
(iii)I would understand if the Agikuyu had reason to be wary of the Kalenjin (land clashes and all), but the luo seem contented enough staying in nairobi and otherwise being good spendthrifts customers
(iv)If the westerners, who would rather rent than own in Nairobi were to leave, the real estate collapse would be enormours!
(v) Look the western MPs(luos luhyas): They never develop their regions, hence, them having power may not cause development of western kenya at the expense Mt Kenya.
But again, fear is always unreasonable, and one cannot easily change mindsets formed from early years.
I believe the solution to these kind of “fears” and problems is a re-drawing of our national borders that takes account of the various communitiesa and their interests. Everything else will be but bandage solutions.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Gishungwa - Wow… nice… I never thought of it that way…
Both kikuyu presidents made it to the top BECAUSE of luo support. So for all intents & purposes the luos have been the kingmakers (but got discarded)…
Yes, kenyatta would have never been prez if Oginga Odinga had not insisted on his release from detention.
kenyatta was a nyoka (michuki et al) czo he bit all those who helped him succeed but did not agree with his thieving ways:
- Oginga Odinga was shunted aside & almost detained
- Pio Gama Pinto was murdered
- Tom Mboya was murdered
- JM Kariuki was murdered
- Joseph Murumbi resigned since he did not fit in. Apparently he would have been shunted aside if not murdered by kenyatta.
- Bildad Kaggia was openly derided for not “eating” at the trough
- Achieng Aneko did little better than Kaggia
Maybe I am being sensitive and defensive but quote “Both kikuyu presidents made it to the top BECAUSE of luo support.” really riles me.
The underling assumption is that I, as a kikuyu was and is a direct beneficiary of both kikuyu presidencies resulting from Luo support. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Okay, it’s been said before to ad nauseam; there is no strong causal correlation between the ethnicity of the president and economic, social and political development for his/her tribe mates.
So please, please let us cease and detest from arguments based on this convoluted and insanely troubling mindset. I really, really want to hear some new school of thought that is not Shackled by this madness. We really have to find and fight our way-out is this ritualistic and deadly Russian roulette.
@Kamau
I agree with the idea of a new school of thought-i have a suggestion-what if prominent political leaders from both of these two tribes sat down and agreed to officially bury the hatchet?
I know not everyone will agree to follow suit, but that would be a powerful statement and would mark the thinking of an entire generation of younger kenyans
Help! All my posts have lost paragraphs and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to fix the problem. Techies help appreciated. Write to bulletsandhoney at gmail.com
@mmk
Edit your blog API CSS OR if it accepts HTML, use p tag to enclose the paragraph or br tag or DIV tags
@mmk
Edit your blog API CSS OR if it accepts HTML, use p tag to enclose the paragraph or br tag or DIV tags
Paragraphs at last!!
Better than water to a thirsty man.
Although I come to debate late, I come.
I pray leave to read then respond.
Paragraphs at last!!
Better than water to a thirsty man.
Although I come to debate late, I come.
I pray leave to read then respond.
toiyoi lets get one thing straight we(and i speak for all kyuks on this)dont fear raila odinga or his presidence .what we fear is what he will do to free enterprice and the economy thats the unspoken beef with raila.
one your questions
(i)Should not the house of Mumbi love and make heroes of the Odinga family?-
* why what is so special being an odinga
-why, Oginga paved the way for Prez kenyatta in the 60’s and recently Raila “assisted” Prez Kibaki to restore the cake to the house of Mumbi
-Their actions have always benefited the house of mumbi, never the Luos
*cheap propaganda raila did no such thing he simply joined the winning team and started acting like he crafted it .ask yourself who else would kenyans have voted for if not kibaki.was raila going to form a party and with kibaki and wamalwa.as for the kenyatta era odinga was just a token leader waiting to be consigned to obliivion.
- how quickly he whom the people of central demanded to address them as a hero (”njamba”?), has turned to be a beast?
*how many people called him a njamba in a population of 7 million
(ii)Have the Luos ever lorded it over the house of Mumbi? Is it not perhaps the other way round?
*kyuks have never lorded over anyone period
I just want to say that I sincerely enjoyed this piece MMK. The potential for ethnic violence is something that has been weighing on my mind increasingly. I have even heard some in the Luo community (of which I am a member) calling for regional autonomy. Such a “solution” would likely lead to widespread violence (if not, genocide) and so I am fearful that, if the tone does not change soon, ethnic tensions could rise even more in Kenya.
I would also like to say that throughout history, in settings where inequality is great, certain elements who purport to represent the dominant group have almost always maintained the stance that, were they to cede some of their power to the “enemy” (usually the poor, ethnic minorities, or the perceived rival), then the “enemy” would take the opportunity to exact revenge. This is, I think, the “accusation mirror,” you discuss in reference to Rwanda. Should people internalize these imagined fears too much, then it is not unimaginable that they will end up projecting them and perhaps even actualizing them. (This was the case in the U.S.–white racists versus blacks–, in Rwanda, and in France–everyone versus the North Africans. Note that, in 2005, one in three French people admitted to being racist. In France, it seems racism against North Africans has become the norm.) Coupled with the dehumanizing language employed by your text message sender (similar to that of Rwandan Hutus who called Tutsis “cockroaches”), genocide becomes increasingly plausible.
Thank you for taking the issue seriously. Those who wish to prevent strife must first be aware of the seeds of hatred that are being sown (by people on all sides, including our brothers and sisters in the Luo and Gikuyu commmunities). We must take the threat seriously so that we are prepared for the day of reckoning.
As to the most recent post from Uncle Joe, I have a huge amount of respect for Binyavanga Wainaina BUT I think, Uncle Joe, that no one should presume to speak for an entire group of people. I think it is presumptious of nmy of us to claim to be the voice of our ethnic groups (just as I think it would be presumptious of Cornel West to think that he speaks for all blacks in the U.S . even though the mainstream media here behaves as though that were the case…) Moreover, it is dangerous to believe that there is a Gikuyu or Luo mentality. As I think this site reveals, these are not monolithic groups.
Thanks Anna. Just saw your comment come up for moderation and was really feeling it. In the last few months I have become a lot more positive about Kenya and our politics. It think we are going to pull through probably magnificently and memorably.
Binyavanga, you inspire! I remember those days in Mangu: Did you see a Luo, Suba, Kikuyu or other? I didn’t. My bros were Gakombe,Nyori, Oyugi, Esese, Barago,Gatobu,Gesicho, Binyavanga,Onyi etc. How I wish that was the Kenya we live in.
When we sang ‘Dhako Nyowawa’ and ‘If I were to marry’ together we were all happy. On the national scene when the national anthem is on many of us are quiet. The Kikuyu -Luo problem may get out of hand. Worse still it’s now Kikuyu vs the rest of Kenya. Is this not too sad, to say the least? Aren’t our leaders deliberately cheating us?
The ordinary Kenyan is good. The politician is sick..just because [s]he has the means to fly out in short notice when problems erupt.
You’ve seen pictures of people in Congo, Zimbabwe etc walking with heavy loads, animals and children to nowhere in such of peace…..peace in deed!
It’s silly for us to continue taking directives from this lot. Let us forge friendship and save the future.
Nonkwe Nyaima Manyanki
I thank the author.
He speaks well and I think has tried to be very honest. Tribal hate is real. It is not unique to Kenya or Rwanda or Africa. During WW2 the killing of Jews was guided by no factor greater than the fact that they were Jews.
In Yugoslavia we saw human throw all caution to the wind to engage in ethnic cleasing.
A poin clearly emphasised by the writer is that Kenyans have sank into a false cumfort zone. A common lie I have heard is that since we are many tribes we can not experience genocide like Rwanda. this is burying our heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich. In Yugoslavia there were many tribes: the Serbs, the Croatians, the Bosnians, Macedonians, Serbian Cyrillic. And that war also took a Religious angle.
Kenyas let us be honest. there is nothing so wrong abvout being a tribal nation. It is our legacy. Let us be proud of all our tribes. Let us recognize all tribes in our public planning and in all governance issues. I am a Luhya ang God! I am proud. I am also happy that Kiuks are Kenyans like me- Boy aren’t they enterprising! I like my Luo folk - my girlfrind is Luo.
As Kenyan we are good people. I don’t want to say that it is the politicians who are all evil (remember they are also Kenyans!) What I would say is that lets be proud of who we are. Recognize and tolerate each other. We can joke about each other - that is fine: Remember the joke about Luhyas beeing cooks and watchmen? And some others which are stupid and ludicrous? Lets laugh at them and forge on as people with a common destiny. As a matter of fact we can say that we don’t have a choice. Just in the same way you can be born with a sibling whom you have no clue how he/she thinks. All you care is that he/she is your parents kid.
And to be honest we are not generally a bad people. We need very little effort to move on. We have matured politically more than any country in the Region. We are a model society in many ways. let us build on that.
I am proud to be Luhya and to be Kenyan just like I am very proud to be my father’s and my mother’s son.
This debate gets interesting everyday let Kenyans know that every time elections are around thats when politicians remind us which tribe we belong to. before then We share hearty jokes with luos, kaleos, luhyas, giriamas name it we enjoy our drink together and generally we should learn that elections come one day but our life goes on… Kenya is one let us not be blinded by our politicians whether ODM,ODMK,PNU we will still squeeze in the mathrees together as they (politicians) laugh cutting political and business deals in parliament, not many Kenyans know this!
Marto,
Am re-reading this and my God how right you were!
Please do a follow up.
The repulsive character of Kenyan leaders
In the run-up to the 2007 General Elections I came across a ghastly hate email against the ODM leader, written and undersigned by the son of a (re-elected) hardline minister. The same minister is widely seen as being associated with Mungiki. This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the inferiority of leadership in Kenya is concerned. Deep inside, many Kenyans are aware of the repulsive character of their leaders. The high turnover of ministers and MPs at the just concluded General Election is a pointer.
However, devoid of much choice, Kenyans have become used to, and have all along been hoodwinked by a class of leaders – not only political figures, but also religious, cultural, and some intellectual leaders, who insist they have an inalienable right to their positions and to the shameless self-allocated perks and mheshimiwa culture that come along. Their obsessive interests are limited to positions, wealth and the preferably frantic support from ethnic constituencies. Many of these leaders have managed to hang on since independence. Others, who joined later (and I would love to name them all), have seamlessly fitted themselves into these mafia networks and completely belied past civic engagements and relatively sober reputations.
Thirty years ago, I was convinced that the country had the ingredients and potential to emulate the Asian Tiger economies. This was before I had understood the Moi regime and the dismal characters that hovered around him and managed to survive until today, now glued to the Kibaki regime and sometimes also sitting tight in ODM.
These people have never walked their talk.
• They had 45 years to address the burning land question in the country, but all they did was to steal and acquire huge tracts of land for themselves.
• They had 45 years to find innovative and affordable housing solutions for the majority of poor Kenyans, but all they did was building preposterous and huge mansions for themselves in mashambani and in town and becoming greedy landlords for dozens if not hundreds of tenants.
• They had 45 years to address safe, affordable and reliable public transport, but all they did was showing off their fleets of latest models of Mercedes and four-wheel drives. While the country burns, more than 50 new MPs had nothing better to do than converting their fat car loans into luxury cars at various outlets in Industrial Area.
• They had 45 years to establish effective, efficient, independent and robust institutions, but all they did was running them down, stealing from them, and using them for job nepotism and for political expediency.
• They had 45 years to devise pro-active anti-poverty programmes, but all they did was show-time strategies, sweet-talk, playing with donors, and despising the poor as if they were rats in the garbage.
• They had 45 years to establish a competent, impartial and reliable Police Force, but all they did was corrupting the Force as an armed wing of the ruling party and promoting gangs-for-hire, which they turn into ethnic militias when they feel embattled.
• They had 45 years to produce good infrastructure and services – roads, water, electricity, and communications -, and all they did was fraternising with cowboy contractors, and grossly mismanaging the sector to their own narrow benefits.
• They had 45 years to establish a world-class education system in Kenya, but all they did was giving Kenyans sub-standard free primary school after 40 years of waiting, while their own offspring study in expensive private establishments, preferably overseas.
• They had 45 years to establish inclusive primary health care and preventive measures, but all they did was relying on churches and NGOs and let people die if they could not pay, while enjoying first class services by ‘private’ doctors and hospitals for themselves.
• They had 45 years to prove to Kenyans that they are all equal in their aspirations, opportunities, human rights and cultural traditions, but all they did was to protect – at any cost as we now see – a resented Kikuyu-dominated hegemony and the selected rich from other tribes they need to spread their tentacles all over the country, while regional disparities and abject poverty (including among ordinary Kikuyus) continue to pester.
• They had 45 years to respect and promote freedom and democratic rights, but all they did was keeping their flocks in bondage in order to control them in the pursuit of selfish interests and to issue death threats to heroes like Githongo, Maina Kiai, Muthoni Wanyeki, David Ndii and others.
• They had 45 years to make Kenya a prosperous, proud and peaceful nation, but all they did was giving Kenyans the breadcrumbs from their tables – a classroom here, a dispensary there, a water-point, a piece of road, a sack of maize…and piga makofi.
• They had 45 years to live the way they pretend in Sunday church, but all they did was to throw ethics, humility, compassion, and justice over board.
With the second MP having been killed within a week, we can now take it as confirmed that since 1963 the Kenya leadership has never excluded outright liars and killers. The assassinations of Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, G.M. Kariuki, Alexander Muge, Robert Ouko and many others were all based on the same script: To defend an entrenched Mafia hegemony. They are those, who right now do not want the Kofi Annan mediation to succeed and sit tight in and around State House, those, who don’t mind burning more of their flock, those who cling to their extremist stands and allow hate messages to circulate and protect their vernacular ‘Mille Collines’ radios, those who allow parochialism to erase better judgement, those who have completely lost semblance of human beings.
It is time for the still sober but shocked Kenyan citizens to stop their helpless praying or gently laying flowers at freedom corner. They should in their millions march to State House and stay there peacefully until the mayhem ends and the culprits are brought to The Hague. The tragedy is that this won’t happen.