Kenya: Nation Is Promoting, Not Fighting Tribalism
By Koigi Wa Wamwere, 7 July 2012
Opinion
With the Mombasa Republican Council threatening to secede with the
encouragement of some presidential candidates and al Shabaab terrorists
mounting increasing attacks against Christians and churches, Kenya cannot
afford lacklustre handling of religious bigotry. It gives birth and cover to
fundamentalists and negative ethnicity. When nationalism wanes and negative
ethnicity increases sharply as the ideology of our politics, history warns
we are on the verge of an ethnic Armageddon far worse than what we saw in
2007-08.
But rather than heed this grave danger, we see Uhuru Kenyatta mobilising the
Kikuyu to join TNA; William Ruto mobilising the Kalenjin to join URP;
Musalia Mudavadi urging the Luhya to board the UDF matatu; the Kamba
clinging to Kalonzo Musyoka's Wiper party; the Luo fanatically holding on to
ODM; and Cyrus Jirongo accusing Kibaki of committing the mortal sin of
prolonging not the Kikuyu elites' but the community's stay in power and
monopoly of national wealth. To stop this ethnic march to hell, Kenyans must
pour into streets to demonstrate against politicians who are once again
chaperoning the nation to fire and death. Ethnic unity that parties pretend
to foster balkanise the nation and politically pit communities one against
another.
When we hear three Kikuyu musicians drumming up ethnic hate against Raila
and the Luo people, Kikuyu people should not applaud them as championing
their interests but see them as attracting ethnic hate to them. It worries
me when Dr Mzalendo Kibunjia, the national Tsar against negative ethnicity
goes to Nakuru to unite the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities to, in the name
of peace, negotiate sharing of county electoral seats in exclusion of other
communities.
But why is negative ethnicity and religious fundamentalist terrorism
increasing when both are routinely condemned and denied by political and
religious leaders? It can only mean leaders don't denounce negative
ethnicity genuinely and people know it. To eradicate negative ethnicity, we
must fully understand it. It promotes superiority of ethnic self and
inferiority of ethnic others; stereotypes ethnic self positively and ethnic
others negatively, deifies ethnic self and demonises ethnic others, promotes
survival of ethnic self through elimination of ethnic others.
Most people call negative ethnicity "tribalism". And what Mzalendo now calls
"ethnicism" sounds to me more like ethnicity than tribalism or negative
ethnicity. Ethnicity is politically and socially neutral; positive ethnicity
asserts equality for the ethnically oppressed and negative ethnicity is
politically, socially and economically hostile and destructive to ethnic
others.
When communities opposed to negative ethnicity unite, they become a nation
whose ideology is nationalism. Kenyan communities must choose between
marrying their ethnicities into nationalism or keeping their ethnicities
separate and hostile. To eradicate negative ethnicity, animals must end
jungle (man-eat-man) society first.
In the human jungle that is our nation, carnivores cannot speak love but
hate to the herbivores they eat and other carnivores with whom they compete
for prey. As for their hate speech, it is informed by their negative
ethnicity derived from instinct of survival of the fittest. Kenyans cannot
embrace jungle society and not live as animals do, naturally accommodating
hate speech. As one cannot eat one's cake and have it, we cannot keep jungle
society and eradicate hate speech.
From the post-election violence and the Rwandan genocide, Kenyans should
have learnt that consequences of negative ethnicity are always dire. Without
vigilance, counties might be transformed into ethnic homelands in which
minority communities will be "foreigners" to be discriminated against,
evicted, denied jobs and business licenses and never elected into county
assemblies.
Koigi wa Wamwere is the chair of Chama cha Mwananchi party.
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Received on Sat Jul 07 2012 - 20:37:06 EDT
