appreciating our cultural diversity

Kenyans always wax lyrical on the issue of pride in our unique cultural mix. This, unfortunately, is just hype. Most of us simply pay lip service to such statements and in actual fact hate each others guts. 

 

This is the reason why we easily go on a killing spree at the least of excuses, and then blame the leaders ostensibly for leading us into temptations.

 

The presidency has always loomed large in most Kenyans’ minds as the epitome of non appreciation of some cultures, especially those whose population cannot allow them to attain the presidency. This feeling of marginalization is not without merit.  Apparently, once a person gets the presidency he appoints his tribesmen to all the plum jobs-

among other fringe benefits such the Mau

 

This might not necessarily be true given the fact that very few people of the said tribe actually benefit. But this is beside the point because as the saying goes, justice should not only be done, it should be seen to done. It’s not remotely funny that a certain Mr.Koech,a political analyst, having very insightful knowledge of what’s wrong with the country would get himself tangled and trapped into the same primitive belief. In a recent ‘Citizen TV’ program he went as far as stating that his community’s cows are dying along a water pipeline due to lack of water, chiefly because the ministry of finance and the treasury is staffed with members of one community. If such a learned fellow can reason like that, why would you expect a mere villager to reason any different. They’ve never had the president come from their tribe and even worse, they don’t visualize that as a reality in the near future. In such a case it would be easy to cultivate resentment towards the tribe who seem to be benefiting from the presidency.

 

The only way forward is to ensure that even those ‘small tribes’ get to have the presidency. This will have various effects:

 

First, it will practice the preaching that all cultures in Kenya are equal; and that none has a monopoly on the ability to produce presidents.

 

Secondly, it will be easier to convince Kenyans that there are not many benefits that accrue to the tribe just by virtue of the president hailing from ones tribe. As things stand now, one is hard-pressed to convince members from ‘small tribes’ of this fact given that every other Tom, Wanjiku and Njuguna from Mount Kenya wants to be the president!

 

Thirdly, it will be a way of practicing the preaching that we value and appreciate our unique cultural diversity; that we value every Kenyan no matter the tribe.

 

By making sure that each tribe has an equal chance of leading this country, we shall free ourselves from this tribal baggage being peddled around by politicians, called ‘tribal unity’. In effect, this equality will thaw the tension prevalent among members of different communities allowing normal social interactions as Kenyans thus contributing to eventual ethnic healing.

 

Read ‘eradicating tribalism and preventing post- election violence’ for details

The Hague,ICC,Local Tribunal

Since justice will prevent another episode of post election violence from reoccurring; and the prosecution of the masterminds of the post election violence is the surest way to heal the ethnic polarization and end impunity in the country; we don’t have to go through all those processes.

 

Let’s cut to the chase:  let’s hang Uhuru and Ruto.These two guys have all but told us that their names are in the infamous “waki list”. After that we should all go and sleep and let the ethnic healing happen. We shall wake up to a new dawn of ethnic harmony, and without prospects of another bout of post election violence!

What’s your tribe:much ado about nothing!

 What’s your tribe? : much ado about nothing!

Some NGO or other has decided to enter the fray of trying to figure  out the ‘ethnic healing’ quagmire in Kenya. It has decided to hit the ground running by advocating for the removal of the question of tribe from the census questionnaire, and has gone a step further to dare send out volunteers to accompany the enumerators telling people not to answer the ‘tribe‘ question.

 

For starters somebody ought to tell these guys that statistics is one nonsensical branch of science whose practical benefits even the statisticians can’t explain. For instance, after the census, there will be ridiculous figures such as

a) The per capita income in Kenya is ksh.600, 000 per annum. How much does an unemployed youth earn?

b) The national debt divided by the population in Kenya is about ksh. 35,000 per head.. So, when are you planning to start repaying that debt?

 

Secondly, any statistician worth his salt will tell you that it’s pretty easy to come up with quite accurate figures about tribe even without asking the particular question. I mean, there’s no way in hell a name like Njuguna will belong to a Caucasian race!

 

Thirdly, the act of not mentioning my tribe doesn’t make me non tribal: it actually makes one a hypocrite. In fact, the idea that changing my name to Ephraim Simon from Ephraim Njuguna will make me non-tribal is not only ludicrous, but imbecilic too.

 

The upshot: tribe will always be part of us, and if you even remotely think you can get people out of their tribes, then you are a stupid dog-  sorry, you are like a dog-  that keeps running away from its tail!

 

What we need to do is to let the tribe be. Stop hyping on it as a negative thing; you will just make people internalize it.  I can imagine the scenario if the said NGO was allowed its way. The census official asks the questions to a family. All are answered until the ‘tribe’ question, and the ‘anti tribe question’ official butts in with “ don’t answer that!”. After the exercise, the children ask the parents: “why were you told not to answer that?”. The parent answers that it’s because ‘tribe’ is bad.  “Which one?”, the child still wants to know.

 

Then you get wondering, who is more stupid? The one who is funding such a stupid project, the one who wrote the proposal or the implementers. If these guys are bright, then, I am a rocket scientist!

 

By the bye, since Kenyans are so fixated on groups, are we likely to see another project in future demanding the removal of ‘gender question’ from the census, in the spirit of dealing with gender inequality…?

. .

Brand kenya:home to

 Imbecile intellectuals

 

 Kenya is among those African countries with the highest percentage of educated people, but with all those brains put together they can barely scratch a 1.7% annual growth rate! In addition, the average Kenyan political behavior is that one of a standard four pupil. Sample this:

 

ü       A whole people can be convinced that a growth percentage of 7% is not good enough; they kill each other and destroy property to bring it to a respectable 1.7%

ü       People can kill each other over democracy(haki yetu)

ü       They can be lied to and confused to believe that  the only difference between democracy and anarchy is actually the spelling

ü       They believe leaders is the other name for politicians

ü       So obsessed with stupid politics that they can even stop working to listen to a politician telling them how he will create jobs for them

ü       They elect politician on the platform of reform agenda who frustrate the same process once in power, so that they can get elected on the same platform next time.

ü       They elect politicians on the platform of youth agenda, and who promptly raise the retirement age to 80 once in power.

ü       Believe that once their tribe is in power, all their problems become past tense

ü       Human rights means rights of law- breakers

ü       Have to abuse the president to become popular

ü       Confuse democracy with licentiousness

ü       Believe that a new constitution will solve all their problems , including taking them to heaven

ü       Splitting the country is synonymous with splitting the ‘national cake’-whatever that is-which implies they will benefit more

ü       Believe that sports will prevent the next bout of post- election violence

ü       Believe that politicians can arrest themselves, book themselves in, prosecute themselves and take themselves to jail.

ü       Believe that if they stop using their surnames there will be ethnic healing and reconciliation!

 

You are interested in seeing this sub- species of homo sapience?  Please, pay Kenya a visit!

 

Religious sinners

 

85% of Kenyans, and counting, profess to be religious; Churches of one kind or the other  only come  second to pubs. Who would have ‘thank’ it!  The sins that get done in Kenya annoy even the devil!

 

You need samples? Kwani where were you during the ‘07/08 post election violence, the day mungiki killed just about everyone in a village, carjacking… ?

Of Moreno-Ocampo

Anyone with a crude weapon somewhere? Or even better, is there a railway track leading to Argentina that we may uproot?

Reason: Moreno O’campo is “finishing my tribe”!  He has decided to prosecute the masterminds of the post- election violence of ‘07/‘08.

What to do? Lets do the done thing: lets kill all the Argentineans we know. Lets  kill Morenos, Morinho(sorry, that’s a Portuguese), Messi, Teves,Meza(sorry, that’s a Kuwaiti), Maradona, Madonna( sorry, that’s a … ) and more! And while still at it, let’s have a coffee boycott: let’s uproot all coffee plants, shun all coffee beverages…

No one has ever accused us Kenyans of being intelligent. Or have they?

Edmund Burke

Said:  “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

 

Translated to the Kenyan situation, and in the light of the 07/08 post- election violence, the advice should read: the only thing necessary for another bout of post- election violence to occur is for the intelligent and peace loving Kenyan to vote in the referendum and 2012 presidential elections.  

 

It shouldn’t take rocket science to figure out that voting in those two events will be doing absolutely nothing.  It will not bring a new constitution and I will not accept the president you vote for, neither will I go to the courts. I will just tell my friends near the railway tracks and churches to do the necessary. Of course I will be armed with the latest state of the art excuses masquerading as reasons and explanations for the violence. Annan is still around.

 

Please don’t let me stop you from exercising your democratic right or left. After that exercise in futility, on your way out of the voting station do yourself a favor and buy a weapon!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Jackson

As it’s said, there’s nothing so bad that it lacks use. Death dealt a bad blow the whole music world by robbing us ‘the king of pop’, MJ. However it gave him the kind of popularity he could never have rivaled alive. Most Kenyans now know him and his songs.

 

The most appropriate song that he bequeath us Kenyans is “black or white”. We should ALWAYS replace those words with “kikuyu or luo”, or what ever other tribes we may so prefer. Please always replace the words “…spend my life living in a color…” with “…spend my life living in a tribe…”

kenyan:the ultimate identity

The process of identity formation starts immediately a child is born and continually changes over time until one dies. The group one identifies with usually starts at the very basic level. At this level the child’s group exclusively consists of the person feeding the child, normally the mother.

 

The group then enlarges to include all those people the child gets into contact with on a regular basis. This group is usually made up of the immediate family, including the maid.

 

From the age of one year, the child has started taking tentative steps. This moves the child from the immediate family to the neighbors, who happen to be members of the extended family, and if the child is lucky to be residing in an urban area, the ‘extended family’ gets really extended to include members of different communities.

 

By the time the child gets to the school going age, s/he identifies with a large group of people who might even belong to different ethnic groups. Once in secondary school, and depending on the kind of school- local, district, provincial or national, one comes across and identifies with various groups of people these range from ones ethnic community members in case of  rural local schools, to  all members of  the Kenyan community. This situation also obtains in the tertiary education institutions-Universities, colleges etc-whose membership is drawn from all the communities in Kenya. The situation is later duplicated at the work place.

 

From the foregoing, it’s apparent that strong tribal identity exists at the very tender age in a child’s life-up to age 12- and only in very rural areas. It’s also interesting to note that all these identities arise out of the various social interactions a child engages in while growing up and it’s not a biological reality.  A child born of a luhya parents and raised by kikuyu parents will grow up identifying with the kikuyu community and vice versa.

 

The upshot: any Kenyan who has strong tribal ties is a ‘social child’ at the age of twelve, in a rural area, and needs to grow up.

 

I posit here that of all the identities in a person’s life the more varied the group one identifies with, the higher a persons state of social maturity.

Principles of Democracy

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

There is no one universal definition and practice of democracy. Indeed, Democracy as practiced by USA, Britain, India and all the other great democracies in the world differ a great deal.

 

However, there are two basic tenets upon which democracy hinges, viz:

 

1) That all the members of the society (citizens) have equal access to power.

 

2) That all citizens enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties

 

In a democracy, access to power is mainly through voting. Thus, ‘equal access to power’ implies an assumed equality, in numerical terms, among the various groups of members of the society competing for the same. Any numerical differences among the members of the society leads to feelings of marginalization of the smaller groups which may ultimately be exploited by some people to cause strife … the second principle will not be worth the paper its written on, the assumption being that once a group is denied ‘equal’ access to power their freedoms and liberties will be tramped on by the bigger group.

 

Herein lies Kenya’s political and social problems.

 

First, the members of the society competing for power have numerical differences, so that there is this all pervasive notion that the political process is not fair; especially when it comes to the highest political office in the land, namely, the presidency. With the kikuyu at 22% of the Kenyan population and Turkana at about 1%, it’s understandable. This will always be used by politicians as an excuse to sow hatred amongst the various ‘marginalized’ groups, as it happened in 2007/2008.

 

Secondly, Most Kenyans equate power with the presidency.  Full stop.

Even well educated people in the society such as political analysts will be quoted in the media exhorting the president to do this or the other to save the country, never mind the fact that Kenya also has an executive prime minister as well as other leaders who could, and should do something about it.

 

Thirdly, the curse (some might call it a blessing) of Kenya’s ethnic differences (cultural diversity) and its attendant numerical differences. However, one should be cognizant of the fact that homogeneity might not necessarily be a solution to Kenya’s political problems: A case in point being Somali, with citizens of same tribe and religion and endless political conflicts.

 

An ignorant citizenry which “eat, drink, talk and sleep politics”

A Personal political journey

I am privileged to have interacted intensively with members of various ethnic communities in Kenya both in my formative years as well as an adult. These interactions have largely shaped my world view as far as ethnic differences are concerned. The experience has also been instrumental in the diagnosis of the problems ailing the country as due to tribal politics rather than hatred between and among individual members of different communities.

I spent my lower primary years in central province (Nyandarua district) where I was born. During those years (early 80s) the only political news of importance I could glean was the kind that could not wake up a ‘light- sleeper’. For example, Kibaki getting his ass fired as VP and being replaced with another Kikuyu, Karanja. This kind of minus- one- plus -one- maths news was calculated to rival Piriton in effect. This served us (Kikuyu) just fine.

During my upper primary years, my family up and moved ,with me in tow, to Bungoma. This was in the late 80s and early 90s. Politically speaking, Kenyans were living in ‘interesting times’: what with all the clamor for multi party democracy and a dose of ethnic clashes! The news reaching me from the battle front, i.e. the border with Rift Valley was scary. The news which were a collection of rumors, innuendos, exaggerations and a sprinkling of truths, nevertheless succeeded in painting in our young minds a portrait of a Kalenjin with horns, blacker than me (impossible!) and with a tail.

In 1992, we moved again to the other side of the country; Eastern province (Kitui).This is where I attended my secondary school education. In these sides too, we had a healthy dose of the national politics I recall a tag of war between the late Mr. Ngilu(charity Ngilu’s husband ) schools’s BOG chairman and a Mr. Ndoto, a KANU activist (basically between KANU and DP).

During the 1997 clashes I joined University of Nairobi for a Bachelors degree. You can imagine my shock on learning that my two roommates would be Kalenjin! How on earth was I supposed to muster enough courage to sleep in the same room with- not one, but two Kalenjin ‘warriors’? I didn’t have enough money to afford board outside the University so I just braced myself for the worst. Needless to say I didn’t sleep a wink for quite afew days until I was absolutely certain that they didn’t posses any ‘weapons of mass destruction’ such as bows, arrows and spears.

Anytime I remember this episode, I feel pretty flabbergasted; I cannot imagine my political naivety. Those two guys turned out, in the one semester we were roommates to be the best roommates I ever had the whole of my university life. I was shocked to realize that they were more disgusted by the clashes than I was. Well, as they say, experience owns a pretty high- cost school.

I learnt two lessons viz.; always carry a pinch of salt to all political rallies, and that when we condemn a whole community as killers we are actually throwing out the baby with the bathwater, since only a handful of people engage in these stupid killings and destruction.

2002 general elections found me in Ruiru and you can bet your last 50 cent that it was the grandmother of all confusions for the Kikuyus in the area. To illustrate, imagine Njenga Karume defecting to KANU from DP at a time when a DP ticket in Central was basically a guaranteed parliamentary seat! This was the most enjoyable political event in my life. Having been in the opposition politics for so long I naturally gravitated towards Kibaki while all around me were chants of “Kamwana”(young person), as Ruiru used to be in Kiambu district, Uhuru’s home tuff.

After the MOU saga, I was finally cured of all passion in Kenyan politics. I just stood by and watched the circus that was Bomas and the fight to the death over nothing more than fruits -of course by fruitcakes- which finally culminated in the theater of the absurd masquerading as campaigns. I was in Tala during the 2005 referendum and couldn’t help being astonished at the kind of hostility coming from my Kamba brothers and sisters just because I was from Kibaki’s community (banana) while they were supporting orange.

I am back in politics, not because I have suddenly realized the fun I am missing in it, but because it has become too painful to stand aside and watch as intelligent Kenyans allow political fools to destroy the country, and lives too.