The Time Bomb of Ethnic Consciousness in Kenya

The instructive thing about the post-election violence in Kenya is that it was predicted long before it broke out, but very little was done to prevent it from happening. What does this indicate if not gross misgovernance on the part of the officials concerned and callousness and blood-thirst on the part of the political leaders who funded the violence and polarized the people against each other?

I recently heard from a Kenyan who, angered at the goings-on in mid-2007, started to write an article about Kenya’s impending descent into hell. The article was completed late in the year and never saw the light of day, that is until now. I am reproducing it here to show you that violence doesn’t just erupt out of thin air.

The writer’s perceptions are, for the most part, on point. The disaster predicted did in fact end up taking place. The only difference between the prediction and the actual disaster is in the magnitude of the crisis. Keeping in mind that the crisis has not ended (as far as I am concerned, it will only end when the grievances of the ordinary Kenyan are addressed in the constitution and in the economic and political set-up), we cannot afford to heave a sigh of relief. If we had paid attention to these issues when they first became apparent, thousands of lives would have been spared. We failed then. Now that we have been given a second chance to right things, let us be vigilant. Let us keep our eyes open to what is going on around us so that we can prevent future massacres:

“Early this year a news media house interviewed a sample of the Tanzanian general population on their take on the proposed East African political federation. The response was striking. The vast majority of the interviewees viewed Kenyans as an arrogant, mannerless lot without an iota of etiquette. They saw a thin line between Kenyans’ aggressive business techniques and their tendency towards conmanship and criminal behaviour, a situation which they regarded as a threat to Tanzania’s regional industrial development and sense of nationhood. But more important to them was the ethnic animosity among Kenyans themselves. If one added to this the mix of Ugandans, Rwandans, Burundians and Tanzanians (nearly 200 strong tribes), what explosive mixture would result, they wondered.  

“Although ethnic hyper-consciousness and intolerance has always been a household phenomenon in Kenya and indeed in many African states, its crescendo during the last five years has alarmed many Kenyans. The significance of the problem has been increased by the impending general elections. It is expected that the elections will push the crisis to boiling proportions. All sorts of chauvinistic and demeaning political slogans are already doing their rounds in text messages, posters, leaflets, electronic media adverts etc. A few unlucky individuals have been shot, trampled upon or clubbed to death. Others have lost their teeth, or watched as their houses have been razed down. One unlucky female aspirant had faeces stuffed into her mouth for daring to support an ‘enemy’ party. Some buses belonging to members of one community have been barred from traversing certain tribal fiefdoms for one election-related issue or another. Not surprisingly, all Kenyan political parties are allied to major tribal blocks in the country.

“But ethnic intolerance or tribalism is not a uniquely negative Kenyan phenomenon. In fact ethnic consciousness is a positive identity trait that makes us what we are. It is when these differences are expressed in a retrogressive fashion that they impinge on good governance, peaceful co-existence and national stability. Former Belgian colonies seem to be the champions of ethnic intolerance, and the 1991 Holocaust in Rwanda (which most Kenyans today fear will be reproduced in their country) is evidence of this. When one visits the University of Rwanda in Kigali, he is first ushered in to the massacre centre to be greeted by a macabre scenario: skulls, being the remains of  400 students and 200 lecturers, some of them labeled with the victims’ names.

“Inter-tribal animosity was invented and perfected by colonialists who used it to perfect their divide and rule doctrine. In the case of Rwanda, Belgians supported and used the Tutsis’ pre-existing dominance to rule the local native subjects. When the wind of change started to blow in Africa, the Belgians were rudely kicked out by Tutsi-led Rwandan activists. A similar scenario unfolded in the then Congo-Leopoldville. On the eve of their departure, the Belgians, infuriated by the ‘betrayal’ of their once valued ‘allies’, advised the Hutus to sort out the Tutsis before it was too late, lest the Tutsis became their neocolonial masters.

“The colonialists and those with vast interests in the region promised covert technical and material support for the project. The rest is history. It is instructive that, at the departure of the Belgians, Tutsis controlled all sectors of the Rwandan economy, dominated the army, the intelligentsia  and literally lorded it over the Hutus. They occupied all the key government posts, and were effectively the slave drivers of the nation. This situation infuriated the majority Hutus and hence started the spiral of coups, and counter-coups that culminated in the genocide in 1991.

“Tribalism in Kenya has a different genesis. Because Kenya was destined to be a dominion, a lot of infrastructure was left in place by the colonialists and this catalysed a transient form of nationalistic feeling. But this false sense of security was short-lived because the founding President soon discovered the value of tribalism and nepotism as tools to further his selfish designs. All this was watched by his most faithful student, the then Vice-President Moi. When the new graduand, Moi, took the mantle of the Presidency, he inherited an already established, deeply-rooted ideology. He perfected and used it to its full potential. However, as we shall see later, the culture of blind ethnic bias is not compatible with national socioeconomic development and progress, nor does it promote political stability. Soon the Kenyan economy ground to a halt and was set on a negative trend of growth. It is the currently outgoing Kibaki and his regime who have developed the art of tribalism to sophisticated levels and subtly and effectively used it to subdue his formidable foes.

“Tribalism is part and parcel of the most worrying trend in Africa according to a report by a United Nations committee on drugs and criminality in the recent past. According to this report, corruption, criminality and poverty are so intertwined as to lend credence to the recent controversial impression espoused by the Nobel Laureate, Watson. The report describes the African case as an unredeemable situation, The Nobel Laureate however goes further by blaming the situation on the genetically ‘daft’ nature of the African, a claim which has no scientific basis and can only be blamed on the loss of judgment and senility that come with the degeneration of a once mighty brain.

“Whether it is due to the daft nature of the African, or environmental and foreign interference, the modus operandi of Kenyan inter-ethnic animosity is easy to observe. First of all, Kenyans are untroubled about referring to their compatriots as ‘Okuyu’, ‘Jarabuon’, ‘Kale’, ‘Jaruo’, ‘Jang’o Jeuri’, ‘Kihii’, ‘Jamwa’, ‘Rayuom’, ‘Omunyolo’ and the like. Tribal clashes are a predictable and common occurrence between particular tribes. It doesn’t take much to say with precision where and when the next ethnic conflict is going to occur.

“Politics of the stomach are the order of the day as high profile jobs are preserved for a small clique of the ruling tribe, irrespective of the individual’s suitability for the job. The justification is simple: it is their time to eat. In Kenya, the allocation of national resources has never been based on economic sense and need, hence the persistence of the so-called marginalized areas and communities. For over forty years, there has been no attempt to address the situation. Instead, governments have simply wished away the underdeveloped regions by labeling them ‘hardship areas’ and moving on. Budgetary allocations are ethnically-based and are as predictable as they are incongruous. Predictable because the ruling ethnic fiefdoms routinely get the lion’s share. Incongruous because an “ethnically correct” constituency’s allocations for, say, water development may surpass the one of an entire province that happens to be the inhabited by the ethnically incorrect.
 
“The sad and ironic fact is that the majority of the members of the so-called favoured communities are themselves no better off than the neglected. Indeed, the distribution of the national cake is not as simple as it may appear. Sixty per cent of all Kenyans live below the poverty line (ignore the politically-motivated doctored figures released by the Kenya Bureau of Statistics), the GNP per capita of Kenyans is much closer to USD 150 than the USD 315 that is trumpeted in official reports (ignore the hyped up claims of economic growth- a phenomenon of misinterpreted statistics which only applies to the high and the mighty). Over 90% of people in Central and Rift Valley Provinces, which were home to former presidents, are as poor as church mice, because the allocated resources eventually ended up benefiting the chosen few. During the last severe drought, the government had to airlift food to assist starving Baringo Central inhabitants in the constituency of the former President Moi, one of the richest men in Kenya. Gatundu constituency, the home of the founding president, has nothing to show for the millions of shillings in funds received by Kenyatta during his 15 years reign (apart from the Gatundu Sub-District Hospital). Where did all the money go?

“If you think that the educated elite from institutes of higher learning are spared from such pervasive ideologies, you are mistaken. It was previously (and naively) thought that the education of more Kenyans would sound the death knell for retrogressive ethnic biases. However, many institutes of higher learning are choking with those who have specific ethnic agendas to achieve. There are professors in universities who have never written any academic papers, nor conducted any research, but somehow got their installation orders- probably from higher powers. Nepotism is the philosophy of the day: kith and kin are offered a positively-skewed playing field during their academic careers. Hence in some situations, lecturers, teachers and tutors may in fact ‘assist’ students from their ethnic groups to pass examinations. In such institutions, although no formal manual on ethnic animosity exists in the curriculum, it is so effectively practiced by lecturers that previously tribally-naïve, observant young students are ready-made specialists at tribalism by the time they graduate. Such graduands are more likely to serve the interests of their  community than those of the public at large. Thus, you will find architects and engineers who will readily approve building construction plans that have not satisfied the minimum requirements, doctors who will treat cases that they are not familiar with, or who will refer patients to their kith and kin colleagues, whether they are competent to deal with the cases or not.

“What can Kenyans do to reverse this practice that denies ordinary folk their basic human rights? Misguided foreigners, who rarely appreciate that they are an important contributor to Africa’s problems, including poor governance and siphoning of our natural resources, human resources and skilled manpower are convinced that their type of democracy would solve most of Africa’s miseries. The opposite is true: the Westminster type of democracy is an irrelevant commodity in Africa. Hence political ideologies, manifestos and visions are nothing more than poems in the newspapers or public entertainment at political rallies. The doctrine of tribal alliance is what makes sense to many Africans. Last minute inter-party defections and shifting allegiances are the norm.

“Another perception, especially among aging politicians, is that, whatever the multi-tribal composition of political parties, they and their communities are their so called ‘owners’ (read tribal bosses). For example, ODM (read Odinga Dictatorship Movement) is a ‘Luo party‘, ODM-K (read ODM-Kamba) is specifically ‘a party for Kambas’, PNU (read Party for the Nugu Useless, or Party for the Not Uncircumcised) ‘belongs to Mount Kenya communities’. For personal reasons, including that of safeguarding personal wealth, preventing prosecution for past ill deeds and protecting their progeny, Kenyan Presidents, past and present, have propagated this doctrine. It is an open secret that at different points in history, ordinary members of the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities were duped into believing that KANU was their private property.

“Economics are the most important determinant of success in life. During Moi’s reign, the rampant printing of currency to reward ‘ethnically correct’ individuals, or the strategic manipulation of exchange rates accompanied by the buying and selling of currency at opportune moments was in vogue. Today, the ruling class has become more sophisticated. Shares of parastatals are floated and sold in batches to the ethnically correct. The stock values are thereafter deliberately fluctuated, irrespective of their market value, to facilitate buying and selling at the opportune moment. In addition, shares of certain strategic companies of socioeconomic importance to the country are block-sold to favoured members of the ‘ethnically correct’ elite to ensure future economic dominance by the ethnic group (in the event that they lose political power). To subscribe to this sort of manipulation is to ignore the genesis of the Rwandan experience. The more that one community seeks to dominate others, the more they put themselves and their innocent progeny at risk

“It is unfortunate that Kenya is now witnessing a situation where one ethnic group is on the fast track to control all sectors of the economy. This is a dangerous precedent for the stability of the nation. Instability and genocidal catastrophe, if they occurred in Kenya, would be to a scale never before seen in East Africa. The Rwandan experience would comparatively be child’s play. This is because the machetes used in Rwanda would be replaced with AK 47s, grenade-launchers and handguns, thanks to Kenya’s porous borders with Somalia and Sudan. Secondly, many hard working innocent Kenyans from some communities have settled in all corners of the country doing legitimate business. These communities, if targeted, would be sitting ducks for any ethnic group with evil genocidal designs. Thirdly, compared to Rwanda, Kenya has comparatively efficient infrastructure to facilitate a genocidal exercise. What took Hutus one month to complete would take a bare one week for any evil-minded Kenyans to effect.

“What does all this ethnic muddle mean with respect to our impending general elections? First of all, the country has long been balkanized into ethno-political fiefdoms which are no-go areas for opponent outfits. Secondly the conduct of campaigns, the language used and the violence will be offensive to a level never seen before. Already arms are being stocked, and tribal battle lines have been drawn.”