minority report
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 18, 2008

Njoroge,
I find anyone who wants to claim, even in these most trying times that their primary identity is ethnic to be a very difficult person to deal with.
I understand why we would want to hold onto these, sexy, romantic yearnings for a blood-link stretching back into the past, but I cannot at all tolerate that we fail to see that our choosing to self-identify primarily as Gikuyu, Luo, Maasai, Somali, etc precludes national unity, even trans-national unity.

One must now ask, what makes us Kikuyu, or Luo or Bukusu, and are these identities at all necessary? Is there something to be lost, something useful and dear and irretrievable if we declare these our secondary identities? Is there a pressure on us to be Kamba or Kisii first and not Kenyan? Is there a habitus unique to the Luo that makes them different from other Kenyans? Is this the reality or something forced on us by our political leadership. Put another way, do not the Luo and Kikuyu workers living in Nairobi's slums have interests, passions, desires and needs completely at variance with those of the Kisii and Meru farmers living in rural Kenya? Does the Somali business-class colonising our city centres share much with nomadic herdsmen roaming the former NFD? There is a real need, I believe, to run away from these essentially divisive cultural identities, to weaken them and put more emphasis on crafting a common identity where our competing interests are based on our everyday lives and experiences, which cut across the tribal landscape, with representatives who are not necessarily of our ethnicity and outcomes that will be beneficial to more than just watu wetu.

Now as for your conversation with your friend, I believe there is nothing wrong with airing the dirty laundry, but there is a problem with context, and again with efforts that reinforce difference and stereotypes. The lamenting Kikuyu 'intellectuals' would serve Kenya best by not seeing themselves as martyrs but as public servants, not bravely going against the grain, but bravely speaking the truth. The lamenting Kikuyu would do well to ensure that their message is not useful to the likes of Lesotho Balala or Adui Odinga as they craft their schemes of hate. Washing your linen in public does not mean taking a seat, even a reluctant one, at Wannsee. Now, when you write about 'my people' you are speaking ODMese and not Kenyanese (criticism directed at your grouping formulation and not at the article itself), when Maina Kiai for example or Muthoni Wanyeki deny the ethnic cleansing of Kikuyu folk from the Rift Valley they are speaking ODMese and not Kenyanese, they are actually denying a section of Kenya their core human rights. These choices, though couched as truth positions and the courage and wisdom of the public intellectual, serve instead to enforce difference and rivalries, and to empower those who want to rule over the Kenyan will with a fist, and against the public good. The true virtue would be to come out guns blazing against particular positions, ethnic-baiting for example, or political violence, or corruption, to speak always for the oppressed and the voiceless, to speak for the long term good, rather than to promote ethnic arguments (whatever their fashion). One must try to use that stage and the voice you have to tell that which does not come as obvious to the wananchi, the masses as some put it. Question, as an example when you tell us about Beasts from the West being unfit to rule, etc, are you trying to make out that there is an equivalence between this statement and the violent desire in the ODM to bring the Kikuyu crashing to the ground? Have you really read the extent of the detail and depth of malice in the ODM? Do you not think that promoting ethnic violence is really the last straw?

Stephen Wanyama is a humble man, one who has long ago binned his Bukusu flag. He never carries the Kenyan one either and is a proud to be unpatriotic. He strives instead to speak and act for universal rights, for the weak and for the long term good of all men, not just those with whom he shares some bond. I suppose that is what they once called the Left.

Yep...
written by jmaruru , March 18, 2008

Ethnicity and nationalism will always be the most confusing aspect of being a Kenyan. Why should it be either or. Why did it become a crime to love your mother tongue? Why can't we embrace both the culture of our great-grandfathers, be modern and Kenyan, too. Actually I think the main one is, will some have to deny Kikuyu ancestry to be proud Kenyans?

And on another note, are you my relative?....Well, not from the mitochondrial eve, but maybe from your great great grandfather... At which point I might say, I am 1/4 Maasai, 1/4 Kikuyu, 1/4 Pokomo and 1/4 something else(they won't tell me). Am I still Kenyan?

It is the diversity, man, dive
written by Njoroge Matathia , March 18, 2008

The Left, Bwana Wanyama, is dead; the Right too, so let us find a pretend middle. That is the place of the liberal; pretentious people who, living in brick houses, purport to speak for those in mud-walled hovels.

See, the Java-bumming Somali Mbenzi has nothing in common with some 'clitoris mutilating' pastrolist in the Northern Frontier. Nothing apart from a shared heritage, a common language; strings, I say, that bind. Strings that no matter how much coffee we will sip at Java- you, him and I- talking about Kenyanness, will not unbind. His bloodline is immutably Somali, but that I said is of no consequence.

My argument is not about economic disparities between one Kenyan and the next- we live in a capitalist state, class struggle is inevitable- but the commonalities between groups of people. When these commonalities are ethnic based, I say, hallelujah, let us celebrate them. When they happen between yuppies, tea farmers in a corporative, victims of a nation wide pyramid scheme hoax, I say, hallelujah, we are Kenyan. We can unite for and against issues that affect the sphere that is beyond our tribe.

I am ranting you know....

butt
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 18, 2008

I am not necessarily talking economic disparities. A wealthy farmer in Kitale has again more in common with another farmer in Bungoma than he has with the Somali mbenzi chewing his miraa at the Coast regardless of class. Moraa's mother who works at the UN as a clerk, has on the other hand interests not dissimilar to those of the receptionist at KICC. These are not really class differences, but more about where we find ourselves. You see thinking along tribal lines has led people to see improvements in farm prices as a policy that only benefited Kikuyu folk, even though maize, tea, milk, coffee, wheat and so on are important cash crops in the Rift Valley.

So we tell ourselves that if we are not Kikuyu then our interests, wants and desires are different than those of the Kikuyu, and the Kikuyu, like you, see themselves as having different needs and desires than do other Kenyans. So we start fighting when we really should be working together.

The danger in the entire ethnic patriotism thing is the connection to blood, this idea of an immutable blood-link to the past. Interestingly it is this same idea on which Majimbo is built, Blut und Boden. Of course if a Kenyan was attacked, discriminated against or otherwise made to feel unwelcome in Germany or Russia, he would complain about racism, but for us between us BOPs, it's all good.

The left is dead because people are returning to atavistic ways, because we are now all religious nuts and bigots. The right however, is very much alive and kicking, just look at the ODM or at the recruiting power of the Muingi.

Juliet, glory be!!
Now I am not saying there is anything to be ashamed of about being a Kikuyu or a Luo, but it is for Kenya very unhelpful. The question is, why cannot people just be Kikuyus or Luos, why do they have to be proud of it? My problem with Njoroge's formulation is that his Gikuyuness as a primary identity is an aggressive stance. If in his hierarchy, he is Kikuyu before he is Kenyan, then he sees say Waweru as his kin before he does me. Whether we like it or not, that then necessarily means he is prejudiced, at least to a degree, against me. This is really the Kenyan way, not just with the Gikuyu (look at the party nominations or the holders of important posts in the parties, for example).

I keep seeing people talk about the need to celebrate cultural heritage, but that is very different from the Kenyan understanding of ethnicity. Very few Kenyans at all are bothered about their 'ethnic culture', the ethnic mobilisation is much less benign and much more aggressive than we like to admit.

re: Yep...
written by aeichener , March 18, 2008

Ethnicity and nationalism will always be the most confusing aspect of being a Kenyan. Why should it be either or. Why did it become a crime to love your mother tongue? Why can't we embrace both the culture of our great-grandfathers, be modern and Kenyan, too.

Juliet, the link is a paradoxical one, but one that is easy to empathize. The less Kenyans are actually aware of their ethnicity and tradition, the less "ethnic" they grow, the more "ethnicized" they tend to become in reverse.

Ruminate on that.

It is the mshenzi who runs around with a panga and a torch, who shoots arrows - no longer at forest hogs which he would not even recognize if he saw them, but at his next-door neighbours with a "foreign" surname -, who plunders and rapes. And the hallmark of the mshenzi is exactly that he is not aware of, and not living from his tradition; that he is linguistically out of his depth in ushago, where old people just (gently) shake their heads over his attempts to communicate daftly in the tongue that once was his ancestors' common bond. He who knows nothing of his true and positive traditions, is the one most vulnerable to the seduction of negative ethnicity.

And being a mshenzi has nothing to due with the common Kenyan delusion and hype, with "edumacation". Actually, bearing a Harvard or Columbia degree makes you quite a bit *more* susceptible to be(come) a mshenzi than of you were a vegetable grower in Embu town market, or a kindergarden teacher in Rongai. Strange but true - just look around and find it corroborated. Kenyans with foreign fancy-sounding academic degrees and what is really behind the facade... it's *such* a shame.

Yes, I know I might sound like a British DO in deep Meru in 1930, deploring the loss of traditions.

But you know what?
The British DO was right.

Alexander

It is the diversity, man, dive
written by Njoroge Matathia , March 18, 2008

Ethnicity and nationalism will always be the most confusing aspect of being a Kenyan. Why should it be either or. Why did it become a crime to love your mother tongue? Why can't we embrace both the culture of our great-grandfathers, be modern and Kenyan, too. Actually I think the main one is, will some have to deny Kikuyu ancestry to be proud Kenyans?

Forget the mitochondria, in perspective you are my sister.

He who knows nothing of his true and positive traditions, is the one most vulnerable to the seduction of negative ethnicity.

Indeed. Because he seeks validation; attempts to fill up the gap in the self (and the knowledge of the self?) by defining an 'other'.

The beast from the west is no longer a beast because of its primitive and or bestial ways but because its creator has to blame someone for the curse that befalls him for losing his own religion and culture and values.

To the 'cultureless' kikuyu, the beast from the west is a projection of the 'heathen' self.

My problem with Njoroge's formulation is that his Gikuyuness as a primary identity is an aggressive stance. If in his hierarchy, he is Kikuyu before he is Kenyan, then he sees say Waweru as his kin before he does me. Whether we like it or not, that then necessarily means he is prejudiced, at least to a degree, against me. This is really the Kenyan way, not just with the Gikuyu (look at the party nominations or the holders of important posts in the parties, for example).

It is not aggressive, Wanyama, it is matter-of-fact. That said, Citizenship is thrust upon us, but friends we choose for ourselves. That is to say that my primary loyalty to the kikuyu nation does not override day to day human relationships. So I am Kikuyu and Kenyan but when the Kikuyus decide to kick out my luo, kamba or other friends of mine from whatever nations out of Kiambu, I will shelter them, I will protect them the best way I can.

I do not need a bond of blood brotherhood Wanyama to pledge my loyalty to you on the side of humanity.

...
written by Njoroge Matathia , March 18, 2008

Wanyama, your argument is flawed. Being white is not analogous to being Kikuyu. Whiteness is primarily a racial construct while kikuyu is ethnic- similar to English, Irish, Flemish.

Ethnicity is not evil.
Culture is not wrong
It is the politicisation of these- which you are dead set on doing- that leads societies into division. It is possible to support ethnic and cultural groupings without of necessity using them as a political power base.

a personal question
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 18, 2008

A bit of profiling, and cheekiness. I am sure you support the ODM, or at least did so at the election, right? Man, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
I wonder if you would protest if an Indian Kenyan said I am Indian first, and Kenyan second, or a white Kenyan said I am British first and Kenyan second, or a white American, I am white first and American second, do you see where this is going?

(Ah, no Spanish Inquisition, please (you'll remember the "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" line, of Monty Python fame). There are many people who may have supported one or the other political side in good faith, at least initially - we will not argue how intelligent or circumspect such faith was to begin with - and who now feel their conscience and have second thoughts. Given them a chance to reflect their stance, Stephen, instead of profiling or shaming them.
Mhm, and maybe leave the hammer approach to the "Emperor from the Lake". Ahem. Ed.)

+ Ethnicity
written by Johnny B. Goode , March 18, 2008

I agree with Njoroge. The ethnic identity is the primary identity. The other way of seeing things is something akin to chopping a tree from the top. We might find that we'll build much stronger foundations in the country Kenya not by ignoring the fact that we are a collage of different tribes but accepting the reality and building our nation though that.

Believe me, Wanyama our way of seeing things is what subsequent governments, even though perhaps not meaning it, have tried to run this country, and then we woke up one day and a huge tribal monster had been sleeping under the ground, similar to hat monster in Spielbags war of the worlds. Its like fighting with your own shadow. In fact its no different from Moi era slogans of my tribe is Kenyan or the current Najivunia kuwa Mkenya.

Sure we are all those things but Kenya is also a very fragile and brittle construct which can break and splinter in any second as we found out. The Kenyan identity is just fine while we are sailing along blissfully but when put to the test it just wasn't good enough. Believe me this things can take an even worse dynamic that they did this time around. They could have reached a stage where they permeated all strata of society. Lets thank God, that that didn't happen.

I'm personally not interested in any way to see the Gikuyu nation die or any other constituent nations of this country because at the end of the day Kenya beyond giving me a tortured history stretching a 100 years or so and a common geographical area within which to operate gives me little else.

Should we become tribeless then we'll be no different from Tanzanians for example and by extrapolation no different from other Africans. That might even work for a generation or two but at some point our seed, will feel the need to delve deeper into their roots and it will be back to square one. Just like Alex Haley's trip led him to the Gambia because ethnicity gives us a cultural identity and a sense of belonging. Mr. Haley in reality has much more in common with a Bill Clinton, than the old folk he'll find in the villages of Gambia. And yet there he went in search of something to hold on to.


Its like trying to get out of an addiction and you succeed for a couple of months or years but then you lapse back and the addiction is even far worse than it was before.

The cultural bond and search for identity is so strong that even in those that the cultural identity has been taken away ruthlessly, find at some point the need to find that which they've lost, even if the American identity, as in Mr. Haley's case would have been enough to give that sense of belonging in Wanyama's and like minded folks world. The human journey is a self seeking one. A quest for origin. A search for God. The timeless question, for which people still search the answers deep in outer space. Why I'm I here. Not me though mine is just to trace the journey from the garden of Eden to the slopes of Mt. Kenya.

The tribe is that last solace of fortitude, when the world out there is harsh and unwelcoming, just as I found when I lived in Germany a while back.

The Germans have built a faade of being all liberal and inclusive, while in reality they have carefully built laws to avoid their gene pool from being too badly diluted. Their worst nightmare is probably waking up one day and finding half the country being black or Turkish. A bit of both though is alright and a nice show off of 'cultural diversity'. One of the funniest slogans I ever heard during the German election campaigns was 'Kinder statt Inder' which was in response to the socialist leaning government plans at the time to recruit computer expatriates from India and give them Green cards in order to cope with the growing need by industry and businesses for computer experts. Just goes to show that the so called "civilized" societies we are trying to catch up with have not grown out of a certain level of primitivity. This campaign seeked to play with the Germans natural fear of their country being overrun by foreigners.

So here I was in a country that should have embraced me with open arms. I mean I grew up watching the same TV shows, reading the same books, learning the same history of how the Dr. Livingstons and his ilk "discovered" this or that, practicing the same religion but when I dug deeper all I saw was subtle rejection of an reluctant host. I hasten to add though that its not the ordinary man on the street, who were generally good people but the system.

I found solace in those circumstances not in being Kenyan but in being AGikuyu. What can Kenya offer me apart from the stories of Kenyatta, Jaramogi, Tom Mboya, Moi, Kibaki, white colonialism and supremacy, the mau mau, the architecture of a nation built primarily and unabashedly on Western ideals, creating a million mini clones seen as 3rd or 4th rate citizens in the original Western world. We've suceeded in creating nothing original apart from Sheng maybe and the matatu sub culture. What Kenya offers is no different from what Tanzania, England, the US can and should offer.

The Agikuyu on the other hand give me five centuries of history, something that has grown much more organically, than the artificial country that is Kenya, the borders of which were drawn by some European aristocrats in a far away land whose primary interest was greed and thirst for resources, who saw us not as hiuman beings, even to the point of coming to discover things that have been in our midst for generations and which we foolishly reprinted in our history books, at least when I was learning history in primary school.

The Agikuyu is as close as I'll get to Adam and Eve, but for that I have the bible. The Agikuyu roots are much deeper than the Kenyan ones and purer. Even if I've not done a steadman poll, I wager that that is true for most Kenyans subconsciously or Consciously regardless of how much they've intermingled.

Kenya will stand on much firmer ground, if we acknowledged, that the constituent tribes give us something that Kenya itself cannot give us. If you put the question correctly, you'll surely find the right answer. Let's start on the right premise and not on an artificial one. Jesus Christ said "Seek and Ye Shall Find". Mr. Kimanis 2nd chamber idea in this thread is not a bad starting point.Kimani's link

Trying to bury tribes under the rag is not the answer in my opinion although I wish all well who embark on Wanyamas journey.

...
written by amollous , March 18, 2008

clap* clap* couldn't have said it better...

I don't quite remember when (at 29 I at times feel Alzheimer's is catching up with me at an alarming rate... ahem) but there was a time they used to hold get-togethers based on tribes... they'd cook the traditional food of the said tribe, play their music and you'd see the politicians and their cohorts having a hell of a good time and we all enjoyed watching it on telly.... we laughed our hearts out when we saw the Kamba doing their dance, tried to jump as high as the Maasai and compared the Kikuyu slow dance to a corrupted waltz... I believe it was all about getting to know each other better... relearning what we were on the brink of losing as a result of embracing too much of the western cultures...

The tribe is that last solace of fortitude, when the world out there is harsh and unwelcoming, just as I found when I lived in Germany a while back.

exactly.. it wasn't until I moved to Germany that I realised just how much I loved my ethnic names for one... my birth certificates states that I'm Achieng... born as the sun was rising... my mother spoke to us in Dholuo, my father in English unless he was in a foul mood.. then the expletives followed in Dholuo... we replied in Swahili or English... I'm relearning Dholuo, I love speaking this language and I love listening to Dholuo music... however many theories and books of history you come up with, it doesn't change the fact that I'm Luo by birth... should I deny it simply because others have misused ethnicity??? Should I intermarry then my children will 1. grow up knowing where they're from and 2. speaking at least one of the languages - be it Dholuo, Wolof, Igbo or whatever (I certainly don't envy them ... hee hee) variety spices up life, I say... let us stop burying our heads in the sand and coming up with conspiracy theories... it is upon us to stop ethnicity from being used as weapon against us... I will not be forced to say that I'm Kenyan first and Luo second or vice versa... I am both Kenyan and Luo and I'm proud to be both..

sheeeeshhh... at this rate, we'll soon be saying it's politically wrong to say I'm Kenyan.... it's better to say I'm an African and after that... I'm a citizen of the world??? It's absolutely ridiculous that we're even holding this discussion... shame on us...

invidious ethnicity
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 19, 2008

I find anyone who wants to claim, even in these most trying times that their primary identity is ethnic to be a very difficult person to deal with.
I understand why we would want to hold onto these, sexy, romantic yearnings for a blood-link stretching back into the past, but I cannot at all tolerate that we fail to see that our choosing to self-identify primarily as Gikuyu, Luo, Maasai, Somali, etc precludes national unity, even trans-national unity.

----------------------

Is there something to be lost, something useful and dear and irretrievable if we declare these our secondary identities?

----------------------

There is a real need, I believe, to run away from these essentially divisive cultural identities, to weaken them and put more emphasis on crafting a common identity where our competing interests are based on our everyday lives and experiences, which cut across the tribal landscape, with representatives who are not necessarily of our ethnicity and outcomes that will be beneficial to more than just watu wetu.

-----------------------------

Interestingly it is this same idea on which Majimbo is built, Blut und Boden. Of course if a Kenyan was attacked, discriminated against or otherwise made to feel unwelcome in Germany or Russia, he would complain about racism, but for us between us BOPs, it's all good.

---------------------------------

Now I am not saying there is anything to be ashamed of about being a Kikuyu or a Luo, but it is for Kenya very unhelpful. The question is, why cannot people just be Kikuyus or Luos, why do they have to be proud of it?

-----------------------------

My problem with Njoroge's formulation is that his Gikuyuness as a primary identity is an aggressive stance. If in his hierarchy, he is Kikuyu before he is Kenyan, then he sees say Waweru as his kin before he does me. Whether we like it or not, that then necessarily means he is prejudiced, at least to a degree, against me.

----------------------------

I keep seeing people talk about the need to celebrate cultural heritage, but that is very different from the Kenyan understanding of ethnicity. Very few Kenyans at all are bothered about their 'ethnic culture; the ethnic mobilisation is much less benign and much more aggressive than we like to admit.

I plead for starters that at least these sections of my argument be paid a little more than cursory attention.

It is not aggressive, Wanyama, it is matter-of-fact. That said, Citizenship is thrust upon us, but friends we choose for ourselves. That is to say that my primary loyalty to the Kikuyu nation does not override day to day human relationships. So I am Kikuyu and Kenyan but when the Kikuyu decide to kick out my Luo, Kamba or other friends of mine from whatever nations out of Kiambu, I will shelter them, I will protect them the best way I can.

So Njoroge, you are suggesting that the bond between you and a Kenyan neighbour is equivalent to that between you and a foreigner, or indeed between you and a camel (assuming of course that a conscientious person should rescue even a recalcitrant, flatulent Bactrian from cruelty?) The old formula for peace between peoples was always that the more powerful and greater numbered a group, the more cause there was for its members to kill their urges towards nationalism and jingoism. Russian, Chinese, American, British, French nationalism is essentially aggressive. There is no reason for a Kikuyu to decide that his primary identity is not Kenyan other than naked aggression, a bold assertion of difference and perhaps a little ignorance of history. Please see Daniel Waweru's comment on the Obama thread.

Being white is not analogous to being Kikuyu.

How so, please explain the difference. Whenever white is used as a social or political differentiator it is used in exactly the same way that you are now using the Gikuyu nation, or in the same way that some black racists have fashioned an Afrikan nation, or others a nation of Islam.

Ethnicity is not evil. Culture is not wrong.

This of course features no where in my argument. I suggest that the employment of herrings, red or otherwise coloured is the essence of a weak unfounded argument?

I agree with Njoroge. The ethnic identity is the primary identity. Believe me, Wanyama our way of seeing things is what subsequent governments, even though perhaps not meaning it, have tried to run this country, and then we woke up one day and a huge tribal monster had been sleeping under the ground, similar to hat monster in Spielbags war of the worlds............I'm personally not interested in any way to see the Gikuyu nation die or any other constituent nations of this country because at the end of the day Kenya beyond giving me a tortured history stretching a 100 years or so and a common geographical area within which to operate gives me little else.

First you are admitting that something is wrong and below, primitive, but then want to advocate it for Kenya? Next, you fail to realise just what Kenya has given you. You would not for example be able to buy that house in Nairobi or that farm in Molo or the holiday home in Mombasa but for the existence of the Kenyan state.

But it is not just that, the existence of Kenya has saved you from a fate like that suffered by Uganda, or that of Ethiopia or Tanzania. It has sent millions to school and provided real improvements in many social indicators for vast numbers of people. I suppose if you are from the NGOs or ODM you are unlikely to grasp these facts, but even in its darkest days, this country was very busy serving a purpose for Kenyans. It is not a choice between pretending that Kenya is a heavenly spot and that it is hell, but it has served greatly, both in colonial and post-colonial times to the benefit of the millions.

Germany? Odd that you should bring this up seeing that German history repudiates your argument. All the European ethnicities (well most anyway) are mixtures, much like for example the Kalenjin example which groups Plains Nilotes and Highlands Nilotes and has them under a common banner. Goes to show you what can happen if you try hard enough. That you felt maltreated in Germany should perhaps trigger in you an appreciation for the need to help create a Kenya where your progeny feel at home and at ease in every corner of the country.

Just goes to show that the so called "civilized" societies we are trying to catch up with have not grown out of a certain level of primitivism.

Culture. Again, have your culture, enjoy it and be happy with it. Amollous. No one is asking for a denial or even that you should not be proud of your culture. What I am bewailing, especially in these times when the Kenyan state needs you more than ever, is the idea that we should pay homage to any ethnic identity over and above the Kenyan one. This means essentially, and as explain by Goode above, that the identity so contrived then gains a prejudicial position. There were many Kalenjin soldiers in the North Rift who were faced with his exact decision, and they chose likes Njoroge and Goode to bat for ethnicity first and Kenya second.

The Agikuyu roots are much deeper than the Kenyan ones and purer. Even if I've not done a steadman poll, I wager that that is true for most Kenyans subconsciously or consciously regardless of how much they've intermingled.

The Agikuyu roots or Kenyan roots are as deep as you would like to make them. Kenyan ethnicities pre-colonialism were largely acephalous, non-territorial and otherwise unbounded. If Kenya had not given you Louis Leakey, if colonisation had not taken Kenyatta to London, if the the missionaries had not made a Gikuyu bible, it is unlikely that you would think this way. The Gikuyu nation is not only much younger than Kenya, it also exists purely because Kenya exists. The same can be said for most other Kenyan ethnicities, including the Luo (very lately formed) but especially for the Luhya and Kalenjin which are almost completely the product of colonisation. Whether it is administrative boundaries, the influence of the colonial administrators and their religion, or the political mobilisation that followed, Kenya begat the great part of these ethnicities and I find the claim for ethnic primacy is very weak indeed.

is it 2008??
written by emmo opoti , March 19, 2008

It would be like heaven if we could have ethnicity as the very last, the least important of our identities, keep it purely cultural.

Essentially Matathia, Goode and Amollo are suggesting that in their hierarchy of loyalties, their ethnicity comes first. Think about this then, this is exactly the spirit that animated the Rift Valley expulsions. You cannot tolerate such ideas at the same time as claiming that Kenyans have for example a right to buy land anywhere in the country, or to stand for parliament anywhere in the country.

Shocking, plain shocking that these views are presented here as respectable. And why stop at tribe then, why not take it to clans because as Wanyama has pointed out, our ethnicities are very recent and very artificial. Why for example should the people of my city (Kisumu) accept an MP who is of South Asian extraction, if we are going to tolerate the idea that we owe our primary allegiance to our ethnicities. So is Shakeel Shabbir first then loyal to people of his ethnicity or to his constituents?

You see in my city there is also a lot of drama at election time (for MPs and for Mayors) based on clans. Are we honestly arguing that we cannot see the conclusion of such thinking? Truly, the Kenyan middle class throws up inglorious surprises.

As has been said again and again, this has nothing to do with culture, its relevance or primacy (there is no rival Kenyan culture).

Who you identify as should really be up to you (both the hierarchies and the hierarchy) and in many countries this choice matters little. In our country however, in every new country like ours, in every country with the issues ours has, unless we are determined to undermine that political entity, it is necessary that we relegate all other identities in order to facilitate the success of the new one.

re: invidious ethnicity
written by James Watt , March 20, 2008

So Njoroge, you are suggesting that the bond between you and a Kenyan neighbour is equivalent to that between you and a foreigner, or indeed between you and a camel (assuming of course that a conscientious person should rescue even a recalcitrant, flatulent Bactrian from cruelty?) The old formula for peace between peoples was always that the more powerful and greater numbered a group, the more cause there was for its members to kill their urges towards nationalism and jingoism. Russian, Chinese, American, British, French nationalism is essentially aggressive. There is no reason for a Kikuyu to decide that his primary identity is not Kenyan other than naked aggression, a bold assertion of difference and perhaps a little ignorance of history. Please see Daniel Waweru's comment on the Obama thread.

How so, please explain the difference. Whenever white is used as a social or political differentiator it is used in exactly the same way that you are now using the Gikuyu nation, or in the same way that some black racists have fashioned an Afrikan nation, or others a nation of Islam.

You seem quite inept at capturing the reason for the existence of the black or African nation. Branding the African nation as racist is exactly what Obama was talking about. Condemning it on a Mr. Know-it-all basis without while ignoring the circumstances that led to its emergence.

Without slavery, colonialism, segregation, continuing overt and subtle racism like if a white magazine picks out a list of the 100 most beautiful women,pick out the number that are black. They'll be 5 or 10 at best. In our science classes there were no black inventors.

Rock music was fathered by Elvis instead of its true inventors Little Richard and Chuck Berry and its deeper roots in the Blues.In later days groups like Backstreet boys and N-Sync stole their whole flow from the likes of Boyz II Men who they relegated them to the history books purely because they got more air time and TV time and the primary consumers of such music are white teenage girls.

It took aeons for black actors and actresses to given their true recognition even if they'd been turning in Oscar worthy performances for ages. Denzel Washingtons role in Malcolm for example.

The existence of the black nation is as a result of black people finding their own under-represented in the larger society.

The Agikuyu roots or Kenyan roots are as deep as you would like to make them. Kenyan ethnicities pre-colonialism were largely acephalous, non-territorial and otherwise unbounded. If Kenya had not given you Louis Leakey, if colonisation had not taken Kenyatta to London, if the the missionaries had not made a Gikuyu bible, it is unlikely that you would think this way. The Gikuyu nation is not only much younger than Kenya, it also exists purely because Kenya exists.

Rubbish. I've read Waweru remarks as well and find the remarks astonishing in this day and age. Apparently without the existence of a little book which by the way I've never read in Kikuyu, then the Kikuyu do not exist? Do you actually listen to yourself? That is utter and complete bollocks. The existence of a Tribe or a nation is certainly defined by much more than the existence of written records.

And you are the one castigating Maina Kiai for denying ethnic cleansing. Astonishing. And your second argument is even more stupid, suggesting that the existence of the Kikuyu who've been around for at least 4 centuries plus, is somehow dependent on colonialism. That is dumb. If Leakey and his ilk had not come The Kikuyu would still be around practising their way of life. By all accounts they were quite a successful bunch even before kaburu came around.

The perpetuation of Kikuyu language and custom is not dependent on written words but was passed on quite efficiently by word of mouth. You seem to have little concept of what constituted traditional African societies or how they functioned. Our school system probably to blame for that.

boohoo
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 20, 2008

Yes, the African and the black nation are racist creations, they are founded on no values other than race. You share none of the cultural experiences of Denzel Washington but share membership of a nation with him, what else do you think it is based on? If you will allow me, I will borrow from N-Sync, cry me a river. The black nation is founded and nurtured by a feeling of racial inferiority, it is something we urgently need to get over. Our future prosperity depends on it.

You are I suppose an ordinary Kenyan, proud of Sheng and glorying in ignorance. There is no compulsion that you jump out the pool and dry yourself, what I am arguing (and Waweru, Opoti, Nanjala) is merely that the ideas you are pushing are damaging to Kenya. The United States is perhaps the best present example of a melting pot of cultures, and like all successful such political entities (USSR, China, India, Persians, the Romans) loyalty is first and foremost demanded by the greatest political group, i.e the state itself.

I certainly know a lot more about ethnogenesis than you seem to, and it would have been nice for all of us if you had a better comprehension teacher in class two. I do not at all say that nations were created by written records. They are created by an idea, and that idea in the Kikuyu certainly does not extend beyond the 1920s, that is a mere fact. DO try and get your head around it. For most Kenyan communities it came much much later. A nation is not merely a cultural phenomenon, it is also political.

For Njoroge and all others who are aspiring to affirm these other 'nations', I will leave you with a nice little quote from John Stuart Mill. Nations you see are political entities, they are not merely cultural and the Gikuyu, Luo, Bukusu nations are in competition with the Kenyan nation. This pride of yours in the Gikuyu nation, the maniacal pride in the Luo nation or the Kalenjin nation by some, all these threaten Kenya. As has been said above, and predicted in the quote below, the example of the security forces in the Rift Valley underlines this fact.

"Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. An altogether different set of leaders have the confidence of one part of the country and of another. Their mutual antipathies are much stronger than their jealousy of the government... Above all, the grand and only effectual security in the last resort against the despotism of the government is in that case wanting: the sympathy of the army with the people. Soldiers to whose feelings half or three fourths of the subjects of the same government are foreigners, will have no more scruple in mowing them down, and no more reason to ask the reason why, than they would have in doing the same thing against declared enemies. John Stuart Mill: Considerations on Representative Government. London 1872

re: boohoo
written by Johnny B. Goode , March 20, 2008

Yes, the African and the black nation are racist creations, they are founded on no values other than race. You share none of the cultural experiences of Denzel Washington ......

They are also created as a result of social and economic exclusion as well as he twin legacies of slavery and colonialism. You contradict yourself a bit. So are shared cultural experiences now vital to the existence of a nation?

I have plenty of shared cultural experiences with Mr. Washington as well as the American people and the world for that matter in general. They probably grew up watching the same Disney cartoons that you and I grew up watching. Same music, same movies, similar books. Are all those cultural experiences.

You are I suppose an ordinary Kenyan, proud of Sheng and glorying in ignorance. There is no compulsion that you jump out the pool and dry yourself, what I am arguing (and Waweru, Opoti, Nanjala) is merely that the ideas you are pushing are damaging to Kenya. The United States is perhaps the best present example of a melting pot of cultures, and like all successful such political entities (USSR, China, India, Persians, the Romans) loyalty is first and foremost demanded by the greatest political group, i.e the state itself.

What ignorance? I suppose sheng is as ignorant, as hip hop is called ignorant. Yet it has produced great artists bar none like Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, Nas and Rakim among others who so vividly captured their environment so well. They call it ignorant but its the single most powerful urban force today extending its tentacles from the cities of France to our very own cities influencing music, film and clothing. You do share quite a lot with conservative old white men and women. Sheng is our best invention yet.

Who do the jews in America owe their top most royalty to? America or the state of Israel?

There is no idea or concept that is being advanced. It's just a statement of the ranking of social identities. That each and every Kenyan citizen has a 'dual' citizenship by birth is no huge secret. Some of you are just as bad as holocaust deniers seeking to build a nation on a lie, like we've been doing for the last 45 years.

I do not at all say that nations were created by written records. They are created by an idea, and that idea in the Kikuyu certainly does not extend beyond the 1920s, that is a mere fact. DO try and get your head around it. For most Kenyan communities it came much much later.

Whether the Kikuyu are a nation or not is neither here nor there. Lets call it for the sake of avoiding arguments about semantics a society bound by a common language, laws, customs and rituals, or are you going to lay the existence of a bible made in England for the Gikuyu by the Gikuyu as the requisite for this too?

So what was the idea behind the creation of the Kenyan nation? The dividing of spoils between a bunch of greedy European rapists, thieves and murderers?
Or the does Kenyas history correctly begin in 1963 or 64, when a constitution was formulated? In which case the Kenyan nation in existance since 1963 or 64, is much younger than the Kikuyu one which exist since 1920 in your own words.

Are the ancient Inca, Egyptians nations (I think they were an empire)? What of Songhai and greater Zimbabwean Empires? What was the great underlying idea behind them? Did they have a bill of rights or a constitution? Could it just be possible that they are something that grew organically? Did the British also advance their own copy of the bible to these folks too?Can I get it at my local Bookshop?

For Njoroge and all others who are aspiring to affirm these other 'nations', I will leave you with a nice little quote from John Stuart Mill.

Tell John Mills about the European union. That is the next big nation being crafted out of independent states. Well lets call the EU an entity, just to avoid the kind of lectures I've been seeing. I do know its based on the idea of a common market though.

re: invidious ethnicity
written by Johnny B. Goode , March 20, 2008

There is no reason for a Kikuyu to decide that his primary identity is not Kenyan other than naked aggression, a bold assertion of difference and perhaps a little ignorance of history. Please see Daniel Waweru's comment on the Obama thread.

No aggression whatsoever.

First you are admitting that something is wrong and below, primitive, but then want to advocate it for Kenya?

No where did I use the term primitive or allude to it. Primitive and civilisation are words used by bigots and racists. To me ther is no primitive or civilised, just different forms of organisation

Next, you fail to realise just what Kenya has given you. ......

I have no qualms with the Kenyan state. In doing all those things it is just fulfilling its duty to me as citizen and tax payer. Definitely Kenya needs a pat of the back for being better at it than our neighbours. Just like every black American father who fulfills his duties as a father needs the pat of the back. Not so much for a job well done, which is his duty and responsibility in the first place, but for the fact that so many are so irresponsible. The less Obama type stories of kids who grew up without a father because the father went away at age 2, the better. Kenya does not give me a cultural identity though. The Agikuyu, nation or however you wnt to describe us does. Might not be important to you, Wanyama, but it is to me and I rate it quite highly in the order of things, as you see.

both in colonial...

I take no pride in despotic, murderous, and tyrannical regimes built on the basis of white supremacy, greed and mental enslavement that continue to rape our resources up to today. Quite frankly they should have left us alone to our own devices. What rule do you lay in comparing pre-colonial and post colonial Kenyan societies? What is the measure of which society was more successful? If our societies needed jazzing up ala the West, they'd have figured it out by themselves at some point.

That you felt maltreated in Germany ...

Not maltreated. Not at all. Just the laws that put a stumbling block at every turn. Otherwise I owe the a pretty good eduction and there are plenty of good people. It is not the man on the street but the bureaucracy that subtly says you are unwanted at every turn. I do quite admire the sort of country they've managed to put together though, while wondering what will happen if their economy were to collapse. I wish them well though.

...should perhaps trigger in you an appreciation for the need to help create a Kenya where your progeny feel at home and at ease in every corner of the country.

No arguments there. What we have is an argument of how best to get there and what defines a Kenyan not really on the broader bigger goals.

Culture. Again, have your culture, enjoy it and be happy with it. Amollous. No one is asking for a denial or even that you should not be proud of your culture.

Thanks. That I should be compared to a kalenjin police man in Eldoret or even a kikuyu one in Naivasha is interesting. Yes I am a Kikuyu first and foremost, a Kenyan and a Christian. I pray that when I'm put in a position to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ of universal decency and compassion of all human beings...Love your neighbour as you love yourself...I'll be up to the task. So help me God.

What came up in the post election period are real things that need to be addressed. Not by glossing over and exchanging the label Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Luo or Luhya for the label Kenyan but by addressing why it is that there is so little common decency while most of us aside from being Kenyans are mostly also Christians irrespective of tribe. It is Christ who told us to turn the other cheek.

Most have also gone through the Kenyan education system. Those two institutions, the school and the church as well as Hollywood cartoons, movies and sitcoms are what give us a moral compass. Though shall not kill and we need to add that though shall not rape.

Kenyan ethnicities pre-colonialism were largely acephalous, non-territorial and otherwise unbounded. If Kenya had not given you Louis Leakey, if colonisation had not taken Kenyatta ....

I repeat my Kikuyu roots are deeper than my Kenyan ones in whatever context the Kikuyu society and tribe existed it was still there before Kenya came to BE. That is historical fact that no juggling of language or dates will refute.

I owe colonialism and Louis Leakey nothing. I only remember him as some sort of bone collector. Whether he exiosted or not, my Kikuyu roots remain. They are not subject to the existance of Leakey, Kenyatta or colonialism, but on the existence of my Father and Mother and all those who preceded them.

Colonialism was an Exchange of our natural resources for technological advances in which we got the short end of the stick. The only thing that I expect from Her Majestys government is an apology coupled with some monetary renumerations for all the blood we lost as well as the humiliations.

It's a high time was renamed Lake Victoria too. Call it Lake East Africa or something.

I can't read or write Kikuyu so the Kikuyu bible has no meaning to me. The only times I've read the good book was in English or German. Never in Swahili too. Too tedious.

I find the claim for ethnic primacy is very weak indeed.

You are quite entitled to that opinion. I fundamentally disagree with it.

A Bit Of Correction
written by Johnny B. Goode , March 20, 2008

Kenyan ethnicities pre-colonialism were largely acephalous, non-territorial and otherwise unbounded. If Kenya had not given you Louis Leakey, if colonisation had not taken Kenyatta ....

I repeat my Kikuyu roots are deeper than my Kenyan ones in whatever context the Kikuyu society and tribe existed it was still there before Kenya came to BE. That is historical fact that no juggling of language or dates will refute.

I owe colonialism and Louis Leakey nothing. I only remember him as some sort of bone collector. Whether he existed or not, my Kikuyu roots remain. They are not subject to the existence of Leakey, Kenyatta, colonialism or the Kenyan nation, but on the existence of my Father and Mother and all those who preceded them.

Colonialism a batter trade of our natural resources for technological know-how in which we got the short end of the stick. The only thing that I expect from Her Majestys government is an apology coupled with some monetary renumerations for all the blood we lost as well as the humiliations. Much like Kevin Rudds apology to the Aborigines.

It's a high time we renamed Lake Victoria too. Call it Lake East Africa or something.

I can't read or write Kikuyu so the Kikuyu bible has no meaning to me. The only times I've read the good book was in English or German. Never in Swahili too. Too tedious.

I find the claim for ethnic primacy is very weak indeed.

You are quite entitled to that opinion. I fundamentally disagree with it.

nyaruoth
written by emmo opoti , March 20, 2008

Be easy, but yes I would love to hold your hair while you threw up. Please again, the debate is not about doing away with languages or cultures or other identities. The debate is about whether having other identities as primary undermines the Kenyan state.

my gikuyu journal
written by wanyeki , March 20, 2008

funny indeed,I have no apology to make for being who I am and nobody should..

This is hardly a contribution Wanyeki. Socks up and all, Eds.

Wanyama is quite right.
written by manta ray , March 20, 2008

Come on you guys. You are bit too hard on Wanyama. He is simply insisting that if we are to build a country called Kenya, our FIRST loyalty should be to the Country, not to our different ethnicities, much as we feel emotional attachments of kinship, tradition and custom to them.
Frankly, how does being a proud Kikuyu add value to my Kenyanness? Shouldn't it be how does being a proud Kenyan add value to my Kikuyuness?
I was watching the World Athletics Championships 800m womens' final early this year, and saw how Janeth Jepkosgei completely destroyed a strong field including the terrifying Maria Mutola. As i watched the race, it occurred to me that i was cheering on Jepkosgei not so much because of her exceptional performance, but because she was a Kenyan exemplifying for all the world to see what I thought were the best of Kenyan qualities i.e strong will, pride, confidence and a never say die attitude. It also occurred to me that i did not see her as a Kalenjin, but as a fellow Kenyan. I did not see myself as a Kikuyu cheering on a Kalenjin either. When the National Anthem was played, What I felt was an exemplification of the maxim, "me and my sister against the world".
If it is possible to jettison my ethnic biases and prejudices some of the time, why can't I do it all of the time?
If i therefore present myself to fellow Kenyans as a Kikuyu first and foremost before I am a Kenyan, instead of the other way round, am I not consciously or sub-consciously putting up artificial barriers that automatically make fellow Kenyans defensive and subsequently suspicious and hostile, and vice versa?
I think we are too beholden to our hopelessly shallow media, our ignorant and selfish politicians, our arrogant know-it-all civil society, and ultimately our own pathetic selves when we constantly preach unity IN diversity, when what we should be preaching is unity IN SPITE OF diversity.

be real
written by wanyeki , March 20, 2008

I know sometimes people feel safe when they hide from the truth, however it is always important to first and foremost accept who we are. If you are Kikuyu, Luo, Kamba or any one else, don't be sorry for it.

Does it make me a lesser Kenyan for accepting that I am a Kikuyu,no. Why do we talk of black Americans, Asian- Americans etc. - it is because those people do not want to forget their identity.

Don't they say mwacha mila ni mtumwa

re: A Bit Of Correction
written by aeichener , March 20, 2008

Kenyan ethnicities pre-colonialism were largely acephalous, non-territorial and otherwise unbounded. If Kenya had not given you Louis Leakey, if colonisation had not taken Kenyatta ....

in whatever context the Kikuyu society and tribe existed it was still there before Kenya came to BE. That is historical fact that no juggling of language or dates will refute.

Dead wrong as worded and expressed above, though I see and respect what you might mean at heart. Tribes more often than not are colonial constructs, rather than social entities.

I owe colonialism and Louis Leakey nothing.

What you owe to Louis Leakey (exempli gratia) is not the existence of your parents nor your grandparents, nor a specific Agikuyu custom, but the cognition or recognition of your identity.

Identity is nothing that should be treated as abstractly pre-existent and independent (Platonic ideas as such cannot be accessed, remember); it is made, created, built. It is a CONSTRUCT.

Alexander

ticking the boxes
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 20, 2008

Now Johnny B Goode, there are names we use at my house to describe people like you, but I cannot use them here for the editors ni wakali sana. I see that you think Obama is your brother, Denzel is your brother, your fist is in the air, power, power, the downtrodden rise, the black nation, Jesus was black, Johnny B. Goode is cool ironic, Elvis and Eminem are swindlers, Die Neue Bibel in Heutigem Deutsch, watajuaje?, proud of sheng and our matatu sub-culture (shock-me-an-call-me-Jeebus), Kalamashaka for beatification, Tiger Woods is a turncoat, Emile Heskey is secretly better than Cristiano Ronaldo, you cannot run away from your blood, the great Kikuyu nation, pamberry nee' hawndaw, the pyramids were made by Kenyans, give us an apology for colonisation, the Gikuyu were decimated by Arab and European slave trader otherwise they would have been making Maglev trains up the mountain, Karl Kani, Bob Marley, Black Uhuru, Koffi Annan, Wangari Maathai, etc, etc. Dude, read something bwana. There were not just many distinct languages and even creation myths in Central Province but there was no conception of a political entity. Yes, of course there were Kikuyu people, and there was a Kikuyu language, there have been Kikuyu people for a long long time, perhaps Lucy was Mumbi? Okay?

In the civilised world people are running away from such 'blood'and 'skin' identities as you espouse. You know this, and yet want to passionately hold on to these backward ideas?

Now let's leave all that aside. Do you understand that the primacy of ethnic affiliation over the Kenyan one is deleterious to national harmony?

By the way La Manta, ^ on my tab, bwana. Undugu kwa sana

re: is it 2008?? ... well, is
written by amollous , March 20, 2008

Essentially Matathia, Goode and Amollo are suggesting that in their hierarchy of loyalties, their ethnicity comes first...

*sigh*

OK... I'll try this out again...

If you read my comment slowly, line by line... and keep an open mind while at it, you'll perhaps see what I'm trying to put across with mere words.. could be the wrong choice of words...

I said I will not be forced to say I'm Kenyan first then Luo second or vice versa... meaning: I DO NOT prioritise where I come from or what I am by birth, marriage or whatever...

It has absolutely nothing to do loyalties or hierarchy... I SIMPLY DO NOT SEE what all the hype's about... Luo this, Kikuyu that, Kenya here, Somalian there.... the heck does it matter...

To however say you're ... what ... "just Kenyan" is downright silly IMHO but it's your choice... and it is a "free" world isn't it...

I, on the other hand, feel it's what/ who I am regardless of which country I settle in or which degrees I hold or what the history books will tell me... I am not Luo first and foremost or Kenyan first and foremost.. I am Luo - period. Bite me... I don't say this because i lack something and I'm looking for an identity or whatever ... I find it fascinating relearning the lost traditions.. it doesn't mean I agree with all of them... it is fascinating nonetheless and it what used to be done..

Nothing is going to wash that away... not even denial... lakini if one misuses ethnicity I'll help you throw up... if fact I'll even hold the bucket for you if you promise to hold back my hair for me...
What I'm saying and will continue saying is:
- you can't wash away all the diverse languages and traditions that are what make up Kenya...
- you can however wash away the mentality that one's loyalty is first and foremost to one's tribe... that's some sick crap...

Do not misquote me dear... only a shallow mind thinks loyalities and hierachies should be based on ethnic grounds... do give me some credit bwana...

(Amollous: We love your fertilising stream of consciousness, but please understand that a bit of order, capitalization, and paragraph disposition (as we have add-ited now) will make following your text a lot easier.
Signed: Ew. Liebden ergebenst dienstwilliger Editor)

...
written by politicalscientist , March 20, 2008

Identity is a very fluid thing, especially for modern Africans. Who you are when you are in Nairobi for instance is completely different from who you are in ushago, which in turn is completely different from who you are in the West which is in turn completely differnt from who you are when you are in another country. The sad fact about notions of identity is that they are not solid facts set in stone - or in the blood that has been asserted here - but they are constructions based on who we are not.

When I am in Busia, I am Banyala, when I am in Nairobi I am Luhya, when I am in Togo, I am Kenyan and when I am in Europe I am African. Our world is such that people are more eager to draw the line on things that make us different rather than emphasise things that make us the same. Which is why the EU is more happy to welcome white Romanian or Bulgarian menial labourers than educated and highly qualified Asians or Africans. Sad facts of life, suck it up.

Everyone knows that there are 2 tribes in Burundi right? Hutus v Tutsi's the age old struggle, right?

WRONG. Defining tribe the way you have Johnny etc means that there are NO tribes in Burundi and Rwanda, and rather a network of super clans. The Hutu and the Tutsi, the Baganwa and the Twa speak the same language, they owed allegiance to the same monarchy and they only became "tribes" when the Belgian Colonialists decided that the Tutsi were Hamitic and therefore closely related to Europeans and therefore superior to the Hutu. And that is the genesis of all the troubles that we are seeing in the Great Lakes today.

I've used this analogy elsewhere; allow me to repeat it. I used to volunteer at a children's home in Huruma and they used to regularly get babies left outside the door wrapped up in Blankets with nothing on them, no source of identification no nothing. As a custom, the Nuns took to giving the children names from different regions of the country, in no particlar order, not based on any characteristics. You had Omondi's, Onyango's, Nafula's, Kariuki's and even Ishmael's just because. Often, the lucky babies would be adopted and then take on the names given to them by their families - many of whom were European.

I ask you this, what tribe does that child belong to?

If a child grows up in a Luhya home then that child becomes Luhya, if he or she grows up in a Kikuyu home they take up that identity. Because it is a socially construted idea that has no genetic, biological or other empirical basis. It is a language, and maybe a few customs, which you learn as you grow up and are not embedded in your fibre.

On the other hand, not even living in Europe for 40 years will make a black person white. You can be European and Black, European and Asian, European and White. Contrary to what has been asserted here, while it may not change who you are on the inside, race changes who you are on the outside. It doesn't mean that one race is better or lesser than another - its like fur colour in dogs, or the colour of an egg. Its just different. The shared experience of black people is a great deal of hype - in our world people of a similar class are more likely to have a common experience and a common identity than people of the same race. Why do you think Obama is scoring so well with educated classes of all races in America but mostly with blacks amongst the poor?

In part its because when you are poor and not very well educated you are more likey to have a negative experience with discrimination as compared to when you are rich. I never, ever thought of myself as "Black" - Kenyan, Luhya, female yes - until I came to Europe, because whereas in Kenya I have never been discriminated on the basis of race (tribe and gender yes) here its a fact of life. To walk into a store and see people watch you move along the aisles. To be the only person in your flight that gets "randomly searched". To be the person that everyone looks at when a person asks "Can you rap?Dance? Sing? Play basketball?" (one out of four).

I always argue that being an African is Geographical, being of African descent is Biological, being "black" - the culture, the world view - is social. And it is a social construct that is reactive rather than proactive. Children are not born with chips on their shoulders, we adults put them there with our own experiences, our own prejudices, our own short sightedness The "Black Nation" here is formed from people who are equally pissed off about a world where person can't just be, a person.

re: ticking the boxes
written by Johnny B. Goode , March 20, 2008

Now Johnny B Goode, there are names we use at my house to describe people like you, but I cannot use them here for the editors ni wakali sana.

Feel free to express yourself sir. It's a free world.

Emile Heskey is secretly better than Cristiano Ronaldo...

Not really. The best player I ever saw kick a ball was Diego Maradona in the 1986 World Cup. The next was our very own Zinedine Zidan, shame about the 2006 world cup. The best English striker, Michjael Owen. His goal in the 1998 World cup is one of my all time favorite and a great piece of Modern Art.

you cannot run away from your blood, the great Kikuyu nation, pamberry nee' hawndaw, the pyramids were made by Kenyans, give us an apology for colonisation, the Gikuyu were decimated by Arab and European slave trader otherwise they would have been making Maglev trains up the mountain, Karl Kani, Bob Marley, Black Uhuru, Koffi Annan, Wangari Maathai, etc, etc. Dude, read something bwana.

I read quite a lot, thank you. Not really. We don't know what they/ we'd have been doing. It would have been ours and not some foreign idea planted by force. As such we don't know what we lost through the abrupt advent of colonization. You can't envision anything beyond the context of maglev trains and planes?

There were not just many distinct languages and even creation myths ......

What does it matter whether their was a 'political' entity or not? If it makes you happier then it was no 'political' entity. Fact is that an entity existed defined by shared values and practices and that's the entity I Identify with first and foremost.

In the civilised world people are running away from such 'blood' and 'skin' identities as you espouse. You know this, and yet want to passionately hold on to these backward ideas?

Yes Sir. Civilized World? It's the world where bigots reside. Those who sit on a high horse like some high priest and call other backward and Primitive. I want no part in it. They are always absolutely right of course.

There exists no room or space for someone else to hold a view different. I hear the 3rd Reich claimed to be more civilized than the rest.As such they embarked to do nothing less than rule us 'primitive folk'. It is the world of those criminals who set on a journey across the seas to civilize others raping, looting, pillaging and plundering freely. It is the world of the most civilized of all, George W. Bush, the most 'civilized' amongst all 'civilised' of all by virtue of being the president of the most 'civilized' state on this earth, First among equals, who believes he has some sort of divine mission handed down by God himself to civilize the rest of us 'primitive' folk . Look what that civilization brought us. Nothing but death, destruction and hate.

Now let's leave all that aside. Do you understand that the primacy of ethnic affiliation over the Kenyan one is deleterious to national harmony?

By the way La Manta, ^ on my tab, bwana. Undugu kwa sana

No. Not if use it to build institutions that take that into account rather than ignoring it like we've done for the last 45 years. To solve a complex problem, you have to take all parameters into account.

Tribe is a huge parameter that defines the Kenyan identity. There are progressives like you, of course, who believe in the kinship of all living things, presumably the more of you the merrier, the better for Kenya, the world and the universe will become. But there also exists a lot of retrogressive like me.

Your answer is to force all the retrogressive to see the world the way you see it? How exactly are you going to achieve that before the next war in 2012? What will it take for you, Sir, to look closely at Kenya the way it exists in reality right now in reality rather than the Kenya that is a figment of your imagination? Sweep everything and tidy up of course. It's very British.

What good is a solution that ignores important factors of the problem to be solved? We definitely need 'Progressives' like you to thunder your Rage upon us retrogressive, as well as formulate the higher purpose for the existence of Kenya or even for the existence of life itself, but you sir are no man to build the foundation upon which the New Kenya shall stand. You live in world that doesn't really exist. The truth on the ground is that Kenya is a mixture of people who share your thoughts, I hope genuinely and those who see it the way I do.

re:
written by Johnny B. Goode , March 20, 2008

I ask you this, what tribe does that child belong to?

If a child grows up in a Luhya home then that child becomes Luhya, if he or she grows up in a Kikuyu home they take up that identity. Because it is a socially constructed idea that has no genetic, biological or other empirical basis. It is a language, and maybe a few customs, which you learn as you grow up and are not embedded in your fibre.

You've answered your own question. If they grow up in in a Luhya home they are Luhya and should be thoroughly proud of the fact. It's the whole concept behind adoptions. Once two people adopt you they become your parents and you grow up as their child.

It's like Ruth said"Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.

I see no great conflict. Certainly tribes can be misused just like any other human concept, no matter how noble. To Err is Human. We've seen that some African societies had capacities to intergrate other people who were not of that Tribe, through marriage for example, they became of thet Tribe.

It doesn't mean that one race is better or lesser than another - its like fur colour in dogs, or the colour of an egg. Its just different.

Certainly. We are all created equal before the eyes of God. But that doesn't stop us from identifying with certain groups be they whites, blacks, females, males, vegetarians, Star wars freaks, Kenyans, Londerners, Nairobians or whatever it maybe and it certainly doesn't stop us from identifying with multiple groups. It's human nature.

The shared experience of black people is a great deal of hype - in our world people of a similar class are more likely..

Not shared experience. That is certainly impossible for such a huge group of people but Shared legacy though with real impacts and repurcussions.

..to have a common experience and a common identity than people of the same race. Why do you think Obama is scoring so well with educated classes of all races in America but mostly with blacks amongst the poor?

Sure but that doesn't exclude the same Obama from sharing something with certain people primarily because of shared race. The human being is a complex entity. Be they complexes inferiority or otherwise, aspirations, the fear of his best friend suddenly dropping the N-Word. Or being projected upon him all the hopes and dreams of an entire people anxious to see another door open. It's no different for Hillary Clinton or Raila Odinga for that matter.

You may share a lot in common with me because we both grew up in Nairobi but you also share a lot with Hillary Rodham Clinton and The woman from your village in Bungoma just because you are females. The two things are not mutually exclusive.

I always argue that being an African is Geographical, being of African descent is Biological, being "black" - the culture, the world view - is social. And it is a social construct that is reactive rather than proactive. Children are not born with chips on their shoulders, we adults put them there with our own experiences, our own prejudices, our own short sightedness The "Black Nation" here is formed from people who are equally pissed off about a world where person can't just be, a person.

Africa is certainly a geographical construct but it's people have a shared history, at least since colonialism as well as being loosely related on account of linguistic groups. The thing of passing on prejudices etc is a catch 22.

I knew a friends mom who had such a negative view on religion that she chose to raise herb kids against it. Because the mum had such negativity about it, they never had a shot at deciding and they grew up being atheists. Your damned if you Do and damned if you don't.

There are certainly people who are pissed but there are those who are in it for social and economic gains and connections. As the reality of the world around us changes so does the purpose of the existance of the black nation. It's not static, just like Obama said of the American society.

...
written by manta ray , March 20, 2008

Johnny B Goode, Wanyeki, Amollo.

If a round table to construct a new Kenya is called up, should the participants attend as representatives of their different ethnicities, and if the idea does not work they can slither back into their tribal cocoons, OR do they attend as representatives of Kenya who happen to come from different ethnicities, and if the idea does not work, they will keep hammering at it until it comes to fruition?
Which is MORE important and HEARTFELT to you, your ethnicity or your Kenyan Nationalism?
Does being a Kenyan first and foremost make you a stronger Kikuyu or Luo, or is it the other way round? Please think about that.

...
written by Stephen Wanyama , March 21, 2008

To add to Manta Ray's post, let me suggest the analogy of a man and his wife. Though they may be borne of two different ethnicities (and hopefully two different families) they come together and their union creates a new entity. The proper functioning of this entity demands that they first and foremost are loyal to this entity and then to their previous identities.

As had been said above, it is not possible to compel an identity on someone (remember that Chapelle skit with the anti-black racist blind black man?). Still, if a man and his wife, owe primary loyalties to such entities as rival their partnership -then they willingly promote the dissolution of their bonds. Given that Chuck Berry's son here seems overtaken with religious zeal, I suggest that the Christ's exhortation to give unto Caesar what is his be your guiding light.

It is not for nothing that we, even those like me who reject nationalism, are loyal to Kenya. It is our home, and its harmonious function depends on our cultivating a sense among all Kenyans that we have a bond between us that trumps all our differences, a sense that we will look out for the best outcomes for all Kenya, and not just those of our 'brothers'.

P.S. I imagine Raila, Balala, Nyong'o and company will be ecstatic to pick up your posts and send them out as proof of the disloyal Kikuyu, the Trojan.

Kenya
written by James Watt , March 21, 2008

It seems to me that every Kenyan has 3 underlying royalties.

Tribe
Nation
Religion

I choose to interprate them as follows

Tribe - Family
Nation - A combination of relative and distant relatives as well as friends and enemies. Kenya can be summed up as the amalgam of different Tribes and Religions.
Religion - A combination of all those who believe in The same moral values and worship the same supreme being.

All these 3 entities have a history and some features that bind them together.Of the Entities, the one that should have had the strongest sway is religion. That is the one that dictates the higher values and the moral backdrop in dealings with other human beings.

All Tribes in Kenya have given up their constituent religions and adopted or adapted Christianity, so we have two Intra Tribal entities in Kenya, The Nation of Kenya and Religion to be more specific Christianity.

According to this statistics 78% of Kenyans are Christians, 10% are Muslims and 10% are indigenous and 2% are Other, probably including Hindu and Jewish.

Christianity though distorted through the ages explicitly in the teachings of Jesus Christ teaches against violence to the point of telling us to turn the other cheek. The old testament which is replicated in Christianity, Judaism and Islam has God handing down the 10 commandments to Moses of which the 6th
is Thou Shall Not Kill. I'm no expert of Islam also has its extremes has similar teachings but in essence it carries the same teachings as Christianity.

That's the tragedy of the post election period. That that which forms the Moral background of our Nation is merely paid lip service to by some. The Ease with which people took a panga, primarily by young men, and slashed their Neighbours is a testament of the failings of the social system the forms us. The Home, The School and The CHURCH (Kenya being 78% Christian and those commiting atrocities being primarily Christian. Kalenjin, Luo, Kikuyu, Luhya. We are all primarily Christian).

It is clear then that the Home is not instilling the moral values that would prevent a young man from going around with friends on a gang raping spree. Like all of todays states, the home has less and less influence in our up-bringing. It is clear that the school, which largely took over the raising of kids from the home (90.6 % of all Kenyan males are literate and of those literate most are probably old folks who didn't get the chance anyway.(www.cia.gov)) It's also clear that the church has little hold over the actions of those who confess to follow in the teachings of Jesus Christ. This is a discussion

The tribe is the other institution that forms the building blocks of this country. I don't know all the rules, customs and religious links governing all the tribes within the republic of Kenya, but I doubt there is any that sanctioned murder or rape, which were probably seen as social stigmas.

The truth is that with the different tribes in competition for resources killing one of another tribe might have been been seen less of an evil.
This are some of the negative aspects that have been carried into todays Kenya. They have found themselves primarily in our politics.

It is this aspect of Tribe interaction that scares understandably people who deem the elevation of Tribe above country as harmful to the interests of he republic of Kenya.It is not Tribe itself that is the problem or harmful or retrogressive but the warlike interactions of tribes in the past.

Now Tribe in itself has undergone major transformation over the years. Most have probably been reduced to nothing more than a common language and a few custom rites of passage for boys.

Yet Tribe is tenacious, it persists to exist and be the primary source of identification, even in its, emasculated form to some. Me included.

Even if emasculated further through the disappearances of Languages, tribe would still live on through our names and probably have an equal hold on me specifically. Consider that those acting in the Name of their Tribe were born but yesterday. They have little if any understanding of what made their tribes tick. In the cosmopolitan rift valley they have intermingled and intermarried with other tribes. They have lived side by side as neighbours. Yet Tribe Persists and is Supreme.

The Issue is not to shed Tribal Identity for the Kenyan one, since Kenya serves a different purpose than Tribe IMO, but to promote the aspects of tribal interaction that will be beneficial to the republic of Kenya. Tribes intermixed through marriage, inter borrowed and inter traded too. Refer to the history between the Kikuyu, The Maasai and The Kamba. It is obvious that more investment by the Kenyan Nation in the knowledge of how different Tribe functioned and inter related amongst each other will only be beneficial to the State of Kenya.

At the same time I know that the fate of my tribe is closely intertwined with the fate and success of the republic of Kenya. The more detribalised I am in my dealings with others the better for the Kenya. This in itself sounds like a contradiction but it's not.

This is the underlying Principal that guides the European union which like Mr. Johnny B. Goode I feel is the best model to emulate in building of the New Kenya. The EU does not seek to abolish the English, The Italian, The Polish or The Irish but recognizes that interaction between them is mutually beneficial to all. This interaction started as a trading block and developed into Institutions that govern common Law, Military and political institutions. It Irish can identify himself as primarily Irish or European as the case might be. Similarly it shouldn't irk anyone whether they are primarily Kikuyu, Kenyan, Christian or global Citizen. The very fact that Identify myself prrimarily as a Kikuyu does not mean I'm going to go on a murder, raping and looting spree on all that is no Kikuyu. That is a perverted view, not really sanctioned by my religion or my Tribe.

It doesn't mean that when I'm choosing friends, employing or interacting in most of the ways other people (except marriage), I'm going to go around checking if they are from the House of Mumbi. What is beneficial for Kenya, is beneficial to the House and what is detrimental is detrimental to the house. However if Kenya breaks down as it did, post election, I will be viewed not as a Kenyan but a Kikuyu. Those who would stamp us as backward, are stifling a dialogue that needs to carried out.

re:
written by James Watt , March 21, 2008

Johnny B Goode, Wanyeki, Amollo.

If a round table to construct a new Kenya is called up, should the participants attend as representatives of their different ethnicities, and if the idea does not work they can slither back into their tribal cocoons, OR do they attend as representatives of Kenya who happen to come from different ethnicities, and if the idea does not work, they will keep hammering at it until it comes to fruition?
Which is MORE important and HEARTFELT to you, your ethnicity or your Kenyan Nationalism?
Does being a Kenyan first and foremost make you a stronger Kikuyu or Luo, or is it the other way round? Please think about that.

I have not been addressed but that they are of different ethnicities is an acknowledging the reality and not burying your head in the ground as some here would like to do. 10 Luos or 10 Kikuyus cannot hammer out the path that the new Kenya should take, even should the 10 Luos, Luhyas or Kalenjins be the best suited for that job. We might one day get to a stage where its irrelevant that all ministers are of one tribe because they are the best people for the job but we are not there yet. Infact we are very very far from that. It is obvious that for the sake of the new Kenya, merit should be sacrificed in some institutions for the sake of ethnic balance and harmony.

It is not an if you are no for me, you are against me thing (as spoken by Jesus Christ and more recently by George W. Bush)like some here are trying to make it to be. Whether you are Kikuyu first and Kenyan second does not make you any less Kenyan, for Kikuyu is a constituent part of Kenya. If the Kikuyu prospers, Kenya prospers, similarly if Kenya withers and dies, The Kikuyu withers and dies with it. Our fate is intertwined like the star crossed lovers in Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet. Thus it's in the best interests of the Kikuyu to see that Kenya prospers. The best and most stable Kenya is the one where all prosper.

Nothing new when new things ar
written by a guest , March 21, 2008

There is something quite tedious about the idea that being Gikuyu is unambiguously one's "Primary Identity"...and that this Primary Identity is frozen in time and space.

I am not in any way proposing that people should be "Kenyans first" - you cannot and should not force such things, and anybody who believes you can has not properly read world history...

See here
Ethno-nationalism is something every nation in the world we know has grappled with and nobody has found a sustainable and permanent solution...

The Nation as we know it today comes with its own contradictions and confusions and loopholes - there is no perfect Utopian idea of a Nation-state.

We are and transact with the world as a thing called Kenyans...inside this Nation there are many states and other arrangements...they have come to be distorted (or redefined) by the relationship with the Kenya born of British rule and independent in 1963...so, our journey as the Gikuyu, as the Luo has got to be continually re-evaluated...what does it mean to belong to a nation within a nation that cannot sign a treaty with another?

Is this not a problem? We are in a kind of commonwealth that cannot even have intra-national conversations about joint use of shared space -we depend on politically ambitious people -and not even our own cultural law and philosophy to negotiate with our neighbours. This looks to me like ethnicities that pretend a sort of independence, but which are in fact stranded, strangled and therefore stupid..with such a structure we can pretend to be a singular ethnicity without any meaningful tools to do anything together. So we exist in strange parallel worlds that pray for the intervention of warlords and the most politically cynical and ambitious when we find ourselves in dispute. We find we can only speak of our own bubble when we are dealing with issues that show that many of us are living in tangled and mutually beneficial economies...this to me is profoundly stupid. There is not even a treaty of goodwill between one community living together and another - which works out how they will choose to relate - to me these are the things that make up a civilisation - having good systems to build mutually beneficial lives....no here we wait for our Mwenjes to sort to out..to protect our wholesale market.

What does it mean to be a Gikuyu and not be able to receive economic information about the state of our nation? What does it mean to be a Gikuyu without any meaningful decision-making structures...to be told that we have a council of elders whose chairman is Joe Wanjui - who among us was involved in making this decision? Who has ever heard what they discuss...of what benefit is this Council of Elders it outside of a class of very few Karen golf club people?

So. Nationalism, or Gikuyu nationalism becomes a force only when paranoia is activated..people will come together to raise money to save us from those terrifying people from the West, or some such. There are no conversations about the state of our schools or anything meaningful....

What I am saying here is that the structures that hold our languages and philosophies and laws and sometimes relatively common beliefs are rusty, unexamined and have come to be dangerous...

This does not mean there is anything wrong with being a proud Gikuyu, or Luo or anything else...

I cannot in any way indict anybody for investing in his or her language and culture and philosophy for affirmation, economic success, whatever...

What I hear lacking is criticism, is the challenge within these structures to keep asking questions about who and what we are in this world...and this country...for us not to have a coherent intellectual movement within and without devalues the humanity of our own histories...and creates headless beasts - like Mungiki and others - searching for something and having no meaningful place to discuss "national" issues...

What I am saying is that for one to assert that they are fully enriched and OK with their primary "identity" in the way Matathia suggests assumes he lives in a closed bubble and not a crazy fast moving world and country facing many many challenges and needing to always rethink one's place, one's culture one's relationships....it is a kind of arrogance to assume we have arrived to a great place...we haven't..and that static-seeming identity was changing fast and reacting to time and place long before mzungus arrived here...the freezing of it is a very modern very sentimental and very useless idea...

...
written by manta ray , March 21, 2008

James, almost all progressive nations on earth have achieved all their spectacular development, not by emphasizing ethnic nationalism at the expense of the Nation, but by emphasizing the Nation first and foremost before all the different parts that form the final mosaic.
In the United States, even a Black American is loyal to America first before his loyalty to his kith and kin, despite the history of racism and discrimination he has undergone from Hispanics, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, Swedish and Polish-Americans etc.
If Barack Obama was to stand on a podium and proclaim that his primary loyalty is to his Black heritage before his loyalty to America, how far do you think that would take his Presidential ambitions? Do you agree that he should proclaim that his loyalty to his Black heritage comes before his loyalty to America? That is precisely what you are so eloquently proclaiming, the only difference here is that you substitute Black heritage for Kikuyu and America for Kenya.
A Scot is loyal to the United Kingdom FIRST before his loyalty to Scotland, in as much as he may live under Scottish autonomy today. The same applies to a Bavarian in Germany, and in as much as he pays more taxes per capita than other Germans, his FIRST loyalty is to Germany NOT Bavaria.
We cannot build a united and prosperous nation if we insist on emphasizing the things that define us as different from others, and therefore divide us, instead of emphasizing that which unites us. Proclaiming loudly while thumping your chest that you are a very proud Mugikuyu Njamba, Mjaluo Sibuor, Mluhya Musakhulu or Masai Murani etc. is not the way to achieve that unity that will give rise to the focus necessary for the purpose of development.
How would you react if Raila or Kibaki stood up and said that they are first and foremost a Luo and a Kikuyu before they are Kenyan, and not that they are Kenyans first before they are Luo and Kikuyu? Would you agree with them?

undugu
written by Amir Ibrahim , March 21, 2008

James, with all respect that is not a very persuasive argument. If we are persuaded that murder is immoral, then it would remain so whether or not we shared anything with the victim, Islam for example does not permit the killing willy-nilly even of animals. Kindly desist from telling us that your desire to help your neighbours is something we should give you an award for.

It has been stated here before, but let's say it again. The analogy that compares Kenyan ethnicities to European states is incorrect. The English are not a tribe, Romanians are not a tribe, Poles are not a tribe. A hierarchy of loyalties (as is indicated in ranking formulas -e.g. I am a Kikuyu first) indicates preference, it indicates, I am using the word in its pure form here, discrimination. This James is not the way to build a nation. Toa masikio nta.

If I was say a Luo councillor in Mombasa, and I declared to the wananchi that my primary identity was my Luo one, then I am declaring to the electorate that should I have to choose between serving Luo interests and serving those of my electors (and recent history has proved that this is not a hypothetical scenario), then I would prefer to serve Luo interests. This attitude precludes integration, it emphasises distrust and difference, and sorry to have to say this, it justifies ethnic rivalry and ultimately violence, i.e. you are saying that you should be viewed primarily as a Luo and not a citizen and jirani, you are declaring that if you were called upon to defend perhaps with lethal force the property and resources of your neighbours against a gang of invading Luo from Kisumu Ndogo, you will side with the Luo against your neighbours. it declares that should those invaders want to relieve everyone in your village of their heads, you would expect preferential treatment, yaani huna solidarity na wao unaoishi nao but with those with whom you share a blood bond. I have written here before against nationalism and even the national anthem. Even then there were few takers, but I am glad Wanyama and co are defending universal human rights as espoused most famously in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Let us keep our tribes, let's keep our culture and our religions, but let us also realise that for Kenya to survive we must support her more (again the rivalry between Kenya and our ethnicities has been shown to be a real one) than we do our subordinate identities. In ordinary times we need not even declare this intention, but in days such as the ones we live, where there was only last week Kenyans being expelled from their homes for being 'foreigners', when the fact that the Kikuyu are close to 25% of our number was being used to make the rest of the country feel like slaves to the Kikuyu will, it is most vulgar and selfish that there are any Kenyans who hold these aggressive beliefs supported here by Watt, Goode and Matathia. As has been said above, Raila would be beside himself with joy if he saw what you were writing here. Such sentiments, brothers and countrymen, are the luxuries the like of which we must not permit pronouncement while our country teeters still on the edge of collapse.

I am really quite angry and if I will allow myself, even hurt, that especially on KenyaImagine, where a multitude of Kenyans stood against the ODM minutes of hate on the Kikuyu, we are now faced with the backhand of the realisation that some of those Kikuyu would not do the same for us if we were similarly assailed, they would defend their primary identity, their House of Mumbi.

re: undugu
written by James Watt , March 21, 2008

If we are persuaded that murder is immoral, then it would remain so whether or not we shared anything with the victim, Islam for example does not permit the killing willy-nilly even of animals.

I don't get the point being made here. The point I was making was those people committing the murders ascribe to a religion which expressly prohibit the same. But could there be people who believe murder is ok? Possible. There were also people who saw nothing wrong with eating their fellow men. As such it is important to include the membership of certain people in that club to make the point I was making.

The English are not a tribe, Romanians are not a tribe, Poles are not a tribe.......

Tribe and nation are interchangeable to me. As such the English can be a tribe and the Kikuyu a nation. The negative connotation attached to tribe is unhelpful and misplaced. They are both large groupings of people sharing certain connection. It is questionable how it is to build a nation.

The founding fathers of Kenya set about to build the nation the way you want it built and where are we 45 years later? The nation is peppered with talk of members of a certain community and the central bureau of statistics won't even give you the ethnic breakdown of Kenya.

They ignored that Kenya was actually an amalgam of different communities who identify with their distinct groups so much that even those born yesterday, who've been citizens of Kenya and enjoyed the benefits of its schooling system as long as they've been citizens of their tribe, are easily persuaded to take a panga and slash their neighbours not of their ethnic group?

How many times do you wish to fail in your idealism? How many lives should we donate to your course every 5 years?
How many did we lose in 92, 97, 2002 and 2007 and you still want more? In the quest for a Kenya where saying platitudes of being Kenyan first is politically correct? Don't you see that what you are aspiring for stands in stark contrast with the reality on the ground? How many elections do you need to convince you otherwise? Elections in which for the most part The communities vote for their own kind or those in which their own kind are represented, except for 2002, when only one tribe contested.

Do you not realize that looking for solutions that ignore reality are hazardous and dangerous. Kenya as a unitary state comprised of Kenyans has failed. Kenya in reality is a State comprised of 45 different mini nations, tribes or communities whatever definition your fancy. For how long are going to build on quicksand, only for your building to disappear into the ground?

You don't need to give me stupid scenarios. In my post, I said that the fate of the constituent Tribes is irrevocably tied to the fate of Kenya and the more prosperous Kenya is the better for everyone in it. As such as corruption, nepotism and cronysm are things that are detrimental to the prosperity of Kenya. There is no reason why tribe cannot prosper even when the nation does. Is the only way I can identify primarily with my tribe, by being corrupt, inhuman or by being a savage devoid of any morals or human compassion. Is the only argument you can make one that reduces me to this?

Use your imagination, there are more ways you can serve the interests of your people be they kikuyu, kenyan or otherwise than this. Obviously what we have to do is build a country that reflects the cultural diversity but at the same time convinces its citizenry of the need to invest in the well being of Kenya. Only then shall we find peace and harmony.

Don't give me stupid awards.I'm not contributing here to get any. I don't need your validation on anything. In all probability you'll remain forever remain a name on the screen.

I am really quite angry and if I will allow myself, even hurt, that especially on KenyaImagine, where a multitude of Kenyans stood against the ODM minutes of hate on the Kikuyu, we are now faced with the backhand of the realisation that some of those Kikuyu would not do the same for us if we were similarly assailed, they would defend their primary identity, their House of Mumbi.

I'm personally not preaching hate, I do not where you get that from. What ODM exposed in all reality is the lie we've been living coupled with such words as equitable distribution, historical injustices and the clamour for majimbo(as a federal system devoid of ethnicity, something that merits discussion).

This sentiments found a lot of resonance on the ground. The Answer to the problem is to confront them head on by holding a plain and honest discussion on what equitable distribution means, establishing what exactly this historical injustices are and finally having an open discussion on Majimbo. But then again majimbo can be tied to the first question of equitable distribution because it s seen as a means by which equitable distribution will occur. Lastly we should start by defining a set of common values shared by all of the Kenyan peoples. In the light of all men are created....

America survives just fine even if most of its citizens primarily identify themselves with a prefix. Asian, African, Irish, Italian, jewish or even latinos otherwise. If they were frst and foremost Americans, they wouldn't need the prefixes.

That does not obstruct any of its citizens in doing the right thing when necessary. It works however because everyone has a stake in the well-being of the country. That's what Kenya must become a country where all the citizens feel that they have equal opportunities, irrespective of tribe, race or gender. That means equal distribution of infrastructure, services, education, health services and employment opportunities.

re:
written by James Watt , March 21, 2008

James, almost all progressive nations on earth have achieved all their spectacular development, not by emphasizing ethnic nationalism at the expense of the Nation, but by emphasizing the Nation first and foremost before all the different parts that form the final mosaic.

Emphasize what you must. That will not change the reality on the ground. Kenya emphasized being Kenyan first and what is it but another failed African state unable to provide the bear minimum for its citizens. Security? Countries built on multi-ethnicities that fail to take this into account eventually break up like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and The former USSR. And yet there are nations that took the nature of their varying ethnicities into drafting their constitutions like Switzerland. They've also been quite successful. What you are advocating are the same principals that led us to where we are today.

In the United States, even a Black American is loyal to America first before his loyalty to his kith and kin, despite the history of racism and discrimination he has undergone from Hispanics, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, Swedish and Polish-Americans etc.
If Barack Obama was to stand on a podium and proclaim that his primary loyalty is to his Black heritage before his loyalty to America, how far do you think that would take his Presidential ambitions? Do you agree that he should proclaim that his loyalty to his Black heritage comes before his loyalty to America? That is precisely what you are so eloquently proclaiming, the only difference here is that you substitute Black heritage for Kikuyu and America for Kenya. A Scot is loyal to the United Kingdom FIRST before his loyalty to Scotland, in as much as he may live under Scottish autonomy today. The same applies to a Bavarian in Germany, and in as much as he pays more taxes per capita than other Germans, his FIRST loyalty is to Germany NOT Bavaria.

Of course you've been to the streets of Edinburg, Munich and New York and asked each and every single person as to where their loyalties primarily lie. Obama is a politician, I'm not. Politicians are crooks the world over. They'll say what they have to to get into office.

We cannot build a united and prosperous nation if we insist on emphasizing the ......
How would you react if Raila or Kibaki stood up and said that they are first and foremost a Luo ....

And yet we can't build a prosperous nation by blatantly ignoring that there are 45 communities living within our borders and yes some who express more royalty to their tribes over their nation.That my friend was the Kenya that went into war with itself after the elections. A failed State, ready to explode at any time. A nation built on a lie will not stand.

There is one who is going to withhold taxes. The Kenyan nation and The Kikuyu ones serve two different purposes. One gives identity, a history and a sense of where I"m coming from and the other does the functions performed by any other state. Security, etc.

We were all buddy buddy expressing how Kenyan we are while underneath most were are and always will be just Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Luhya, or Embu before thy are Kenyan. What's so hard to understand about the tribal identity being more accessible than the national one. It's much better that people expressly say what they think than to hide behind stupid slogans and cliches. That way will arrive at a solution that is more satisfactory and will hold us together for a longer period, hopefully eternity.

Again Raila and Kibaki are politicians. They don't need to articulate anything. They are tribal chieftains first and foremost. Even Moi used to say that his tribe is Kenyan even as he took all our resources to foreign banks and what remained in Eldoret. If a politician thinks that drawing water from stone like Rwanda Magere will get him a political office then they'll do exactly that.

re: Nothing new when new thing
written by James Watt , March 21, 2008

There is something quite tedious about the idea that being Gikuyu is unambiguously one's "Primary Identity"...and that this Primary Identity is frozen in time and space.

What is your point, homie. You seem to be at pains to let everyone decide what they choose to identify themselves. Then you go on a rant against. Nothing is of course static. Not even the universe. It's ever expanding.Baing a Kikuyu today is not similar to being a kkuyu in 1701
or being a Kikuyu in 1the year 2100.
Within the period of a human life cycle though the identities can be as static or as fluid as you let them.

That the various communities in Kenya have more benefits being in Kenya than without it is obvious, but that Kenya must build a social-political-and economic system that corresponds to its ethnic diversity is also very obvious to me. Only then can each and everyone start claiming ownership of Kenya. In that Kenya it's irrelevant if I identify myself primarily as Gikuyu, Kenyan or Christian.

What\'s In A Name
written by James Watt , March 21, 2008

When I am in Busia, I am Banyala, when I am in Nairobi I am Luhya, when I am in Togo, I am Kenyan and when I am in Europe I am African. ....

Unlike you am all those things all the time, whether in Kiambaa or on the planet Saturn. Kikuyu, Kenyan, African, Global Citizen, Citizen of the universe, I remain. The EU just reflects the fears of its citizens of waking up and finding out that its a black black world. Major shifts in the environment, including ethnic composition cannot be undertaken from one day to the next. Consider the meticulous care undertaken by European cities to protect historical substance.

Everyone knows that there are 2 tribes in Burundi right? Hutus v Tutsi's the age old struggle, right?

WRONG. Defining tribe the way you have Johnny etc ......

Yes and even the Somalis who regularly slaughter each other are mostly clans. What's new. Human beings have been fighting on account of religion, tribes, nations, gender, families, support for different soccer teams for eons. And so it shall remain for all foreseeable eternity. The moral of the story being if people want to fight, they'll find any excuse to. They don't need to be subdivided into groups, tribes, clans, nations or continents to do so.

Imagine the trouble of accommodating all the clans in the cabinet, if people haboured such a strong association to them. In a way, we are lucky that we are only dealing with tribes, although Raila will have his hands full juggling between the demands of the Kipsigis and the Nandi.

I ask you this, what tribe does that child belong to?

The child will be of the tribe, where it grows up in. If you take up a white baby and bring him up to be a Luhya, then he will be a Luhya. Our peoples have shown a huge capacity for tolerance.
It's not like in the old days there wasn't a fair amount of intermixing.

Plus the children belonged to the tribe.So if a young Mluhya baby was left one day in a MKikuyu village, then she'd be raised as a Kikuyu. Remember the phrase by Hillary Rodham Clinton taken right here from the continent, that it takes a village to raise a child. Speaking of which, Njoroge, what's stopping you from tracing your maasai roots or learning the language. The maasai are quite alive and well as far as I know.

- its like fur colour in dogs, or the colour of an egg. Its just different. The shared experience of black people is a great deal of hype -

In an ideal world it probably wouldn't matter what the colour of your skin is. But in this world it does because it carries with it a history and an ongoing fight for equality. It's all nice and good today to denounce the black experience achieved on the back of the struggle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Dedan Kimathi, Nkurumah, Rosa Parks and a million of faceless others.

here is formed from people who are equally pissed off about a world where person can't just be, a person.

It's the curse, for you, if you will of being human. The only way to avoid it is not having kids in the first place, otherwise you'll project something onto them.

The Black movement and associations like NAACP continue to have a role even today, in ensuring that civil rights are protected.

...
written by manta ray , March 21, 2008

Emphasize what you must. That will not change the reality on the ground. Kenya emphasized being Kenyan first and what is it but another failed African state unable to provide the bear minimum for its citizens.

That reality is precisely the problem, don't you see?!!
I am a Kikuyu myself, and if Kibaki were to drop dead today and there is a new election, i will vote for Kalonzo because, as of now, most Kikuyus will do so. Kalonzo is not necessarily the best candidate there could be, in fact he is a hypocritical arrogant twit in my book and i don't particularly care for his type, but i shall vote for him because since my identity as a Kikuyu marks me out as a person to be persecuted by the other communities coalesced around the ruthlessly determined and demonic ODM, i will coalesce around Kalonzo together with other Kikuyus as a matter of survival.
It therefore follows that instead of going into laager and circling the wagons every five years, it would be better to defang the persecutors who spawned the ODM by de-emphasizing ethnicity since overt and crass ethnicity makes it that much easier for these buffoons and demagogues to rise, unite their communities and then whip up dangerous ideologies like the infamous 41 against 1 strategy.
If these bigots and mediocrities were denied the opportunity to rise to prominence, we would not be having the problems we have now, and the way to do that is to appeal to Kenyans across the board, by being a Kenyan first and foremost.
If Tom Mboya and J.M. Kariuki could do so in the 60s and 70s, who are you to insist that it can't be done now?
To me, that is of far more value than romantic pride and attachment to meaningless tribal congregation in the 21st century.

Action versus Mill
written by Daniel.Waweru , March 21, 2008

"Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. An altogether different set of leaders have the confidence of one part of the country and of another. Their mutual antipathies are much stronger than their jealousy of the government... Above all, the grand and only effectual security in the last resort against the despotism of the government is in that case wanting: the sympathy of the army with the people. Soldiers to whose feelings half or three fourths of the subjects of the same government are foreigners, will have no more scruple in mowing them down, and no more reason to ask the reason why, than they would have in doing the same thing against declared enemies.

John Stuart Mill: Considerations on Representative Government. London 1872

Lord Acton has a nice reply to Mill:

"...The presence of different nations under the same sovereignty is similar in its effect to the independence of the Church in the State. It provides against the servility which flourishes under the shadow of a single authority, by balancing interests, multiplying associations, and giving to the subject the restraint and support of a combined opinion. In the same way it promotes independence by forming definite groups of public opinion, and by affording a great source and centre of political sentiments, and of notions of duty not derived from the sovereign will. Liberty provokes diversity, and diversity preserves liberty by supplying the means of organisation."

(Acton, 1862. "Nationality", The Home and Foreign Review)

Obviously, I don't mean to suggest that tribes in Kenya constitute nations.

What does my Identity mean?
written by Ernest Maina , March 21, 2008

One one takes their ethnicity as the primary immovable anchor how does one define their interface to the "outsiders". What is their value vis-a-vis the "insiders" and when is it actualized. This is necessary in Kenya as at most only one in four of the people you meet are likely to be from the same group. With fewer from the same social status, even fewer from the same mental frame.


And then what keeps one from getting a more pure joint? Only my clan defines me well. Only my village does justice to my identity.

What are the rules of cooperation, or lack of it. Rules for goodwill.

Someone please enlighten us on Somalia. That country is nt supposed to have the kind of Identity crisis we have. Every one of them is "closer" than Kenyans every hoped to be. But the last few years havent shown this to be the cussion that makes them feel worm and fuzzy. Am I missing something.

How do we define our ethnic identity so that we have different results.

And what is the porpose of this heirarchy?

Could it be that strenthening our ethnic identity is useful precisely because there are the "others" among us and it is the most "efficient" way to win the competition for pieces of our common inheritance that is Kenya?

I would understand if someone whats to take a sabbatical, raise funds to write a thesis on the Mijikenda and leave a legacy to his heritage. But this same person may be married to a Non-Kenyan. How would you value his identity heirarchy?

re: Nothing new when new thing
written by aeichener , March 22, 2008

I like the comments by this anonymous contributor, and especially appreciate the pain that s/he has taken to convert complex thought into (sometimes decepively) plain language. I often am too lazy to undergo this transfer toil, and thus limit myself to dropping a few abbreviated notions and buzzwords, which probably is not always helpful. Sorry!

There is something quite tedious about the idea that being Gikuyu is unambiguously one's "Primary Identity"...and that this Primary Identity is frozen in time and space.

A primary identity, in these days of ours, more often than not, is a social role, rather than a romantic core of your essence derived from your Volksgeist. And indeed, the notion of a fluidity of identity has been the fad of Western history and political science in the last 40 years or so; a fluidity that - incidentally - also very much is true for sexual and gender identities, contrary to some queer ideology. In the course of the preceding thread, James Watt has quite nicely expressed what there is to be said.

Ethno-nationalism is something every nation in the world we know has grappled with and nobody has found a sustainable and permanent solution...

Beyond lamenting the imperfectness of the most perfect of all worlds, it might prove fruitful to compare how different states have - with less, more and still more success - grappled with the problem. Just compare Spain and Switzerland for different approaches, or see Belgium as a European example for a "failed state" (contrasted with Somalia as an African example for a "failed state".

...what does it mean to belong to a nation within a nation that cannot sign a treaty with another?

The "nation" notion is treacherous in the English language. Within the US of A, and also recently within Canada, the First Nations have grown from extermination over subordination to coordination and autonomy (e.g. Nunavut). The latter is ostensibly nicely reflected even in the hierarcical sequence of its web address: http://www.gov.nu.ca

There is not even a treaty of goodwill between one community living together and another - which works out how they will choose to relate - to me these are the things that make up a civilisation - having good systems to build mutually beneficial lives...

Which leads us right to land law, and the necessity of espousing concurring African systems of communal and contractual user rights over unfitting British Uncommon Law dogmatics from the European feudal times.

What does it mean to be a Gikuyu without any meaningful decision-making structures...to be told that we have a council of elders whose chairman is Joe Wanjui - who among us was involved in making this decision? Who has ever heard what they discuss...of what benefit is this Council of Elders it outside of a class of very few Karen golf club people?

Excellent observation, and very true inasfar as you wrote, but allow me to dissent nevertheless. The Agikuyu are probably the only tribal "nation" within the borders of the Kenya Colony who constituted themselves as a corpus politicum; and that already beginning in the 1920s, Harry Thuku, the pro-circumcision cultural wars and all that. The Ameru, on the other hand, had their cultural identity saved and restored by the British, thanks to a fortunate series of subsequent anthropologically interested and altruistic DOs, indeed Kenyan patriots ante tempus et ante litteram (vide Jeffrey Fadiman). And thus today, the Ameru do well make for a cultural entity, but not for a corpus politicum; the British saw after that too.

So, Nationalism, or Gikuyu nationalism becomes a force only when paranoia is activated... people will come together to raise money to save us from those terrifying people from the West, or some such.

Perceptive and precise. Again we are at the phenomenon of negative ethnicity making up for a (near) vacuum of positive ethnicity.

What I am saying here is that the structures that hold our languages and philosophies and laws and sometimes relatively common beliefs are rusty, unexamined and have come to be dangerous...

Same problem as in the year 1925 already. Look at the solutions taken at that time.

What I hear lacking is criticism, is the challenge within these structures to keep asking questions about who and what we are in this world...and this country...for us not to have a coherent intellectual movement within and without devalues the humanity of our own histories...and creates headless beasts - like Mungiki and others - searching for something and having no meaningful place to discuss "national" issues...

What I am saying is that for one to assert that they are fully enriched and OK with their primary "identity" in the way Matathia suggests assumes he lives in a closed bubble and not a crazy fast moving world and country facing many many challenges and needing to always rethink one's place, one's culture one's relationships....it is a kind of arrogance to assume we have arrived to a great place...we haven't..and that static-seeming identity was changing fast and reacting to time and place long before mzungus arrived here...the freezing of it is a very modern very sentimental and very useless idea...

*Nod* My own exchange with the Ogiek corroborates the last sentence. The Ogiek elders knew exactly in which century they lived. While they aptly employ bucolic imagery and romanticized lifestyle as political tools - also for the necessary assertion of their own cultural identity and otherness via the means of an idealized hunter-gatherer role - they know exactly that and how Kenya has changed, and that they need to adapt. They simply want a fair chance. Language, there, and its defence against de-ethnicizing linguistic influences play an important role; I myself wear an Ogiek t-shirt on occasion, and "Language is identity" is proudly printed on it.

Alexander

re: re: What does my Identity
written by Ernest Maina , March 22, 2008

James

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to my burning questions.

As preamble I will say that I was born and grew up in Nairobi so hopefully that will help in understanding the bind that I am in.

I have to confess I have felt little inner yearning for ethnicity that was a compass for anything other than just connection to immediate family. I have not the vaguest Idea what the specifics would be or how it would play a bigger role in my life. Whichever way I look at it, It boxes me into a corner while I seem to have the world right now, including the corner.

And this is not because I have a reason to hate "my people", infact it is just because for as far as my eyes can see all that I am seems to have come from someone that isnt "my people" with the singular exception of my immediate family. I know that great people from all over kenya must exist, I just never met mine that were the ones I would pick out with any consistency.

The teacher who used to treat me like her kid in primary school was ...you'd never guess it... an indian lady. No I am not an orphan. The most qualified teacher in secondary was a lady from Uganda. High school was very good experience we had the whole ethnic spectrum of teachers and students (including white kenyan teachers).

University for me marked my first experience with "survivor" lecturers - who only doing what a Xerox machine does better. Again better ones that stood out did not skew towards "my people" in any way I could percieve.

I am not saying my people do not do well, I just cannot consider myself the same if my experinces were to be limited to those that point to my ethnic anchor, or the ethnicities of those that nourished me, trusted me, accepted me, challenged me, rewarded me. What comes up is a mixture that to me looks like a dream team.

The people in the rift valley and elsewhere that would kill others for whatever reason are to me just criminals. To me they are in same class as those have their fingers in the national piggy bank. Both can give you eloquent arguments about how they are somehow doing it for some part of "the country" but if they succeed then the law has failed. To me when the law fails, ethnicity will never salvage us from such a hole. We have no option that force our leaders to implement the letter of the law. The Mt. Elgon operation makes me feel that there would be action if enough political pressure was brought to bear.

Otherwise kama sisi sote ni wamoja, what is this beef with Kibaki only appointing Kikuyus? Si ni Wakenya, ama niaje? Why should Wanyama ask for the Bukusus to be rewarded? Why should the Kipsigis ask for their own to be given due representation on Railas side of the cabinet

I am not a politician but if for example chose people the cabinet, say, from Nyeri, there would be an uproar too from Central Kenya. I truely believe that there are enough Kenyans to competently man the government ministries in any district including the north Eastern.
If they have more that 100 or so medical Doctors, Dentists, Engineers, Profs, Businessmen, and well educated secondary school teachers they can do it. That why I say you could even successfully run the government entirely from Nyeri alone.

But whether that is a good Idea to have a Nyeri Cabinet is a very different issue. So I imagine government manpower choices need a dose of demonstration of goodwill because I think, for most ministries, the real cutoff point is very very low considering we have more efficiently run companies than governments.

Here is the kicker. Whenever I would bring a friend home, my dad would ask "Na huyo ni kabila gani" - with a straight face, after the friend had left. I never understood this question at the time, I understand it just a little better now.

re: ticking the boxes
written by James Watt , March 23, 2008

Jesus was black,

The Bible, at least, the bit I've read,which while not all, is quite a bit, does not go about describing the features of the characters.Sure Goliath was Huge, Samson strong and Delilah beautiful, I think. So quite frankly, we do not whether Jesus was black, blue green, white or red and quite frankly it doesn't matter.
It quite literally remains a mixture of codes, words/messages and numbers.
Anyone can project the skin colour of choice to the biblical characters.

re: re: re: What does my Ident
written by James Watt , March 23, 2008

As preamble I will say that I was born and grew up in Nairobi so hopefully that will help in understanding the bind that I am in.

Not born in Nairobi, spent my early childhood up country, but spent most of my life in Nairobi.

I have to confess I have felt little inner yearning for ethnicity that was a compass for anything other than just connection to immediate family. I have not the vaguest Idea what the specifics would be or how it would play a bigger role in my life. Whichever way I look at it, It boxes me into a corner while I seem to have the world right now, including the corner.

It was also not a factor for me, until some time in my adult hood. I don't see it like you do. I see myself expanding on what I know. By default, we are already strongly influenced by European and American cultures. By adding to what you know, you don't eliminate what you already know, and it doesn't mean that you stop on expanding on the other things.

My first stop is Gikuyu, then other Kenyan tribes, then other african tribes , then Asian. It helps to see things within a larger context. It helps join some dots together and build a better world philosophy. It's fascinating to pick up the similarities and try to find out why things were done they way they were. It's also my contention that today African has nothing in common with the pre-colonial one but has been perverted by influences of colonialism.

And this is not because I have a reason to hate "my people", infact it is just because for as far as my eyes can see all that I am seems to have come from someone that isnt "my people" with the singular exception of my immediate family. I know that great people from all over kenya must exist, I just never met mine that were the ones I would pick out with any consistency.

The teacher who used to treat me like her kid in primary school was ...you'd never guess it... an indian lady. No I am not an orphan. The most qualified teacher in secondary was a lady from Uganda. High school was very good experience we had the whole ethnic spectrum of teachers and students (including white kenyan teachers).

University for me marked my first experience with "survivor" lecturers - who only doing what a Xerox machine does better. Again better ones that stood out did not skew towards "my people" in any way I could percieve.

I am not saying my people do not do well, I just cannot consider myself the same if my experinces were to be limited to those that point to my ethnic anchor, or the ethnicities of those that nourished me, trusted me, accepted me, challenged me, rewarded me. What comes up is a mixture that to me looks like a dream team.

I do not hate other people. That is the result of the limited AB thinking by Kenyans, which is almost as bad as Americans, no offense intended. The thinking here is generally if you say A then you must mean B. That is flawed logic. People whio can't think outside the box.

Thus my definition of primary Identity is the identity that we'll get you hurled out of a matatu and lynched because your name is Otieno, Kamau, Kiptanui or because you've not been circumcised. I can't understand why this is not the most logical train of though but to each his own.

The next step to embark on a historical journey, quite frankly because I've been learning all my life of what others have done, this I delve deeper into what my own did and what defined them and how they viewed the word. It is my contention that I'll find something just as relevant for todays world as I would if I delved into the works of Socrates, Plato and Machiavelli. It's a tragic shame though due to how, Information was transported in days gone, we can't find 1st person accounts of people who transversed through this societies.

By doing so I'm not suddenly going to be transformed into someone who hates all other tribes and by extension all other races. I agree with you that in the combination of all sorts of different people lies a lot of strength, and I've certainly been shaped by just a wide variety of people like you. Neither do I feel the need to go on a listing spree to prove this point.

The people in the rift valley and elsewhere that would kill others for whatever reason are to me just criminals. To me they are in same class as those have their fingers in the national piggy bank. Both can give you eloquent arguments about how they are somehow doing it for some part of "the country" but if they succeed then the law has failed. To me when the law fails, ethnicity will never salvage us from such a hole. We have no option that force our leaders to implement the letter of the law. The Mt. Elgon operation makes me feel that there would be action if enough political pressure was brought to bear.

That they are criminals is fact. On there other hand by reading accounts of the events that transpired in the RV, especially in the foreign media, I got the impression, that eve those who were not criminals and would not result to such acts offered silent support and approval.

I also got that impression from listening to a kalenjin professional on K24. One issue raised, would you not believe, was the naming of localities in Eldoret and vicinity in Kikuyu, like Kiambaa.

I don't think the government is in a position to guarantee the kind of security needed to enforce the rights enschrined in the constitution, of being able to own property in any part of the country. Furthermore I don't think we'll be able to for a long time. Here are my reasons why.

If the kind of gangs that were marauding in the RV come to your door they can carry any of this 2 things. If you let them in they'll probably rape your wife, your daughter and in some cases you. Then they might hack you to death. If you don't open for them and they are unable to get in by force, they'll burn you alive.

IMO, the security needed to avert that, would need the police to get to your door step from the time you make a distress call, say 20 minutes. In a rral setting anywhere in Kenya, whether in RV, central or what have you this is impossible because the infrastructure is really not there. You'd need roads as smooth as ice and a lot of police posts to do this.

2nd the numbers are not there. The internationally accepted police to population ratio is 1 to 400. In Kenya we are about 1 to 1000. Also due to ethnic affiliations you have to count on half the force being incapacitated at any one given time or even fighting each other. As such, I rationalize that we need a force of about 180 000 cops, who would be well paid. IMO a copper should be able to make 30K a month. Now at that rate you'd be paying the security apparatus about 64.8 billion shillings.

Kenya Government has a revenue of about 400 billion shillings. Here you see the impracticability of this scheme because they still have to pay the army, which ideally would have the same strength, the teachers who should earn slightly more and of whom by my reckoning we need 500 000 of, the civil servants and the politicians. That the Government operates on such revenue basis should give you an idea on who pathetically poor all this folks are paid. Except for the politicians of course.

This the right to settle and work anywhere in the republic of Kenya cannot be guaranteed by the government of Kenya and will thus remain beautiful words on a piece of paper called a constitution or whatever. People are actually living off the goodwill of the criminals, that they've packed their machetes, their bows and arrows and their match boxes. That 300 000 people were rendered refugees should give you an idea of the ineptitude of the government of Kenya to perform one of its core functions. We can carry out operations like in Mt. Elgon but they'll always be after the fact and quite useless for those killed, raped, maimed and rendered homeless. What's more the gangs will always be able to come back.

I am not a politician but if for example chose people the cabinet, say, from Nyeri, there would be an uproar too from Central Kenya. I truely believe that there are enough Kenyans to competently man the government ministries in any district including the north Eastern.
If they have more that 100 or so medical Doctors, Dentists, Engineers, Profs, Businessmen, and well educated secondary school teachers they can do it. That why I say you could even successfully run the government entirely from Nyeri alone.

But whether that is a good Idea to have a Nyeri Cabinet is a very different issue. So I imagine government manpower choices need a dose of demonstration of goodwill because I think, for most ministries, the real cutoff point is very very low considering we have more efficiently run companies than governments.

Here is the kicker. Whenever I would bring a friend home, my dad would ask "Na huyo ni kabila gani" - with a straight face, after the friend had left. I never understood this question at the time, I understand it just a little better now.

Precisely my point, which is why I said that for tribalism to be contained, it has to be institutionalised, just like gender equality is.
Obviously in a Kenya that some people here purport to live in, then there'd be no problem if all ministries are run by folks from one community.

re: boohoo
written by a guest , March 23, 2008

If you will allow me, I will borrow from N-Sync, cry me a river.

That's actually Justin 'Michael Jackson lite' Timberlake but it's easy to get them confused.

re: What does my Identity mean
written by James Watt , March 23, 2008

at most only one in four of the people you meet are likely to be from the same group. With fewer from the same social status, even fewer from the same mental frame.

Not true. If you live in a village down in Maragwa or Kiambu, Bunyala or Siaya everyone you meet will be of the same group, social status and social frame.

And then what keeps one from getting a more pure joint? Only my clan defines me well. Only my village does justice to my identity.

Precisely the idiocy, if you turn your argument the other way around, of all those who plead for the Kenyan identity, above the ethnic one, for even when we are one there'll still be reason to fight. Like by proclaiming that am Kenyan and Kenyan only, then the Kalenjin will stop chasing the Kikuyu from Eldoret and the Kikuyu chasing the Luo from Kiambu or the Luo chasing the Kikuyu and Kisii from Kisumu.

My good people where have been for the last 45 years? That's the road we've travelled so far, and yet I hear people fighting about the Borabu-Sotik border. If your theories which have been put to the test for the last 45 years were so incredible, should the exact location of the Borabu-Sotik border be irrelevant? Should it not be meaningless whether Kitale is in Western or The Rift Valley? In reality, it should be quite irrelevant how one chooses to identify themselves.

The Kenyan identity is easily shed, just need to change your passport, as all our athletes who ran off to Qatar, and all those who choose to resettle in England and the USA. The ethnic one remains. Granted they might change their names and their progeny will have less attachment, if any to their ethnic identities, but deep down am sure the Shaheens know that they are still cherono. It's all about the benjamins.

Ignore ethnicity at your own peril. Macharia Gaitho, once said that Kenya should be run like a business enterprise.

That is exactly my attitude, nothing more than a company that we should make sure is successful. An enterprise which has its stakeholders as the Luos the Kikuyus, the Luhyas etc. That's how Kenya has to be sold to its people. And the more successful and inclusive we make that enterprise, the less fighting will go on, the more we'll let people just be. Of course there are those who choose to identify with companies a lot and name their children after their various products. Hey, it's a free country.

Look at Stephen Wanyama grappling with the question of what Kenya gives us. Schooling, Rights to live anywhere (of course with a disclaimer, if Kenya can't guarantee the security to do so, then those rights are meaningless. Whether entrenched on the constitution). In other words, just those things that other states also do. It is not Baba na Mama.

How do we define our ethnic identity so that we have different results.

And what is the porpose of this heirarchy?

None really, except for those who choose to take offence at it. Frankly identify yourself first and foremost as a citizen of the universe to cast the biggest possible net, if you must.

Could it be that strengthening our ethnic identity is useful precisely because there are the "others" among us and it is the most "efficient" way to win the competition for pieces of our common inheritance that is Kenya?

Strangely no. At least not as far as I'm concerned. For I recognize too that the Gikuyu nation prospers, when Kenya does.And a perpetual state of war is quite cancerous to the growth of Kenya.
So what will lead to less aggravation? Definitely giving those with ethnic inclinations room to breath, lest they remove their poisonous arrows and pangas and Economic stability.

Finally, politics that take care of ethnic balance and harmony. This we must concede, for it might be that Kenya is better off were it run by 100 Luo men or 100 Luhya women, or 50 Kikuyu men and 50 Kikuyu women or 25 Ogiek women and 75 Ogiek men etc. But if you want to put the theory of 'sisi wote ni wa Kenya', run for political office on that platform.

That is the poetic irony, for us to slay the monster of ethnicity and gender inequality, we must institutionalize them. Each tribe must be given their 40 acres proportional to their populations and we can share the urban centres and the land in between. In the urban centres, the Kenyan identity, that some here so cherish can be grown and nurtured, and maybe who knows, it might one day swallow, all the other identities. Good Luck.

Otherwise kama sisi sote ni wamoja, what is this beef with Kibaki only appointing Kikuyus? Si ni Wakenya, ama niaje? Why should Wanyama ask for the Bukusus to be rewarded? Why should the Kipsigis ask for their own to be given due representation on Railas side of the cabinet.

I would understand if someone whats to take a sabbatical, raise funds to write a thesis on the Mijikenda and leave a legacy to his heritage. But this same person may be married to a Non-Kenyan. How would you value his identity heirarchy?

It's not just to leave a heritage but to find one. As for the person married to the non-kenyan, I seek not to prescribe how to rank his identity or not to, or anyone else for that matter, that is his or her business. I can only speak for myself.

re:
written by manta ray , March 24, 2008

Mr James Watt, arguing with you is a waste of time, (...)
(...)
(Then you might best resolve not to do it and not to "waste" your time, which could rather be devoted to writing a fine article. Alternatively, we only tolerate personalized attacks to the point that they still contribute to the topic, and be entertaining. Yours, in our opinion, were beyond the line this time. Sorry. Ed.)

Mr Editor, in as much as it is your right to demand certain standards for contributions to your forum, don't you think you are in danger of reducing Kenya Imagine to an elitist club for meaningless banter instead of spirited debate, because you are afraid some language may be too strong? What is wrong with speaking the truth and comparing James Watts to the present day Boers of the Freedom party in South Africa? They too advocate ethnic exclusion for themselves for the simple reason, they insist, that they cannot live with other South Africans with whom they do not share a similar culture. James Watts advocates cultural exclusion of the Kikuyu from the rest of Kenya. It is therefore necessary for him to understand the context within which he advocates his bigotry and coddling him for the sake of "civilised" debate is very dangerous for a fragile country like Kenya and we must move away from such thinking if we are to build a secure home. There are many, many Kenyans who think the same way and they must be made to see differently.
Hitler did exactly the same thing by advocating the cultural and economic exclusion of the Jews in Germany. We all know where that ended up. It is very, very important that people like Watts are made to switch on and see the danger in their blinkered thinking.
Mr Editor, you must not let Kenya Imagine end up like the Daily Nation or the EA Standard, mediums that do not allow free speech despite their claims to the contrary. If they did allow the truth to reign supreme, Kenyans would not be in the situation where they are now. Do not allow Kenya Imagine to go that way.

re: re:
written by James Watt , March 24, 2008

Mr James Watt, arguing with you is a waste of time, (...)
(...)
(Then you might best resolve not to do it and not to "waste" your time, which could rather be devoted to writing a fine article. Alternatively, we only tolerate personalized attacks to the point that they still contribute to the topic, and be entertaining. Yours, in our opinion, were beyond the line this time. Sorry. Ed.)

Mr Editor, in as much as it is your right to demand certain standards for contributions to your forum, don't you think you are in danger of reducing Kenya Imagine to an elitist club for meaningless banter instead of spirited debate, because you are afraid some language may be too strong? What is wrong with speaking the truth and comparing James Watts to the present day Boers of the Freedom party in South Africa? They too advocate ethnic exclusion for themselves for the simple reason, they insist, that they cannot live with other South Africans with whom they do not share a similar culture. James Watts advocates cultural exclusion of the Kikuyu from the rest of Kenya. It is therefore necessary for him to understand the context within which he advocates his bigotry and coddling him for the sake of "civilised" debate is very dangerous for a fragile country like Kenya and we must move away from such thinking if we are to build a secure home. There are many, many Kenyans who think the same way and they must be made to see differently.
Hitler did exactly the same thing by advocating the cultural and economic exclusion of the Jews in Germany. We all know where that ended up. It is very, very important that people like Watts are made to switch on and see the danger in their blinkered thinking.
Mr Editor, you must not let Kenya Imagine end up like the Daily Nation or the EA Standard, mediums that do not allow free speech despite their claims to the contrary. If they did allow the truth to reign supreme, Kenyans would not be in the situation where they are now. Do not allow Kenya Imagine to go that way.

Again evidence of the simple and under developed Kenyan mind. Please, where did IO advocate for the exclusion of the Gikuyu from the rest of Kenya? Give me quotes, because. I know for sure that I did not say that.

Its basically what I in the post above this immediate post, that our nation is made of AB thinkers. If you say A, someone says that you must mean B. We have to develop more ability for complex thought otherwise we are ill equipped to argue with those who present ideas sklightly different from ours.

I contend that seeing Kenya as one homogenous thing is one way of looking at it. And so be it, those who primarily see themselves that way should have their day in court and a chance to do so. You could have put that theory through the test by boarding a bus and going to Kisumu Manta, the day after those 19
Luo kids were burnt in Naivasha.

On the other case the ones who see Kenya as a collage of different communities, should also be taken into account, for it is not only me who says that am a Kikuyu first then Kenyan but also I've also seen someone say that he was Maragoli before he ever was Kenyan, or someone say that eh is first Kalenjin then Kenyan. In my opinion, and I've said it a million times it must also be taken into account in designing the new Kenya. The debate we are having now was there at independence, so putting a bunch of folks together and telling them to love one another didn't really work. The postelection violences of 1991-2, 1997, 2002 and 2007 are more than ample proof that what was put together to grow has not done so.

I don't know where you went to school Manta Ray but if it is in Kenya, then it's again overwhelming evidence that our schooling system needs a dramatic overhaul. Not only is it producing thousands of young men devoid of discipline and lacking in minimal human decency, but it is also producing people lacking in serious thught capacitites, who when unable to bring any substance to a debate reacjh into their bags and pull out the primitive, backward and civilisation cards. People here also have seroius issues with comprehension.

re: re: re:
written by manta ray , March 24, 2008

I contend that seeing Kenya as one homogenous thing is one way of looking at it. And so be it, those who primarily see themselves that way should have their day in court and a chance to do so. You could have put that theory through the test by boarding a bus and going to Kisumu Manta, the day after those 19
Luo kids were burnt in Naivasha.

On the other case the ones who see Kenya as a collage of different communities, should also be taken into account, for it is not only me who says that am a Kikuyu first then Kenyan but also I've also seen someone say that he was Maragoli before he ever was Kenyan, or someone say that eh is first Kalenjin then Kenyan. In my opinion, and I've said it a million times it must also be taken into account in designing the new Kenya. The debate we are having now was there at independence, so putting a bunch of folks together and telling them to love one another didn't really work. The postelection violences of 1991-2, 1997, 2002 and 2007 are more than ample proof that what was put together to grow has not done so.

I don't know where you went to school Manta Ray but if it is in Kenya then it's again overwhelming evidence that our schooling system needs a dramatic overhaul.

Would you board a matatu to Kisumu or Eldoret at this time, go and advocate your Kikuyu chauvinism openly in those towns, and get away with it?
If you are an IDP from Eldoret, can you insist to those Kalenjins that they should let you farm your land while you advocate that they must recognise that you are a Kikuyu and that they are Kalenjin? What if you told them that instead of looking at you as a Kikuyu, they should look at you as first as a fellow Kenyan who happens to farm in their homeland, and that could you please resolve your differences as Kenyans, and not as Kikuyus or Kalenjins?
Which do you think would achieve a better result?
Where i went to school is irrelevant, i only wish you had attended the same institution so that you would be switching on a 150 watt bulb in your brain instead of a 25 watt, permanently.

re: re: re: re:
written by James Watt , March 24, 2008

If you are an IDP from Eldoret, can you insist to those Kalenjins that they should let you farm your land while you advocate that they must recognise that you are a Kikuyu and that they are Kalenjin? What if you told them that instead of looking at you as a Kikuyu, they should look at you as first as a fellow Kenyan who happens to farm in their homeland, and that could you please resolve your differences as Kenyans, and not as Kikuyus or Kalenjins?

Why should I go about telling people the very obvious? The Kalenjins made more than enough point in the first two months of this year. If they want to kill me because I'm a Kikuyu then they will, telling them we are all Kenyans won't help. That just happens in the plots of terrible hollywood movies. Those are just platitudes, that no one really believes in. Perhaps you Manta Ray. In which case you are probably a better man than I am, but who is judge? Your bulb comment is not enough to elicit a more response than this one.

Arthurian romance
written by a guest , April 23, 2008

If a round table to construct a new Kenya is called up, should the participants attend as representatives of their different ethnicities,

As the example teaches, a round table needs worthy chevaliers, and a truly noble king. There is a shortage of either in Kenya.

We have a lack of knights, but an over-abundance of knaves (tribalist or not).

am amazed
written by Wanyeki , April 23, 2008

Wanyama,you are either a very polished person ,so polished that you see things in very microscopic way, or you are very unreal,or worse still,live in denial. Like I said in my earlier comment, I have no apology to make for being from my ethnic background.

Wanyama wants us to believe that it is bad,actually stupid to have affinity to our ethnicity,however,let me give an example or India where there are Punjabis, Marathis, Tamils, Mandals, Manipulianas, Gujaratis etc and the Indian civilization is much older than ours, yet they have not stopped being who they are ,and India has not stopped developing because of that .

Instead,though they even have a federal government moulded on their ethnic groups, they have been able to rally, all these ethnic groups into building a great country.In fact their economy is built on their slogan'be Indian buy Indian'but this does not negate the fact that every thing else including in their schools,the dominate language in that state is the official language.knowing vernacular is important,this is not to say that those other Indians in any state who do not speak the dominate language are discriminated against,but though I am black and believe you me there are Indians that are darker than I am, I would be discriminated against because am first and foremost a foreigner and a black one for that matter.

The fact that I am Gikuyu has never made me to discriminate some from an ethnic group different from mine,in fact when I was an HR MANAGER, I never at any one time give a job to someone simply because they spoke my tongue,rather I went for the best irrespective of ethnicity,although, I know for sure that sometimes I gave the job to the second best if s/he was not Gikuyu and, a Gikuyu was first, to bring balance in the organisation,and sometimes just to beat the possibility of someone thinking that there are more Gikuyu in that organization because of my office.

I am Gikuyu and that won't change, and the good thing about it is that I don't, and am never going to try to reinvent the wheel by deny my roots.

If a round table to construct a new Kenya is called up, should the participants attend as representatives of their different ethnicities, and if the idea does not work they can slither back into their tribal cocoons, OR do they attend as representatives of Kenya who happen to come from different ethnicities, and if the idea does not work, they will keep hammering at it until it comes to fruition?
Which is MORE important and HEARTFELT to you, your ethnicity or your Kenyan Nationalism? Does being a Kenyan first and foremost make you a stronger Kikuyu or Luo, or is it the other way round? Please think about that.

This is neither here nor there ,tell me when Raila was negotiating was he a Kenyan first or a Luo.

I think you do not understand when someone say they are their ethnic group first. Kenyan Wanyama, wake up, why don't you just do away with your name an call yourself Kenyan that way, I will stop knowing that you are Luhya.

Don't be naive,you were not Kenyan before you became Luhya. For its worth,had Amin annexed the portion of Kenya he wanted , Wanyama would today be a proud Ugandan.

Those thugs who killed and chased people from their homes did not do that because they didn't know they were Gikuyu, not it is because they were made to believe that the Gikuyu and the Kisii stole their land ,actually these are criminals who wanted to reap where they did not sow

Wanyeki

to what end
written by Stephen Wanyama , April 23, 2008

Actually, I am not proud of Kenya either, I am very proud not to be a nationalist either. You have like most others who oppose me, totally misread my argument and create a strawman who you have taken to with great abandon. I have nowhere asked that you give up your ethnicity, nor that you be ashamed of it. By the way I have been exploring with great interest Mareka Gecaga's Kikuyu Vocabulary.

Kenyan ethnicities do for a fact pose a problem, we compete for resources based on our ethnicities, we have rivalries, intense rivalries based on our ethnicities, we kill, we steal and then retreat into our ethnicities. Our ethnicities are today hardly ever called up for much else and it is unlikely they will ever serve as anything but tools for our collection in baskets from which the political class can pick us.

For a fact ethnicity in Kenya when pronounced, necessarily highlights our differences rather than compels us to work together. You will agree with me that this is a thing to be avoided? You are a good man, or woman, which is the most important thing, not a good Kikuyu, or a good Kenyan. That is much more durable and reliable don't you think?

P.S. If the British had not come to Kenya, I would never have been a Luhya.