“Let’s first understand where the rain started beating us”.
That’s the answer the late Chinua Achebe, may his soul rest in peace, gave to a
young writer in a writer’s forum in Makerere University when the writer asked why
is it that African Literature doesn’t get international audience. Actually,
that’s not the point here, but the answer that Achebe gave is, by and large,
inextricably intertwined in the answers to this sad menace of negative
ethnicity that is deeply rooted in the social, economic and political fabric of
the Kenyan society.
Ethnicity isn’t bad, it has never been. It’s negative ethnicity
that is. I won’t totally agree with Mutahi Ngunyi in his article saying we need
to begin by committing ethnic suicide. Since the solution to this concern
doesn’t lie in denial and its derivatives but in confronting it head on. I
cannot deny being a Maasai, Luo or Kalenjin but I need to see my friend, my
boss, my team mate for more than where he comes from. Indeed, where did the
rain start beating us?
In a recent article in the business daily publication, Fatou Bensouda (chief ICC prosecutor),
raises a very pertinent question; should justice be sacrificed at the altar of
peace? Or vice versa? Fifty years of independence, we have invested heavily in
ethnic stereotyping and contempt. Our leaders, current and former, have done so
well in watering the seeds of this vice. Both industry players and political
leaders no exception, have done their part in feeding this monster. What we
have now, and what the sons and daughters we give birth to are inheriting, is a
raw form of negative ethnicity, actually in its crudest form. My friend’s
mother will never accept her son to marry from a certain tribe, and so is my
friend. She will never vote in a leader from a certain ethnic community. We
might deny it, but it does exist. Until and unless we confront it, it will
haunt us in perpetuity. Indeed, our founding fathers amassed and galvanized the
national wealth along ethnic affiliations and divided leadership positions
purely on tribal loyalty and asymmetry. The governance that has proceeded it
has done exactly that, only in a more advanced form. But where do we draw a
line between negative ethnicity and ethnicity in its plain form?
The whole nation should worry when a certain section of the
population feels alienated, when their hopes and aspirations fade into a
collective pool of frustrations. We should worry because if it reaches that
point, as it goes, there’s nothing as dangerous as a man who has nothing left
to loose. Every son or daughter born in this country, male or female, Maasai or
Luo, short or tall, should have equal opportunity to lead in whatever capacity
they so choose and to occupy the highest office on land. If my prospective of
getting a job in a certain firm or in getting a license to form a business will
depend on my surname, we should all be worried.
When we address the reasons why I should get frustrated when
a leader not from my ethnicity, ascends to power with equal merit as that from
mine. Then, and only then, we should dwell on healing, integration, equality,
unity of purpose and com-patriotism. We need not talk about these things, and by
extension sacrifice justice at the altar of peace, before we address the
former. I hope, rather believe, that when we address the former, we shall convince my friends mother that it's
ok for her son to marry from wherever he thinks fit. We shall convince my
friend that she can vote in a leader from whichever community, only filtering
merit, aspirations, determination and tenacity.
Charles Darwin says in his book natural selection, that organisms, mostly primates, are naturally
pre-disposed to favor their own kind. But evolution has proven that integration
and unity of human species is far more formidable than natural selection, than
the rule of the jungle; survival for the fittest.
The monster of negative ethnicity needs to be slain from the
head, not from the legs. The Wanjikus
do not harbor the solution but the governance does. If the governance detoxes
itself of the belief system that top appointments and constitutional offices
are reserved for tribesmen and loyalist, then the Wanjikus will be made to
understand that elections are not a matter of life and death.
Elections in Kenya have, for the umpteenth time, taken a
dangerously tribal tangent. Aspiring politicians have managed to use this trump
card to their advantage; it’s us against them- that’s how the electorate have
been made to understand. Electioneering periods have brought into sharp focus a
rare display of ethnic solidarity. Tribal passions are at their apex- if you do
not speak my language, you don’t get my vote. Leadership is elected to
represent the interests of the citizenry, not to rubber-stamp ethnic interests.
Wanjikus need to be made to understand
this, and that’s why it needs to start from the leadership. Tribal chieftains
have to forge a common ground. Otherwise we’ll be left asking ourselves where
the rain started beating us, when these passions and hatred have built to their
boiling point, or we’ll believe Charles Darwin’s theory is incurable anyway!
By Levi Barasa
Accomplished Blogger
Finance Major
University of Nairobi
Miss USA- Nina Davuluri