By Barrack Muluka

I have been savouring the bliss of a salubrious countryside, all the time that they have been going on and on about the media in the city.

I followed all there was to follow on the big media meeting in Nairobi on a local radio station — Mulembe FM.

Mulembe means peace. But it is also the word we use for greetings, around here. When two people meet, regardless that they are total strangers, they must exchange greetings. They utter this single word, ‘Mulembe’. And you say, ‘Mulembe muno’. In a sense, it is like the Jews saying, ‘Shalom.’ It signifies my goodwill to you and my expectation that you also wish me well.

The Abaluyia people are legendary in their love for greetings. The handshake is a must, and it must be warm and firm.

Sometimes the arm is supported at the elbow, to signify courtesy and respect.

A weak meeting of hands in greetings is frowned upon. It is called a cold greeting.

We love a strong firm handshake that enables us to explore and get into the innermost recesses of your soul. Your greeting will enable us to know whether you wish us well or ill.

We look you in the eye at the moment of greeting and judge your smile from the glint in the eye rather than from the showing of the whiteness of your teeth. We do not keep much store by laughing, for it does not tell us much about your true feeling.

Like Okot p’Bitek’s Oceka Ladwong and his Acholi relatives, in the novella White Teeth we know that when people laugh in this life, it is mostly the whiteness of their teeth that makes them do so. It is not the softness of their insides.

And so when they set up the first 24 hour service radio station that broadcasts in our mother tongue, someone had the good sense to call it Mulembe FM. Through it we wish each other well and listen out for the latest. We carry our love for greetings to another level through this medium. Gone are the days of ‘Ninataka kusalamieko Moses Shoto Omunyololo, wa Kabras, MacTonalt Lopes Pin…’ Now we do it in our eighteen dialects. We are the Abaluyia and we truly love greetings.

Someone has composed a song to that effect. And so it is ‘Kakamega emilembe (greetings), Chavakali, emilembe, Abaluyia emilembe and even Emanyulia emilembe . . .’ world without end.

This radio station now defines our identity in Western Province as the Abaluyia people; more or less in contrast with other Kenyan nations. Complex things that we could not understand before now come to us in idiom and imagery close to our world. It does not matter what the topic may be; we get it.

I made it a point to check with my friends from other Kenyan communities. The findings are revealing. What Mulembe FM is to Abaluyia people, Kass FM is to the Kalenjin. The Kisii have Egesa FM while the Meru and Embu have Muuga and Wimwaro, respectively. The Kikuyu are spoilt for choice between Coro, Kameme and Inooro FM.

The Akamba listen to Musyi and the Luo have Radio Ramogi. Which is all good.

Other Kenyan language communities are grouped together under one wing or the other, depending on the media house. These are the numerically smaller communities. They are forced to switch to the more universal channels when their particular ethnic airtime is up.

It is rather clear to me that the massive decisions of today and tomorrow in the major language communities will be hugely influenced (if not driven) by the FM stations.

The local language FM stations are no pushovers. They will make or break the wider Kenyan nation.

They are critical to the management of the country’s ethnic diversity. Of critical note is that in aggregate, they are now the channels of the majority, by choice. Next to that, you cannot wish them away. They are here to stay.

They will rule the mind of the majority of the citizenry on critical national issues, and yet their audience will begin by looking out for the local advantage in the national issue.

Policy makers and all others who want to reach massive populations can ignore the local language FM radio stations at their own peril.

In the coming days, these stations will determine how Kenyans will vote on the Constitutional Referendum.

In point of fact, FM radio stations will to a very great extent determine the outcome of the 2012 General Election. But beyond that, they will determine whether Kenya remains united in diversity or whether Kenya will burn again after the 2012 elections.

We have indeed come a long way from the days of the Voice of Kenya, when Yours Truly used to say on the airwaves ‘This is the Voice of Kenya, Nairobi,’ and it would no longer be the voice of one Barrack Muluka, for it was Kenya speaking to Kenya. But Kenya can still speak to Kenya through a diversity of voices. It all depends on whether we have a policy to manage ethnic diversity and especially via the media.

—The writer is a publishing editor and media consultant .

okwaromuluka@yahoo.com