It's time for Kenyans to fight against tribalism

Before and after almost every election, politicians transform us from peace loving united Kenyans into primitive tribal beings. After the 2007 election, we as a country paid the biggest price yet for this primitive ideologically empty politics. We lost around one thousand five hundred of our fellow Kenyans and over half a million lost their homes and property and became IDPs. Our economy was on its knees and our image as a nation was despicable. The international community had to come in and rescue the situation, we shall remain forever grateful for their quick and timely response and support to reunite us. But we also owe it to ourselves and all of humanity to never go back to that darkest moment of our history by breathing life into our national covenant.

Surely we did not and still don’t need any foreign expert or court to tell us what is ailing us as a nation; we all know it is our primitive tribal politics. I say primitive because there’s no better term to use to describe a deliberate decision by politicians to group us into tribal voting blocs, as the basis on which we determine who leads our nation and who doesn’t. It is a total shame whichever way you look at it.

I must state here and now that I am glad and relieved that the false and shameful attempt by ICC to blame six Kenyans for our collective failure as people finally grounded to a long overdue halt. It is the seventh and the only culprit we must deal with as nation. The only culprit who is guilty as charged despite the fact that we have all chosen to set him/her free to repeat the same or even worse in future. That culprit number seven who should have been the only one on the dock of truth and justice is all of us as a people of Kenya, we that make up the collective conscience of our nation, we that have chosen tribalism as the basis of our politics. That “Ocampo Seventh” that is still out here must be confronted and told the truth.

My fellow countrymen and women, we know too well that this country has only made political progress when we unite as one people. The first political breakthrough for this nation was gaining our independence from colonial rule. This happened when we united as one people to defeat colonialists.

The second political milestone was the second liberation, we united as a people to give ourselves a true democracy and the culmination of this was the new 2010 Constitution. Previous attempts by a divided nation to review our constitution failed terribly until the day we united as one people to finish the journey to a true democracy.

The independence generation gave us freedom from colonialism; the subsequent generations gave us a true democracy. It is now the turn of our current youth, where I and majority of Kenyans belong, to make our contribution in this journey by uniting our people by defeating the remaining political injustice in our beloved nation: Tribalism.

The expectation that the same generation that gave us a true democracy will give us a united nation is not a realistic one. They are using the true democratic space they created to confine us to tribal politics while pretending to be taking us away from it. They will tell us to unite while addressing Kenyans from outside their tribes but change tact while addressing their tribesmen/women. They call it hate speech when their opponents beat drums of war but protest brutally in the name of free speech when their supporters are arrested for the same.

We cannot blame them, they are our fathers and mothers, they have done their part and it is now our turn to take over and do our duty to our nation. It will not be easy because it was neither easy for our independence generation to defeat colonialism nor was it any easier for the subsequent generations to bequeath us a true democracy. But we must do it; we owe it to our children to handover to them a united nation.

If we continue allowing the older generation to be in charge of this path to a united nation, they will only take us deeper into tribalism because it is the only way they know how to win elections. By pretending to preach unity away from home and then changing tune when they go back to their backyards. These decent elders are helpless in this area just like the apartheid regime was helpless in giving up on that terrible system. It will take a different tool-set, a new mindset, a fresh approach and a new generation to create a new politics for posterity. 

If there is a revolutionary political load on the current youth of our country, it is that of liberating our nation from tribalism. It is a battle we must win because losing it will mean that this country will be in this primitive yoke for many more years. It will also mean that our country will continue on a very delicate path of artificial unity that can easily crumble down like it did in 2007/2008.

Once the youth make it clear that tribal politics must be buried in the books of history, our elders will join us in the new covenant of a united nation and elections will be determined by issues not tribal alliances. Most importantly corruption in all its forms and shades will be tackled head on because we shall no longer have the current shameful state of tribalism been used to protect the corrupt.

It is then and only then that we shall be free at last free at last and we can thank God Almighty for being free at last. Let us all confront the “Ocampo Seventh” let us tell him/her the truth, let us deal with him/her once and for all so that the sovereign power of the people of Kenya can truly belong to them as envisioned in our 2010 Constitution. Currently our sovereignty is sadly in the hands of a few tribal demagogues.

Other nations of the world have struggled with primitively of other forms and shades such as racism, religious intolerance cultural/lifestyle prejudices but history has shown us over and over again that such shallowness has always been defeated by the insurmountable spirit and faith in the oneness of humanity that is so well captured in the preamble of our constitution: “proud of our ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, and determined to live in peace and unity as one indivisible sovereign nation.”

By slaying tribalism, through breathing life into our national covenant, we shall finally give meaning and inject life into the third verse of our national anthem. “Let all with one accord in common bond united, build this our nation together and the glory of Kenya, the fruits of our labor, fill every heart with thanksgiving.