Can ethnic democracy in Kenya succeed where Bill of Rights failed?

Democrats like to imagine that core human identities – like race, ethnicity, tribe, and gender – can be vanquished by a culture of individual rights. Post-modern and post-colonial theorists – of which I am a version – argue that these “core” identities shouldn’t be “essentialised”. The point is that there isn’t a “there, there” in race, the tribe, gender, or ethnicity.

That, in fact, these “core” identities are largely the result of social construction. In other words, our identities don’t make us radically different, and shouldn’t be the occasion for exclusion, or discrimination. But – and this is the nub – core identities are “real” but not “essential”. That’s because “reality” is “perception” – not immutable fact. Perception can be illusory, a cruel optical deception.