Let's dare to fight negative ethnicity

Issues that have very little to do with ethnicity suddenly become politicised. Such assertion was hard to contest as early as the mid-1960s. Today it is beyond dispute.PHOTO: COURTESY

The use of ethnicity for political growth is now a familiar phenomenon, having been used relentlessly and remorselessly by politicians to seek and retain powers.

Too often, the ethnic card is played to stir populism or to score political points.

Issues that have very little to do with ethnicity suddenly become politicised. Such assertion was hard to contest as early as the mid-1960s. Today it is beyond dispute.

During electioneering periods, ethnic affiliations are wildly exaggerated so as to establish a presumption of a close consanguineous kinship between tribesmen with intent to build a tribal position.

The existence of such a position, often-times disguised as “community interest”, rejects even the possibility of a rational debate and spontaneously conjectures irredeemable bad faith on the part of any probable non-conformist.

This should be of great concern to us because when politicians exclusively use tribes to bludgeon andnot their individual ability to persuade, when tribal position supersedes all other opinions and facts, and when people stop listening to one another for the fear of reproach from their kinsmen, we have in effect consecrated ethnicity as a politically instrumental principle, making each tribe a standalone voting entity.

Ultimately, it will become impossible for Kenyans from different ethnic groups to meet on common ground - even to inhabit a common reality.

We have inadvertently nurtured the “perfect conditions for durable division”.

Admittedly, the use or misuse of ethnicity as a political tool of trade encapsulates the whys and wherefores of our inability to attain nationhood after five and half decades of statehood.

However, the chronic absence of nationhood in our country is not only a “by-product” of the ethnic-based politics. It is also a cause.

The recent emergence of “tribal coalitions” across the country as voting blocs should not be misconstrued as a sign of improvement in inter-ethnic relations.

The formation of tribal alliances by key political protagonists divulges not only their inability but also lack of political will on their part to create a genuine system of political accommodation.

A tribal coalition is indeed an elevation of tribalism for it is principally centred on the absolute exclusion of others. The 2013 events in my home County of Marsabit - the election of Governor Ukur Yattani through a coalition of three communities namely the Rendille, Gabbra and the Burji dubbed “REGABU” and the subsequent ethnic clashes in the county - hold lessons for us all in and outside Marsabit.

While ethnicity is not conflictive per se and cannot, therefore, cause conflict, it becomes an instrument of war when ethnic attachments serve some individual or collective ends.

It is a primary datum of observation that the 2013 conflict in Marsabit was not caused directly by “ancient hatreds” and “years-old feuds” among the communities.

Rather, it was instigated by political entrepreneurs and ethnic activists. Indeed, the intermittent periods of peace in such a multi-ethnic county suggests that ethnic diversity does not constitute a problem.

From that conflict, one lesson that I believe to be salient is that the appointment of individuals from the “excluded groups” into the government after the elections, merely for compliance with the constitution cannot constitute inclusion or facilitate social cohesion and integration.

True, reflection of diversity in appointment is an important barometer of compliance with the constitution. But the voting public was not born yesterday and can distinguish attempts to create “illusions of inclusion” from a genuine effort to foster long-term inter-ethnic harmony.

Whereas we must concede the politics of “us versus them” is already deep-rooted in our country and might take decades or more to uproot, it is absolutely vital that we try.