The political class exaggerate our differences

It appears that Dr David Ndii stirred the hornet’s nest by calling on Kenyan nation-tribes to head for the divorce court and end what in his view is an abusive relationship. The reactions have been as varied. Yet, Dr Ndii simply sounded a warning — a warning that all is not well in our family house.

Kenya is not the first or only nation to struggle with ethnic or other diversity challenges. Even developed nations have not escaped this blight. Scotland recently held a referendum to determine whether or not to remain part of the polygamist marriage called Britain. Britain itself has chosen a come-we-stay relationship with the EU, refusing to tie the full knot of marriage. The French-English divide in Canada is well documented. Thus, many nations of the world have suffered some form of ethnic unease or other. Whereas each struggle has had its own unique history, studies have suggested that they share the incubation of predisposing factors that are then followed by a set of triggers that sometimes result in mass violence. Many of these factors can only be understood by appreciating the nature of inter-ethnic relations within the particular context.

In Africa, literature on ethnicities reveals that most tribes in contemporary Africa possess no pre-colonial antecedents. Instead, according to Patricia Daley, studies have exposed “the colonial state’s role in defining and categorising the African population into supposedly distinct ethnic groups for the purposes of political control.” In other words, political leaders deliberately ignored the natural social categories and created artificial groupings convenient for political mobilisation. The assumption was that tribes, being either merely biological or based on false consciousness, would disappear with modernisation and the development of national identities. Unfortunately, as is the case in Kenya, they have not. It is perhaps in this light that Anderson (extensively quoted by Ndii) has argued that the nation is merely imagined. Interestingly, however, James Sidaway considered Anderson’s thesis to be materialist, “for he stresses that one of the things that makes nationalism possible is capitalism.” Sidaway argued that, on matters ethnic, there is no simple reduction, because complex dialectics are at work.

In a similar debate a few years back, Joyce Nyairo reasoned that our cultural and ethnic realignments are not created in perpetuity, “but are—with the help of political actors and cultural brokers—revised, rewritten, recreated depending on what people want to achieve and how they reposition their past to serve their political future.” Nyairo therefore argued for a new formulation of national identity driven by “the intellectual mettle to question the notion of tribe.” Kiriro wa Ngugi however stood with Anderson’s position, that nations are mere socially constructed entities open to processes of negotiation and revision. Wa Ngugi therefore argued that, whereas ethnicity must not be used for political mobilisation, it is a critical and integral part of society that cannot easily, or perhaps never, be wished away. He thus took pride in his tribe, not based on original belonging to a place but as part of his DNA strain — a fact that Diana Patel readily refuted; arguing that the differences in tribe have little or nothing to do with DNA.

What seems to emerge is that our cultural meanings and ethnic identities influence how we comprehend, explain, and act in the world. Yet, our selfish human nature drives us to want to dominate others, even if that other is a brother or sister from the same womb — a fact demonstrated by Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. That is why, in some situations, intra-ethnic conflict has been so strong as to render the notion of a tribal nation untenable. Whereas the contraption of a Western, a Central, or a Luo nation presupposes monolithic and homogenous groups within these regions that, once granted autonomy, would live happily ever after, nothing could be further from the truth. They will most likely claw at each other’s face right from wedding day. Check out South Sudan, and remember South Africa’s independence.

For Kenya, a critical reality is that our ethnic animosity is mainly superficial — not derived from fundamentals. As a city church, for example, the majority of weddings we conduct are inter-ethnic — often between a bride and groom from “enemy” communities. That is why, if there is to be a national divorce, let’s part ways with the political elite who, for their selfish ambitions, herd us like goats while painting other communities as our enemies. This is a lie we must reject.