Gen Zs: We are not our parents' tribes, we're genuinely Kenyan

Gen Z protester cycles on the Thika Road Highway upside down as other protesters cheer during the Gen Z 1st anniversary led protests on 25th June 2025. [David Gichuru, Standard]​

“Tribal politics is for our parents. We are beyond tribes.” These words were spoken to a teacher friend of mine by one of his students, a young Kenyan who has grown up in the shadow of our nation’s political failures, but who still dares to dream of a country different from the one we inherited.

The student wasn’t being disrespectful to our elders, rather, she was naming a profound truth that Kenya’s youth are now living: we are no longer bound by the chains of tribal identity that once defined, divided, and destroyed us.