The big tribe as premier roadblockWith an air of developed-world conceit, Western correspondents call us "tribesmen", especially during our many internecine civil wars. Yet beneath it lies a basic truth. Almost everything we do proves our "tribalism". In Kenya, whenever it comes to a crucial power issue, any child can predict our reaction. We reveal our parochiality of desire and puniness of mind in stark nakedness. How can we possibly know the merits or demerits of, for example, an executive premiership when we reduce such a national issue to a slanging match between supporters and opponents of an individual? Despite pretences at moral and intellectual arguments, anybody can see the tribal orientation of the "debaters". How can it be accidental that only Luo intellectuals produce arguments supporting that post? Can it be a coincidence that Kikuyu intellectuals see only evil in it? I confine myself to intellectuals because the "debate" is clearly elitist. At Bomas, we hear only the voices of the privileged, not "Wanjikus". What reaches the newspaper pages is only the self-interest of the educated and the propertied. There is always, of course, a Kibe Mungai to prove the rule. Yet even the exception is elitist. If the masses have a voice, it gets stifled in a plethora of the tribal leader's self-images. What would the Luo and Kikuyu masses think of the PM idea were they free to think for themselves, knew what the issue was about and were not victims of propaganda by their respective tribal elites? We cannot know. But why does the elite seek to mildew its tribe's mind with stuff on the leader's self-interests packaged as an "intellectual" argument? By presenting their individual interests as tribal interests, the leaders kill two birds with one stone. One, through voting, the tribe, if it is large, becomes a ladder to individual power. Two, it is the tribe's name – not the individual's – that suffers should anybody complain of tribalism. Kenyans speak libellously of "Kikuyu tribalism" or "Kalenjin tribalism" for crimes which those communities never committed, but only individuals hiding their crimes in tribal robes. Under Kenyatta, indeed, the Kikuyu mass was exploited and oppressed – for instance, by "land-buying companies" and other grabbers – than were all other ethnic communities. The same is true of the Kalenjin mass under Moi. Yet, despite what the Kenyatta system did to the Kikuyu mass, that mass still overwhelmingly prefers a Kikuyu individual – "our man" – at the helm, even if he be the very devil. They will not vote for a Luo, even if he be a saint. This misplaced and nationally dangerous "ethnic pride" is not in Kikuyu blood. It is the way all the tribal elites have conditioned their respective masses. The masses act according only to the needs of the tribal boss because those masses are profoundly ignorant of their own real needs – which is to unite their several ethnic energies to thwart this elite conspiracy passing as democracy. No matter if a Kikuyu candidate really represents national unity and success, the Luo mass will not vote for him unless – as happened in 2002 – directed by the Luo boss, and vice versa. It is this mass self-ignorance that the individual politicians exploit through the "false pretence" that a tribe can achieve its interests only when its own son is the president or the prime minister. That the tribal masses have fallen for it is proved at every presidential election. Mr Kibaki does not owe his victory in Nyanza to any popularity. He owes it to Mr Odinga. The Luo voted for him only because Mr Odinga had told them this was what would boost his own chances of succeeding Mr Kibaki at State House. That is the essence of the PM "debate". Every time a Luo politician praises that office, he is only campaigning for Mr Odinga. Every time a Kikuyu leader emotes about its dangers, he is only expressing the Kikuyu elite's morbid fear of a Luo at the helm. I know that somebody exists in this country – even among the Njemps – whose leadership can help us uproot this cancer once and for all. But big-tribe chauvinism will never allow us to discover and anoint that person. |
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