Post by aeichener on Nov 21, 2005 13:01:01 GMT 3
... *drumroll* ....
to John Otieno.
In his article in this Monday's Kenya Times
www.timesnews.co.ke/21nov05/nwsstory/news4.html ,
he was really not embarrassed to write:
Why the Luyia cannot vote as a bloc is a question many of the region’s politicians have asked but not answered. The continued lack of answer has been evident in the interest, and campaign effort, both Banana and Orange gave to the province with 1,322,604 voters.
The political socialisation of the Luyia people for the last 50 years has been different from that of Luo and Agikuyu, which have proved to be politically conscious and united. Unlike the two communities, Luyias have proved to be politically rudderless and never achieved the political unity of purpose.
Well, what our uneducated evolué here describes has been the fate of virtually all of Kenya's ethnicities for a long time before the British arrived, so not much to wonder about.
What is wondrous however is that one could indeed be so deluded to think that the mere "belonging" to a single and allegedly homogenous "tribe" (anyhow a chimera, if you look into it a bit deeper, as OO has occasionally exemplified for Nyanza) would necessarily make for a "political unity of purpose".
Listen, John Otieno: negative ethnicity is no "unity of purpose"; on the contrary, such an attitude is apt todefeat most political purposes.
If there is anything that a resonable spectator would and should wonder about (unless he has checked in his brain in the pawnshop, for lack of actual need to use it), it would be why for heavens one would all _expect_ any larger and widely mixed group of people to be "united" in any political question that goes beyond the most narrowly definied regional or local interest, and why at all such a large group would be anything else than diverse in voting patterns.
Such Kenyans as John Otieno, my my.... Defining themselves as kept cattle, and then complaining that they are treated like livestock by their politicians. Such people would really rather belong under the colonialists. For ethnicity, strife and fratricide have always existed, but it were the colonialists who shaped these conflicts and rivalries into concepts of "tribalism"; indeed, the tribalization of Kenyan ethnia was of one of their main political successes, a noxious, poisoned success lasting until today (...timeo Danaos et dona ferentes...).
*shakes head*
Alexander
to John Otieno.
In his article in this Monday's Kenya Times
www.timesnews.co.ke/21nov05/nwsstory/news4.html ,
he was really not embarrassed to write:
Why the Luyia cannot vote as a bloc is a question many of the region’s politicians have asked but not answered. The continued lack of answer has been evident in the interest, and campaign effort, both Banana and Orange gave to the province with 1,322,604 voters.
The political socialisation of the Luyia people for the last 50 years has been different from that of Luo and Agikuyu, which have proved to be politically conscious and united. Unlike the two communities, Luyias have proved to be politically rudderless and never achieved the political unity of purpose.
Well, what our uneducated evolué here describes has been the fate of virtually all of Kenya's ethnicities for a long time before the British arrived, so not much to wonder about.
What is wondrous however is that one could indeed be so deluded to think that the mere "belonging" to a single and allegedly homogenous "tribe" (anyhow a chimera, if you look into it a bit deeper, as OO has occasionally exemplified for Nyanza) would necessarily make for a "political unity of purpose".
Listen, John Otieno: negative ethnicity is no "unity of purpose"; on the contrary, such an attitude is apt todefeat most political purposes.
If there is anything that a resonable spectator would and should wonder about (unless he has checked in his brain in the pawnshop, for lack of actual need to use it), it would be why for heavens one would all _expect_ any larger and widely mixed group of people to be "united" in any political question that goes beyond the most narrowly definied regional or local interest, and why at all such a large group would be anything else than diverse in voting patterns.
Such Kenyans as John Otieno, my my.... Defining themselves as kept cattle, and then complaining that they are treated like livestock by their politicians. Such people would really rather belong under the colonialists. For ethnicity, strife and fratricide have always existed, but it were the colonialists who shaped these conflicts and rivalries into concepts of "tribalism"; indeed, the tribalization of Kenyan ethnia was of one of their main political successes, a noxious, poisoned success lasting until today (...timeo Danaos et dona ferentes...).
*shakes head*
Alexander