Post by bkichwa on Dec 9, 2006 5:07:25 GMT 3
www.eastandard.net/archives/cl/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143962181&date=8/12/2006
Fallacies of tribe divide and enslave our people
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By Koigi wa Wamwere
Today, Kenyans from different communities are suspicious of, hate and fight one another more than ever before.
Because it is easier to hate, we have forgotten that it is better to love. But hate is very costly to the hated, the hater and the country. Apart from the ease of doing it, why do we hate one another? It is because of fallacies about other communities and we that fuel mutual hatred.
Negative ethnicity is created by ethnic elites who propagate fallacies that make our minds and hearts sick with tribalism. People protect their interests not as individuals, economic classes or Kenyans, but as ethnic communities in exclusion of others.
Communities should not think and their ethnic chiefs do it for them. Interests of ethnic chiefs and the elite are superior to those of their communities. If you go to Nyeri, Kisumu or Kabarnet and ask people what their problems are, they will not raise their own, but the power and protection of President Kibaki, Mr Raila Odinga and former President Moi.
We elect the President, MPs and councillors not to represent and speak for us in Government, Parliament and councils, but to enthrone our ethnic chief. After electing him, MPs and councillors speak for him and people are left without a voice.
Like bees that live for their queen, they live, not for themselves but their ethnic chiefs.
If you criticise, challenge or compete with a tribal chief from your community, you are labelled a traitor. If you do it from without, you are an enemy and must be dealt with. However able a person from another community is, he must never be our President.
Because of our different languages, hair texture, shades of colour, cultural practices and even traditional food, some feel better, superior to and more deserving than others. Others hate themselves in the belief that they are worse and inferior. Though all of us are somewhat tainted, we believe we are innocent and only others are guilty of tribalism.
Someone from another community is never right, but we are. When they speak, you do not listen. As people in the West used black people Jews as scapegoats for a long time, a person from another community is always the witch among us. If we lack something, he is responsible and to blame. To survive, we must rob our witches and find a final solution to them.
Our community will survive best not by loving and sharing with others, but hating, robbing and killing others with whom we must never unite or share.
As the rest of the world forms blocks of economic, political and military survival, tribal chiefs tell us that our future lies in the eventual fragmentation into ethnic states, majimbos or small ponds where ethnic chiefs can reign supreme.
If a leader from our community becomes or is President, we will all be rich or become so. Conveniently, we forget that though we have had a Kalenjin and two Kikuyu Presidents, most Kalenjin and Kikuyu people are poor.
We refuse to see that if presidents eat with the elite of other communities that help them govern, they do not eat with their people and the latter remain poor before and after their man’s rule. We believe the rule of our tribal chief is the best because it will usher us into eating. We forget that the exclusion of most Kenyans is ultimately suicidal when our turn is over.
If a leader from our community is or becomes President, we think we, too, are President or shall be. We talk of a Kikuyu, Kalenjin or Luo President, but the leaders have names — Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki. There will never be a President Luo, President Kikuyu, President Luhya, President Kalenjin or President Kamba.
Because two Kikuyus and one Kalenjin have been presidents, the fallacy is that every Kikuyu and Kalenjin is rich and people in other communities are poor. Conversely, if a President comes from other communities, they will automatically become rich.
To boost the fallacy, we refuse to see the rich in our own communities and only see the rich in others. When leaders from our communities become presidents, it is to make us rich, not serve all Kenyans or make their families rich. We refuse to interrogate ourselves and ask why families of presidents are rich, but 99 per cent of their communities and constituencies are poor.
Despite the assassination of JM Kariukis, Bishop Muges and betrayal of Mau Mau, we believe a President from our community can never hurt us.
Equally, we believe presidents from other communities will enslave and kill us. We thus follow bad ethnic leaders blindly and sing all the way to our grave and reject good leaders from other communities.
When we hate ourselves, we apologise for our ethnicity and instead of fighting for equality take refuge in the back seats of leadership.
Although ethnic elites know these are dangerous fallacies, they propagate them because they are politically profitable. By instilling fear of the devil in their people, they enslave and make them follow them to their slaughter. Tribalism is the elite’s greatest political capital.
For ordinary people, the village is their world and whatever reigns there rules them. Enslaved by ignorance and the tyranny of the so-called communal survival, they follow tribal chiefs to their own perdition. They have no idea that elites fan ethnic wind to fly their own kites, not the people’s.
The writer is the Assistant Minister for Information and Communication
Fallacies of tribe divide and enslave our people
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Koigi wa Wamwere
Today, Kenyans from different communities are suspicious of, hate and fight one another more than ever before.
Because it is easier to hate, we have forgotten that it is better to love. But hate is very costly to the hated, the hater and the country. Apart from the ease of doing it, why do we hate one another? It is because of fallacies about other communities and we that fuel mutual hatred.
Negative ethnicity is created by ethnic elites who propagate fallacies that make our minds and hearts sick with tribalism. People protect their interests not as individuals, economic classes or Kenyans, but as ethnic communities in exclusion of others.
Communities should not think and their ethnic chiefs do it for them. Interests of ethnic chiefs and the elite are superior to those of their communities. If you go to Nyeri, Kisumu or Kabarnet and ask people what their problems are, they will not raise their own, but the power and protection of President Kibaki, Mr Raila Odinga and former President Moi.
We elect the President, MPs and councillors not to represent and speak for us in Government, Parliament and councils, but to enthrone our ethnic chief. After electing him, MPs and councillors speak for him and people are left without a voice.
Like bees that live for their queen, they live, not for themselves but their ethnic chiefs.
If you criticise, challenge or compete with a tribal chief from your community, you are labelled a traitor. If you do it from without, you are an enemy and must be dealt with. However able a person from another community is, he must never be our President.
Because of our different languages, hair texture, shades of colour, cultural practices and even traditional food, some feel better, superior to and more deserving than others. Others hate themselves in the belief that they are worse and inferior. Though all of us are somewhat tainted, we believe we are innocent and only others are guilty of tribalism.
Someone from another community is never right, but we are. When they speak, you do not listen. As people in the West used black people Jews as scapegoats for a long time, a person from another community is always the witch among us. If we lack something, he is responsible and to blame. To survive, we must rob our witches and find a final solution to them.
Our community will survive best not by loving and sharing with others, but hating, robbing and killing others with whom we must never unite or share.
As the rest of the world forms blocks of economic, political and military survival, tribal chiefs tell us that our future lies in the eventual fragmentation into ethnic states, majimbos or small ponds where ethnic chiefs can reign supreme.
If a leader from our community becomes or is President, we will all be rich or become so. Conveniently, we forget that though we have had a Kalenjin and two Kikuyu Presidents, most Kalenjin and Kikuyu people are poor.
We refuse to see that if presidents eat with the elite of other communities that help them govern, they do not eat with their people and the latter remain poor before and after their man’s rule. We believe the rule of our tribal chief is the best because it will usher us into eating. We forget that the exclusion of most Kenyans is ultimately suicidal when our turn is over.
If a leader from our community is or becomes President, we think we, too, are President or shall be. We talk of a Kikuyu, Kalenjin or Luo President, but the leaders have names — Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki. There will never be a President Luo, President Kikuyu, President Luhya, President Kalenjin or President Kamba.
Because two Kikuyus and one Kalenjin have been presidents, the fallacy is that every Kikuyu and Kalenjin is rich and people in other communities are poor. Conversely, if a President comes from other communities, they will automatically become rich.
To boost the fallacy, we refuse to see the rich in our own communities and only see the rich in others. When leaders from our communities become presidents, it is to make us rich, not serve all Kenyans or make their families rich. We refuse to interrogate ourselves and ask why families of presidents are rich, but 99 per cent of their communities and constituencies are poor.
Despite the assassination of JM Kariukis, Bishop Muges and betrayal of Mau Mau, we believe a President from our community can never hurt us.
Equally, we believe presidents from other communities will enslave and kill us. We thus follow bad ethnic leaders blindly and sing all the way to our grave and reject good leaders from other communities.
When we hate ourselves, we apologise for our ethnicity and instead of fighting for equality take refuge in the back seats of leadership.
Although ethnic elites know these are dangerous fallacies, they propagate them because they are politically profitable. By instilling fear of the devil in their people, they enslave and make them follow them to their slaughter. Tribalism is the elite’s greatest political capital.
For ordinary people, the village is their world and whatever reigns there rules them. Enslaved by ignorance and the tyranny of the so-called communal survival, they follow tribal chiefs to their own perdition. They have no idea that elites fan ethnic wind to fly their own kites, not the people’s.
The writer is the Assistant Minister for Information and Communication
