Post by Onyango Oloo on Aug 23, 2017 16:36:52 GMT 3
A Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo
I have seen and read Kenyans in social media wax forth about secession.
This is especially after the heavily contested controversial August 2017 elections. Many have echoed economist and political pundit David Ndii’s call. There is an online petition currently going around which alludes to the concept and prospects of secession in Kenya.
Many are driven by anger and frustration especially the culture of impunity that allows certain political elites in the country to abuse ethnicity and regional origin as a tried and tested divide and rule tactic.
But maybe we should step back and contemplate the actual historical, political and legal meaning of secession.
From recent history we see the examples of South Sudan and Eritrea. We are also familiar with the civil wars in Nigeria, Angola and other African countries over this vexing matter.
In our own country we know that the people in northern Kenya launched a military conflict which was heavily suppressed by the Jomo Kenyatta regime in the 1960s and much more recent attempts at the Coast led by the Mombasa Republican Council to separate the region from Kenya, In Kenya, those calling for secession have cited a host of ethnic, religious and socio-economic grievances to shore up their arguments. More recently, as has been mentioned, dissatisfaction in the NASA strongholds about the way Jubilee stole the elections is the latest flame in the fire of those agitating for secession.
I remember an interview I had with the late Wangari Maathai when I was still living and working in Montreal. The talk, which was supposed to be part of a weekly radio show that I hosted at CKUT FM, a community-based radio station at McGill University was unfortunately lost because my recording equipment failed me. But I remember her clearly reminding me of her 1997 Presidential bid. Then she went on the record to say more or less that the various tribes or “nations” as she called them should go their separate ways-with the Luos going one way, the Agikuyu the other, on to the Kambas, Gusiis, Luhyias, Maasai, Mijikenda and so on. She was not alone in expressing this sentiment.
What should I, as a progressive Kenyan say in the light of the current debate on secession?
Should I be on the side who scream “Kenyan national unity” at all costs?
Should my lot be tied to those who tell me-Onyango Oloo you are a Luo, what benefit do you get from this fiction called “Kenya”? Some of my family members have posed this question directly to me.
I have a South Sudanese wife who has posed a different but related proposal to me-look “our people” by which she means the Luo affiliated communities like the Dinka, the Nuer, the Sudanese Luo, the Anywak, the Acholi (who are found also in neighboring Uganda) were to come together “we” would form a greater entity. I have read on the internet, someone from the Anywak people of Ethiopia also make a similar argument but he reaches wider to embrace the Alur of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Luos of northern Tanzania, the Padhola and Langi of Uganda and other tribes. Some far reaching Egyptologists-including our own Philip Ochieng’, who in actual fact a Suba-have drawn a wide net to link the Luos to Nigeria and Ghana.
The problem that I, Onyango Oloo have with such notions, based as they are, on the concept of “tribe” and regional origin is the very term, “tribe” itself.
Tribe is a social construct.
If we are to be honest, all those people who are calling themselves “Kikuyus” “Luos” “Luhyias” “Kisii” and so forth are an admixture of many other roots. Many members of the Agikuyu-including Uhuru Kenyatta-have Maasai ancestry. Raila Odinga has publicly stated his Wanga connections. Prof. Ayiecho Olweny the Muhoroni politician cannot deny his Gusii relatives while the late Ole Ntimama in spite of Maasai “nationalism” had relatives among Meru meanwhile even while he was still alive people speculated about Saitoti as to whether he was Maasai or Agikuyu. In my own family some of my first cousins from Oyugis have got names which are shared among the natives of Keroka, Nyamira and other parts of Kisii. Speaking personally, my maternal grandmother was born a Luhyia in Emanyulia- the same village as writer and commentator Barack Muluka[/b-who told me at a civil society breakfast meeting in 2008 of what his village mates told him when he was vying for the Khwisero seat in 2007 on an ODM ticket: “Okwaro, our son, what shall we do with you? We Luhyias have decided to back Raila for President. Now how can you, who everybody knows is a Mnyolo (a Luo) also elect you to represent the people of Khwisero." Muluka was just echoing what my grandmother told me when she was still. A woman from Emanyulia living in France told me that my grandmother was right. She too was from Emanyulia and she too had been called a Luo by local community even though her family had lived in the area for more than a hundred years. My own grandparent told me that her forebears were from Alego Boro and left their original home to seek sanctuary in Emanyulia because of some cultural conflict.
The other thing to bear in mind is that even the concept of “Kenya” itself is a colonial construct forged together when European imperialist powers were carving up Africa in the late 19th Century. What is Kenya today divided Somalis who are now divided from their Somali, Djibouti, Somaliland and Ethiopian aunties and uncles while the Boranas are part of the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia-the Oromos. There are more Tesos who are Ugandan citizens born and bred and we know that Awori Samia family once had two siblings who were an inch away from clinching the Presidency of two countries-Kenya and Uganda.
The question of secession which some of our people are so gung ho about has not prevented South Sudan to degenerate into bloody and gruesome ethnic-based feuds among the Dinkas and the Nuer-two communities I understand have close linguistic and cultural links apart from ongoing inter-marriages. Eritrea, which declared itself independent of Ethiopia, is now a maximum security prison for thousands of patriots who fought for that dream to be a reality.
I will juxtapose the question of secession to that, not of Kenyan nationalism but to the ideals of Pan Africanism and for me, as a Marxist-Leninist, to internationalism.
The recent Kenyan elections was not so much about tribalism as they were about elite capture by a privileged clique who used ethnicity to continue stealing, misgoverning and selling the country to China and other global powers.
The problem in Kenya is political and ideological. We must confront the vestiges of orthodox colonialism, the stubborn survival of neo-colonialism and the legacy of the KANU dictatorship. The issues of poverty and unemployment afflicts the ordinary person whether they are Luo, or Gikuyu, Luhyias or Kipsigis, Somali or Tharaka, Kisii or Kamba.
Devolution has taught us that Turkana can catch up to Nyeri and Mandera can surpass Migori.
What we need in Kenya is more democracy, more justice, greater equality whether one is talking about region, tribe, religion, age, gender, and sexual orientation or ability/disability issues.
At a time when people in East Africa are dreaming of a regional community and those in Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Egypt, Burkina Faso and Seychelles are forging transcontinental bonds to create a Pan African government, surely it is a step backwards for some Kenyans to be speculating about dividing Kenya into a bunch of Kabilastans.