We pigeon-hole Kenyans by tribe and then fight proxy wars for our leaders

Cord principal Kalonzo Musyoka answerd a question flanked by Moses Wetangula, and Anyang Nyong'o during a press briefing at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi on April 24, 2014. Before we throw more stones at the Establishment man turned opposition leader, we must put hypocrisy aside and confess that he spoke the truth. PHOTO/FILE  NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

• There is no evidence that support for the two titans is based on any careful analysis of ideology, principles or policies.
• Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga might have every right in the world to carry on the battle that started with their fathers.

By Macharia Gaitho
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Your name betrays you. If in some three decades of politics former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka bequeathed us any legacy, it is that prescient homily which reminded us all how we, by reflex, pigeonhole fellow Kenyans by tribe.

 

Mr Musyoka took plenty of brickbats and was forced to issue a public apology in the wake of the brusque manner in which he refused to answer a journalist’s question.

Before we throw more stones at the Establishment man turned opposition leader, we must put hypocrisy aside and confess that he spoke the truth.

The problem was in making it an accusation rather than a confession. It’s not just about your name betraying you, but my name betraying me, our names betraying us.

READ: Kalonzo urged to apologise to journalists, community over remarks

We are in the middle, right now, of the most poisonous and vicious excuse for a national dialogue since stepping back from the precipice of the 2007-2008 post-election violence.

I have carried out a random and utterly unscientific survey of how our names, which define our ethnic identity, in nine cases out of ten, influence the positions we take.

A quick look through these debates on Facebook and Twitter, newspaper websites and the political platform, proves that in the current round of political noise, support for either President Uhuru Kenyatta or opposition leader Raila Odinga can be, with unerring accuracy, predicated on ethnic affiliation.

There is no evidence that support for the two titans is based on any careful analysis of ideology, principles or policies. Actually, there is little to indicate that any of the two has sought to build a political support base on anything but ethnicity.

We were told that choices have consequences. That was in relation to advice from a meddlesome American against voting in persons indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity; but I now believe it can also apply to the toxic political situation prevailing.

We voted, on both sides, for ethnic chieftains, and we are reaping the fruits of continuing ethnic competition for political power and attendant resources.

EXPENDABLE CANNON FODDER

It is easy for us to sit in the comforts of Nairobi and shake our heads at ‘primitive’ ethnic and clan bloodletting in Wajir, Lamu, Baringo, West Pokot, Mandera, Tana River,  Isiolo, Marsabit, Samburu, Turkana, and all the other marginalised, deprived, and neglected counties that together make up more than half the land mass of Kenya.

But the reality is that it is the educated, modern, cosmopolitan and cultured political elite that exploits ethnic feuds for its own benefit.

Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga may not face each other with spears, pangas, bows and arrows, and AK47’s, but they each have at their beck and call crazed adherents who will do anything for an ethnic chieftain they foolishly think eats with them.

Duels over canapés, caviar and fine whiskey in the poshest addresses in the capital city might seem eons removed from some bloody ethnic carnage over pasture and water in the remotest corner of the country, but at the end of the day, they are all primitive fights over resources.

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga might have every right in the world to carry on the battle that started with their fathers. That family blood feud remind me sometimes of the pioneering American soap, Dallas, that lit up television screens in the 1980s.

The war between the oil-rich Ewing clan, and the Barnes family that felt robbed of its rightful share of the wealth, transcended generations, much like struggle between Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga carries on to disrupt our lives to this day.

Wonder is that the ordinary Kamau wa Njoroge and Onyango Mak’Otieno will willingly throw all his blood, sweat and tears to the service of either ethnic chieftain.

He will swear to stand by his leader and will be ready to kill or to lay down his own life for what he imagines is a shared communal interest, but at the end of the day he is no more than expendable cannon fodder.

What he doesn’t know is that the only common identity is the name; but he is sacrificing himself for leaders who will never admit him to share the spoils.

mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com Twitter: @MachariaGaitho