Diary 3 – Will I have a home to go back to?

By Magotsi [As KP I have asked readers to submit their own perspectives on the unfolding events. This is their voice.]

After the fiasco that was the announcement of the
presidential tallies stopped right before my eyes by
Ruto on Al Jazeera Channel. I asked my wife what would
prevent Kivuitu from going to KBC and announcing the
results while ODM protested. Hardly had thirty minutes
passed I received a stream of texts about the
president being declared in some corner on KBC TV and
subsequent stopping of live broadcasts. Aljazeera was
there showing the spontaneous explosion of violence in
the Kibera slums. Since the people I had been relying
on seemed to go underground and the newspapers were
taking long to update the result I switched to the few
blogs that I had seen on Bankeleles Blog. I am a
regular visitor there. Its there that I settle on
Kumekucha and Your Blog for the updates.
For me it has been a rollercoaster feeling. I feel
betrayed though I did not have the opportunity to go
and vote for various personal reasons arising form
having a new born baby and not also having a vote.
Lost my ID sometime back early in the year in Joburg.
I had hoped that ODM would win and they seemed to be
on the path to win.

I cannot say for sure whether
Kibaki won squarely, which if he did I would gladly
accept, but it seems the circumstances of his winning
are suspect. First a private announcement of the
result, a seemingly pre- arrange ‘kitchen’ swearing in
and then the pussyfooting while the nation burned. It
seems Kenyan were deeply divided on certain levels
even before the election results. The seeming theft of
the election provided the immediate reason for the
savage reaction we have witnessed. A clear issue
that seems to emerge is why the riots are concentrated
in the slums? I think it’s because these young men
have lost hope. Their last hope whether real or
imagined seems to have been dashed hence their release
of pent up anger in looting and murderous riots. It’s
only a person who’s lost the value of life who lifts
up a machete and kills a neighbour he meets in the
street simply because they think the neighbour has
been an accomplice by association with those he
considers to have stolen his hope. I see politician
as merchants of hope, and in this case they seemed to
have promised the young men who have little hope of
getting out of poverty despite having to work daily.
They are what we call the working poor.

However more disturbing is the senseless murder and destruction of
property in the rift valley. It seems to be based more
on ethnic aggravation and hatred more than anything
else. Come to think of it, if the kikuyu are being
killed because they are seen to have voted Kibaki, did
they have a chance of surviving had ODM won? It seems
to me that they would still have been evicted. Why?
Because I think that those evicting them would have
haunted them out, they only needed and excuse
unleashing their murderous reign. Now I come to the
whole question of ethnicity and why people think the
only way their elite can survive is to capture the all
powerful presidency. I was shocked when I visited my
home town in 1997 and was told it was time for the
luhyia to eat and the luo especially needed to support
the late Wamalwa to win the presidency. Such fallacy
was beyond my understanding, but having visited form
Mombasa where I was based I came to realise that
indeed maybe I was out of synch with the local
thinking.

Before I discuss some issues on ethnicity,
I would like to say I personally find being asked what
my ethnic group is embarrassing. Why? Because I do not
understand what the questioners require of me. I was
born of a Kisii father and a Luhyia mother. I was
brought up by a Luhyia foster family and hence I faced
the knife and speak Luhyia and Luo. So what tribe am
I? Does tribe mean my phenotype, my gene pool and
hence being in patriachical society I would be
considered Kisii? But what does that mean, I do not
speak Kisii and I do not practice Kisii customs, the
closest I have been to Kisii was en route to Mwanza
Tanzania. Having dismissed myself as being Kisii, am
I Luhyia then? Maybe I am not sure, but I speak Luo
also, does speaking Luhyia make me one? Of course No.
Am I Luhyia because I faced a Luhyia Knife? Of course
no, in any case many other groups also face the knife.
So when I applied for an NSSF card and I found out I
had to fill what my tribe was I left it blank only to
get in trouble with the officer there. In protest I
filled kikuyu. For me what tribe I am is neither here
nor there. It is interesting that when I meet people
and they are unable to find out where I come form
based on my surname, they ask where my home is and
when I say Trans Nzoia, they ask if I was luhyia or
Kalenjin. My retort is to ask then if knowing what
ethnic group I am will help them in defining relations
with me. They usually get embarrassed at that point.
In moving forward we need to reflect on what it means
to be Kenyan first and then tribe second.
Unfortunately this seems to have escaped our nation’s
founders and those who have been involved in
statecraft.

I was once saddened when I attended a
service in Minneapolis US and on getting out of the
service the first person I met enquired about my
ethnicity. The service had been delivered in a local
Kenyan language and translated into English. I was
shocked that even Kenyans who are supposed to be
enlightened still clung to the echoes of tribalism.
In moving forward I reproduce an article I penned in
my journal on 22nd June 2004, when a form I was
filling in church in application for marriage
counselling requested that I fill in what my tribe was
and I felt that infringed on me and questioned my
identity as a Kenyan. I title the article, ‘In search
of identity-beyond ethnic prejudice’
“I am surprised that the ethnic mindset seems to be
seeping in the church, and it’s a reflection of the
Kenyan society and a reminder to our failure to build
one nation and define our nationhood to be embraced by
all who live within our borders. We have become and
increasingly ethnicised community. Ethnicity by itself
is neither good nor bad on its face; it is the
insistence of using it as a reference point in an
increasing cosmopolitan society that really begs a
question of our nationhood. Of what use is it to the
NSSF or the church or to whichever stranger I have met
to know what ethnic group I belong to? What purpose
will such information be used for? I am increasingly
afraid that of the information is useful to anyone, it
is to the detriment of whoever gave it. In a society
where true brotherhood and sisterhood fraternities are
loose, the only networks that remain are the normal
kinship ties.

This begs a question again, if we still
have to retreat to the cocoon of kinship help, what is
this nation called Kenya? Why am I a Kenyan? What does
it mean to be Kenyan? Other than sharing a spatial-
temporal dimension that was decided o a hundred years
ago by some land hungry Europeans- what are the core
values of the Kenyan nation? What can we call our way
of life as a Kenyan nation? What is the positive
social fabric that identifies us as Kenyans and not
Ugandans? What is our kenyannes? If I were to use that
term. Other than the spatial-temporal space we occupy
what is unique of us as Kenyans? I believe that this
question is of immediate importance, not just as an
occasion to debate but also truly reflect on who we
are. The search of an identity of nationhood is
important if we are to move ahead as a single cohesive
and not disintegrate into ethnic enclaves”.

I am afraid that unless these question I raised three
years ago in a private diary are looked into beyond
the whole issue of sharing power as well as working
more to make sure that issues of poverty are indeed
dealt with, whatever other solutions we enter into,
will simply be balm to festering wounds. Although I
live in South Africa, I am afraid that when I go back
home I will find an even more polarised society. I am
ashamed that we have provided more fuel to those of
our detractors with racist inclinations, that as
Africans we are incapable of running viable modern
states. While this may not be true, in the world,
perception sometimes matter more than reality. For
example Kibaki could have won squarely, but the
perception of most people and the circumstances and
behaviour of the ECK and the private swearing in give
a perception that there is something that Kibaki is
hiding that has unleashed the demons of thuggery and
senseless murderous gangs unto our nation. Perception
here ruled the people emotions and see where we are.
We may never ever really be able to establish the
truth of what truly happened. While I feel helpless,
I guess I have the power of positive thought and will
not give up on my nation. I will pray for healing,
reconciliation and a renewal to a more equitable
nation seeing how fragile we have become. Although I
came to South Africa in search of better economic
opportunities, I now feel like a real politician.