Just recently the ministry of planning received a lot of heat for releasing tribal numbers in the census. The reason being, tribal numbers will fuel ethnic politics and regional political alignments. This brings into question our individual and collective dedication in the fight towards eradication of tribalism in our beloved country.
With the memories of the post election violence still vivid in our minds and us crossing our fingers waiting for the incrimination of the perpetrators and the still to come compensation of some IDPs, remarks or actions that might cause tribal friction must be avoided atall costs.
But it’s very worrying to note that the ethnic politicsused by our national representatives spread hatred and propaganda is streaming down to institution politics, especially those of higher learning. The new development in the ongoing Maseno University SOMU campaigns goes a long way toshow that tribalism is still a real problem in this country.
Why would a group vying to represent a very culturally diverse people like the Maseno community decide to form alliances based on tribal affiliations and spread hate propaganda against each others tribe beats my understanding? I can think of mainly two reasons for that. One because it is very influential and Kenyans can never get over their ethnic voting patterns, and two they are learning innocently from their ‘role models’in national politics.
Let’s say it’s the first reason. As students in one of the highest learning institutions in the country, we should take the frontline in the fight against this but unfortunately we take the political correct path instead of the morally correct one. Talking about morals, hearing the noise andthe response given by ‘comrades’ to suggestive tribalistic remarks made at thestudent Kamukunji makes you realisethat the disease runs deeper in our brains, hearts, souls and blood. The scene looked like a village baraza where people make noise to every word whether they understood it or not. It doesn’t matter how many fancy and complicated words one uses, people can always read between the lines and get the message you are trying to pass across so discreetly.
And about the role models reason, could there be a better lesson than what happened after the 2007 elections? With the knowledge and information the various competitors have, can we truly convince ourselves that our Maseno politicians are not familiar with the problems their selfish actions might cause to the institution especially among the students?
As Kenyans we have gotten used to this habit of being nice to other tribes when doing the contrary will bring issues with friends family or workmates while thereal situation is that we play modest and ‘just Kenyan’ when it suits us and weare comfortable to run back and hide in our tribal cocoons when there is some individual interests like employment at stake.
We can turn a blind eye to it, we can act like its not here, we can even embrace it and use it when it favours us but the real situation is that ethnicity is still alive and with us every day. Reforms or no reforms the problem still remains.
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