Political and cultural centres must move together for true devolution

As the dust settles on the recently concluded elections, if at all the dust will settle, Kenyans have to wake up to the reality of devolved government.

Cynics and optimists are agreed on one thing: the government is in mashinani. Finally the wish by the majority of Kenyans to have the government on their doorsteps has been fulfilled.

Why this simple act of decentralisation hadn’t happened earlier is incomprehensible. After all governments, even the most rabid dictatorship, claim to derive their powers from the people. But often, the people with a small “p” are simply ignored and the people with a big “P’ rule, without any reference to the electorate.

The one aspect of this decentralising of the state is that people can now make decisions – well, let’s say some decisions that affect their immediate lives without waiting for the bigwigs in Nairobi.

So, a question to ask on this matter, about culture, is: how will the locals communicate? What language or symbols or acts of communication will the people accommodate in the various counties?

This is a question that has been around for a long time but which is urgent now because it may soon come to be that the business of the counties is hampered by language. Our obsession with English or even Kiswahili has always alienated millions of Kenyans.

Of what use are these languages in many of the regional assemblies filled with individuals with a bare minimum of education? Many Kenyans treat these two languages, despite them being the tongues of commercial and social transactions, with suspicion. In fact, in Western Kenya to be called mswahili is to be dismissed as untrustworthy.

But beyond this association of Kiswahili with trickery, just too many Kenyans aren’t comfortable communicating in either English or Kiswahili; these two languages are “learned” tongues and therefore do not come easily to the tongue.

They indeed still are seen as agents of domination in many parts of the country. How? Because they are the languages thieves or the police or government administrators would use in encounters with local people.

Would we be wrong, therefore, to revisit to Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s argument about some “decolonisation of the mind” and “moving the centre?” We have “moved” some of the “centre”. Clearly not so many Kenyans will remain beholden to Nairobi in the future.

And clearly the clamour for cultural independence will follow this administrative unbundling of the state, for Ngugi’s central thesis in both his fiction and non-fiction writing has been that a people’s identity is primarily a function of their culture.

Culture, Ngugi argues, is what makes us what and who we are. Therefore, our interaction with other peoples – and therefore other cultures – is determined by the cultural wealth we own. And language is the carrier of culture.

It is when we speak that someone we have just encountered maps us – ethnically, socially, politically, spiritually, culturally etc. To speak in a certain language is to say: this is the language the people I have grown among speak; this is what I know and believe about the world; these are my political convictions or spiritual orientations; these are my specific – cultural – needs etc. In other words, to speak in a language is to express particular attitudes and certitudes about the world.

So, how will County Representatives who are not competent in English and Kiswahili effectively debate local problems? These are the men and women who will either make devolution work or fail.

Do we want to saddle them with the two languages? What would be the use of insisting on English as the language of business in the Kwale or Lamu county assemblies? Why would the Turkana or Nyamira county assemblies want to use English or Kiswahili in their deliberations?

After all, these are local men and women debating local issues. If the local people, who aren’t conversant in these languages, were to attend the deliberations, then they would be in a situation where their problems are being discussed in strange tongues.

But someone could argue that these counties are cosmopolitan; that they may have representatives who don’t speak the local language of choice for use in the assembly. The counterargument to such a position is that a true cosmopolitan, say a Luo elected to the Turkana parliament or a Kisii speaker who is elected to the Lamu assembly, should learn the local language.

To learn the language of one’s host is the one sure way to truly integrate Kenyans. We may legislate all manners of rules and codes of conduct for public offices etc.

We may continue to pay handsome salaries to individuals to lecture us on the need for politeness when speaking to and about people from other tribes.

But learning other people’s languages and cultures is one sure way of knowing these neighbouring “strangers” and creating an environment of mutual respect, understanding and co-existence. So, as we devolve the government, we should also let regional languages and cultures thrive and work towards celebrating the linguistic and cultural diversity in this nation.

The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi.