Surge in ethnic hate speech tied to election fears

A tweet by newspaper columnist and consultant Ngujiri Wambugu during the chaos in Parliament as President Uhuru Kenyatta was delivering his State of the Nation address on Thursday ignited a vicious social media war that has so far refused to die down.

“These Luo MPs! Shaking my head,” he tweeted. What followed was a hurling of unprintable vitriol between those in support of his statement and those against, which inevitably took an ethnic angle.

As the country approaches the elections next year, ethnic motivated hate speech is on a surge, raising questions on why Kenyans are unable to shake off their parochial affiliations - especially during political contests.

These fears over the existence of one of Kenya’s most intractable problems since independence were confirmed last week through the Infotrack survey which gauged the popularity of political candidates.

It said: “Although the leading candidates, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Cord leader Raila Odinga, enjoy national support of 44.5 per cent and 27.8 per cent respectively, they are predominantly popular in areas occupied by their communities.”

Likewise, the survey said Mr Odinga is most distrusted in Central while Mr Kenyatta is most distrusted in Nyanza.

CONCERN

But while some observers would argue that the survey was just a reflection of Kenya’s political scene, it is its reaction - just like the one after the chaos in Parliament - that raises concern.

Both offered a reflection of an abiding force of tribalism that often overrides the sense of nationalism during political discourse.

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has warned that unless something happens, the country could be headed to another round of bloodshed on the 10th anniversary of the post-election violence.

“It gets very bad when you reduce the opposition, who are merely doing their job, and identify them to one community, and worse to one county. I hope we don’t get there,” NCIC chairman Francis ole Kaparo told the Sunday Nation.

He added: “The most distressing part about our ethnicity is that it has always been thought to be a vice associated with old people. The ethnic bandits nowadays are young people. It is a time bomb.”

But while NCIC ponders how to rescue the situation, social scientists say Kenyans will always remain tribal until the government in power decides to share national resources equitably.

“Everybody is talking about cohesion but even if you preach unity 100 times a day but you don’t practise it, it’s a total waste of time.

Everyone knows that the most powerful positions in government have been set aside for the Kikuyu and Kalenjins,” says Dr Erick Nyambedha of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Maseno University.

He gives the example of a family where there will be conflict if resources are not divided equally.

“This is what is happening right now in Kenya as a result of the politics of exclusion and winner-takes-it-all mentality,” he says.

POLITICAL STRATEGY

Dr Nyambedha reckons that successive political power players have perfected the art of isolation and playing communities against one another in order to remain in power, a strategy that was used by the colonial powers.

“Before the coming of the colonialists, all communities lived independent of each other with their own customs, language and culture and only had conflicts probably over issues like water or pasture,” he says.

“When the British came, they clobbered us together into a country and, to hold power, they brought with them the principle of divide and rule. They magnified differences among the tribes and instigated them to fight one another ,which served as a breeding ground for tribal stereotypes,” he says.

These division, nurtured through the colonial era, remain deeply entrenched.

Mr Kaparo contrasts Kenya to Tanzania, saying that while Tanzania pushed for nationalism, Kenya pushed for capitalism, which was driven by the elite who wanted to acquire riches.

“While Tanzania pushed for nationalism, Kenya began with leaders of the two biggest tribes, which coincidentally were favoured most by the colonialists who asked them to come together to form a nation,” he says.

Recently, controversial Saturday Nation columnist David Ndii wrote a column that has elicited strong reactions. He wrote, in part: “We have had a failure to develop and propagate a national narrative alluring enough to nurture a ‘deep, horizontal comradeship’ beyond the tribe.”

The last two general elections were not decided at the ballot but through dispute resolution mechanisms. In 2013, the newly constituted Judiciary at that time had to decide if President Kenyatta had won.

In 2007, a dispute between Mr Raila Odinga and Mr Mwai Kibaki over who won brought the country to the brink of civil war.

The dispute was eventually solved after the international community intervened. Deputy President William Ruto and radio presented Joshua Sang are currently facing charges at the ICC over the atrocities committed.

DIVISIONS

Prof Winnie Mitula, the Director of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, says despite the passage of the 2010 Constitution, which is supposed to ensure equitable sharing of resources, the political class have ensured the previous status remains, maintaining the divisions between Kenyans.

“Politicians will never allow us to become Kenyans because if they do, they lose power. It is very unfortunate that Kenyans have failed to see this,” she says.

The professor adds: “A constitution is a piece of paper, it is the people who breathe life to it. You can create 100 constitutions but if you are ethnic in your thinking it will be as good as nothing.”

But Mr Kaparo disputes this, saying all Kenyans stand guilty as charged.

“Sometimes it is very easy to blame politicians but just go to a political rally and stand in the crowd and listen to the chants. To be blunt, we have never spent even a minute to create the Kenyan nation,” he says.

Drumbeats for next year’s General Election have already started beating, with both leading coalitions strategising on how to win by consolidating votes from certain communities.

Dr Nyambedha says this strategy by politicians works because Kenyans see the only way they can get access to opportunities is if they get someone from their community to top leadership.

“People don’t like politicians because they think they are the best. The most important thing for the electorate is the guarantee that if a person from a particular community is elected, they will get access to resources,” he says.

Perhaps the words of Justice J.B. Ojwang’ in the book, The S.M Otieno Case: Death and Burial in Modern Kenya, show just how intractable the problem is: “Unlike in the more material sphere, such as science and technology, in the area of social phenomena it takes an upheaval to jolt society into awareness.”