Admit it, in tribalism we have an ailment that needs treating

Narok town residents take to the streets in support of Supreme Court Judge Isaac Lenaola on September 21 2017. PHOTO | GEORGE SAYAGIE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The tribal divisions amongst Kenyans of all walks of life have become so deep that, if this continues for any length of time, relations between folks will be irreparably damaged.

  • In other societies, the desire to take power is so that one can organise society in accordance to one’s beliefs.

  • There is no point of killing each other, destroying our lives and tearing our children’s future apart.

  • Let us confront our sickness; there is no shame in illness or in seeking health.

A story is told about a poor mad woman who lived in a shopping centre in the countryside.

She was remarkable, not just in the extreme degree of insanity and unkemptness of appearance but also another curious fact: With the infallible regularity of the African seasons (before climate change), she was pregnant every long rains season. The imponderable to many right-thinking members of the community was the filthy person responsible for the sexual exploitation of this unfortunate woman.

It came to pass that in the shopping centre there lived a shopkeeper, who, on top of being a pillar of the community and a ranking church elder, was also guilty of the sidelong gaze of the pervert. She was “Wazimu” during the day but “Mary” amid the demented squeals and the rustle of soiled rags in the dead of the night.

SICK INDIVIDUAL

While the shopkeeper, he of the lazy eye, was a sick individual, if in his illness he acknowledged that he was unwell, he had a problem, that his exploitation of Mary was not out of love or his charms as the village Lothario but a mental illness every inch as bad as the poor woman he preyed upon, then he would find not just redemption but the hope of treatment and restoration of health.

Kenya is in the grip of ethnic mobilisation worse than in 2007. The tribal divisions amongst Kenyans of all walks of life have become so deep that, if this continues for any length of time, relations between folks will be irreparably damaged.

If you ask why the people are on the verge of picking up sticks (or worse) against one another, you will be told that it is because of “politics”. But what is politics? Is it ideological differences? Is it mobilisation for the purposes of taking power?

In other societies, the desire to take power is so that one can organise society in accordance to one’s beliefs. Democrats in America want to take power to create a gentler society where the poor can access medical insurance and communities are welcoming of migrants. Republicans want it for the direct opposite.

STEAL PUBLIC FUNDS

Why do Kenyan politicians want to take power? To steal public funds and be ridiculously wealthy? To cook tenders for their friends? To satisfy a deep desire to dominate others and be venerated? To change society and create a more prosperous and safer place for all of us and our children?

Dangerous ailment

Suppose, just suppose for a minute, that like the pillar of the community with the funny eye, we had a secret, dangerous ailment that was always bringing us to the brink of war. Suppose that ailment was congenital tribalism, one that we are unable to shed or overcome and one which dominates every aspect of our political life, so much so that we are helpless in its face and it drives us into dark places every five years, renders us as insane as Mary.

Suppose, like the shopkeeper playing his church elder part, we just mouth these high fallutin’ concepts of democracy, equity, inclusion, justice and the rest of it while, in actual fact, we are asking, why isn’t the snout of our tribe deep in the trough?

KILLING

In those circumstances, then I would recommend the following treatment. There is no point of killing each other, destroying our lives and tearing our children’s future apart. Let us confront our sickness; there is no shame in illness or in seeking health.

So, rather than saying our counties are administrative, political or economic units, let us recognise them as tribal homelands. And rather than talking about coalitions and parties, let us talk about tribal alliances. Let us convert the Senate into the Tribal Council of Kenya, a national institution where ethnic interests are negotiated. The National Assembly can remain just that — an institution that deals with issues cutting across all homelands.

In this theoretical approach, the tribe becomes the basic unit of identity, administration and economy. Politics becomes a process of negotiating not individual interests and desires but ethnic rights.

SUPER ROTATION

Then the Constitution can devise a super rotation, where the tribes take turns at the presidency, we share parastatal jobs between the tribes, we share public service jobs by tribe and each tribe gets a fair share of the tax kitty.

With time, we will do away with national elections. Elections will only happen within the tribe which is producing the candidate for that job. If, for example, it is the turn of the Maasai to rule, the rest of us need not be involved. The Maasai elect the best among their candidates to fill the vacancy. If it is the turn for the Kuria to produce the managing director of Kenya Ports Authority, the interview is handled in the homeland; no need for the rest for us to be involved.

Wouldn’t this free us from living a lie?

That is, if we had a problem in the first place (but I am sure we have none), everything is hunky dory, we are church elders and pillars of the community.