Tribalistic drivel robbing Kenyans of power to reason and common sense
If Mr Hassan Omar Hassan of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights stirred up the hornet’s nest with his ethnic-baiting diatribes; then it seems I only further provoked the angry critters with the response on this space last week.
A recap. Mr Hassan had written elsewhere about President Kibaki’s ‘Kikuyunisation’ of the most powerful levers of government, particularly the Treasury, Security and the Provincial Administration bureaucracies
The reaction from the Kikuyu establishment was fast and furious, accusing Mr Hassan of hate speech.
An unrepentant Mr Hassan stood his ground, and used the National Cohesion and Integration Commission’s own research to illustrate that, indeed, President Kibaki’s community unjustifiably dominated key offices.
Along the way, Mr Hassan made comments interpreted to mean that candidates from the Kikuyu community should be disqualified from the presidential elections or from consideration for Commissioner-General of the Kenya Police Service.
Mr Hassan, incidentally, chairs the panel that will select members of the Police Service Commission charged with selection of the new police chief.
Mr Hassan had provoked open and frank debate on an important national issue that cannot forever be swept under the carpet.
Unfortunately, the ferocity of debate brought forth more heat than light.
Ugly exchanges were dominated by ethnic brinkmanship rather than sober, reasoned analysis of the situation. It was the primitive “us versus them” discourse that dominates political talk.
When I waded in with my two cents worth, I fully expected that drivel that would follow. Over the past week, comments to my column on Nation Online, on my Facebook and Twitter pages, and direct to my e-mail address, have trod that most predictable path where loyalty or hatred towards an ethnic group triumphs over reason and sobriety.
The same Kikuyu who had accused the human rights and political activist of inciting ethnic hatred were now in my corner lauding me for standing up for meritocracy and equal treatment for all.
The others who had hailed Mr Hassan’s spiel hit me with the kitchen sink and the detritus that should flow into the sewage; accusing me of being nothing but a Kikuyu supremacist.
But what exactly had I written? It was evident that few, if any, of those commenting from either side read my contribution from beginning to end; or if they had opted to see only what they wanted to see.
What I’d said was very simple: That Mr Hassan wrote nothing but the self-evident truth. It was true that President Kibaki had followed the Nyayos of his predecessor, President Moi, by packing the administration with his own tribesmen.
However, I argued, Mr Omar’s simplistic analysis of a critical national issue made him no different from a bunch of dim-witted politicians who, a few weeks earlier, had threatened to block installation of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission on the spurious basis that the majority of members were Muslim and that Somalis were increasingly dominating key constitutional bodies.
It should be clear to all that one injustice cannot be cured with another. That President Kibaki has misused State power to reward a few cronies from his backyard cannot be used as justification to demonise the entire community.
That a few family and friends gorged themselves silly in the Kenyatta and Moi regimes in no way benefited the bulk of innocent members of the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities who had no access to the inner sanctums.
We must celebrate and reap from our diversity, not use it to further cheap ethnic hatred. We must also redress past injustices and create a Kenya which all communities share ownership. Affirmative action remains vital, but it must be managed with tact and sensitivity.
Bullheadedness that justifies discrimination, tries to reduce some to second-class citizens, and throws meritocracy, qualifications and experience out of the window is not the answer.
Otherwise we will soon be inviting applications for certain jobs, with the rider that “Members of community A, B and C need not apply”.
Or in the extreme, some might demand that the Kenya team for the 2012 Olympics reflect ethnic balance.
