Why should leaders keep stoking the fire of ethnic animosity?

Every day that the sun rises, ordinary members of our nation probably become better and better educated on socio-political issues.

That is why it is perennially disappointing that, for their part, the politicians never attempt to persuade me through any coherent intellectual discourse about their various plans for Kenya.

Persuasion has two potential sources. The first is: What is the one candidate or the other offering me as relief from my long suffering as a Kenyan alienated from other Kenyans by means of puny-minded ethnic politics? Secondly, what are the tribal leaders offering other tribes as a quid pro quo?

As an individual, you may make much immediate wealth by chasing what are pure self-interests through what are purely tribal links. But if that is the only thought that occupies the minds of all other individuals, how can Kenya ever move from our present ethnic tension, hostility and even skirmishing to a self-conscious nation?

When will any Kaingu, Kemoli, Kibor, Kingsnorth, Maweu, Mohammed or Mwangi ever be able to pursue a parliamentary seat from any constituency in my South Nyanza? When will any Abdulrahman, Leakey, Likimani and Ochieng be able to pursue such an office from the voters of the Rift Valley, the Coast and Mount Kenya?

For it is self-evident that, only when Kenyans of all tribes and races can speak for all other Kenyans at all of the nation’s decision-making centres can we say that we have become a nation. But, as long as the people of Kabete, say, oppose my candidacy there merely because my name begins with an “O”, we have no right whatsoever to call ourselves a nation yet.

MENTAL BACKWARDNESS

As long as a high-level politician can dismiss me as “that Jaluo” – as one present presidential candidate was once heard to deride after I had left his office, where I had gone to ask him for some succour – as long you always try to alienate me from other Kenyans by means of such a tribal label – how can I feel at home whenever I am in Chuka, Kakamega, Thika, Voi or any other Kenyan town? How can one wax optimistic about Kenya’s future when such mental backwardness is how the most educated Kenyans continue to dismiss one another in politics and other forms of competition?

Although to call me Jaluo can be quite objective – for I am all of that – it depends on the circumstances and your tone of voice.

Who can fail to notice the vacuity – the socio-economic emptiness – of the perennial exchanges between Opposition chief Raila Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto?

How many thinking Kenyans are really impressed by the stinking cow dung that Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga hurl upon each other every day?

That is the question that even some of their respective tribal supporters – whom they now seem to take for granted – may soon be asking.

For the moment, all our chief politicians take their tribal followers completely for granted. But a time is coming when those followers will begin asking their respective leaders some very unsettling questions.

If our politicians have any goodies for Kenyans, why don’t they just name those goodies without implying that their rivals cannot supply them?

Why do they think that their respective followers will always remain tribal in thought? If the politicians believe in an ethno-racially united Kenya, why do they keep stoking the fire of ethnic animosity?

There is, first, the materio-intellectual emptiness of what most of our politicians claim to offer. There is, then, the attitudinal ugliness with which they deliver the dung.

The question is straightforward: Where will mutual insults – such as Mr Odinga and Mr Ruto hurl upon each other – ever take Kenya? In the eyes of all properly educated people, how can you ever score any marks through such extreme impoliteness as Messrs Odinga and Ruto throw at each other?

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