No such thing as negative ethnicity

Who said Kenya is culturally bankrupt? Who said that our artistes can’t produce content worth showing on local television stations?

And why do we behave as if there is inter-ethnic war going on in this country? In fact, why do we have the National Cohesion and Integration Commission?

We don’t need Mzalendo Kibunjia and his team at NCIC worrying about ethnicity tearing this country up. In fact, ethnicity will not put us asunder if, by ethnicity, we mean calling someone a Meru, Maasai, Dorobo or Kisii.

Why? Because there are Kenyans out there – teachers, playwrights, songwriters, film producers, and thousands of pupils – who are committed to undoing the myth of “negative ethnicity.”

Negative ethnicity

I met many and watched them perform at the Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festival in Kakamega this past week. I believe there is no such thing as “negative ethnicity.”

Let’s not unnecessarily baptise ethnic jingoism with some clever sounding adjective. What I saw in Kakamega was the affirmation of the good and the worth of the tribe, if we could call it so.

I saw girls and boys, young men and women, singing, dancing and dramatising the complexities of life in the many tongues of Kenya, their faces and bodies proclaiming the beauty and joy of singing a love song or a harvesting song or a song urging peace.

But this is a different kind of competition compared, for example, to political competition – what is really important is the participation in competition rather than winning. Why?

Because this is one time and place where, for instance, a girl born and schooling in Mumias will probably for the first time meet a boy born and schooling in North Horr (trust me, many Kenyans don’t know where that is).

This festival is where all the Kenyan languages congregate, in different sets of artistic and cultural rituals, knowing that they are equals. This is the place and time when one discovers the faith and trust that Kenyan teachers have in the creativity and beauty of our cultures and arts.

So, why do we not teach cultural studies in our schools?

We can’t continue complaining about ethnicity “destroying” the nation when we are blind to the fact that it is the different tribes that really make us Kenyans. It is the tribe or race that is the primary source of the identity of every Kenyan.

And this must be taught in school so that the respect for the different Kenyan languages, tribes, races, cultures, rituals, arts and people, respect that I saw in Kakamega may be learnt, by mind, heart and sense, right from the lower primary to graduate school.