My people have lost their sense of genuine heroism

 

By PHILIP OCHIENGPosted Saturday, January 15 2011 at 17:44

As a young Luo, I grew up with a particular kind of ethnic arrogance. The rest of Kenya saw the Luo as the most educated community (where, by “education”, we meant the formal classroom kind introduced by Europeans).

At independence, we probably had the highest number of high school and university graduates. Luo individuals dominated the university faculty. Full professors – the likes of Simeon Ominde, David Wasawo and Bethwell Ogot-- were all Luo.

Fish diet

Many older-generation individuals among the Kikuyu – a community whose education was disrupted considerably by the Mau Mau hostilities -- hold on to the myth that the Luo have a special kind of intelligence as a result of a diet dominated by fish.

The truth remains that, as Independence approached, an educated elite claiming to have come from a celestial place called “UK” (“United Kisumu”) swaggered like peacocks in the streets of Nairobi – well dressed, speaking good English and brandishing The East African Standard -- that time’s symbol of intellectual arrival.

The question is: What was our education worth? How is it that the community which produced brilliant minds like Clement Argwings-Kodhek, Tom Mboya, Walter Odede, Douglas Odhiambo, Thomas Odhiambo, Jaramogi Odinga, Ishmael Omondi, Nicholas Otieno and Robert Ouko, now languishes at the bottom of the ladder of progress?

In terms of phenomena and spectacles, we still excel: we remain as showy as ever. The Luo elite still makes the loudest political noise.

Around the elite, hoi polloi – the masses -- still ululate in song and dance – “Gor Biro, Yawne Yo!” -- ready to grab the next iron bar and kill whoever may stand in the hero’s way.

What happened to our education? I ask because western Kenya -- the land of the Kalenjin, Kisii, Kuria, Luhya, Luo and Teso -- is now among Kenya’s most underdeveloped parts. Poverty is rife. Malaria, water-borne diseases and Aids consign human beings to the grave by the thousand every year.

And what Joseph Kaguthi used to call “Luo Nyanza” is by far the most catastrophic. I know from a number of recent Unicef-funded seminars that Luo Nyanza has the highest number of annual child deaths in Kenya – three times as many as in Central.

There can be only one explanation. My people know only one form of politics – empty hero-worship.

Empty hero-worship

Otherwise, they would long ago have called their leaders – MP, priest, professional -- to account.

If Luo MPs receive the same amounts as other MPs from the Constituency Development Fund, why do our children still drink untreated water and – in an area inundated with water – perish from dehydration?

Why is Luoland the poorest, the most diseased, the least successful in national examinations and yet the most vociferous and most militant in support of the hero’s national power struggle?

While other communities are busy in economic self-help, the Luo are busy singing alleluia to their heroes.

As such, there is nothing wrong with ethnic arrogance. But, as Shakespeare long ago admonished, arrogance should be made of “sterner stuff”.

The Luo are a great community with a heroic history. But, at some colonial or post-colonial point – apparently as a result of “education” -- we lost our sense of genuine heroism.

A hero was he who led his people to victory over all of the commune’s enemies, namely, hunger, thirst, disease, predator and, only then, another tribe.

Hero-worship was, of course, as traditional as anywhere else. But the hero (often also heroine) fully merited it by tangible action.

The Luo must drop the habit of wallowing in political adversity and begin to produce with their own hands the only stuff – food, medicine, knowledge, technique -- that can effectively shield their children from the elements and enable the community to spring to the national political arena with respectability.

ochiengotani@gmail.com