I am a patriot and that’s why I won’t leave the Luo alone

 

By PHILIP OCHIENG
Posted Saturday, March 12 2011 at 17:04

My education did not prepare me to swim with the current, to dance with the mob, to wallow in ethnic thought incest.

Among my earliest teachers in the values of independent thinking was a Luo called Bethwell Alan Ogot, Kenya’s most eminent historian today.

In his recent History of the Luo-Speaking Peoples of Eastern Africa, Prof Ogot shows that, in tradition, the Luo were never bogged down in the intellectual in-breeding which today afflicts even the most “degreed” Luo mind and prohibits even the most innocuous criticism of the paramount chief.

In his letter (Sunday Nation, January 31), William Ochieng of Maseno epitomises this incestuous ethnic self-righteousness. (READ: Philip Ochieng should leave the Luo alone)

If this is the same William Ochieng we know as a professor of history, his ethnic bigotry is as sad as Ernest Renan’s – a French historian notorious for his insolence on the Jews.

For it deems that the Ruoth (king) or Daker Madit – the Northern (Sudanese) Luo term for “Prime Minister” – is as “infallible” as the denizen of the Vatican; that, if anything now threatens our very being as a nation, the Luo are as innocent as the paschal lamb; that the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, and Kalenjin are the Devil Incarnate.

From the rabble – whether ethnic, racial or sectarian – that kind of “intellectualism” may perhaps be allowed. But today’s apotheosis of the Helmsman is in sharp contrast to the events of such milestones of Luo history as Didinga, Wipacho, Tiendkidi, Pubungu, Palwo, Kaberamaido, Budola, Yimbo, Alego, Mumias, Winam, Mirunda and Rieny.

Adem, Adhola, Ajwang, Alego, Apindi, Buoch, Choope, Chwa, Dimo, Gor-Mahia, Kiboyi, Kitara, Koma, Kuku, Labong’o, Luanda-Magere, Luru, Lwo himself (the eponymous father), Mamra-Ogalo, Matar, Mboya, Nyamgondho, Nyawir, Nyikang’o, Ochola, Odera-Akang’o, Odinga, Ogelo, Olum, Omolo, Owila, Owiny, Ramogi, Seje, Wir and Witewe – these were just some of the heroic leaders.

Delivered the goods

As long as they delivered the goods and ruled with avuncular wisdom, all of them found universal support and enjoyed many privileges. But, as soon as they began to throw their weights about – making unilateral decisions and subjecting critics to cruelty – criticism and even rebellion was swift, powerful and decisive.

Like Ogot, the Acholi historian Onyango ku Odongo (in the book The Central Lwo During the Aconya co-authored with J. Webster) explains that all the migrations that brought the Luo from Lake No (Bahr el Ghazal) to Nyanza were caused by internal political disagreements – all mythically personified by a petty but tragic bead-and-spear squabbling.

The habit of a brother or even an upstart challenging the Ruoth was so common that it gave rise to all the mythical divine “fraternal contendings”— such as between Osiris and Seth – throughout the region from Nam Lolwe (“Lake Victoria”) to the Caspian Sea and from the Senegal and the Shannon to the Mekong and the Irrawady.

How, then, do we explain the paradox that, although the Luo maintain the healthy – even if often too bellicose – habit of free dissent, they have also become the most abject worshippers of the paramount chief?

When I criticised this thoughtlessness a few weeks ago, what I received was epitomic – an avalanche, not of reason, but of abuse.

The self-respecting Julius Kambarage Nyerere – whose mother was reportedly a Luo – would have admonished: “Argue, don’t shout”.

Unaware of the law of libel, one critic said I was habitually drunk with drugs. Another scatterbrain claimed that I was merely seeking attention. When, for nearly five decades, the newspapers have picture-by-lined you more often than any other East African, what more attention can you need?

No, I cannot claim to be loyal to my people and yet keep quiet whenever I think they are being led astray. I long ago internalised the great teaching that criticism of one’s society is the highest form of patriotism.

That is why I blow a raspberry at William Ochieng’s order to me to “leave the Luo alone”.

ochiengotani@gmail.com