Last week one of my Kikuyu friends who wonders why I seem obsessed with building inter-ethnic harmony asked me the following question: “Ngunjiri, let us be honest. You and I are not outsiders. I saw the hatred building up against my community from when Raila Odinga was fired from government in 2005. I saw the emails, I saw the propaganda, I witnessed it personally. I was present in this country and watching when we were demonised as a community because the best campaign strategy against Mwai Kibaki’s presidency in 2007 was his tribe. Tell us what you believe in your heart.”
This is my response: I was right there. I felt and lived with the hatred and I fought back against it however and wherever I could. As one of the youngest members of a Kikuyu-based welfare association, I participated in a political affairs sub-committee, chaired by the late Dr Apollo Njonjo, that did a SWOT analysis on the Kikuyu community in 2004. This committee prepared a report that indicated that the 2005 referendum was being cultivated against the perceived Kikuyu hegemony on power. Our report suggested several things that could be done to counter this. However when Dr Njonjo presented the report to a senior cabinet minister from our community he was told not to worry, governments do not lose referendums.
Between 2005 and 2007 I spent a lot of time thinking up ideas on how to ensure that Raila was defeated at the 2007 polls. I sent written suggestions to every single person I could reach on ‘our’ side, including all the ninth parliament Central Kenya MPs. I also aggressively campaigned against Raila and ODM every chance I got.
On the actual voting day I made sure everyone around me went to vote, against Raila preferably. I even drove my dad more than 50 kilometres to his polling station. As the vote tallying went on, due to anxiety, I did not eat for the two days that it looked like Raila would win. When Kibaki caught up, passed him and eventually got sworn in as president I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. Then that feeling turned to hell as reports of anti-Kikuyu election-related violence started reaching us.
I was livid. I could not believe that we were being targeted because we had voted against Raila. I used the networks I had cultivated over the years so that a few of us young Kikuyu businessmen were able to meet with senior members of our community’s political leadership. We literally banged tables as we asked them some very hard questions: How could this have happened? How could we (Kikuyus), despite being in charge of the country from the presidency, to security, to defence, to finance, etc, have been caught unawares? Why didn't we see it coming? Why didn't we pre-empt it? Why didn't we stop it? Why did it happen? How could 41 communities have ganged up to slaughter the children of the 42nd community? What had they been told? Why hadn’t we even known about what they were being told?
The answers we got were terribly vague and completely unsatisfactory. So we decided to go and ask 'those' people. We got involved in civil-society-led inter-ethnic dialogue forums that also involved travelling around the country and meeting with opinion leaders, drawn from more than 25 different communities. We exchanged harsh words, sometimes nearly getting physically violent during the discussions. However, gradually these interactions enabled us learn from and about each other.
What we learnt was scary … very scary. We first shared these lessons with some elderly Kikuyu leaders in Central and Rift Valley provinces. We also started writing about it in blogs and newspapers as well as discussing it on TV and radio. What we told everyone who was willing to listen was that we had become a country obsessed with inter-ethnic hatred. We had reached the point where we were not even trying to co-exist, and most of us were completely unwilling to see beyond the ethnic prejudices, myths and stereotypes that we had of each other.
Our message was simple: A critical mass of Kenyans must commit themselves to help move their communities beyond the inter-ethnic hatred, as justifiable as it might seem, and see beyond the pain, as legitimate as it feels, if this country is to exist as a nation. If we did not do that we were firmly on the fast lane to a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scenario where we would soon have nothing left ... even to hate.
Maybe this is what Raila and Kibaki realised in February 2008, and signed the national accord. However, a group of Kenyans must stand apart from the tribal hatred and provoke tough discussions on inter-ethnic cohesion. Where necessary they must also rebuke even those deemed 'untouchable' especially within their own communities when they inflame ethnic passions. A group as small as 100,000 such Kenyans drawn from various communities across the country can make the difference. If you are such a Kenyan for Kenya please write usinfo@siasampya.com.
The writer comments on topical issues.
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