Wanted: A commonwealth of Kenyan communities

By ABABU NAMWAMBA
Posted  Saturday, April 30 2011 at 17:57

Following a shooting tragedy in Tucson, Arizona in January, a leading American online publication conducted a fascinating survey on tolerance. The survey examined which US states are most tolerant by measuring residents’ actions and opinions as well as the scope of state laws guaranteeing equal rights.

Wisconsin was ranked top on the tolerance index, followed by Maryland and Illinois. I found the survey quite apt, given the historical complexion of the US.

America has been indelibly stained by the blood of its assassinated leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, J.F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, and of course Martin Luther King.

There have also been countless outrageous shootings that have cost the nation myriad innocent lives, like that of nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green who was among the six fatalities in Tucson.

Political and religious extremism has also stubbornly continued to lurk in the shadows, repeatedly rearing its head with catastrophic consequences.

Groups like the Ku Klux Klan have soiled the image of the US, while subterranean streams of racism, religious discomfort and economic exclusion continue to run deep.

With all his gallant efforts to unite America and rekindle the Lincoln-Kennedy-King dream of “emancipation and boundless liberty”, President Barrack Obama remains the target of some virulent political conspiracies that border on the xenophobic.

While this may seem like some distant American scenario, there are traits that bear striking relevance to Kenya.

Do the names Pio Gama Pinto, TJ Mboya, JM Kariuki and Robert Ouko ring any bell? Do we ever recoil when we recall the tribal clashes of 1992, 1997 and the devastating 2007 implosion?

What goes on in our minds when we see some self-appointed tribal chieftains balkanising the country through Ku Klux Klan like outfits?

Where exactly are we headed when fellows of highly dubious extraction, with gruesome skeletons overflowing in their closets and boasting of wealth looted from ordinary Kenyans suddenly anoint themselves martyrs and our “national saviours?”

We need to pause and reflect, seriously so. For close to five decades now, we have attempted to forge a nation out of our diverse communities. We don’t seem to have done a very good job of it.

For most of us, our primary loyalty still lies with the tribe. The nation is still some remote contraption. The so-called “national” leaders are little more than tribal dons, with their chief preoccupation being to herd their innocent ethnic kin into a pigeon hole to be used as some impersonal bargaining chip for selfish ends.

And so when such fellows talk of “my people”, they certainly do not mean a cross-section of Kenyans. The texture and thrust of their speech remain stone-age crude.

Even after giving unto ourselves a new Constitution, we are yet to fully accept the God-given and constitutionally guaranteed right of every Kenyan to live, work and make a home in any of our 47 counties.

We desire to have and belong to many parties, yet we refuse to embrace the culture of political competition. Those with views different from our own we regard not as rivals but as mortal foes to be fought and destroyed at any cost.

From the university to the workplace, we are most at ease with “our own”, even when they are crooks who ruin whatever they touch and steal anything within sight. We are quick to judge our “neighbour” not by their character but by the sound and shape of their last name.

Yes, go ahead and conduct a tolerance test on yourself and find out how you score. Then you will start to appreciate what it is that troubles the soul of this great land we all profess to love so.

We don’t even have to ask the National Cohesion Commission to tell us which county is most tolerant in Kenya. That would be a waste of precious time and public resources.

What we need is deep personal reflection. We must make up our minds whether we want to live together as a nation or as a union of disparate hostile communes.

Once we make that decision, we must find the courage to decisively cross the Rubicon and do what must be done. I challenge particularly the youth of this land to reject all those prejudices that split the paths of our fathers and led our country down the path of ruin.

Rather than clamour to reign over a collapsing state bedevilled by cat-fights over everything under the sun, let us lead the way in forging a commonwealth of Kenyan communities at peace with each other.

For of what use would it be to lead a tattered land with a soul troubled by a thousand ghosts of xenophobia, suspicion and impunity? I wish you a prosperous Labour Day.

ababumtumwa@yahoo.com