Assuming tribalism was a young boy, racism would be his father. tribalism would grow up watching his father’s ways and eventually grow up to be just like his dad.

After the 2007-2008 post election violence in Kenya. Kenyans realized first hand what tribalism is capable of. What we considered a mild problem showed it’s true diabolic face. Now, we all agree that what happened should never happen again, but we aren’t being specific in terms of what measures should be taken so that it actually “never happens again.” We all agree that tribalism must die, but what constitutes tribalism? what little factors are the hands, legs and body that form this ogre? What should we kill for tribalism to die? Here’s my list:

1.Language

During the post poll chaos, language was the sole determinant of life. The language you spoke, was your life. period. That has to change! And, for that to happen, we must get rid of all our languages and stick to Swahili. That way, the leaders that we elect to parliament will be Kenyan. New born babies at pumwani will be Kenyan. We will at last re-create “Umoja” which is Swahili for unity. Currently, we have over 42 tribes. Each tribe seeks parliament representation. Each tribe hungers for a piece of the national cake. Each tribe wants to be number one. Competition outputs winners and losers. And no one wants to be a loser. There’s an old story about a man who’s profession was fishing crabs. One day while fishing for some crabs, he realized he had left his basket lid at home. He lived far from the beach so there was no way he could dash back to retrieve it. He gave the issue alot of  thought and decided to fit many crabs in the basket so that if some of them jumped off the basket, a few would be left for him and his family. So he took his net with ten’s of crabs and emptied them into his basket. Much to his surprise, none of the crabs jumped out. As soon as one crab tried to crawl out of the basket, another crab pulled it back inside and so on and so forth. He drove his donkey cart back home and though miles away, on arrival all the crabs were in the basket. Still competing aggressively. They all made appetizing soup. The same applies to us. We keep pulling each other down because of our languages, foolishly if I may add since we are all in the same basket of poverty, illiteracy and a broken economy. Unless we help each other off the basket, we shall all make appetizing soup.

2.illiteracy & decentralization.

In Kenya, an estimated 85.1% of the population is considered literate. Ranking at 125 in the world out of 201 countries. But on average, children go to school for only 9 or 10 years in their life. Numbers that question the 85.1% demographic derived from Kenyan government sites. The 10 years [on the higher side] constitute of all 3 levels of education. That is Primary, Secondary and University education. Drawing to the conclusion that Kenya is an “illiterate nation.” My argument is therefore this, unless we educate our people, build more schools, amend our curriculum and emulate other world education policies, we will continue buying roasted maize from a hawker who has a master’s degree collecting dust back home. Such people end up drinking themselves senseless and lying on road side’s in an effort to forget the mathematical function unutilized in their brain. But what does all this have to do with tribalism? I will join the two later.. For now, allow me to tackle decentralization.

The five largest cities are:

1. Nairobi 3 million people
2. Mombasa 707,400 people
3. Kisumu 355,024 people
4. Nakuru 300,000 people
5. Eldoret 193,830 people

Our resources are unevenly distributed with Nairobi benefiting from that equation. Most of our indutries are in the heart of Nairobi city meaning that employment is also in Nairobi. At least most of it. The smart gradute roasting maize in Eldoret town is angered by this mathematical equation. But he cannot share it with his fellow workmates who were only able to get to Standard 4. They will laugh at his stories before offering to buy him a drink at mama wambua’s changaa joint. He’s brain is getting sick of all this and he lives in a state of depression which is very very dangerous. The unschooled maize roasters are many compared to the learned one’s. If the unschooled one’s deceided to torch they’re neighbours houses on fire, our learned friend would have to follow suit unless he risks having his house torched as well. Unless we educate our people, they will always make poor decisions. And they are not to blame.

3.Unemployment

An idle mind is the devils workshop. We all know that! Right? The persons repsonsible for the Nairobi killings were mostly unemployed people from our city slums. This were individuals who had time to form gangs and hatch plans of destructions. The fact that no middle class or wealthy estate engaged in battle shows clearly that the poor killed the poor. Something that is very very saddening. I am not an angel. I am forced to believe that I never hacked my neighbour to death because I was busy designing some website. The killers had all the time to kill. I am forced to believe that if all the killers were as busy as myself at that time, none of them would have killed. We need to create more jobs that will rescue our youths from the “idler’s stone sit” back in the slums.

Democracy

Finally, we need to transform into a democtratic state. Kenya need’s to be a place where one has the freedom to think ideas without necessarily requring bravery to do so. If the government continues to gag people’s mouth’s! The people shall always find other means of comunication.

This post was evoked by the poignant photo’s by Boniface Mwangi that I just saw this morning. Tusipigane tena majamaa.