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A decade ago, Prof Bethuel Ogot, one of the
country’s towering intellectuals, pronounced the
“Kenya project” dead. Kenya has never been a
more distant idea than it is now at the beginning
of the 21st Century. Nationalism is dead,
replaced by sub-nationalism. The tribe has eaten
the nation. Few years ago, the country exploded
into an orgy of political violence.
There may be some people who will be
wondering why Prof Ogot is talking about Kenya
in terms of projects and ideas. Is Kenya not a
concrete reality, an internationally recognised
sovereign state?
Although the notion of a nation as an idea is an
old one, it is Benedict Anderson’s 1983 book
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origins and Spread of Nationalism that offered
the most cogent articulation of the concept, and
in so doing shaped the contemporary study of
nationalism.
Anderson defined nations as social constructs,
political communities that live in the imagination
of the people who ascribe to them. A concrete
community is one whose members interact in
one way or the other on a sustained basis.
Nations are not concrete because “members of
even the smallest nation will never know most of
their-fellow members, meet them, or even hear of
them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of
their communion.”
In essence then, belonging to a nation is simply
the sense of connectedness with people one
does not know and is unlikely ever to meet. The
intellectual problem of the study of nationalism
is understanding why and how people develop or
fail to develop this belonging. Of note, the fact
that this connectedness is not necessarily
unproblematic.
As Anderson puts it: “Regardless of the actual
inequality and exploitation that may prevail in
each, the nation is always conceived as a deep,
horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this
fraternity that makes it possible, over the past
two centuries, for so many millions of people,
not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such
limited imaginings.”
The meaning of Prof Ogot’s pronouncement
should now be clear. It is a failure of the
imagination. The failure to develop and
propagate a national narrative alluring enough to
nurture a “deep, horizontal comradeship” beyond
the tribe. The reasons for the failure of Kenyan
nationalism is a subject for historians to ponder.
When the history is written, four squandered
opportunities will stand out.
The first was a decision by Jomo Kenyatta’s
Kanu’s administration after independence that
wealth was more important than people. Jomo
Kenyatta himself metamorphosed from an
erudite fiery nationalist to a parochial acquisitive
tribalist.
The second opportunity came in 1992. The
transition to multiparty politics afforded the
Opposition leaders opportunity to set the country
on a different political trajectory. Tribalism got
the better of them.
The third one came a decade later in 2003 when
the country elected Mwai Kibaki on a platform of
inclusive politics. Kibaki tore up the political
covenant, tribalised the government and went
back to the post-independence doctrine of
wealth above all else.
The Kibaki administration’s belligerence and
political thuggery brought the country to the
brink of civil war. Ironically, Kibaki ended up with
exactly the same cohabitation in his second term
that he had refused to honour in the first.
NEW CONSTITUTION
The fourth is between the enactment of the new
Constitution in 2010 and the 2013 General
Election. It is a period of contest between the
political values espoused in the Constitution —
democracy, rule of law, transparency and ethical
leadership on the one hand, and tribalism and
corruption of the past on the other. Tribalism
and corruption triumphed.
We are now hurtling towards another election
more ethnically polarised and angry than ever
before. Our election arbiters, the Independent
Electoral and Boundaries Commission and the
Supreme Court, are corrupted and discredited. As
I have observed in this column before, all our
multiparty elections with an incumbent president
defending have been violent. If Uhuru Kenyatta is
declared winner in another sham election, this
country will burn.
Where we go, thereafter, is a matter of
conjecture. What I do not see is another accept
and move on — the tyranny of peace could only
have been a one-shot game. Another mediated
grand coalition is a remote possibility, but to
what end? The last one was predicated on the
enactment of a new Constitution — we have it,
we don’t respect it.
When people find that they cannot live together
they part company. Kenya is for the most part
an abusive relationship. It is about time we start
talking about ending it. This ought not be a
difficult conversation.
It is a matter of record that the Coast has
harboured separatist aspirations for a long time.
The ongoing tribulations of governors Hassan
Joho and Amason Kingi are only the latest
additions to a long list of indignities visited upon
the region and its leaders by the overbearing
centre.
In Nelson Marwa, President Kenyatta would
seem to have found a commissar in the exact
mould of Eliud Mahihu, his father’s nasty
overbearing Coast supremo. Ngima yumaga
mutu-ini (Ugali comes from flour).
The Coast has all the important building blocks
of a successful nation — a common language, a
long political history and cultural heritage, a deep
sense of a shared identity as “watu wa pwani”,
and grievance.
With its 500km coastline, an exclusive maritime
economic zone five times its landmass, historical
trade and cultural ties with the Arab peninsula
and the wider Indian Ocean rim, and millions of
people in its landlocked hinterland, the Coast
nation will be starting off on a very strong
economic footing.
The Somali part of the country never wanted to
be part of it in the first place. From the brutal
Shifta war, to the Wagalla Massacre to the latest
round-up of Somali’s under the so-called
Operation Linda Nchi, no part of the country has
suffered for Kenyan nationalism like North-
Eastern, and the Somali population in general.
SECOND CLASS CITIZENS
And yet, the State continues to treat them as
second-class citizens, and some of us now see
every Somali as a potential terrorist. What does
Somali Kenya have to lose? Nothing. What does
it have to gain? Dignity.
The Luo Nation. From Jaramogi Oginga Odinga,
Ochieng’ Oneko, Tom Mboya, Argwings Kodhek,
Robert Ouko and Raila Odinga— no other nation
has sacrificed so much for so little in the name
of Kenya project.
It is perhaps fitting and inevitable that it is a Luo
intellectual who pronounced the failure of the
project. I think it is about time that the Luo
Nation asked itself whether it is not time to cut
its losses. If the Luo Nation channelled its
considerable human capital and political energy
to the development of Luoland, it will without
doubt be an enviable nation and economic
powerhouse in no time.
The Mt Kenya Nation. The ten counties that have
constituted themselves as Central Kenya
(Kiambu, Murang’a, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Embu,
Nyandarua, Meru, Tharaka-Nithi, Laikipia and
Nakuru) have about the same population (8.5
million) and land area (40,000 sq.km) as
Switzerland. Switzerland, despite being
landlocked and a non-member of the EU, is the
most prosperous country in Europe.
There is an increasingly popular narrative in the
region that it contributes a disproportionate share
of revenue to the Exchequer and gets much less
than its fair share. It is the narrative
underpinning Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria’s
“Punda Amechoka” signature initiative. If that be
the case, the region, I should say we, have the
most to gain economically from autonomy.
The challenge for the Mt Nation is its large
diaspora particularly the land owning ones in the
Rift Valley and at the Coast.
But these are issues that the respective nations
would be left to resolve bilaterally. It is not fair
that all the nations should be dragged into wars
or live under tyranny because of Kikuyu and
Kalenjin nations land feuds.
After 70 years of a failed nationalist project,
former Yugoslavia’s decade long genocidal wars
claimed over 140,000 lives and displaced over 4
million people. To what end?
The country still broke up — balkanised to be
specific, into six successful ethnic nations
(Serbia may yet yield one or two more). They
could have broken up peacefully like the Soviet
Union.
What are we waiting for, a genocide? Reke
tumanwo (we’d better go our separate ways). MERU TIMBER....We offer a wide range of wood products with a focus on timber, veneers, ply wood, block board and laminates.
country’s towering intellectuals, pronounced the
“Kenya project” dead. Kenya has never been a
more distant idea than it is now at the beginning
of the 21st Century. Nationalism is dead,
replaced by sub-nationalism. The tribe has eaten
the nation. Few years ago, the country exploded
into an orgy of political violence.
There may be some people who will be
wondering why Prof Ogot is talking about Kenya
in terms of projects and ideas. Is Kenya not a
concrete reality, an internationally recognised
sovereign state?
Although the notion of a nation as an idea is an
old one, it is Benedict Anderson’s 1983 book
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origins and Spread of Nationalism that offered
the most cogent articulation of the concept, and
in so doing shaped the contemporary study of
nationalism.
Anderson defined nations as social constructs,
political communities that live in the imagination
of the people who ascribe to them. A concrete
community is one whose members interact in
one way or the other on a sustained basis.
Nations are not concrete because “members of
even the smallest nation will never know most of
their-fellow members, meet them, or even hear of
them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of
their communion.”
In essence then, belonging to a nation is simply
the sense of connectedness with people one
does not know and is unlikely ever to meet. The
intellectual problem of the study of nationalism
is understanding why and how people develop or
fail to develop this belonging. Of note, the fact
that this connectedness is not necessarily
unproblematic.
As Anderson puts it: “Regardless of the actual
inequality and exploitation that may prevail in
each, the nation is always conceived as a deep,
horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this
fraternity that makes it possible, over the past
two centuries, for so many millions of people,
not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such
limited imaginings.”
The meaning of Prof Ogot’s pronouncement
should now be clear. It is a failure of the
imagination. The failure to develop and
propagate a national narrative alluring enough to
nurture a “deep, horizontal comradeship” beyond
the tribe. The reasons for the failure of Kenyan
nationalism is a subject for historians to ponder.
When the history is written, four squandered
opportunities will stand out.
The first was a decision by Jomo Kenyatta’s
Kanu’s administration after independence that
wealth was more important than people. Jomo
Kenyatta himself metamorphosed from an
erudite fiery nationalist to a parochial acquisitive
tribalist.
The second opportunity came in 1992. The
transition to multiparty politics afforded the
Opposition leaders opportunity to set the country
on a different political trajectory. Tribalism got
the better of them.
The third one came a decade later in 2003 when
the country elected Mwai Kibaki on a platform of
inclusive politics. Kibaki tore up the political
covenant, tribalised the government and went
back to the post-independence doctrine of
wealth above all else.
The Kibaki administration’s belligerence and
political thuggery brought the country to the
brink of civil war. Ironically, Kibaki ended up with
exactly the same cohabitation in his second term
that he had refused to honour in the first.
NEW CONSTITUTION
The fourth is between the enactment of the new
Constitution in 2010 and the 2013 General
Election. It is a period of contest between the
political values espoused in the Constitution —
democracy, rule of law, transparency and ethical
leadership on the one hand, and tribalism and
corruption of the past on the other. Tribalism
and corruption triumphed.
We are now hurtling towards another election
more ethnically polarised and angry than ever
before. Our election arbiters, the Independent
Electoral and Boundaries Commission and the
Supreme Court, are corrupted and discredited. As
I have observed in this column before, all our
multiparty elections with an incumbent president
defending have been violent. If Uhuru Kenyatta is
declared winner in another sham election, this
country will burn.
Where we go, thereafter, is a matter of
conjecture. What I do not see is another accept
and move on — the tyranny of peace could only
have been a one-shot game. Another mediated
grand coalition is a remote possibility, but to
what end? The last one was predicated on the
enactment of a new Constitution — we have it,
we don’t respect it.
When people find that they cannot live together
they part company. Kenya is for the most part
an abusive relationship. It is about time we start
talking about ending it. This ought not be a
difficult conversation.
It is a matter of record that the Coast has
harboured separatist aspirations for a long time.
The ongoing tribulations of governors Hassan
Joho and Amason Kingi are only the latest
additions to a long list of indignities visited upon
the region and its leaders by the overbearing
centre.
In Nelson Marwa, President Kenyatta would
seem to have found a commissar in the exact
mould of Eliud Mahihu, his father’s nasty
overbearing Coast supremo. Ngima yumaga
mutu-ini (Ugali comes from flour).
The Coast has all the important building blocks
of a successful nation — a common language, a
long political history and cultural heritage, a deep
sense of a shared identity as “watu wa pwani”,
and grievance.
With its 500km coastline, an exclusive maritime
economic zone five times its landmass, historical
trade and cultural ties with the Arab peninsula
and the wider Indian Ocean rim, and millions of
people in its landlocked hinterland, the Coast
nation will be starting off on a very strong
economic footing.
The Somali part of the country never wanted to
be part of it in the first place. From the brutal
Shifta war, to the Wagalla Massacre to the latest
round-up of Somali’s under the so-called
Operation Linda Nchi, no part of the country has
suffered for Kenyan nationalism like North-
Eastern, and the Somali population in general.
SECOND CLASS CITIZENS
And yet, the State continues to treat them as
second-class citizens, and some of us now see
every Somali as a potential terrorist. What does
Somali Kenya have to lose? Nothing. What does
it have to gain? Dignity.
The Luo Nation. From Jaramogi Oginga Odinga,
Ochieng’ Oneko, Tom Mboya, Argwings Kodhek,
Robert Ouko and Raila Odinga— no other nation
has sacrificed so much for so little in the name
of Kenya project.
It is perhaps fitting and inevitable that it is a Luo
intellectual who pronounced the failure of the
project. I think it is about time that the Luo
Nation asked itself whether it is not time to cut
its losses. If the Luo Nation channelled its
considerable human capital and political energy
to the development of Luoland, it will without
doubt be an enviable nation and economic
powerhouse in no time.
The Mt Kenya Nation. The ten counties that have
constituted themselves as Central Kenya
(Kiambu, Murang’a, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Embu,
Nyandarua, Meru, Tharaka-Nithi, Laikipia and
Nakuru) have about the same population (8.5
million) and land area (40,000 sq.km) as
Switzerland. Switzerland, despite being
landlocked and a non-member of the EU, is the
most prosperous country in Europe.
There is an increasingly popular narrative in the
region that it contributes a disproportionate share
of revenue to the Exchequer and gets much less
than its fair share. It is the narrative
underpinning Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria’s
“Punda Amechoka” signature initiative. If that be
the case, the region, I should say we, have the
most to gain economically from autonomy.
The challenge for the Mt Nation is its large
diaspora particularly the land owning ones in the
Rift Valley and at the Coast.
But these are issues that the respective nations
would be left to resolve bilaterally. It is not fair
that all the nations should be dragged into wars
or live under tyranny because of Kikuyu and
Kalenjin nations land feuds.
After 70 years of a failed nationalist project,
former Yugoslavia’s decade long genocidal wars
claimed over 140,000 lives and displaced over 4
million people. To what end?
The country still broke up — balkanised to be
specific, into six successful ethnic nations
(Serbia may yet yield one or two more). They
could have broken up peacefully like the Soviet
Union.
What are we waiting for, a genocide? Reke
tumanwo (we’d better go our separate ways). MERU TIMBER....We offer a wide range of wood products with a focus on timber, veneers, ply wood, block board and laminates.
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