TRIBALISM:FROM A GENERATION-Y WRITER

I was born in the late 80’s I guess you can call me a generation-Y. I grew up listening to people talk about tribalism. I didn’t exactly understand what the entire hullabaloo about tribalism was. So I searched in my new small dictionary and found this definition; Tribalism is the state or fact of being organised in a tribe or tribes, the behaviour and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s own tribe or social group. 

As far as I was concerned, being a child I felt safe among the people I knew, people who understood my language, my family etc. I didn’t know what was so bad about such a thing. Even as I grow I older, every time I travel to a different region, although I always get excited to meet new people it is always comforting to meet a fellow Kenyan in a location with a totally different people and a different way of life.  It is human nature to feel safe around ones own people. My question is, when did tribalism become a vice?

Through out my Pre School and primary school, having grown up in the village I mainly interacted with people from my own community, the tribe one came from was never something we even thought about. This was partly because we all spoke the same language. We were barely allowed to speak our local language in school anyway, and there was always some kid waiting to pass the ‘monitor’ to you.

My first real encounter with kids from other tribes was in high school. However, ‘tribalism’ as we call it, was really never an issue. In fact we used to make jokes about our different experiences based on where we grew up. There are very distinct habits/foods/ social organizations etc associated with certain tribes we used to make fun of just like our local comedians, Churchill or Eric Omondi would.

My first real encounter with ‘tribalism’ was when I went to campus. I participated in the elections of the representatives of the student body. This is the first time it dawned on me what people meant by ‘tribalism’. During the entire campaign period and even through the elections period, people supported ‘their own’. Even later when I started working I discovered that we held different political opinions based on Where we came from. 

I went out on an adventure to find out where it all went wrong, Most people I asked didn't have a 'certified answer' as to why they reacted the way they did; it was like an instinctive reaction. It was like my ‘safe’ feeling around people I knew when I was a child. Most people voted for one of their own because the felt they would address their plight better, they understood them and where they were coming from.

‘Tribalism’ has been called decease, a virus and other names that give the impression that it is one of the worst words in the world. It is said to be greatly responsible for the post election violence in 2007 in Kenya and one of the worst genocide events of all times in Rwanda inter alia.  I don’t disagree; Tribalism can be misused to bring disastrous results. However  as I noted earlier, tribalism means the behavior and attitudes that stem from strong loyalty to one’s tribe. Loyalty is a good thing, but like love can be abused to produce calamitous results. 

Is this article intended to only defend the word ‘tribalism’? By no means, this article’s purpose is to open our eyes to rethink our approach in the fight against ‘tribalism’ as we call it.

Our fight is not against ones loyalty to one’s tribe members neither is it against a group of people having a common development agenda; in any case, that’s the whole point behind devolved governance. Our fight is against exclusion of others, it is against hatred of other communities.

In my opinion, leaders have a bigger role to play in this fight by showing loyalty to Kenya as one community. Loyalty at home is crucial because if one doesn’t get support from his own backyard, then it is highly unlikely that he will get national support. One has to strike a very delicate balance in order to be seen as a national leader

In Kenya, a president is seen as a symbol of which tribe is in power. Although Kenyans generally know that one’s ability to lead has nothing to do with which tribe one comes from, they will still rather stick with someone who they feel has the highest chance of winning and therefore start or maintain their tribal pride (massage their tribal ego).

I am sure if Kenya’s form of government was a monarchy some people would be like, ‘hey, that family has been power for too long’. This fight has to start from having strong political/institutional structures. We need to have agendas that are nation based. They have to be clear and precise. We need to have political engines that from the outset one can tell what it stands for.  Until Kenyans can start seeing political parties as national parties, then the fight against abuse of tribalism will be futile. 

Secondly, leaders have to show that their political rivalries do not result from ‘tribalism’ but from strong   political ideologies. Until leaders stop looking at themselves as representatives of their tribes as opposed to national leaders then this fight is far from even starting. Shouting on national television that one is a national leader and going in their backyard and telling the locals in their local language how /why they should not support a particular candidate based on their tribal affiliation is ultimately abuse of tribal loyalty. Leaders and especially aspiring leaders have to fight this war from a whole new perspective. A famous saying goes, ‘you can’t keep doing things the same way and expect different results”