Ethnic Bashing Is Dangerous
As a new generation of Kikuyus we are being forced to tackle ethnic perceptions that have developed over the years through manipulation of the issues, actions & politics of a few Kikuyus, to look like these were Kikuyu community positions. This led to our community been branded a certain way based on the actions and presentation of a few Kikuyus, a branding that played a supporting role in the slaughter of our tribesmen in various parts of the country in 2007/2008, and that has made it extremely complicated to deal with issues of historical injustice, resource allocation inequalities, and community socio-political leadership deficiencies in the Kikuyu community.
We find it extremely frustrating to keep trying to explain that we are not like so & so, just because we are Kikuyus. We also face great unbelief when we try to explain that some of our rural homes do not have electricity, or water, or tarmacked roads, etc; or that we have family in areas in Central where there is famine, or that there are poor people in our areas, or that not all Kikuyu youth are Mungiki, etc.
Kikuyusforchange is about the danger of ethnic stereotypes, and as we strive to slay the dragon of negative ethnicity, we have come to the realization that we must not only tackle the wrong perception of kikuyus as it currently exists, but also the process that has led us to this position today. We are therefore determined to speak out against not just misrepresentation of our community, but also against any process that seeks to isolate or ‘demonize ‘ any community as a whole, because of the mistakes of a few, as has been done to us
KikuyusforChange therefore takes great take exception to the increasing tendency to blame the Kalenjin as a community, for what in reality are decisions and positions of certain individual amongst them. We are especially concerned when we see media editorials & public sentiment that seems to indicate that the Kalenjin as a community, are the perpetrators of PEV, or that, as a community, they are destroying the Mau Forest, or that they are the source of discontentment on coalition governance issues.
As victims of negative ethnic stereotypes we know how dangerous it is to a community when ethnic bashing becomes a political tool, and as Kenyans we have all seen how destructive it is to our country’s nationhood. The fact is that the Kalenjins as a community, are as innocent over the Mau forest grabbing as the Kikuyus as a community were, of any election malpractice in the 2007 general elections. Both actions were carried out by individuals & for their own interests.
It is also a fact that any attempts to say the Kikuyu community were behind the election fiasco then, or that the Kalenjins as the community are responsible for the destruction of the Mau today, only confuse the process of getting to the individuals liable for the respective national disasters. Yesterday it was the Kikuyu, today it is the Kalenjin – which community will be blamed the next time there is a national crisis?
In the midst of all this confusion individuals are getting away with all manner of crimes, from murder, to rape, land grabbing, corruption, etc.
What Must be done:
All of us as Kenyans must hold individual political leaders accountable directly for their statements and actions. We are therefore challenging each Kenyan to resist the temptation of generalizing issues on a tribal context. Let us name those we have an issue with, and ensure that communities are not punished, ostracized or isolated, for the sake of individuals. Let us agree that the failures of individuals are their own, and do not represent what that individual’s community is, and that no-one should try to depict it as such.
To ALL our politicians, we challenge you to nationalize issues and make decisions on what is best for the country. Stop tribal supremacy wars and please make sure that each decision you make, and each position you take, is driven by the desire to do the greater good for the greater population of Kenyans. This must be the determining factor as you save the Mau, figure out how to punish perpetrators of Post Election Violence as well as how to handle the victims of this blot in our history, especially the IDPs. Ditto for the Reform Agenda, new constitution & boundaries review. You must always remember that this is our country, and that the positions you hold are held in trust.
Finally, for those of us in positions of influence, let us use whatever platform and influence we have wherever we are, to push the message that people must be held personally accountable for mistakes, crimes or bad decisions.
If we all play our part then we will be on the road to rebuilding our nation.
http://www.kikuyusforchange.com
1st September 2009, at 680 Hotel, Nairobi.
Signed for Kikuyusforchange:
NGUNJIRI WAMBUGU
Convener (0724958331)
WAMUYU GATHERU
Member
JOSEPH NJOROGE
Member
About the Author
Kikuyus for Change have just released a statement. They believe that ethnic stereotypes are harmful. Having experienced the harm resulting from ethnic stereotypes, they’re, understandably, determined to speak out against misrepresentations of other communities as a whole. In their view, there has been serious misrepresentation of Kalenjin as a community — it’s unclear just what this amounts to, but it seems to be a variation on collective responsibility. If Kikuyus for Change are right, it is widely believed that Kalenjin are perpetrators of (significant portions) the PEV; that they are destroying the Mau; and that they are the source of discontent on coalition governance issues. Against this unfortunate state of affairs, Kikuyus for Change argue that Kalenjin are not as a community perpetrators of PEV; and that they are not as a community Mau forest occupiers. We are given exactly one reason for that: those actions – the PEV; the entrance, destruction of and refusal to leave the Mau – are not the responsibility of Kalenjin because they are the actions of individuals.
This is the sort of empty and deceptive moralism that gives advocacy organisations in Kenya a bad name.
First, though, a word about the argument. The structure should be familiar: members of a group have done some terrible things; the group is then accused of collective responsibility for those acts; it is argued, felt, or feared that the members of the accused group will be victims of bigotry. A defender of the group has three options: accept collective responsibility; deny collective responsibility; or deny that collective responsibility has anything to do with it. If he accepts collective responsibility, then the defender has to show that this group doesn’t bear collective responsibility for this act: maybe they didn’t do it, or they knew not what they did, or whatever. If he doesn’t accept collective responsibility, then it makes no odds what the group did: even if the group performed the act, it can’t be held responsible. Alternatively, the defender of the group could simply say that even if the group were collectively responsible, that wouldn’t justify bigotry against it, because ethnic bigotry is just wrong.
Kikuyus for Change supply a desperately inept version of the first, when they should have gone for the third; their moralism lies in telling untruths for (what they suppose to be) good ends. Remember that they said that the actions for which Kalenjin are held communally liable are the actions of individuals. It is clear, I think, that they aren’t denying collective responsibility; rather, their point is that even if there is collective responsibility, it doesn’t apply in this case: Kalenjin aren’t collectively responsible for, say, the PEV. The problem with that move is simple: that the actions were committed by individuals does nothing whatever to show that there’s no communal liability for them. That follows from a very simple fact: groups acts through individuals, so it is entirely possible for a communal act to be performed by an individual. Think about the President’s assent to a bill. It is an act performed by the individual who happens to hold the office at the time; it is also an act by which the state, and therefore the groups of people who constitute the state, promise to obey a certain rule. Think also about a murder, carried out by a group of three men, who jointly plan and bring it off. Roughly speaking, it’s enough, for there to be collective moral responsibility, for a group to deliberately perform an act. The group of murderers is constituted of individuals; it is their actions which constitute the planning and commission of the murder. What makes them jointly responsible is their joint deliberate participation in the joint enterprise. But that joint deliberate participation is composed of individual acts. So the fact that the actions were performed by individuals is entirely consistent with collective responsibility for them; merely noting that the actions in question are the actions of individuals is a hopeless defence to the charge of collective responsibility.
More to the point, it deliberately overlooks facts which are common knowlege. The PEV in the Rift Valley was carefully-planned, and there was wide communal involvement. (See, for example, the Human Rights Watch report). All sorts of independent evidence suggests that the violence had the consent of a significant proportion of Kalenjin; and the consent, planning and participation of those properly empowered to act in the name of the community (Ashforth, Lynch, Waki). There is pretty good evidence of wide, if not quite universal, Kalenjin approval of the consequences of the violence (Ashforth, Lynch). And, again, there have been well-reported efforts to institutionalise the consequences of the violence: segregated schools, for example. In the example I gave earlier, the consent and particpation of all the members of the group was taken to be sufficient for collective responsibility. So it might be argued that the lack of either rules out collective responsibility in this case. That’s too quick. Collective responsibility can accrue to a group for an action even when not all its members approve or participate. The clearest example is war. It’s often taken to be the case that a duly-elected head of a state or a nation has the power to commit the state or nation to a war, with the collective consequences that that brings. It’s also true that a President, say, need not be elected by the entire nation to gain that power — all that’s necessary is a majority of the vote. Donald Kipkorir’s devotion marks the extent to which the Kalenjin political class is the duly-empowered representative of the Kalenjin nation, It is tolerably clear that the Kalenjin political class arranged the relevant bits of the post-election violence, tolerably clear that they were acting in their capacity as leaders of the Kalenjin nation in doing so, and tolerably clear that there is near-unanimous Kalenjin support for the consequences (if not, perhaps, the means) of PEV. That is why it ought to be conceded that Kalenjin bear collective responsibility for it.
It’s essential at this point to distinguish kinds of collective responsibility. I have in mind the following distinction: there is a kind of collective responsibility in which each member of the community is liable (and may therefore be punished) for the actions of the entire group; and there’s the kind of collective responsibility which does not distribute in this way — where we should say that the community is responsible for the acts, but in which it doesn’t follow that each member of the community can therefore be punished for the communal act. The clearest example of the first is the first example above, the joint-murder case, in which all the deliberately participants agree to kill. The Kalenjin-communal case is of the latter kind, mostly, I think, because while there was a piece of deliberate group activity, it is also clear that this was not unanimous. To recognise collective Kalenjin responsibility is not to call for communal punishment of Kalenjin.
But suppose you don’t agree. You think that there’s no Kalenjin communal responsibility for the PEV. You should still think that the Kikuyus for Change argument is foolish. Think about like this: rape is bad, regardless of the identity of the intended victim. The prohibition against rape isn’t contingent on whether or not the intended victim is, say, a rapist: even rapists ought not to be raped. If you’re looking for reasons not to rape someone, and the best you can come up with is that they’re not a rapist, you need to buy a new moral compass. The Kikuyus for Change argument against anti-Kalenjin bigotry is of exactly this type: instead of saying the simple and true thing — that ethnic bigotry is bad, independent of the identity of its victims — they say the complex and false thing — that anti-Kalenjin ethnic bigotry is bad because Kalenjin aren’t communally responsible for PEV. They seem unable to see the point that anti-Kalenjin bigotry is bad because it is wrong, not because Kalenjin are right.
By Daniel Weru
http://muigwithania.com/2009/09/03/response-to-deceptive-moralist-defence-by-kikuyus-4-change-of-kalenjin-community/
I think it is time to forget tribalism and embrace the thought that we come from and are born in Kenya and will die Kenyans.On one side Obama embraces being a son of a Kenyan,we who are brought up in Kenya should feel more proud of our country and bring up ideas that we can use to create more togetherness and enrichen our country .
Tribes and tribalism is all about our parents culture ,food and the language they speak,which works as a guideline on how we should face situations that we encounter everyday,socially and mentally.Our tribes have not and have never saved us,infact it destroyed and killed our fellow kenyans.
The world today we are all important,we need each other and togetherness is what all are striving to achieve.East Africa is also trying to open boundaries to each other,Europeans are trying to sell their products all over the world,Chinese company is granted the swedish subway,most EU countries has euro etc.Wazungus buy our land ,they cultivate,sell the mavunos to us too,employ us as we continue begging for `manna`.
Milton has a great idea ,poverty and ignorance just pulls as back everyday,everytime and always.We buy many products as if we live in london,whereas we are the producers.Our lifestyle is too expensive.E.g we educate doctors,when they are in private hospitals we think they are better whereas it is the same same doctors in public hospitals.
I think as 40 million people our projects and country could be very advanced.If kikuyu owns almost every project what about the other 41 tribes? What if all could learn from the kikuyus , see and at least do like them,I think we could be having less poverty.Kalonzo is having an idea of cooperatives,what about that?TOGETHERNESS is what we should strive for.Tribalism should be announced dead and buried.