Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Alex O. Awiti
On August 4, 2010 millions of Kenyans will stand in line, many for the first
time in their lives, to cast their vote in a constitutional referendum. For many
Kenyans, this referendum, especially the promise of a new constitutional
dispensation, seems to be the universal panacea for all that is wrong and
frustrating with the country.
The frustration that many of many Kenyans, especially those not favored by
the prevailing political arrangement, have is to do with the excessive powers
vested in an ethicized presidency, impunity that enables and underwrites
ethnic fiat and the uncertainty about whether their turn to loot will come soon
enough.
Different ethnic groups can only come together, often fleetingly, if they
rationalize a negative stereotype or propagate a mutually compelling and
circumstantial narrative of victimology that casts one or more ethnic groups as
the villain.
The problems we have seen in the half a century since independence are
merely symptoms of a deep and fundamental identity problem. Who are these
people who occupy this geographic space defined politically and
administratively as Kenya? How did these people get here? Do they have
common history? Who framed that history? How do we know what we know
about ourselves? And does our disparate colonial experiences matter? How
did we relate before the colonial state? How did we relate in the colonial
state? How do we relate in the postcolonial state? What does it mean to
belong here, beyond holding a Kenyan passport?
For all intents, political and practical, we are collection of ethnicities under one
administrative conglomerate, Kenya. Loyalty is first and foremost to one’s
ethnic group. The three successive governments have governed by the logic
of ethnic expediency. The public enforces adherence to the ethnicity logic and
honor.
It is difficult to get Kenyans – a term that could easily just mean the people
who live in Kenya – to question and debate the relevance and efficacy of the
education system. But it is very easy to spark a protracted and robust debate
on the ethnicity of the next director of the Kenya Airports Authority or the
Kenya Ports Authority. Prosecution of corrupt public officials is often stymied
by claims of ethnic lynching.
I only hope that whatever the outcome of the referendum, the people of
Kenya can have the courage to engage in an honest and robust debate. We
need a robust debate that can bring to the fore the big and urgent questions of
our multiple identities, histories and fears. The events of 2007/2008 presented
an opportunity for debate but we as a nation lacked the courage.
For many Kenyans, this referendum, especially the promise of a new
constitutional dispensation, seems to be the universal panacea for all that is
wrong and frustrating with the country.
There is a veritable burden of misconceptions and false expectations about
what a constitution can and should do. We forget that there are critical
boundary conditions of social trust and cohesion that must exist to enable a
new constitutional order to flower.
The frustration that many Kenyans have, especially those not favored by the
prevailing political arrangement, is to do with the excessive powers vested in
an ethicized presidency, impunity that enables and underwrites ethnic fiat and
the uncertainty about whether their tribe’s turn to loot will come soon enough.
For all intents, political and practical, we are collection of ethnicities under one
administrative conglomerate, Kenya. Loyalty is first and foremost to one’s
ethnic group. The three successive governments have governed by the logic
of ethnic expediency.
Passing the draft law will not give us the thing we sorely need, a Kenyan
Nation. But passing the draft law could give us the courage to start on the
long and hard road of building a nation.