Africa: Thoughts on Tribalism and Identities

February 19, 2013

In December of 2012 I took a trip to a museum in Kenya nestled next to the infamous Nyayo House. For those who do not know Nyayo House is the building which houses Kenya’s immigration offices and also the site where many political detainees were tortured during the time when President Moi was in power. The museum was of interest to me not only because it is free but also because it housed a very memorable exhibit: Kenya Burning.

Kenya Burning is an exhibit which showcases the events that happened after the botched 2007 elections in Kenya. The exhibition starts from the time when Kenyans came out in droves to elect their next leaders to the time when Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki signed a coalition government agreement. The pictures are vivid, painful and even shocking. There are bodies burnt beyond recognition and men in the act of killing fellow men using clubs and machetes. Women and children can be seen on the run with only the clothes on their backs, road blocks and burning tires defined almost every city in the country. But the most painful part were the morgues and funerals. There are pictures of dead bodies lined up, and relatives already distressed from days of running and loss of livelihood and property are queuing to identify a relative or friend. The bodies are placed side by side with the faces uncovered, there is no refrigeration. Many of the bodies are short beneath the sheets, they could be children and are badly mutilated. I almost cried as I viewed the funeral of two boys, their faces charred by fire, they were placed in makeshift cardboard hearses, their feet were sticking out from one end.

Kenya Burning is a story of a nation torn between the past and the future. When Kenyans started killing neighbors and friends, they were not butchering people they knew, they were protecting an identity that was so deeply rooted within them it was almost instinctive. There are two main reasons why I think Kenyans turned on each other after the elections. Of course people felt disenfranchised and there was political fraud but that happens in other places too. I think there is more to it than what is on the surface.

In Kenya, at least for my generation, we are first taught our local tribe dialect (mother tongue). Only then do we move on to learn Swahili and English, the national languages. Because as children we are mostly exposed to the rituals and beliefs of our tribe, they form our identity from a very young age; which is why I believe we instinctively self-identify by our tribes rather than the country. In addition to passing on language and culture, anecdotes passed on from generations past help each tribe to set itself apart from another tribe. These anecdotes unfortunately sometimes paint other tribes in a less than appealing light and while they help one understand the history of one tribe they also set the stage for needless mistrust and perpetrate negative stereotypes. As I grow older, I suddenly realize that I am more often conscious of my tribe as I begin to see the differences between my tribe and other tribes. However, I am lucky enough to be able to think through it logically and ask questions. I have often asked older men and women in our tribe to explain to me deep rooted enmities with other tribes and more often than not I have found the reasons to be more emotional than factual and also very general and stereotypical. For these reasons I think that if we can retain our culture without demonizing other tribes then we will be on our way to true unity. Differences can unite us, but they can also lead to our death.

These are my thoughts as a person seeking to understand why and how I could turn on my neighbor of 10 years and kill them. I consciously try and live my life in a way that does not support tribalism but at the same time does not erode identities and culture. It is a hard line to draw and I need a lot of self-control. There are still people out there who define me using my negative tribal stereotypes and others in my tribal community who perpetrate negative stereotypes of other communities. However, I have learnt to consciously walk away from conversations that cannot be redeemed and openly correct people who define others using negative tribal stereotypes. I have realized that it starts with me. It will take a while for us to fully and truly unite as a nation. Kenya Burning is an exhibit that helps people process the difficulties of uniting a nation but even the vivid and sad pictures are not enough if we do not realize that it all starts at home. Unless I change the instinctive negative identities that have been passed along to me from generations past, then I will pass these on to the next generation and true unity and harmony may only be a dream.

Written by 'Vera'

'Vera' has a Masters in Global Policy Studies and has completed the RGK Center of Nonprofit Studies Portfolio Program. She completed her undergraduate studies in International Studies at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Vera is passionate about Africa and hopes to work there someday.

http://www.africaontheblog.com/africa-thoughts-on-tribalism-and-identities/

http://www.columbia.edu/~jk2002/publications/Klopp02_moralethnicity.pdf

Reuters Facts About Kenyan Tribes

(2008)

* Kenya's 36 million people are split into more than 40 different ethnic groups, each with its own strong identity, a variety of cultural traditions, and separate tongues.

* The main groups are -- Kikuyu (22 percent); Luhya (14 percent); Luo (13 percent); Kalenjin (12 percent); Kamba (11 percent), according to government statistics.

* The Maasai, Kenya's best-known tribe and favourite on tourism posters, make up a little over 1 percent of the population. They believe their god gave them all the cattle on earth and were entirely dependent on cattle alone for centuries. Many still live on just milk and fresh blood.

* President Mwai Kibaki is a Kikuyu. His group comes mainly from the agriculturally rich central highlands and wields strong economic power.

* Opposition leader Raila Odinga is a Luo, from western Kenya near Lake Victoria on the border with Uganda. Odinga's Nairobi constituency, Langata, includes one of Africa's largest slums where a large Luo population is fanatically behind him as as are most of the tribe.

* Many Luos feel they have been politically cheated by Kikuyus over Kenya's history. Odinga's father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, fell out with founding President Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, within three years of 1963 independence. The rift worsened when rising Luo politician Tom Mboya was assassinated in 1969, and Luos blamed it on Kenyatta's regime. Odinga says Kibaki cheated him out of a deal to create a prime minister's position in exchange for his Luo votes in the 2002 election.

* Many Kikuyus feel it was their tribe, along with the closely related Embu and Meru, who shed blood in the Mau Mau rebellion that helped win independence and therefore deserved the spoils of victory, not the Luos. They also place great emphasis on owning property and doing business.

* Former President Daniel arap Moi comes from the Kalenjin group that has produced most of Kenya's famous long-distance runners. The Kalenjin felt threatened by the Luo-Kikuyu alliance at independence, but Moi expertly sidelined both groups during his 24-year term with a divide-and-rule strategy. His allies were also blamed for assassinating rising Luo politician, Robert Ouko, in 1989 in a case that has never officially been solved.

Why Western Democracy Can Never Work in the Middle East

16/08/2014

As I write, the immediate crisis on Mount Sinjar appears to have been resolved, but this is a problem that will not go away. One million people have been displaced since Islamic State militants took over swathes of northern Iraq. Yesterday, the governor of Dohuk province warned of a "genocide" as hundreds of thousands sought refuge there. The situation in the Middle East is now more chaotic and dangerous than it has been for half a century.

The enthusiasm of yesteryear for the "Arab Spring" has proved entirely misguided. It has led to chaos in Egypt and anarchy in Libya. Those determined to be "on the right side of history" now find themselves on the wrong side of the argument, and Western meddling makes matters immeasurably worse.

The fundamental reason for our failure is that democracy, as we understand it, simply doesn't work in countries where family, tribe, sect and personal friendships trump the apparatus of the state. These are not societies governed by the rule of law; rather they are better described as "favour for favour" societies. When you have a problem of any kind, you look for someone related to you by family, tribe or region to help you out.

Behind this somewhat chaotic structure he the secret police and the armed forces. They hold the state together under the aegis of the president, king, or whoever rules the roost. That leader keeps the different elements of society in play with concessions to each group, but he has an iron fist to be used when necessary, as the public well understand.

Examples can readily be found in presidents Mubarak in Egypt, Assad in Syria and Saddam in Iraq. Nor are the kings of Jordan, Bahrain or, indeed. Saudi Arabia altogether different. There is uch less cruelty in the latter countries but the iron fist is there when needed. And who in those countries today could survey the Middle East and believe that a republic would be a better option?

The West's abject failure to understand the inner workings of Arab nations has had some disastrous effects. Iraq is the classic case. I was opposed to the invasion of that country, not because I had any love for Saddam but because I believed that the alternative would be worse. I was concerned that our invasion would destroy the stability of the Gulf which had, since the fall of the Shah in 1979, depended on a tripod comprising Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (the latter supported by the West). That is exactly what happened, and we now find that the Iranians are in a position to dominate the Gulf region.

Internally, the outcome was even worse. The Iraqi army was disbanded (although some would say it disbanded itself). The Americans then closed down the Ba'ath party, the only political organisation in the country. Certainly, it had been an instrument of Saddam's rule, but it was not all bad. Just as anyone in a position of responsibility in the Soviet Union was obliged to be a member of the Communist Party, so were senior Iraqis obliged to be members of the Ba'ath party. The result was to atomise the social and political structure of the country. Favour for favour ground to a halt, and so did governance.

Elections followed, with a huge turnout by the majority Shia, who must have been amazed at the naivety of their occupiers. As it turned out, Nouri Malaki, the Iraqi prime minister who was finally forced to step down this week, proved to be a Shia version of Saddam - at least as the minority Sunnis perceived him. Indeed, it was the severe disaffection of the Sunni tribes in the north of Iraq that permitted Islamic State to make its rapid territorial gains.

We in the West have little conception of the mutual hatred between these two Islamic sects. Add in a regional struggle and we now have the leading Sunni state, Saudi Arabia, feeling threatened by the growing power of the Shia standard-bearer in Iran, as its influence spreads in Syria and Lebanon - a Shi'ite arc which the Saudis are determined to oppose.

Where do our interests now lie? We have a humanitarian interest in getting aid to the refugees fleeing the bloodcurdling violence of the Islamic fighters. Protecting them requires that the front line of Kurdish-controlled Iraq be stabilised and only the Kurds can do that, as the US and most of Europe have now recognised. They must be provided with the ammunition, equipment and intelligence that they need. It is likely that close air support will also be necessary, at least for some months, with a small number of special forces in a position to direct air strikes.

Once the immediate crisis has been addressed, we must prevent the development of Islamic State. That will require an effective government in Baghdad to win back the acquiescence, if not the loyalty, of the Sunni northern tribes, who could take on the Islamic extremists if they chose to.

Beyond that we need to review our attitude to Tehran and Damascus. Yes, Damascus. An "Islamic state" is a major threat to the stability of the Middle East Furthermore, it establishes an area under the control of Islamic extremists which threatens Britain. The Security Services have been unambiguous in pointing to the risk of "blow-back" -young British men going out to fight and coming back fired up with hostile intent.

To be effective in the Middle East and to ensure our own security, we must, for once, learn from the past and ensure our policies take account of the internal dynamics of the countries of the region. We cannot afford any more mistakes. The growing chaos in the Middle East is a real and present danger to our economy, to the peace of our society and indeed, to the wider world

Andrew Green

Sir Andrew Green is a former Ambassador to Syria and to Saudi Arabia.

For a longer version of this article, see telegmph.co.uk/news/ uxmdnews middleeast