How we can best create nationhood

The essence of nationhood should be understood and strongly felt by every citizen for it to make sense. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • Tribe affects the individual at a very personal level. Tribe is touchable. Tribe is not mysterious. Tribe has a face.
  • We have to have a common language or meaning-making system about what Kenya is to all of us who live in it.

Not too long ago, Michela Wrong released It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower, a book that attempts to show how culture and tradition, both directly connected to tribe, obstruct individual Kenyans’ fight against corruption.

She seems to suggest that a Kenyan’s freedom and autonomy is deeply tied down by their tribal culture and tradition.

Tribe appears to be the power or spirit that organises many aspects of our lives, even before the State or government identifies us — usually through an ID card.

The spirit of tribe always existed as traditional African natural law and cultural rituals.

The same spirit — or force, if you will — controls how we behave and relate with others in society.

IDENTITY CRISIS
In a country with at least 44 communities, many ‘tribal forces’ control how Kenyans from different regions understand themselves and those among whom they live.

The question that nags many of us is whether we are our tribe or Kenyan first.

Recently, an elder from central Kenya and I discussed what tribe means in Kenya.

A former member of a ‘national elders’ committee formed as part of a reconciliation initiative following the 2007/08 post-election violence told me about their countrywide fact-finding tour in search of the reason why the youth were the most involved in the bloodshed.

The committee found that identity was at the heart of the matter. The youth were undergoing an ‘identity crisis’.

ENMITY

That is why many young people in different parts of the country were violent against their fellow Kenyans and the State in general.

The ‘state identity’ was lacking in the youth. Many of them didn’t see the State as significant in positively enhancing their lives; rather, their tribe did.

Such youth did not fully identify themselves with Kenyanness.

For them, the State (Kenya) appeared to interfere with the smooth happening of their lives rather than improve it.

Indeed, many young people complained that the government — the State — harassed them.

To them, the face of the State is the police, an institution that has been accused of mistreating citizens and violating their basic human rights.

TRIBE
Could it still be that, for many Kenyans, the concept of ‘country citizen’ is unrealised, hence never applies in their identity formation?

That they believe in the essence of tribe as the defining factor in their being?

Sometimes it appears that in Kenya, tribe — and not country — is more capable of shaping us into all that we can be.

Tribe affects the individual at a very personal level. Tribe is touchable. Tribe is not mysterious. Tribe has a face.

Tribe is nurturing. Tribe has tradition and culture.

For many, tribe is the clear answer to the question “Who am I?”

To argue that tribe is the answer to the question of identity for many Kenyans is to accept that there is a level of essentiality that makes it a phenomenon that cannot be simply ignored.

FAMILY
Worth noting is the fact that groups or communities referred to as “tribes” have substantial cultural markers that distinguish them from others.

They include language and traditional religio-spiritual characteristics, which are used to express contrasting cultural worldviews by those whose identity they define.

Tribe identifies people as “us” and “them”. This way, people generally identify themselves as belonging to a lineage — a kind of familial bloodline.

They feel that true support comes only from their kin, not the State.

They feel that when there is a need for a ‘blood transfusion’, the first call is to family as there is higher hope to find the ‘right’ blood type than outside it.

LANGUAGE
Because of tribe, however, suspicion about the intentions of ‘outsiders’ is high.

People from one tribe become concerned about ‘how will the State (other tribes) make decisions that will directly affect my livelihood, and dreams, should they ever become the rulers’?

Sadly, because of these reasons, tribe will remain a most frightening institution — until we all empower the State (Kenya) to become the trustee that concretises us all into a common identity.

And where should the State begin in realising this trusteeship? Language.

We have to have a common language or meaning-making system about what Kenya is to all of us who live in it.

NATIONHOOD
The essence of nationhood should be understood and strongly felt by every citizen for it to make sense, just as that of tribe is felt by individuals belonging to their tribes.

This factor should be so strong that if one were threatened to be thrown out of the nation, they would feel excommunicated.

Funnily, one can still have a sense of belonging even if they were stripped of their Kenyan identity — because they can still be at home with their tribe.

Dr King’ara is a senior lecturer, communication and media studies, at Kenyatta University. [email protected]