WHO WILL SAVE KENYA FROM TRIBALISM?

By Remington Miheso

I am a keen follower of the Comrades Forum page on Facebook and what I see being posted on it keeps me wondering, who will ever save Kenya from this thing called tribalism? Someone said, the worst mistake one can ever do to one is giving them knowledge when they lack wisdom – what will the knowledge be used for?
When a student from the University of Nairobi still thinks in the line of Njuguna, Otieno and Wafula, who will ever save Kenya? Some of the posts on that page are so irritating that I sometimes contemplate on unliking the page but again running away from a problem is cowardice!

When I went home after completing the second semester of my second year, the elders set to interrogate me to gather information on how I was ‘fairing’ in my quest to find a wife (I wonder who told them I was looking for one). Of course I had to tell them I had someone. But what they were interested in was not me having someone but the name of that person! Chepleting, I told them.
They all frowned, why, because Chepleting is from Rift Valley and I am from Western. These are old men who didn’t step into any class; they think like that guy who wakes up every morning to go study in the Jomo Kenyatta Library. The difference here is that one group has knowledge and lacks wisdom and another group lacks both. 

If we, university students can’t be differentiated from the villagers who didn’t go to school, who will ever save Kenya? Will we continue blaming tribalism on this and that forever? I think that page entertains some of the most insensitive students in Kenya. Many of them need rehabilitation to get out of the bondage of tribalism. 

Surely, how do we expect the class one kids (who by next year will be on Facebook and Twitter) to emulate us? What will they learn from us? We who still think Uhuru Kenyata is Kikuyu and not the president of Kenya, who insists on using the second name of our deputy president rather than the first one for the simple reason that he is from the Kalenjin community.
 
A guy posts, “the Kikuyu are thieves”, out of the urge to protect his tribe. Another comments, the Luo are uncircumcised! And these are the same people we expect to be ‘good’ leaders tomorrow. These are the people who, even after four years in campus, leave the same way they came in, having wasted four years in the system.
It’s my opinion that university students need to stand out and initiate the process to end tribalism in Kenya. We do not need to watch videos of what happened after the 2007 general elections to know that tribalism is what derails Kenya’s development. 

If we hadn’t done what we did then, we wouldn’t be talking of settling the internally displaced persons. TJRC could not exist to waste millions (money that would have been used to build another super highway to my village or added to the thirty five thousand shillings I get from HELB) in its sitting and prepare a report, one I doubt will ever be implemented.

Tribalism is hard to decimate. This is a perception not the reality. It all starts with me and you. If I don’t see my roommate as Kamba or Kisii, there is no way I will see my lecturer as a Luo and thus my president as a Kikuyu. 

It’s all in the mind. It’s only that we don’t want to end tribalism in Kenya. It would end if we wanted it to. Surely, there is no way we can all be from the same tribe, that’s impossible!