All of us practice tribalism.

There's a very distorted notion, or should I say narrative among Kenyans that tribalism only involves favouring in some way persons from your tribe especially in politics and voting. Nay. Tribalism is far much deeper than we all think and sadly it has eaten deep into our nerves. So much so that even those who make the loudest noises about it seem to be the most affected. It's quite a dynamic subject and requires quite exceptional skills (which I doubt I possess) to properly and exhaustively discuss it. But let me try in as short terms as I can.






A few days ago, I held a discussion with a friend, a very passionate guy, who happens to be a big critic of the current Kenyan government. He's not a person you would ordinarily enjoy holding such debates with especially if you give the slightest indication that you support Uhuru Kenyatta's Jubilee administration. He spoke all manner of vitriol against the regime citing every single case he could his hands, sorry..., his mouth on. I listened reluctantly and thank goodness he finally ran short of examples and started repeating himself and I immediately made sure he realised he was repeating himself.






In all this noise I noticed that he said so many bad things about the Kikuyu community calling them corrupt and branding them tribalists. I asked him why he was not supporting anyone from his tribe. He told me he's not a tribalist. However, on asking him why he doesn't support Uhuru Kenyatta, he said that it's not Kikuyus only that can produce leaders.




Now such is what I call hypocritical criticism of on others. As the Swahili adage goes Nyani haoni kundule (a monkey 🐵 does not see his buttocks). When you are not affected by this disease called tribalism, you refuse to notice what this guy was telling me. It doesn't matter how many presidents Kikuyus produce as long as they are doing the job. My friend thinks that during Kenyatta, Kibaki and now Uhuru's regime, all Kikuyus were presidents and so were Kalenjins during the Moi regime.




This guy and many more Kenyans including most of our leaders, regardless of what you hear them say, know tribalism is bad and they actually hate it. But, the problem is that they have an incomplete view of what it actually is. They hardly know that they are actually suffering from the same disease. They think that when a Kikuyu supports Uhuru Kenyatta or a Luo supports Raila Odinga or a Kalenjin supports Ruto etc, only then does tribalism occur. However, we all know that there are Kikuyus, Lous and Kalenjins who support Uhuru, Odinga or Ruto respectively on the basis of ideas. You can't 'blanketly' brand them tribalists.




Similarly there are people who are not from any of this tribes, for example, but refuse to support Uhuru Kenyatta because he's a Kikuyu or Odinga because he's Luo or Ruto because he's Kalenjin. Their support or lack thereof is based on a certain stereotype they've been made to believe about tribes through our politics. This group, in my opinion suffer from the most chronic and greatly complex form of the disease called tribalism. To me they're like a person who knows the name of a certain poisonous substance but does not know how to identify the substance itself and are hence continuously imbibing the poison. Worse still they don't know that they have a wrong view. They are not ready to accept the correct view either. These are the people who harbour hatred for certain tribes based on whatever stereotypes our politics has pumped into their heads.




This is why I say before you judge others, search your soul. Plant love in your heart and uproot every single seed of hatred. Hate yourself whenever you catch you saying anything against another tribe. See yourself as a Kenyan first and recognize that no one living within Kenya's boundaries deserves to be discriminated against. That's how we can progress. That's why I cry my country.