This thing called Kenya is a strange animal. In the 1960s, the bright young nationalists who took over the country when we got independence from the British believed that their first job was to eradicate “tribalism.” What they really meant, in a way, was that they wanted to eradicate the nations that made up Kenya. It was assumed that the process would end with the birth of a brand-new being: the Kenyan.
Compared with other African nations, Kenya has had significant success with this experiment. But it has not been without its contradictions, though they had never really turned lethal until now.
Our Kenyan identity, so deliberately formed in the test tube of nationalist effort, has over the years been undermined, subtly and not so subtly, by our leaders – men who appealed to our histories and loyalties to win our votes.
You see, the burning houses and the bloody attacks here do not reflect primordial hatreds. They reflect the manipulation of identity for political gain.
Tragic. Please pray for the people of Kenya, especially for the protection of those who put their trust in Jesus Christ. Christians often made the scapegoat in times of chaos.
What is it with the manic insistence on cramming together people from different tribes who don’t like each other and insisting that they are a “nation?” Let them go their separate ways and trade with each other as they may or may not see fit.