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THE STORM OF NEGATIVE ETHNICITY IN KENYA

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ

NAIROBI-KENYA

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012

St Thomas Aquinas National Seminary drama club on Friday staged a play on Wakanyote Njuguna’s Novel: Before The Storm, a well known in Kenyan theatre circles. The main focus was on whether negative ethnicity will end in Kenya, given that every election must be marred by violence.

A mother (right) advises her daughter not to be married by chief’s son because they belonged to different ethnicity/ Photo by Fr Omolo, AJ

One of the major causes of violence is land dispute. “The whole land in Kenya is poisoned. Neither cattle nor people may thrive here. There are dust clouds of hateful poison blowing across this land. And the waters are bitter with the gall of evil people.”

These are the words of Baba, the main character of this play, as he watches the unfolding of events in the land, where politicians have set tribe against tribe, clan against clan, until blind hate has assumed its own momentum and now threatens to tear asunder primary families, including his own.

On the photo above, a mother is advising her daughter not to be married by a chief’s son because they come from different ethnicity. They are not even sure whether the forthcoming elections will find them peaceful. In other words, not even marrying from different ethnic groups will end negative ethnicity.

The play features scenes that have an uncanny familiarity for the Kenyan: bitter exchanges between people over which tribe they belong to; people expressing their bitter loss when their property is burned because they “do not belong”; and the expression of the high-handedness of authority.

Even though the club emphasized on civic education as shown on the photo below, civic education has never been effectively carried out in Kenya due to the interference of politicians. Click here to view Civic education in kenya | Family TV

Some of the actors carrying out civic education-they were later dispatched by the chief, arguing the meeting was illegal/ Photo by Fr Omolo, AJ

Given that civic education is not the exclusive domain of schools and young people in general, the club suggested that in order for it to be very effective it must aim at the young people since they are the ones being used by politicians to fuel violence.

They further observed that in most cases chiefs and administration in general are being used by the sitting government to stop such meetings. This is because the government is always very suspicious.

The club also suggested that the constitution be written in different languages and taken to the people at grassroots levels. For those who cannot read it was the responsibility of churches to carry out civic education on their behalf.

Even though this is a civic education play with an intimate relevance to the current Kenyan situation, characters respond differently: some seek escape from gathering storm; and yet others seek to defuse the storm by overwhelming evil with human goodness, love and reason.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578

E-mail- https://mail.google.com/mail/h/tia9198b3ecw/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=ppa@africaonline.co.ke

https://mail.google.com/mail/h/tia9198b3ecw/?&v=b&cs=wh&to=omolo.ouko@gmail.com

Website: http://www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org/