Claire Robertson: Violence and Politics in Kenya
[Historian Claire Robertson has published numerous books and articles on women and small business in Kenya and is chief fundraiser for two Kenyan development projects focused on women entrepreneurs: micro-lending to urban traders and infrastructure construction (water tanks and a dam) for women farmers in a dry rural area. She lived in Kenya with her family in 1987-88 while on a Fulbright grant and has visited Kenya annually since 1998.]
The explanations given in the Western media for the troubles center primarily on “tribal” animosities, and are not particularly helpful in explaining the political deadlock and social strife. On February 20, 2008, on a local National Public Radio station an “expert” said that the solution for Kenyan political turmoil was power-sharing between the opposition and the Kibaki government. By “power-sharing,” he meant bringing all ethnic groups into the government in proportion to their numbers in the population. The implications of this “solution” are even more severe than what is going on now. It would ensure the long-term political segregation of Kenya’s diverse ethnic groups.
If we applied this “solution” in the U.S., we would have Congressional representation based on ethnicity rather than any other criterion. The resulting system would not only offer incentives to organize by ethnicities, but “ethnicize” our country in a way that could only be politically unstable. That is not a good idea here or in Kenya. This “solution” misunderstands the social and political patterns that have developed in Kenya over the last 100 years, in which poverty, political violence, and corruption are more important driving forces than “tribes.”
Kenya is highly diverse ethnically and not easily segregated for political purposes. Since independence, political alliances have generally crossed ethnicities and much intermarriage between “tribes” occurred historically and at present. Today those identified as ethnically Kikuyu—along with the Kamba and Meru, who are related linguistically to the Kikuyu and inhabit adjacent areas in central Kenya—are Kenya’s largest linguistic block at 37%. The Luo and the related Luhya compose the second largest block at 27%, with the next most numerous Kalenjin at 11.5%. Otherwise, Kenya’s Maasai are only 1.8% of the population and there is a variety of others with relatively small numbers.
None of these ethnic or linguistic “blocks” dominates. The art of politics in Kenya—as elsewhere—has been defined by a variety of factors including idealism but also greed, corruption, and a realpolitik in which international pressures have exerted significant influences.
When Nobel Prizewinning author Ngugi wa Thiong’o says that the present conflict is more about class than ethnicity, he is right. Talk of “tribes” is essentially a cover for more basic class divisions that have been exacerbated, first by colonial and more recently by corrupt governments in Kenya. A global capitalist economy further abetted social fractures that consigned most Kenyans to being primary producers of coffee, tea, and cut flower exports.
A power sharing arrangement was reached at the end of February between Odinga and Kibaki that offered Odinga substantial powers as Prime Minister. It has calmed the country somewhat, but longstanding social and economic troubles remain. Just as the politicians opened the Kenyan Parliament in early March, the army was cracking down on groups in the western Mount Elgon region who were voicing protest over land rights and usage.
The Political Consequences of Economic Troubles
Admittedly, the crisis is perhaps the worst since independence in 1963; and this in a country whose government has seemed relatively stable to Westerners. Aside from a failed coup attempt against Jomo Kenyatta in 1972, Kenya has had a parliamentary democracy, at least in form, since independence. However, it has until relatively recently been a one-party state dominated by the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) party founded by Kenyatta. They have held regular elections and have seemed on the surface to have a sound capitalist economy.
Having knowledge of Kenya, however, this violence does not surprise me. In the late 1990s, I wrote about the destructive and fractious Kenyan political economy under then President Daniel arap Moi, who succeeded Jomo Kenyatta as leader of KANU and is of Kalenjin ethnicity. Moi held office from 1978 to 2002, and stepped down only after being forced it institute a multi-party government by the opposition.
Moi expanded dramatically a series of punitive policies begun by the British colonial government against thousands of Nairobi street traders (especially women). Kenyan governments have generally had a hostile relationship with street and market traders, characterized by failed policies of requiring licenses and insufficient provision of space for them to sell legally. Their trade has long fed Nairobi with staple commodities and prepared foods, particularly in the 1990s, but they stood in the way of Moi’s approach to economic development (and enrichment of himself and other elites through corruption)....
In Kenya, colonialism and the present dominance of predatory multinational capital have taught locals that government exists to enrich those who govern. Kenya was and is what has been called a colony (or neo-colony) of exploitation, in this case primarily of agricultural products rather than minerals. The colonial government’s dominant policy goal was to generate profits for settlers from export products. Colonial-era white settlers attempted, not always successfully, to achieve a high standard of living by using the mechanisms of head taxes, price controls that dictated lower prices for African-produced than white-supervised agricultural products, lower wages for Kenyan than white labor, forced labor and forced cultivation of certain crops.
One consequence of these policies, combined with strictures imposed by the World Bank, is that, like many African countries, Kenya is no longer self-sufficient in terms of food production. The World Bank’s focus on exports intended to help pay off international debts has left many farmers dependent on cash-bought food, and damaged Kenya’s already weak governmental provision of social services.
The Kenyan government has never protected its population from the incursions of international capital. The only barriers for multinational corporations have been the bribes extorted by government officials (at one point airlines pulled out of Kenya due to the extortionate demands of one of Moi’s sons for payment for landing rights) and poor infrastructure, whose maintenance money has been drawn off by corruption.
Bribes at every level—from those collected from small business owners by impecunious police whose government pay has been siphoned off by corrupt officials up the line, to those paid by the middle class to obtain licenses of some kind, to those paid by international contractors/corporations in order to be treated preferentially in Kenyan business contracts—have also impeded the achievement of a stable prosperous economy....
Read entire article at eHistory at Ohio State University
The explanations given in the Western media for the troubles center primarily on “tribal” animosities, and are not particularly helpful in explaining the political deadlock and social strife. On February 20, 2008, on a local National Public Radio station an “expert” said that the solution for Kenyan political turmoil was power-sharing between the opposition and the Kibaki government. By “power-sharing,” he meant bringing all ethnic groups into the government in proportion to their numbers in the population. The implications of this “solution” are even more severe than what is going on now. It would ensure the long-term political segregation of Kenya’s diverse ethnic groups.
If we applied this “solution” in the U.S., we would have Congressional representation based on ethnicity rather than any other criterion. The resulting system would not only offer incentives to organize by ethnicities, but “ethnicize” our country in a way that could only be politically unstable. That is not a good idea here or in Kenya. This “solution” misunderstands the social and political patterns that have developed in Kenya over the last 100 years, in which poverty, political violence, and corruption are more important driving forces than “tribes.”
Kenya is highly diverse ethnically and not easily segregated for political purposes. Since independence, political alliances have generally crossed ethnicities and much intermarriage between “tribes” occurred historically and at present. Today those identified as ethnically Kikuyu—along with the Kamba and Meru, who are related linguistically to the Kikuyu and inhabit adjacent areas in central Kenya—are Kenya’s largest linguistic block at 37%. The Luo and the related Luhya compose the second largest block at 27%, with the next most numerous Kalenjin at 11.5%. Otherwise, Kenya’s Maasai are only 1.8% of the population and there is a variety of others with relatively small numbers.
None of these ethnic or linguistic “blocks” dominates. The art of politics in Kenya—as elsewhere—has been defined by a variety of factors including idealism but also greed, corruption, and a realpolitik in which international pressures have exerted significant influences.
When Nobel Prizewinning author Ngugi wa Thiong’o says that the present conflict is more about class than ethnicity, he is right. Talk of “tribes” is essentially a cover for more basic class divisions that have been exacerbated, first by colonial and more recently by corrupt governments in Kenya. A global capitalist economy further abetted social fractures that consigned most Kenyans to being primary producers of coffee, tea, and cut flower exports.
A power sharing arrangement was reached at the end of February between Odinga and Kibaki that offered Odinga substantial powers as Prime Minister. It has calmed the country somewhat, but longstanding social and economic troubles remain. Just as the politicians opened the Kenyan Parliament in early March, the army was cracking down on groups in the western Mount Elgon region who were voicing protest over land rights and usage.
The Political Consequences of Economic Troubles
Admittedly, the crisis is perhaps the worst since independence in 1963; and this in a country whose government has seemed relatively stable to Westerners. Aside from a failed coup attempt against Jomo Kenyatta in 1972, Kenya has had a parliamentary democracy, at least in form, since independence. However, it has until relatively recently been a one-party state dominated by the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) party founded by Kenyatta. They have held regular elections and have seemed on the surface to have a sound capitalist economy.
Having knowledge of Kenya, however, this violence does not surprise me. In the late 1990s, I wrote about the destructive and fractious Kenyan political economy under then President Daniel arap Moi, who succeeded Jomo Kenyatta as leader of KANU and is of Kalenjin ethnicity. Moi held office from 1978 to 2002, and stepped down only after being forced it institute a multi-party government by the opposition.
Moi expanded dramatically a series of punitive policies begun by the British colonial government against thousands of Nairobi street traders (especially women). Kenyan governments have generally had a hostile relationship with street and market traders, characterized by failed policies of requiring licenses and insufficient provision of space for them to sell legally. Their trade has long fed Nairobi with staple commodities and prepared foods, particularly in the 1990s, but they stood in the way of Moi’s approach to economic development (and enrichment of himself and other elites through corruption)....
In Kenya, colonialism and the present dominance of predatory multinational capital have taught locals that government exists to enrich those who govern. Kenya was and is what has been called a colony (or neo-colony) of exploitation, in this case primarily of agricultural products rather than minerals. The colonial government’s dominant policy goal was to generate profits for settlers from export products. Colonial-era white settlers attempted, not always successfully, to achieve a high standard of living by using the mechanisms of head taxes, price controls that dictated lower prices for African-produced than white-supervised agricultural products, lower wages for Kenyan than white labor, forced labor and forced cultivation of certain crops.
One consequence of these policies, combined with strictures imposed by the World Bank, is that, like many African countries, Kenya is no longer self-sufficient in terms of food production. The World Bank’s focus on exports intended to help pay off international debts has left many farmers dependent on cash-bought food, and damaged Kenya’s already weak governmental provision of social services.
The Kenyan government has never protected its population from the incursions of international capital. The only barriers for multinational corporations have been the bribes extorted by government officials (at one point airlines pulled out of Kenya due to the extortionate demands of one of Moi’s sons for payment for landing rights) and poor infrastructure, whose maintenance money has been drawn off by corruption.
Bribes at every level—from those collected from small business owners by impecunious police whose government pay has been siphoned off by corrupt officials up the line, to those paid by the middle class to obtain licenses of some kind, to those paid by international contractors/corporations in order to be treated preferentially in Kenyan business contracts—have also impeded the achievement of a stable prosperous economy....