Ingredients of Kalenjin Bonding: Unity in Diversity

Unity in diversity. A very ignored tenet in humanity, one of those aspects of democracy that guarantees the rights of the minority even in the face of domination by the majority. It is the strength of those who hold divergent views and yet live harmoniously. It is a well known and acclaimed fact that man, by nature, is poor at multitasking, hence the wisdom of division of labour. Even in the most basic sense, diverse ideas on salient issues like religion have the potential to dismember such sacrosanct institutions as the family. What does unity in diversity mean for Kenya's 42-plus tribes, indeed for Africa's rainbow of skin colour, religious creed, economic strata and geographical, or indeed even historical diversity? What does unity in diversity mean for the Kalenjin, a club of nine-some (nine is a magical number in Kalenjin myths) tongues unified by their similarities or pretended similarities in culture and obvious tongue as well as evolutionary or migratory attributes?

The Kalenjin were not called so at the beginning of the last century, if anything not before the 1950s. Before this time, the "Nandi-Speaking" peoples was a common reference and these facts are covered in some historical monographs and journal publications (Refer to Wikipedia) and some academic manuscripts published in the 1940 like the one by Evan-Pritchard. The emergence of the term Kalenjin seems more like a coinage of some intellectual class which was desirous to cement a political alliance as a bargaining chip. Beginning in the 1940s, individuals from these groups who were going off to fight in World War II (1939–45) used the term kale or kole (the process of scarring the breast or the arm of a warrior who had killed an enemy in battle) to refer to themselves. During wartime radio broadcasts, an announcer, John Chemallan, used the phrase kalenjok ("I tell you," plural). Later, individuals from these groups who were attending Alliance High School formed a "Kalenjin" club. Fourteen in number, they constituted a distinct minority in this prestigious school in an area dominated by another tribe, the Gikuyu. The Kalenjin wanted an outward manifestation of identity and solidarity to distinguish them from the Gikuyu. These young high school students formed what would become the future Kalenjin elite. Kalenjin identity was consolidated with the founding of a Kalenjin Union in Eldoret in 1948, and the publication of a monthly magazine called Kalenjin in the 1950s.

Oddly, this word was settled on to unify the communities much like the demonised GEMA conglomerated around an acronym for the tribal nouns Gikuyu, Embu, Meru and ambivalently the Akamba. Why the Kalenjin club survived where Gema dispersed is beyond the scope of the present discussion. The Kalenjin movement was not simply the development of a people's identity. The British colonial government supported the Kalenjin movement and sponsored the Kalenjin monthly magazine out of a desire to foster anti-Gikuyu sentiments during the Mau Mau emergency. The Mau Mau movement was a mostly Gikuyu-led revolt against British colonialism that provoked an official state of emergency lasting from October 1952 to January 1960. Gikuyu conflicts both with the British and with non-Gikuyu tribes (including the Kalenjin) factored in the creation of Kalenjin solidarity and unity. Of note is that the Kalenjins are now recognised as one super-classification much in the line of thinking that informs the way in which the Luhya are amalgamated and sub-classified. By composition, the Kalenjin are made up of the Nandi (Chepng’al), Keiyo, Tugen, Kipsigis, Terik, Kony (Sebei, Sabaot), Pok (Lako), Suk (Pokwut, Pokot), Endo (not a clan of Keiyo?), Marakwet and the Kalenjin Okiek (Dorobo).

The different Kalenjin communities have had different references for each other. Thus, the Nandi were derogatively or otherwise called Chepng'al (watu wa maneno mengi!) by the other Kalenjins. There is, however, a myth that indicates that the name Nandi was given by some Arab merchants in reference to a community of vicious attackers, much like a swift bird called Nandi. It is perhaps important to mention that the term Nandi is used in the Indian language to refer to a goddess whose symbol is a bull! Does this have anything to do with the love for a cow by the Nandi and Kalenjins? It is a matter of conjecture, perhaps, but the love for a cow is found in the most flowery and unflattering language forms. "Koonyit ko toroor ko tee tany ak muren", respect is equated to a man and a cow! Ostensibly because when a man has cows, he can marry a woman and thus completely earn his respect 'koondit'.

Let’s say that history has done the Kalenjin some justice by identifying the cultural and linguistic points of convergence, and now it is upon us, this generation and the ones to come after us, to identify what divides us so that we can iron them out and model on a realistic and sustainable unity. In the Moi presidency, the Kalenjin were under the illusion that they were safe, needed not worry about multi-partyism and possibly needed no planning about the post-Moi political dispensation. That myth came crumbling on 30 Dec 2002 when the community woke up to realize that ‘Eve had no dress and I too am naked’. I need not repeat what has been repeated ad nuseum, except that a rallying of the community to counter any attempts to over-run and decimate us became the most popular effort of this community of valiant warriors. If the Kalenjin haters had succeeded in stigmatising, corralling and hoarding us into a cocoon of self-pity, the Kalenjin were to have been banished from the face of Kenya. As it were, the Kalenjin-haters' efforts came to naught, they didn’t succeed.

To not repeat the case where the community swung with Mr. Moi, we need to identify issues that unify us and those that divide us. In this case, we will avoid the case that led Njehu Gatabaki to dismiss the Kalenjin in his acidic derision that was published in the defunct yellow-journalism, the Finance magazine. I remember how every other Kalenjin kept their quiet while my cousin, Tony Kirwa, and I wrote a piece in defense of the Kalenjin (Why Gatabaki is wrong, Kenya Times, Wed 16 Nov 1994, page 7) which elicited a number of unsavoury exchanges between us and the dishonoured MP. I will post a scan of the papers elsewhere, soon. We, the Kalenjin, need to claim a deserved stake of Kenya, not as hopeless beggars at the mercy of some political god-father. No, the Kalenjin need to stand tall as proud co-owners and prominent shareholders of Kenya Inc., as a very pivotal addition without which Kenya is, but another dirty dot on a dark continent. We should know that like every citizen of Kenya: the Elmolo, the Okiek, the Giriama, the Tiriki, etc., we are an inseparable part of the Kenya socio-political fabric. Without us, this great nation will be in tatters, groan, bleed dry and wither.

The current show of Kalenjin unity may be threatened unless the tenets that bring us together are strengthened. Let me begin by saying that two things prompt me to say this. One is that the Moi presidency reversed the Kalenjin peoples’ democratisation to an extent that the Kalenjin people elected anybody he preferred as nobody dared contradict his fiat. The second reason is that while the Kalenjin position themselves to play a key role in the present political order, it is emerging that, indeed every community is angling to play the deciding or swing vote in the ever-changing political scenario. I provoke thought with a question I have asked before, should we invest in only one individual to determine our destiny as we continue to do with the ageless professor of politics, or do we need an approach that promotes a collegiate summit to manage the Kalenjin matters, much in the context of a 'Kalenjin Kokwet Council'?. Which is likely to promote a sense of ownership, a demi-god or a group that can 'weiwei' the options before plunging the community in the abyss of selfish and unconnected political expeditions?

Let me begin with a piece of tired history. After independence in 1963, the young nation needed to fuse into one massive shell, called Kenya. None of us bothered to ask what the name Kenya meant, which language it was or who had given it. I'm not sure that were we to rename this great land today, we would arrive at a consensus name given the way we are so tribally conscious! At independence, the word tribe was frowned upon as the people of Kenya embraced the nation-state and the 'growth' and well-being of Kenya became the more pressing need than abstractions like equitable distribution of national wealth. Anybody who raised a finger against the omniscient Jomo was seen as an enemy of Kenya, a 'Pumbavu', and was greeted with some unprintable platitudes. Therefore we all pretended to be Kenyans. Unwittingly, the rest of the country went to bed while Nyakinyua ran amok with land-grabbing sprees and the Chepkube menace.

The Gikuyu were eating while the rest of the communities sang the patriotic songs “ee Kanu, Kanu yajenga nchi” and 'nchi yangu ya Kenya ni nchi ya ajabu, tuungane pamoja tujenge taifa'. One only needs to listen to the patriotic songs of those days to affirm this. When Jaramogi decided to liberalise politics, the slaughter of his people in Kisumu greeted his efforts. Meanwhile, the key state corporations were being managed by the current millionaires, state companies collapsed while the company executives were becoming stinking rich ‘untouchables’. Sometimes I wonder whether my son has a role model to learn from, somebody who became a railway porter and rose on to be a millionaire by working hard, much like Tiny Rowland of the defunct Lonrho Plc. But he probably needs any, he just needs to avoid copying the ones we know.

Jomo slept, and Baba Moi inherited a system that had created a demi-god president: a primordial benefactor, the principal distributor of national wealth, farmer number one, teacher number one, family planner number one, and Kalenjin number one. To ‘speak with one voice’ was a great political philosophy and the greatest political professor considered any dissenting opinion as heretic and an insult to his consummate wisdom. On the underside, we saw communities within the Kalenjin club being branded as enemies while a select club was benefiting from state largesse, all in the name of the Kalenjin. I cannot forget an incident where I was in some audience somewhere. After being asked to identify the ‘enemy’, the audience failed to identify that the enemy was an ethnic community which is a member of the Kalenjin club! When the host pronounced the name of the enemy tribe, I blushed (well my blood became hot actually) and some in the audience turned to betray my intrusion. But it had been done. This was sustained throughout the Moi presidency with some communities being tagged as enemies, ‘berberen’, ‘kororon’, ‘choronok’, 'oribegei' etc. This should never have been allowed to begin in the first place, but Moi’s was a divide and rule regime per excellence, perfected to the core and sustained by a coterie of well-oiled sycophants.

The sad thing is that when the Kalenjin thieves were robbing the national coffers, they did it on their own, or at least for their families. When it was time to pay back, they high-tailed to the communities to seek refuge, then it was expedient for them to bundle the community into a single defence army. In a nutshell, when it was time to eat, Moi’s presidency was a closed house for only a select few court ‘eaters’. When it was pay-back time, the same exclusive eaters sought refuge in the community with the tired cliché ‘we are being haunted as a community’. We still hear these from the men and women who raped and crippled the very nerve centre of the Kalenjin economy, the KCC, KGGCU, NCPB, KIE, KNTC etc. While these corporations were going under or changing hands under the tables and being taken up by statehouse squatters, those that sustain the economies of Moi's erstwhile political enemies were thriving. Even the tea and coffee sectors were to have collapsed except that these were more controlled by Central Kenya cartels well out reach of the domineering RV Mafia.

Today, while the thieves of yesteryears enjoy the community’s protection, the protectors, you and I, walk around economically naked because of the collapse of several key agricultural-sector driving forces. The Kenyan, indeed the Kalenjin farmer was reduced to a pauper by their own government because the bubble millionaires with statehouse tentacles went on a product importation spree. Radioactive milk from Ukraine found a ready market and was safe to consume in Kenya as did Ugandan maize while the Kalenjin dairy and cereal farmer saw a collapse of the sectors at the hands of a Kalenjin government. The pride of the Kalenjin farmer was deflated irreparably by their own sons!

Fast forward to today. Mr. Moi is not in power and the Kalenjin are more solidly united and politically conscious and educated than ever. Granted, when I went to China in 2001, milk from Lessos was leaving each morning for the fresh milk market in Kisumu. Kibaki's government has tried to resuscitate the farmer's pride. Today, milk from Lessos doesn't go Cherongowards to Kisumu and Western Kenya, nay. In 2006, when I returned to Kenya, I found the milk being delivered to Kong'asiswards by the small scale farmer on a bicycle or on foot to the cooling plant in Lessos. In fact, one farmer who had forgotten his a/c number asked his son (an acquaintance of mine) to lunch at Kapsabet. The father was going to pay the bill. It brought back fond memories of the 1970s and 1980s, such a long time ago, that farmers used to drive the newest pick-ups and tractors in Eldoret town. Does any of you remember those stories of farmers going to an Indian's shop with money in a gunia, asking the Mhindi for the price of a new Ford or International tractor while the Mhindi looked at him from head to toe and back, trying to size up the rugged fellow against the price of the new tractor? Of course the Mhindi finally counted the money he needed for the tractor, much more money remained in the bag which he handed back to the nonchalant farmer. The 'kwaang'at' farmer rode his tractor back.

Those were the days when the credit facilities for farmers at AFC were available for asking, easily accessible and cheap. In Moi's Kenya, people who took these loans needed special clearance from some massive green pens, they could concoct stories like a ridiculous one I revised a long time ago. It read 'please write off my loan because lightning struck my crop of maize'. Lightning is a natural calamity, a strike of maize by lightning is creativity at its ebb. In the Moi's Kenya, brokers drove better and bigger cars, lived in better houses and put their children in better schools. The economy that was sustaining the Kalenjin was ruined by a Kalenjin ruling class while the people were reduced to beggars lining street corners for meagre pecuniary hand-outs. They were paltry when weighted against the robberies.

So much for the pain, back to the gist of my monologue, Kalenjin unity. Granted that in their magnanimity, the Kalenjin have accepted Mr. Moi's mistakes and decided to reinvent themselves as a unified house, how sustainable is the unity? One hopes that it is not a tower of cards, waiting to come down crumbling. But, is it an ephemeral coalescence driven more by fear of some unknown 'chemosiit' than a convergence of thought, or is it more reasonable than I can perceive? How about the mental ownership of 'Kalenjin', how much of Kalenjin is owned by the individual Kalenjin communities as opposed to it being owned by a few greedy 'elite' individuals with designs that are larger than your and my daily needs? Is it possible to premise the Kalenjin unity on a collection of ideological diversity but remain sustained as a unity of purpose because of some sense of importance accorded to each of the communities to that unity? Does a Sabaot in Mt. Elgon, for example, feel the same sense of mental ownership of the Kalenjin club as does a Nandi of Cherondo in Tindiret? I am aware that it is easy for anybody to imagine this as a stoking of old flames and an incitement of irrelevant issues that had better been let to rest. Ochamegei! Let's not bury our heads in the sand: by pressing the wound, the pus will come out, the wound will dry and we'll be healing it! Any other thing is an invitation to 'bulbuleni' and a Chernobyl-type explosion of a septic and contagious hatred will be inevitable. By confronting the issues that divide us, we'll be narrowing the gap, thrashing out the causes will undoubtedly help us to melt even closer. This is a viable move towards a sustainable unity of purpose.

While the emergence of the Hon. William Ruto presidential bid has given the community a new sense of identity, a semblance of freedom from the Moi clan hegemony and some security of tenure as well as the realisation that we can have a bargaining chip in the post-Moi Kenya, there are issues that need to be addressed. For example, as I asked before, is it possible for the Kalenjin to constitute a leadership summit, call it the Kalenjin Kokwet Council, out of which Ruto emerges as a leader, one among equals? This kind of arrangement will allow the Pokot to feel a sense of ownership of part of the Kalenjin club. The danger in approaching the Kalenjin unity issue as we did the approach to national unity (by demonising rather than respecting the tribe) is to promote some pretence of the absence of the undercurrents of internecine suspicions. I am not inventing these. I am aware that we are likely to face the problem of one tribe feeling excluded from a just share of the Kalenjin ‘pie’ should we be able to get recognition as a collective bloc. How certain are we that if one pretends enough to be the ‘chief’ of the Kalenjin, (s)he will not think it wise to exclude other tribes in his negotiations for positions in government.

This almost takes me off the veneer to another issue I raised elsewhere. Even if the Kalenjin seek to ‘put one of our own in statehouse’ as we always hear it sung to us ad infinitum now, are we going to be tenants in statehouse for ever? I have been of the idea that the Kalenjin did not become politically schooled because of one of their own occupying statehouse. Rather they did this only after being jolted to the perception that some crazy person in the ruling class may come knocking their door seeking retribution. Indeed while the Kalenjin were fusing and intimidating the current administration into backing off from vendetta, it emerged that the Moi clan was pursuing a more friendlier and safer approach by seeking rapprochement with the Kibaki statehouse. He was seeking his and his clan's security and survival.

The Kalenjin were magnetised in spite and in the absence from statehouse of Mr. Moi. This unity should be natured and not endangered. The first republic rubbished tribe as pumbavu, anti-development and at the same time promoted the -isms associated with it. Nepotism and clannism became the basis for getting appointments to state corporations. This was sustained by the Moi regime. Mr. Moi extended it a little to the church. Almost to a man, for example, a non-AIC adherent Nandi was perceived as an enemy of Mzee. Bishop Alexander Kipsang arap Muge was demonised because he was Anglican, Samuel Kipyebei arap Ng'eny (I would have more grouses with him because he stole Lenana School from me for his son) was never a darling of Mr. Moi even though he was among the 'Kifunguo Tatu' (sic) of 1979. Henry Kosgey never quite settled in Moi's Statehouse although he could have been helped by 'kanyiok'. Please be reminded that Kipruto arap Kirwa has never found favour before Moi, even after prostrating and apologising profusely in public. Simply because he is not AIC! Where the non-AIC leaders in Nandi were depreciated and haunted to subjugation, the clownish Barng'etuny grabbed hundreds of acres of Kimwani ADC complex for each of his sons-in-law (I wish he had another daughter for me to marry) while the poor folks at Kiptega, Kamung'ei, Sitet and Kipkures looked on agape. John Cheruiyot got a soft landing in a state corporation while Stanley Metto walked Nandi like a large colossus. David arap Bett and a new AIC-convert (I was in the meeting where he declared that he had joined AIC at Kabuson AIC Church in 1997), one Tony Ketter, supplied to KCC more toilet tissue than the milk which was delivered by the farmers.

Education was not spared either. Mr. Moi deliberately put his fingers in schools that were christened with a prefix AIC-Ng'orotionge Secondary School, any other was doomed to rot. It was during his time that we witnessed schools changing nominal church sponsors, sometimes under acrimonious circumstances as happened in in the then CPK-AIC tug of war at Lelmolok and Chepkoiyo in Uasin Gishu. The AIC church became a new tribe, a new clan if you like. It still is, for Evangelist Moi will be found in Nandi occasionally preaching! In the meantime, Moi employed three Tugen vestiges and proteges to prefect the three Nandi countries. Mark Kiptarbei arap Too was detailed to keep a tight lid on Nandi, Reuben Chesire and his agile sister, Zipporah Kitony kept an eye on Uasin-Gishu and Trans-Nzoia, respectively.

The Kibaki presidency has been even worse! Not only has this regime negated the achievements made at the demise of the Kanu behemoth in the last election. In 2002, Kenyans thought, acted sang and danced 'yote yawezekana' in the hope that tribe would be banished forever from the requirements to qualify for a state appointment. In Kibaki's government, the ministers have been given the lee-way to run their ministries without having to run scared of some village party activist with fillers at Statehouse. That is a plus. However, two sad things happened with this. The ministers have turned the ministries into tribal enclaves and reward centres. You don't need to be a genius to perceive this glaring reality; looking at any government parastatal gives one the clearest index of which tribal chief is in charge. Sadly, there aren't 42 ministries, and even if this were the case, some are class A while others are as good as ministerial departments. I do not need to belabour the second misgiving, that Kenya is a democracy best defined as 'a government of the old, by the old for all'.

In view of what the previous republics have done, Kenya and the Kalenjin need legislation to protect the citizens against mercenaries of state power so that in or out of power ‘our things’ should not be tampered with because the elaborate legislation will guarantee the rights of the weakest in the face of the menacing domineers. Community protectors need not be flesh and blood human beings who are likely to abandon the community in the high-seas. Much the same way that Kenya needs guarantee of the rights of the minority by the majority, the Kalenjin need declared and visible indices that a Sabaot will not be overrun by a Nandi in that part of their world because of their demographic strength or lack thereof. In the same way, the Terik need not be demised because of their numerical inferiority (although most of the Nandi are Terigek anyway). To guarantee this sense of collective and corporate ownership of the Kalenjin juggernaut, we need some sober thinking and not some orgasmic excitement. As the Kalenjin, we need a clear distinction between politicians and legislators including noise-makers on the one hand, and a collective Kalenjin leadership council. Can the Kalenjin offer representatives in equal proportion to constitute a supreme council that will handle and steer the community’s national aspirations? Such a council will be constituted as a semi-autonomous body made up of apolitical members representing every tribe, small or big. I hold no monopoly of ideas, certainly not of knowledge. But a robust discussion is required, not savage dismissals like are likely to greet this suggestion.

Aside from the council, the second thing is that I wish to state that it is important for all other Kalenjin tribes to respect each others' territorial interests. I am aware that this is not a very favourable topic, at least not for modern convenient thinkers. But I have taken it upon myself to broach this topic so as to slay the ghosts once and for all. Just as stated before, the Nandi should have a Nandi to represent their interests, a Keiyo should represent the Keiyo interests, even the interests of the Pokot are better represented by an ethnic Pokot. It means that it should be taken as a show of extreme insult of the Marakwet community if a Nandi should even dream of supplanting a Marakwet in the leadership of Marakwet country. This is the same for a Kipsigis in Nandi country, for in no way is a Nandi going to articulate the needs of a Tugen in Tugenland, much the same way an ethnic Kipsigis cannot be relied upon to not be tempted to devolve monies and development goodies and agenda from Nandi to a remote conclave in Kipsigisland.

Let us remember that, in Menjo University, for those who went there, we were told "Kiseetei kipchoi and eem bo buun". We would be educated by that paradigm to appreciate that we cannot invade fellow Kalenjins, Ongeseet Maasai ak eembo Lem etc. One of the truths that must be told is that when there is a ‘foreigner’ seeking positions of leadership in another tribe’s sphere, it will undoubtedly stoke the fires of hate and easily leads to a break-up of the Kalenjin unity. It is vexatious and gritty, however nationalist we pretend to be. Did I cease to be Chemoso's child because I woke up to realise that I am a Kalenjin? Will I name my son Cheptumo, or Chedatum just because I am an ardent Kalenjin? Hardly. I will name him according to the way the Nandi do. Only then can that make him stand out as a Kalenjin. That is why anybody who speaks Kalenjin language doesn't necessarily lay claim to Kalenjin membership. We need an entry point. Indeed, it is because of the privilege of being born a Nandi that I lay claim to my right as a Kalenjin.It is not vice-versa and to smell tribalism and any other -ism in this argument smacks of intellectual hypocrisy and ignorance of one's history. I am proud to be a Nandi, I expect any other Kalenjin to identify his/her roots and be proud of that. Stand tall as a Keiyot, Tugenin, Kipsigisin or Terigin. Don't be ashamed of this for in any case you bear indelible tribal marks, your names!

To rubbish the tribe as a unit of identity, security and nucleus about which the nation-state is cemented is to ask Kenyans to cede their surnames and adopt John Michael Joseph as a universal tag of a nation of patriotic pretenders. What a shame! To be proud of one's tribe and seek equitable distribution and a rightful share of the national cake to ensure that every tribe gets a share is to promote a sense of collective ownership of Nairobi. I will certainly not be amused if I am told that my tribe will not be represented in the Kalenjin club, much so the Kenyan association ostensibly because we are one. What balderdash! Promote and secure the units, the additive effect is that the centre will hold. God did not create Kenya, he created our tongues and consequently our tribes. Kenya is an acceptable, if irresistible, drawing of some imperialists, quite succinctly, a creation of the grabbers who were wining and dining at the remote Berlin conference.

Finally, for the collective Kalenjin representation, the prime representative emerging from the summit may come from any of the tribes either by consensus or through an electoral college. "Ma kindiitoi muren sumei". I ask again, is it possible to constitute a Kalenjin Kokwet Council? Will this enhance Kalenjin unity or not? Insult me if you can, but face the facts and discuss.