|
|
|
|
|
|
by CossieRay
3327 days ago
|
|
|
Mambo vipi @ slice_of_life. Thank you for your well articulated post. I'm Bantu also from Kenya ( Meru). > There has been a lot of hatred between the Bantu speaking communities and Nilotes in Kenya. Since when has this been the case? Have they been traditionally enemies or politics has succeeding in dividing people along ethnic lines? I think politics and not tribes is the culprit here. The latter was just a convenient platform to stratify the populace by early politicians for their political survival and dominance. |
|
|
>I think politics and not tribes is the culprit here.
AFIK there's nothing historically (pre-colonial era) that could shed light on why these two groups can't seem to get along. May be examining a similar setting outside Kenya could provide some much needed clarity.
But coming back to our situation, politics could be to blame. As soon as independence was attained there was a scramble for power and resources that has left many with a bitter taste in their mouths. The communities that 'lost' out, so to speak,feel like they need to eliminate the apparent victors in order to thrive.
This to me speaks to a deeper issue that is the mindset of scarcity. In the minds of many there is a finiteness in the magnitude of resources available and as such they need to be acquired by all means necessary and as quickly as possible. Obviously this isn't the reality but it is perceived as such.
One way neighboring Tanzania solved this issue is through standardization; it came at a cost though. TZ adopted some fiscally irresponsible nation building plans because they adopted communism and this affected their economy adversly to the point that their then president Mwalimu Julius Nyerere(who had initially introduced it) admitted to its failure and opened up the economy by allowing people to own businesses. However, hidden somewhere within these nation building plans was also a certain sense of nationhood and brotherhood. They all spoke the same language(swahili) for instance as opposed to their tribes' languages. Even today, it is the same case and you'll never ever hear of negative ethnicity there. Their economic plan had a calamitous outcome but their social cohesion is incomparable to that in Kenya.