Kenya: Where tribe is everything
National Post, Canada - January 5, 2008
On Dec. 27, Kenya held a national election. When the voting was done, it was unclear who'd really won, and the losing side accused the winning side of foul play. Although this is a routine response to losing an election in a sub-Saharan African country, the rigging in this case was so clumsy and so obvious, that even the usually supportive U.S. embassy in Nairobi did not recognize the outcome as having been fair and transparent.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the ensuing riots -- including dozens burned alive in a church. The main battle lines lie between the tribe that dominates the government (the Kikuyu, represented by President Mwai Kibaki) and the tribe of its primary opponents (the Luo, represented by the leader of the opposition, Raila Odinga).
Where members of the two tribes meet, supporters of one party kill and maim supporters of the other. How does one know if someone has voted for the government or the opposition? In Africa, the answer is easy, since most people vote for political leaders from their own tribe.
Every Kenyan carries a grid in his or her mind and classifies all the people they live and work with according to tribe. Each member of Kenya's 42 ethnic groups (and what they unapologetically call "tribes") can almost instantaneously identify a person's tribal identity on the basis of a combination of physical features, accent, name, body language and place of residence, as well as a host of other small differences. (They also lump all Westerners into one Swahili category called "Mazungu." They do not differentiate expatriate behaviour on a national basis) ...