Kenya: Facing the Ultimate Test

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
OPINIONApril 30, 2006
Posted to the web May 1, 2006
Wallace KantaiNairobi
Now that we're in a state of undeclared war with Ethiopia, here's the chance to administer the ultimate test of the state of your patriotism. Last week, Ethiopian soldiers, allegedly in pursuit of Oromo Liberation Front soldiers, invaded Kenya (it doesn't matter what the provocation is - when the armed soldiers of one country cross the borders of another, it is an invasion). Kenyan police and soldiers repulsed the invading force, and managed to subdue it enough for Ethiopian authorities to sue for peace.
So here's the test - would you be willing to go, or send your son or daughter (depending on your age) to possibly die in the defence of Kenya in the face of opposition by a hostile power? Are you willing to hop on a bus, or an army transport plane, on your merry way to Moyale to defend your country from these unwelcome attentions? Let's be honest. For most of us, including yours truly, the answer would either be no, or a very hesitant yes. It would obviously be different if the invasion occurred nearer 'home'. If Kisumu, or Nyeri, or Machakos, or whatever piece of our green and lovely country you consider close to your heart was under threat, you would not need jingoist politicians to egg you on. You would be on the case - with guns and mortars, or even with sticks and stones if that was all that was available.
It would be an understandable hesitation. Patriotism is in direct proportion to the sense of threat one feels to hearth and home. The land wars in the Rift Valley in the 1990s were not a direct threat to us in our comfortable poverty in Buru Buru and Milimani and in Nyali, so opposition to the injustices and terrible shame of this part of our history was more academic than heartfelt. The report that Julie Gichuru produced on the refugees from that period, which aired on KTN a couple of years ago (and which represents some of the best and most touching television footage I have ever watched) looked like it was speaking of the troubles of Central Africa, and not a problem manifest at the heart of the nation's capital.
But even with that in mind, why is it that the troubles of the North induce such little emotion in us? True, the North is so remote as to be another country, but many decades after independence, this is an alarming state that cannot be justified. Is it a problem of language and of PR? Whenever killings occur, they are reported on in the context of animal rustling and skirmishes over watering holes. Ah, that's alright then. A few pastoralists beating each other over animals is an age-old ritual. Nothing to put a dent in the walk or to give up your lunch over.
So it would be understandable that there have been suggestions by some serious thinkers, that the North should have the democratic right to detach itself from the rest of Kenya, a country that, at best, tolerates the region as an appendage that deserves pity when there is mass starvation or condescension when one meets well-to-do people from the region (why should it be a source of surprise that Bonaya Godana was or Billow Kerrow and Adan Mohamed, the chief executive of Barclays Bank, are so well educated and well-spoken?). Never mind the fact that, by some measures, Ijara District is so wealthy as to shame more urban locales.
Columnists in newspapers and academics in big books have suggested that the ultimate test for whether the Kenyan 'nation' makes sense as it is currently geographically constituted is the consideration of secession by these neglected regions. The blogger Martin Kimani, in a surprisingly eloquent rant, calls the Kenyan state a 'vampire' one, arriving in the remotest northern corners 'as an attacker'.
These ideas are not so much concrete suggestions as expressions of exasperation at the seeming inability to forge a workable nation out of the remains of a people under siege by nature, hostile neighbours and a neglectful Government.
* Kantai writes on African Affairs and is based in Pretoria, South Africa.