Ethnicity identities in Africa-Maina Muhuhe,Political Science finalist(UoN)

Ethnic categorizations tend to develop within the context of social inequality as instruments for stabilization or for re-establishment of this inequality. This argument dissects resource competitions and conflicts as a ground for formation of ethnic identities. Wallerstein (1979:180), evaluates status groups and blurred collective representations of classes in the *dependency theory, an argument he later used to structure the world system theory. For Wallerstein, ethnic consciousness is eternally latent everywhere and in every individual but it is only projected when groups feel threatened with the loss of previously acquired privilege. Also, ethnic consciousness may be aroused when groups feel that its an opportune moment politically to overcome longstanding denial of privilege. These privileges in the political context include inter alia, marginalization, political isolation of groups deemed minority, and so on. Again, to quote the Kenyan case, the people living in Mombasa have developed an ethnic identity which has elicited secession motives along the coast. The Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) advocating for the political emancipation of Mombasa bases its arguments on marginalization of the coastal city and its isolation from governance. This argument would also apply to the *Shifta movement which lay claim to the Northern Frontier District (NFD) of Kenya back in the mid-eighties. The Somali living in that area are yet to agree to the fact that they belong to Kenya and in my view , the marginalization of that area and their exclusion from sharing the national cake has led to development of an ethnic identity of `we` (the Somali) versus `others`. Of emphasis is that economic disparities in African nations have occasionally been a root cause for ethnic identity formation. In other countries resource conflicts have emerged as a major cause for the emergence of ethnic identity across Africa.

Maina Muhuhe is a distinguished Political Science student, University of Nairobi

This is an excerpt of his paper titled Ethnic Identities in Africa: The Causes and  the Management Approaches to Competing Identities for the Common Good

The full paper will be published in the Upcoming Intellectus Political Journal as well as the Intellectus Political Magazine

I believe in Africa!-Otieno Sikuri(Political Analyst)

“Africa is a vast continent, a continent of people, and not a place of exotica or a destination for tourists”. Chinua Achebe. There have been people who have labored, set teeth on edge to change and transform Africa. These African men and women did what they could do when they could do it. Today Africa is where it is because somebody did something. Now, whether Africa is moving forward or retrogressing is far afield. What is important is that today, unlike fifty or so years ago, we can decide freely, move freely, interact freely and help build Africa together. There may be some little tailwinds, but we are steady in our progress. Slow but sure.

Many can still recall the battles we fought; the Mau Mau in Kenya, the Shona and Ndebele uprisings in Zimbabwe, the struggles against apartheid in South Africa and many other violent and peaceful independence struggles. Even the problems we are afflicted with today are bare for everyone to see. The Alshabaab in Somalia, the Boko haram in Nigeria, the rebel movements all over Africa, the Arab springs; these are problems typical of every developing economy and we shall overcome them.

Then we’re faced with the challenge of neo-colonialism and the big brother conundrum. Africans are courteous people and the big brothers are all welcome for as long as they do not interfere in our internal affairs. As for the neo colonialists, they know full well, and our history is richly available, that we can break their backs anytime, if we choose to, but would such a choice benefit anybody? I can choose to write about our valor, our struggles, and our challenges for years on end and believe me, two decades from today someone would still write a similar story. That is revisionism. That is why I find it prudent that I write about something that presents an opportunity for Africa to grow and change for the better. This is the issue of Africa’s identity. If there is a thing that I desire to change, that is our mindset. The question of who we are. What is Africa? Where is Africa? Who is an African? Such are the questions that are pontificated in the global political arena, not because there are no answers, but because there are so many answers, a good number of which teem with uncertainty, fear and manifest hopelessness. Isn’t there a single answer that would out-rightly identify Africa and Africans? If there has ever been such an answer, then it was ‘strife’.

They say Africa is a wasteland, yet everyday they hanker to alienate the rich arable lands of Ethiopia. Tony Blair calls Africa a scar on the conscience of the world, yet hundreds of thousands of African toiled and still toil to make Britain a world power. They have chosen to separate the names ‘Africa’ and ‘Africans’. Where Africa is a place of savagery, Africans are humane and hardworking. Where Africa is a sea of humanity, Africans are rogue warlords. Surely, why the double standards? In reality, Africa and Africans should be indistinguishable. In the 1960s Africa was truly the cradle of mankind.Then, we had a continent fresh out of colonialism with a lot of promise and potential, a paradise in all but name. We had Africans who knew what it meant to be sons of the soil. Kwame Nkrumah, Nnamdi Azikiwe, JuliusNyerere, HaileSelassie, Tom Mboya were no ordinary people. They were Africans who believed in the spirit of an all-African unity, then called Pan-Africanism.

In the later years, we had Thomas Sankara, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem-selfless pan Africanists. Then of course we had Nelson Mandela and they referred to him (posthumously) as the paragon of our time. Amongst many other things, these great African leaders knew and taught that Africa could not be run on perennial dependency; neither could its future be premised on western hate. They simply advised that Africa had to be Africa and Africans had to be themselves. They saw potential and possibility in us and in their own small ways helped us harness that potential and make our possibility that of a more secure and peaceful Africa. They taught us to engage in global politics as equals, not as lesser players. Today, even something as simple as using an African name is a problem. We’ve had people completely westernizing their names in a bid to appear more western and less African. They want to make us believe that an African name is shameful and that Africa is backward, but I wish to argue otherwise. Africa is not merely about the name, or the color of skin. Its not even about our fidelity to traditions, deemed evil, no! Its about something of a greater moral standing, something innate, yet physiologically unidentifiable. Its about our humanity, our valor, our character. That is Africa to me. That is the change that we so much yearn to see effected.

Africa boasts of giving rise to phenomenal writers;Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe,Ali Mazrui,Ngugi wa Thiong’o,Taban Lo Liyong,Chimamandah Ngozi Adichie among others. These writers have historicized our past as well as presented in quite unequivocal terms that Africa is growing, but before the furtherance of such growth, we must first be true to our identity. They advise that it matters not to have a beautiful image with a stale reality. So, are we to lose this battle of image to win the war on reality? Whatever the case, Africa must grow and this growth must precipitate, pride, joy and peace. African unity and identity must be poignant in all its aspects. On African leadership, the term has always been; ignominious. In Africa’s most formative years, we had leaders who inspired courage, patriotism and statehood. The organization of African unity was a brainchild of leaders who wished to see a more united Africa. Later leaders undermined the efforts of the OAU, perhaps out of the normal sovereignty fear that guides regional integration, but recent occurrences make African unity a necessity or how can Africa bargain forcefully if it is pulled back, time and again by incessant civil wars, warlords, insurgents, human rights violators and tribal despots? Many ask the question why the normal African dreams of one day visiting the western countries and why this African apes the European, from name to demeanor to misdemeanor.

Who wouldn't want to identify with a supposedly superior race, an image that has been deified that it would pass for God’s race? The Americans built their identity through several years of serious self-denial, of implacable determination and of appraising reality as it was and working on it relentlessly. Today, an American embodies pride, prestige and development. America is the pristine model of democracy. Africa can transform too. Through leaps and bounds, Africa can be a model of humanity. For this to happen, the African needs to first ascertain where he stands. If he feels inferior, he must relinquish that feeling and understand that all human beings are equal. If an American can fly, an African can fly. That should be the spirit. This spirit should be maintained inviolable. This story I tell, this story of resilience, of an upright African identity, of setting teeth on edge, this should be the African story. “Honor is the subject of my story…”Shakespeare. Viva Africa!

DAVID OTIENO SIKURI is a leading political analyst and a History, Political Science and Public Administration student at MOI University

This is my my problem with Africa-Musiambo Isaiah Mulongo

Dr.Walter Rodney's most memorable book was his magnum opus, 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'. He tackled the issue of the conscious exploitation of Africa by European imperialists, leading to modern day underdevelopment. Rodney's arguments might have been valid, coming from a radical Pan Africanist, but can we ignore the fact that Africans, and in particular the African leader has played the greatest role in under developing Africa? In analyzing this, some figures will do us justice, after all figures do not lie.

 The A.U estimates that corruption costs the continent a whooping sum of $148billion every year, a figure that by far exceeds the paltry $30billion Africa receives in foreign aid, the bulk of this aid is 'development aid'. Are we really serious? In Nigeria for instance, the economic and financial crimes commission estimates that £220billion was 'squandered' between independence to 1999.The stolen fortune tallies almost exactly with the £220 billion of Western aid given to the whole of Africa between 1960 and 1997.The same amount equals six Marshall plans. Yes, six times the amount that was used to reconstruct post war Europe! 

And you want to call Africa a poor and impoverished continent? African leaders are only faithful to their foreign bank accounts, the resource curse has seen militaries and rag tag outfits kill and maim with wreck less abandon, the African 'leader' is the greatest impediment to the development of the continent. It’s the reason am even skeptical of devolution in Kenya, because more 'leaders' equal more problems, what has been done is the creation of new frontiers for graft, greed and inefficiency. With the typical African leader, let's
forget all this talk about development and discuss other things like soccer, the weather.

Musiambo Mulongo Isaiah is a Student at the University of Nairobi

The rude economic shock in the lives of hopeful Kenyans!~Peter Murathi

Nothing is so good in life like allowing truth to guide us without letting go of the chances of calculated optimism.The current seas that the jubilee government is sailing the country are not safe at all for the economy chorused with a double digits growth.

As the jubilee government took office, they had a lot of BIG promises to move the country to the mountaintop and finally to the promised land of a fair society, more job opportunities and lots more that have been erased from the Kenyan minds by the content of current hard economic times. It is this optimism that led Kenyans to vote for the Jubilee unreservedly. More than a year down the line, things are totally different. The economy is seemingly staggering and this is my biggest worry as the rest of this article will elaborate.Western countries have stepped up they silent economic battle to this country by issuing travelling advisories and tarnishing the Kenyan image through print media. Tourism sector has beenworse hit by the advisories. Most tourism sites and hotel have closed down in amid to avoid incurring unrecoverable costs. Many Kenyans have lost jobs both directly and indirectly. Theprogress of these adverse multiplier effects are very indefinite as no one knows how long the travel advisories will last. On this note, the jubilee has lost it so early on their promise to deliver more jobs to Kenyans. To counter the advisories, the government through relevant departmentshave come up with a model to revitalize tourism sector through promoting domestic tourism. Most likely the move will not to work and if it works, it will work out poorly for the prime reason that Kenyans are poor tourists, they know their country in and out and nothing they fancy to see beyond their neighborhood. Adding on the insecurity factor the sector is squarely doomed. The much foreign earning we get from the sector have started to shrink in worrying way.

The increased borrowing by the country is more likely to move the country to a debt trap, a situation in which the debt is more likely to benefit the lender other than the borrower. I have heard people chant that Kenya has found a new darling of the east. Yes she is avery good darling but like the past darlings, she has given us good loans that we are yet to understand the impact the will cause us in the long run, they are somehow tied like the others only that the terms are well structured to make them look better. It is good to borrow, but let the country borrow in an informed way and invest wisely. The Kenyan debt has risen to an estimate of Sh2.54 trillion as of today and with the budget of fiscal year 2014/ 2015 suffering a deficit of Sh342.6 billion, more borrowing is expected and the impact will definitely expand the debt bubble, let’s hope it will not burst!

Finally the inflation that is looming is definitely being moved by the government policy of taxing almost every activity, the amount of VATED activities and products has risen the cost of living to a level that is hurting many. For instance, the cost of production has gone high with the imposition of VAT on many inputs and energy, particularly electricity from a special VAT rate of 12% to 16%. This increased cost of production has translated to an increase in the price of the most basic needs Kenyans demand in their daily activities. The income that is ending up in the Kenyans pocket is day by day decreasing owing to the amount of deduction that are imposed and more that is coming such as raising NSSF pay slip deduction from Sh.200 to Sh.1,800 for those earning at least Sh.18,000 per month. The income will further decrease with the proposed pay cut that will be taking course sooner. It’s a time of little earnings more spending for so little…. this is the inflation that were are “enjoying” when we say life has really become hard in Kenya!

We support the Varsities Strike! Management Board, IC

A long-raging debate over the amount of money that students seeking higher education should pay has erupted once again. The Ministry of Education, which is in charge of the Higher education including the regulation and administration of fees, has hinted at increasing the fees for both the government and self sponsored students’ double-fold. As we all concur, education is the corner stone of development and any country that is serious about its future should invest heavily in education by ensuring unlimited access to education at all levels. About a half of Kenya’s population (45 per cent) live below poverty line and many more cannot afford education at the current rates. It’s a against this background that the charismatic President of the Students’ Organization of Nairobi University (SONU), Babu Owino and the energetic and no-nonsense Deputy President of SONU Irene Kendi, popularly known as Mama Yao who have teamed up with other students organizations in Kenya under the umbrella of KUSO to mobilize all university and college students against the intended increment. This came about after several fruitless attempts to seek audience with the Cabinet Secretary of Education, Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi, a former don at the University of Nairobi.

The two fiery leaders have succeeded to bring together students from all backgrounds for a common cause to hold a peaceful demonstration tomorrow, 20^th May, 2012 from 8.00am.  At Intellectus Consultancy, we fully support the students’ cause and will always strongly speak against the oppressors who are bent to make this nation a nation of illiteracy and ignorance

Management Board, Intellectus Consultancy

Voice of Comrades Not Voice of God!-Governor Joel Evans(GJE)

I must be goddamned if the voice of God! Irredeemably insane if it is! Woe be unto he or she who thought so, for behold even the existence of God Himself is relative. While to some he does exist, to others he is just a logical being, a creation of the mind. Call it a gonzo statement, call it a gorm-less notion, but one thing for sure is that, you cannot juxtapose a voice of a mortal being and level it up with a voice of a spirit! It is total absurdity; it does not add up, joke not! “Comrades power, Comrades riiaaaah, Comrades adjijin, Comrades akcheeew, Comrades akchyaah, Comrades ndialalaaah, Comrades tendeeeng, Comrades vruuuuum,” among other onomatopoeia, not forgetting the clichés as, “ We Will Not Allow, We Were Not Born

Yesterday, Admin Must Know People, It Has Come To Our Attention, Aluta Continua, For The Sake Of Peace, Peace-kende, A Comrade Is Always Right, Tell A Comrade To Tell Another Comrade,” among others, you cannot say, with a sober mind as yours, seriously, that such noise-making, such a cacophony of voices, such a vestige of heckling, a pang of nostalgia, is what encompasses the VOICE OF GOD! And if it is, then we must be the most jocular lot!

What has actually kidnapped my conscience is by the act that whenever comrades go for an election, they elect their student leaders with such a vigor unison agreement. They exalt their preferred candidates who emerge successful so profusely. However, just some few weeks down the road, they start crying foul, ululating, nagging, complaining of their never-ending misgivings and incapacities of their leaders to offer solutions to their every now and then challenges. They become bitter, so much such that they no longer recognize these leaders anymore; they even utter derogatory and demeaning statements to them.

The big question lingers, is this God, Our God, whose voice is implicated through the voice of comrades, such an erroneous God? Is He such a God full of mistakes? Why does He allow comrades to elect student leaders who on the real ranks are not able to fulfill their promises and policies? Who on the real caliber just peddle lies over their abilities to perform and dispense their duties? Or, on the other hand, is it comrades who are using the name of the Lord God, Our God, in vain? Or as a scape-goat? As one whom we can later on finger-point? It is so unfortunate. Campus politicians and leaders should halt misusing this phrase, “comrades have decided and the voice of comrades is the voice of God.” It misleads. It blinds. It fosters sycophancy. It inhibits liberated reasoning. It kills rational decision-making. Comrades decisions, comrades voices, at times, perhaps even many a times than not, may not necessarily be God’s decisions or God’s voice. It might as well be the DEVIL’s voice. BEWARE, BEWARNED! Have a strikeful day, wont you?