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Kenya: Let's Borrow a Leaf From Canada
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The Nation (Nairobi)
OPINION
30 April 2008
Posted to the web 30 April 2008
Allan Ngugi
Nairobi
IN A RECENT COMMENTARY, LAWYER Gibson Kamau Kuria articulated one reason why we have recurring ethnic clashes over land - the failure to abide by constitutional precepts.
Many politicians seem to consider the Constitution a mere piece of paper, as Paul Ngei once famously put it. That is why it is not astonishing that some legislators from the Rift Valley are almost callously opposed to the return of uprooted people to their homes, or what is left of them.
Negative politicking as opposed to addressing socially-vexed situations seem to be our politicians' forte.
To hear anybody stating that "we should not rush this resettlement before addressing the root causes of the problem" makes many cringe. Indeed, there can be no better reason why violence stemming from the so-called land problems continues to fester 45 years after independence.
Displaced people living in flooded camps hardly live in luxury that can await politicians' interminable arguments and short-sighted viewpoints. The refugees were not, and have never been, the root causes of Kenya's social problems. If anything, they are the victims, and even if some may not want to go back yet, it is patently clear why.
One of the most basic constitutional precepts is the right to own property, work, do business or whatever else anywhere in the country. A nation-state cannot be balkanised to suit certain people's whims and still remain one.
This is a lesson we can learn from Belgium and Canada. These two highly developed nations have different fractious tribes that nonetheless have not taken up arms against each other.
Belgium is split between its Germanic population and the other largely French one. Canada, though mostly composed of British stock, has a whole province, Quebec, in which French-speakers dwell.
But these two nations have never had internal splits, and there is no prospect that this will happen soon. They have managed this because both their leadership abide by constitutional law.
THIS WAS DR KURIA'S THESIS THAT got Minister Naomi Shaaban's backing. During the Rift Valley peace parleys, she said that people from different communities in her native Coast Province have coexisted for ages despite the region's seething land and other problems.
This aside, what is this notion of "historical injustices" that is always vaguely trotted out without explanation?
Most Kenyan can cite past injustices: they are not exclusive to any one region, and, therefore, cannot be addressed on regional- or ethnic-specific cocoons.
One issue that is entirely missed is that the British colonial settlers and their local and home governments had much to do with these injustices. Yet we don't see anyone brandishing machetes to go wage war on them.
Their expropriation of lands was most rampant in Central and Rift Valley provinces. The Maasai community lost most of their land rights. The White Highlands stretched from Central Province to the Eldoret-Kitale area.
But we can't blame colonial Britain for everything because the political elite after independence just continued with similar business. Even the most deceitful politician cannot claim that the vast stretches of land in private hands in Kenya are owned by mere peasants.
It is, therefore, difficult to imagine that émigrés from other regions to the expansive Rift Valley, and who own only miniscule plots of land, can be the root cause of problems they were escaping from in the first place.
What politicians ought to do is to stop whipping up sentiments that continue causing flare-ups and sit down to sort out all of our problems. That's what they are paid to do. If they had the mind to do so, they can learn big lessons from many other countries and save our country from future turmoil.
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Mr Ngugi writes on social and economic issues.
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