Divisive identities are a familiar phenomenon in Kenya. They are ethnicity, race, religion, generation, gender, region and clan. We will not create a nation unless we seriously confront what divides and separates us.

Focusing on values that reflect national interests will help us to create new identities, which are fundamental to development.

Let me share some examples of my experience, which illustrate these rampant divisions. The other day, I was talking to a close friend about corruption, when he told of a man from his community, who holds a high office and who had been accused of stealing public funds. He went on that his community hates thieves.

We can meet the challenges posed by ethnicity if we glorify the values of the community and vilify theft, as in this case.

People who steal do not do it for the community, so they deserve to be ostracised. Thieves should never seek refuge in their communities when they are caught.

Nairobi businessman Kamlesh Pattni is well known because of the part he played in the Goldenberg scandal. He faced commissions and trials for over a decade.

During that period the South Asian African community in Kenya became the collective Pattni. Did we stop to think how many of our sisters and brothers were innocent of Pattni's wrong-doing? When did Pattni become the community's representative?

As the Goldenberg scandal unfolded the culprits clearly were multi-racial and multi-ethnic. Kenyans had no business bringing race into this case. Honesty is a virtue in all communities.

The constitutional provisions on kadhi's courts in the current constitution and in the drafts of the new one have been the target of attacks by Christian leaders. There has been serious misunderstanding about and misinterpretation of the nature of the courts in this debate.

What the religious divisions have conveniently forgotten is that Muslim women have benefitted immensely from their access to justice in these courts in matters of divorce, maintenance and succession. In these deliberations gender equality as a national value has been sacrificed at the altar of religious bigotry.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga's son Fidel Castro is quoted as having urged the youth, who constitute the majority of Kenyans, to vote for their own as a social group and capture state power.

This generational argument has been bandied around for years, but without analysing its merits.

If Fidel's grandfather, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was alive today he would most likely question what Castro stands for. Is being under 35 years of age and rich the only criterion for progressive leadership in Kenya?

What values do young people believe in and live by? If Jaramogi were alive and contesting the same seat as his grandson, I would vote for the old man. This would be on the basis of Mr Odinga's tested values, ideology and politics for progressive change.

In the rights movements, women spend time talking with one another. In gender equality movements, men also spend time talking to one another. Gender equality and equity is a value that benefits both genders.

Divisions between men and women need dialogue. Polarisation among both genders benefits the forces that gain from the disempowerment of both.

Often we hear the clarion call that Wabara (upcountry people) do not live at the Kenyan Coast. In August, 1997, the call resulted in the massacre of up-country poor at Likoni in Mombasa.

While the poor slaughtered one another, nobody seemed to care that the rich at the Coast are multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-regional.

The creation of a nation free of want, deprivation and poverty should be our national value. Evicting the poor non-Kalenjin peasants from the Rift Valley and killing many of them has not changed the nature of the land ownership in the region.

Kenyan Somalis speak the same language, practise the same Muslim religion, but have sharp divisions based on their respective clans.

Northern Kenya is the crucible of poverty, marginalisation and acute underdevelopment. While our Somali sisters and brothers should focus on these regional problems and seek their place as Kenyan citizens, they focus on clan differences.