INTERNET IS NOT A TRIBAL VILLAGE

You can get a man out of the village but getting the village out of him, calls for more than witticism. Take a Kenyan man, give him education, add town or city on him, add him more education, heap the media on him and open up other the communication channels to him. What you get out of his mouth is a stench that can knock you down in a matter of seconds.  I ran a blog ( http://mwashy.blogspot.com/2012/03/let-kenyans-wield-jembe-reconciliation.html ) some time back insinuating that the elite class has more than hatred buried deep within their hearts. With every passing day this ugly picture is getting clearer and clearer. Our education has taught us the perfect way to point out our accusing fingers as we perfectly hide that itch of hatred.

What I have come to learn of the privileged in the society is dumbfounding. The more educated we become the more hatred we so accumulate. I may attribute this to the failure of people to acknowledge those who have somehow achieved something in the society. By society I mean the country.

What has been seen is that we only receive honour from our community and maybe close friends and the flame dies as the reality of a society gone mad dawns. Brilliance in our country has just remained an emblem for the community or the family. No one is up there to pull you from the hole of despair however much you struggle. So many innovative Kenyans have gone unrewarded, the potential unnoticed and there contributions unpraised. The little that has been left of such individuals is to find a way to ache a living. You will find them in industrial area doing menial jobs, in Kericho plucking tea and in the villages running small businesses or teaching local schools as ‘UTS’, . those who succeeded in starting businesses in the city will be seen bracing the evening jam with their rickety ramshackle of a vehicle retiring to their congested ‘villas’ for a boring evening of the politicians soap operas in the evening news.

Those who are technologically advantaged will login onto facebook, Twitter, blogs, MySpace, diggit, and many other social sites for a bite of what is happening around the globe and in Kenya. There will be comments flying across these social sites, some inflammatory, others conciliatory, many resigned while a majority pointing an accusing finger. Call it the power of the finger.

One poignant thing that I have noted is that, as the number of internet users in Kenya increases the diversity of the people reduces. Quite tear-jerking I might say. I thought that the internet has no equal but will make us equal even though equality is far from our mind. I could envision a Kenya where the mighty and the humble shared on a round table of equality, a Kenya where the leader was in direct contact with his subjects, where communications was not segregated on grounds of class and everyone stood to be criticized.

My perception was that maybe the internet was that ever evasive key to unity.i saw it as a place where 42 will be equal to one. I was wrong or maybe in deep dream. This global network that has accumulated many of Kenyan elite class has proved to be a hub of untold segregation. The web has its lords, gods, queens, goddesses and of course the commoner. The amount of discrimination is well above the apartheid rule, and any colonialist ideas which were meant to create a gap.

I have come to realize that man would want all the attention he seeks and hide from it when he gets it. Man will be very intelligent and know everything until you realized the he knew nothing at all.

Let me kill all this man is man is not hullaballoo and torn down to what I have as the most foolish epiphany a human being could ever have. My realization, basing on Kenya, is that slowly as the numbers surge on the internet, the Kenyan proletariat goes back home. I have in the past few years seen tribal conglomeration form into being. They have now taken a centre stage in that they now subdivide the internet into small groups of known sheep; these sheep of course have a tribal Lord whom as heavens would attest is a politician.

Kenyans scream of the Kamatusa and Gema while the very core of these tribal alignments has just been carried to a new level; facebook, twitter et al. therefore, before we point n accusing finger to a group of old men posing to bring their village into a national platform, let us tear down all those tribal tags that we have taken on the social media. The enormity of this situation is not far from being felt. We are in an election year and incidences of tribal warfare come real during this season. If not checked, they could lead to a situation more than the Rwandan genocide.

Many people would not like to be viewed as being part of the problem, which calculates to the fact that they are neither part of the solution. Before we cast a stone to that politician or Gema or Kamatusa, we have to ask ourselves a question, why do our loyalties lie? If you answer to that question, Tribe, then know that you are part of the problem and hence ought to be part of the solution. To find a solution to a tough problem everyone has to accept their contribution to that problem.

Hey! Hold your horses, am not saying that those tribal mushrooms are bad. They are in fact an emblem of the reminiscent past and roots. My only grudge with them is that; let them not be viewed as tags creating tribal clusters on a platform that encourages meeting other cultures and diversifying your perception of what is around you.

The perception of tribalism begins with you and I and therefore it can only be fought by us not anyone else. Kenya’s tribalism is a tree that begins growing when a child is born, down in the villages, these bundles of joy are taught mother tongue. The children will then be taught in that language since most of the teachers speak that native language and even if they don’t, they are forced to learn that language. Secondary will see only a few going outside their community to learn there, the rest, who are the majority, will be distributed to secondary schools a stone throw away. Tertiary will also see just a number venturing outside tertiary institutions; others will be heaped into the village polytechnics and a majority will go to work for their neighbours in the city or venture into businesses, get married or go into farming.

My issue is not with the majority who remain tied by fate in tied by fate in the villages. I am deeply taken back by those intellectuals who find a bed of roses, though they have thorns, and still brandish the tribal tag as a medal. Some of us even have had the opportunity to learn abroad, some due to lack of jobs or poor pay are working outside Kenya. These guys haven’t learnt a thing about globalization! Wonder, do they really know the role they have to play in national unity? Have they the slightest idea of what there word can do to change the perception of the community?

The sad truth is that these are the very noble men who spread the seed of hate and tribalism through the internet. They are the culprits who would love to see Kenya burning. Lest we forget, it is our duty as citizens to change this country, whether we are in Diaspora or here in Kenya. We cannot do this through incitement! No! We only need to stand up to the boys and girls we employ as members of parliament and tell them face to face that they suck. We need to shepherd our people against poor leadership and steer them into seeing through a progressive leader and a retrogressive one. We have the onus since we control the economy through taxes and grants those of us in Diaspora give.

My appeal to Kenyan internet users is, before we condemn Gema, Kamatusa and any other tribal alliance, let’s first quench the tribal fires we are setting up online. We can only save Kenya if we work up down and not down up. Unless we want that change to grow in the coming generation, a misconception I strongly abhor. Change has to begin with us before it is taken over by those of tomorrow, we shape what the future holds.