Somalis are as Kenyan as it gets, stop whispering

Members of Somali community led by their secretary general Mr Idle Hassan on 18th January2024 protest delayed commencement of security operation'Maliza Uhalifu' [File, Standard]

One of the more insidious sub-plots of the current moment is a creeping anti-Somali sentiment targeted at ethnic Somalis in prominent public offices.

Let us be blunt: this is a misguided whisper campaign that will lead to nowhere. Ethnic Somalis are as Kenyan as any other citizen of Jamhuri. Period.

It is unconscionable that in this day and age important quarters of the Kenyan public, including senior members of government and prominent non-governmental organisations, continue to espouse offensive views about Somali identity.

Somalis are Kenyan. They have no apology to make for being Kenyan. And have the right to live and work anywhere in the Republic and to occupy any public office.

It is true that much of Northeastern Kenya can sometimes feel both physically and culturally distant from the rest of the country. This is not a function of anything unique about the region, but due to decades of deliberate neglect by the central government.

Many forget that before devolution much of the region, which is orders of magnitude bigger than other ethno-regions in the country, barely got any investments in public goods. Tarmacked roads were missing. Schools still held classes under trees.

Medical care was as rudimentary as it gets. Merely getting a national identification card or passport – important documents for being a functional adult in a modern economy – was (and in some cases continues to be) an ordeal involving humiliating vetting that other Kenyans were exempt from.

And besides all the administrative maltreatment, let us not forget that successive governments have meted out collective punishment to our fellow citizens in Northeastern region in the name of national security. 

This is the ugly history that should inform our collective condemnation of any and all attempts to otherise our fellow Kenyans who happen to be Somalis.

As a people, we should not take seriously any leader that dabbles in anti-Somali hate. 

Of course, all this does not preclude holding Somali leaders accountable – be they governors or Cabinet Secretaries who are incompetent or steal public funders. Criticism is perfectly fine. Otherising Somalis is what is what we should always reject. 

Our country is diverse. It also has an ugly history of exclusion, where those with access to power and wealth have always plotted to exclude others on the basis of region, ethnicity or religion.

I hope we can harness the spirit of the current moment to also bury this ugly history.

-The writer is a professor at Georgetown University