Kenyans Staying Abroad Remain Tribalist Despite Being Far from Home.

The tragedy of tribalism in Kenya has evolved not only in Kenya but even abroad. Kenyans are forming friendship and even fall in love along their tribal lines. The tribalism attitude that Kenyans who stay abroad have developed recently, not only put a sharp pain to many who view them as “change to our society” but has left those who don’t have large numbers of tribesmen wondering who to run to incase of need.

Although this is not a surprise that many Kenyans still hold on to tribal politics, tribal friendships, tribal foods, tribal love and more so engrossed into tribal cultures which have nothing to do with well-being of the society like FGM, it is hard to withstand a Kenyan who will even bother bring such a topic a thousand miles away from home. A Kenyan who will meet you and ask several tribal related questions like; “unatoka wapi, we ni Mkikuyu au Mjaka or Mluhya”. This leaves me wondering if at all we will be one country, one people and one tribe called Kenya.

The tendency to defend what belongs to us whether we think is wrong or good, and attacks other tribes even when they are right, has really exposed our generation and future generations to hatred for the ‘other’. Our societies, which even have councils of elders, to protect the “mtu wetu slogan” have given in into the fangs of tribalism, which is always present in their zeal and energy they use to fight anyone who dare attack their kinsmen.

That is pretty much what’s happening in Kenya for the last 50 years and the results haven’t been as our forefathers expected during the struggle for independence. We have only been able to evolve the generation of leaders and elders who think that their (as quoted by Kuria, Our Deputy president and even Mp Junet ), clans and tribalism give them direct ticket to rule, abuse, promote hate speech, and even speak their village language while on public functions.

Whatsapp and other social media groups have also helped in creating tribal groups abroad where only tribal kinsmen meet to discuss the political affairs of their country, cook their foods and have one on one chat in their “special language”. This ensures that non-speakers who may have gate-crashed the “kinsmen party” do not hear or follow whatever they are discussing about.

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And now that my friend would not keep off from asking every Kenyan we meet which tribe he/she comes from, the fruits of tribalism has caught up with us and no longer is tribalism separated by distance.