COULD TRIBALISM BE AN ASSET?

A rope of 42 strands of whatever fibre is strong not because of the number of strands, but because each strand is twisted and forced to rely on the others for overall strength. Kenya has the strands, but inadequate policies have prevented them from twisting into a single, mighty political rope. And yet a true and tried policy exists. Numa, king of Rome after the death of its founder Romulus, was not a Roman but a Sabinian. The Sabinians had grievously been wronged by the Romans a generation earlier, and both peoples were aware that redress would sooner or later be asked for and obtained. How to do it without bloodshed? The Romans reflected that they could do it by asking a Sabinian to be king of both peoples, thus unifying Rome. A delegation approached Numa, a widower enjoying his leisure in his villa, who reluctantly agreed. Numa was the best of the seven kings of early Rome. Read Plutarch for confirmation. Kenya is a 42-nation state, its nations being dubbed tribes for no clear reason. To achieve unity, the one-party system was tried at the beginning, but by 1990 the model had worn out. Multi-party took over, but now every election demanded its tribute in blood, last time in rivers. Everyone fears a repeat and fervently prays for peace, but party inexorably means tribe, and with voters blindly supporting tribal leaders, a repeat of post-election violence looms large on the horizon. Would the Numa solution avoid this, thus twisting the nations of Kenya into a single, unbreakable rope? Read on. One single procedural principle would have to be first accepted, then declared and finally implemented on Election Day: Every voter may cast the presidential ballot for any candidate, EXCEPT ONE OF HIS/HER OWN TRIBE. Such a measure would have two extremely desirable effects. Force the voter to think, so as to judge the candidate exclusively on merit. Force the candidates to hold rallies in areas formerly hostile, but now vital for canvassing their approval. Wild promises would not go far. But the principle is not enough. What about method? It would be reasonably cheap to label the ballot boxes of each polling station with the names of the tribes of people voting there. Box A would contain votes exclusively FROM BUT NOT FOR members of tribe A, box B FROM BUT NOT FOR members of tribe B and so on. Post election wrangles would thus be unnecessary, at great savings of time and money by everyone. The foregoing procedure recommends itself for the presidential election, but not for the local ones, except for multi-ethnic localities. And Kenyans would show that to heed the lessons of history is a profitable endeavour. Silvano Borruso; silvano.borruso@gmail.com; 7th January 2013