Institute of Historical Justice and Reconciliation
Meeting to Discuss a Kenya Project
Panafric Hotel, Nairobi, 8th & 9th January 2009
Notes of discussion by John Lonsdale
Introductory session, Thursday 8th January
Jackie Klopp (Columbia University) opened by suggesting that Kenya faced two
possible futures, political collapse or intellectual engagement. The purpose of this
meeting was to discover if there was a public role for historians in helping to create
conditions for the second future, namely, for dialogue.
Hassan Mwakimako (Nairobi University). We have seen the public misuse of
history, something that historians are able to counter. Contrary to Kenya’s current
political discourse, we all have many identities, not just ethnicity. As a profession we
have a duty to use historical knowledge for the benefit of our society.
Babere Chacha (Egerton U). After the recent elections our students were driven to
look afresh at Kenya’s history in a search for the origins of the troubles, to understand
how politicians use history, to examine claims to be more ‘indigenous’ than others,
and to re-interpret our nationalism.
Alex Owiti (ecologist) was researching on global environmental change and the
resource-scarcity that gives opportunity for political manipulation. Our institutions
were too weak to prevent this. The competition for ‘life-space’ was likely to increase.
Owiti had a cross-disciplinary interest in human adaptability. His current interest was
how to move West Kenya farmers from poor subsistence agriculture to a more
profitable specialisation.
Felicitus Kinyanjui (Egerton U and formerly, Historical Association of Kenya:
HAK) argued that historians need to restore memory to society. Historians had been
accused of failing Kenyans but we had also been used and abused. At the HAK’s
November meeting “Kenya at the Crossroads”, all fingers were pointed at us. But
was our teaching really at fault? As someone from Nakuru, the centre of the postelection fire, FK was very excited by the possibilities of this meeting.
Kiptarus (Egerton) came from the Uasin Gishu and was a victim of violence. How,
he asked, could one understand theoretically the concepts ‘Kalenjin’ and ‘Kikuyu’,
and their inter-communal viciousness? What made neighbours kill each other?
Lotte Hughes (Open U) was working with Karega Munene (USIU) on the local
commemoration of heritage and its contribution to peace-building in Kenya.
Historians divided Kikuyu in the 1950s between Mau Mau and ‘loyalists’—but what
about the ‘neither-nors’?
Ben Kipkorir (retired) was writing his memoirs and discovering not only himself but
also his many identities: Marakwet, Kalenjin, and Kenyan. When at Makerere
University College in the 1960s young Kenyans had been united. Independence had
then brought ethnic compartmentalisation and political silence as the politicians took
command. Was Kenya the product of British colonialism or of political struggle?
The politicians had taken over the historians’ platform. But some problems could not
be solved by historians. His chief interest was in the history of local government. In
crushing majimbo [regional self-government, a quasi-federal system] Kenyatta had
also suppressed local government, leaving central government unchained.
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Godfrey Muriuki (NU). History used to be very popular in the days when his
student Tabitha Kanogo was an undergraduate (1970s). Today there were very few
undergraduates, and no new research students. Kenyans did not see history as useful.
Why should they waste their time? It was not that historians did not engage with
public issues but that the public did not want to listen. In the USA all undergraduates,
no matter what their discipline, had to do American history.
John Lonsdale (Cambridge U, retired) looked forward to giving back to Kenya some
of what Kenya had given him. He reminded the meeting of what Ernest Renan had
said about new nations and their history in 1882—that they had either to forget their
past conflicts or in some other way get their history wrong. He thought Kenya ought
not to adopt either option. To forget past struggles was to allow complete freedom to
to-day’s politicians to remove historically-gained rights; and it would always be the
politicians who got the history wrong. So Kenyans had to face up to their past
divisions—but they should also be reminded of what they shared in common,
especially the fact that all ethnic groups were hybrid, and inter-married, and traded
with each other. All argued in similar ways about the same gendered and generational
problems, in face of similar ecological challenges, whether pastoral or agricultural.
Jérome Lafargue (IFRA) a political scientist with an interest in states and militias,
asked how far ordinary wananchi [citizens] saw themselves represented by violence?
How far did they willingly accept or actively resist political manipulation?
Milcah Amolo Achola (NU). We here chose to study history; to-day’s students do
more important things. Why did senior historians allow the discipline to die? When
Kenya was on fire last year we asked where were the historians who loved Kenya? I
am a town-kid, always in mixed surroundings. Tribalism, in my experience, had to be
learned. Our fragile balance, built over years, was destroyed in days. Marriages and
families suffered—but I had seen ‘mixed marriages’ as normal, as private choice.
The urban young have no time for negative ethnicity. And we should know more
about all those Good Samaritans who saved their neighbours from murder, rising
above what the politicians were telling them.
Ben ole Kantai (back in the classroom). What caused us to come together here?
How can we avoid a repeat of last year’s violence? Last year was merely an
introduction to our future. It will be worse next time. My relatives have no idea what
a constitution is. What matters to them is land. We have been colonised by two sets
of people, one of whom handed over to the second in 1963. Kenyatta treated land as
an economic unit. Our people see it as territory, a political resource. Land is central
to our future.
Mary Mwiandi (NU). Early last year our Peace Studies class fell apart. Kenya’s
history has withered away here by contrast with the USA. Young Kenyans need to
know why they all belong here, owning the same history.
Tabitha Kanogo (U of California Berkeley) had started her career with a PhD on
‘The political economy of Kikuyu movement to the Rift Valley, 1908-1963’ and now
she was studying the Rift Valley again, with research into ‘endangered childhood and
youth’ among the internally displaced persons of the Uasin Gishu. She had also
interviewed Kikuyu IDPs at Muguga—who had said only ignorant Kenyans were
violent. This was perhaps rather an overstatement, but they also asked for inter-ethnic
youth work-groups in each locality, as a means to re-build inter-ethnic bridges. This
traumatised generation remains positive about Kenya. ‘Reckless impunity’ should no
longer be tolerated. History should be made a compulsory part of the curriculum.
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Abdullahi Boru (Columbia), a political science research student in internal security.
Born in Kenya, his mother was from Ethiopia, his father from Somalia. When I go to
Marsabit I’ll be asked ‘How are things down in Kenya?’ In the crisis the media
consulted political scientists, not historians. And why isn’t history compulsory? It
was at Makerere and still is at Dar es Salaam.
Kenneth Ombongi (NU). “Unlike my brother, I come from Kenya.” He wanted to
highlight three points.
1) The first was a couple of anecdotes of last year’s troubles:- (a) My brother
in Nakuru has a name that suggests he’s Luo—but he isn’t. During the skirmishes he
was besieged. His attackers called for IDs, because Luo had to die. “I was able to
organise the rescue of the man with the wrong name.” (b) KO has many relatives in
Narok district. They decided to join the political side that would ensure their local
security. Even so, they were among the first to be attacked.
2) “Did anything in my historical training prepare me for this? How can I
approach our situation, as a dispassionate historian or as a victim? (I had to give up
my visiting fellowship in Norway because my wife accused me of running away).”
3) Jointly with George Gona, KO has a research project on the history of the
‘republic of Mathare’—a people’s history. Will they be allowed to speak for
themselves? Will the militias permit them? In my sixth year of teaching in the NU
History Department I’ve learned that history can be used a “bad example”.
George Gona (NU History Dept since 1990). Why are undergraduates uninterested
in history? They think it boring and irrelevant. He had tried to present history to the
public outside the ivory tower. Without much success. “Have historians failed the
nation?”
Catherine Sissé (IJHR). In the arena of international justice history is conspicuous
by its absence. She did not know why, since history was so clearly essential for
justice. Lawyers looked at old colonial treaties, not at human relations. For instance,
the absurd judgment over the Ethio-Eritrean border. The human, historical, context
had not been considered.
Mamadou Diouf (Columbia U and Senegal). Ogot is Kenya’s most fascinating
historian because he is a non-nationalist scholar. History is a political resource, one
over which historians have no control. That was why MD had always been interested
in comparative history. History also had its poetics: stories that were there to be
enjoyed. In Senegal history was popular. Historians at Cheikh Anta Diop U had even
digitised all their students’ past PhD theses.
We must ask why we aren’t taken seriously about the hybridity of ethnicity.
Politicians know we have no national heroes but create them all the same. We need
Kikuyu historians of the Luo, Luo of the Kalenjin, etc. MD’s own identity was that of
a colonial urban subject—like Milcah, and therefore not a really authentic African.
People want to ethnicise me—but I’m more interested in my past imperial
citizenship. Senegal’s ‘quatre communes’ were neither French nor, because of the
French Revolution, were they native.
Hassan Mwakimako (NU) echoed Mamadou on the dangers of being trapped in
one’s own ethnic history. He had started his career by defending Kenya’s Muslim
communities. But his perspective was changing, because communities did not in fact
understand themselves. So alternative perspectives were possible.
How we did history, therefore, was up to us.
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Elazar Barkan (Convener, IJHR) said Kenya was not unique in thinking history to be
irrelevant. Other human scientists had been doing mainly structural analyses in the
1950s to the 1970s. Now everybody was doing history, whether anthropologists,
political scientists, or sociologists. We all shared “different ignorances”. His main
interest in history stemmed from its role in contemporary society—especially in
issues of identity, which was all about the history that one exploited for one’s own
ends. Since history was already public, therefore, historians had a huge responsibility
to communicate it well.
All contemporary conflicts stemmed from different readings of history that
were sufficiently credible to drive different political agendas. We couldn’t undo the
past nor, as human beings, could we ignore it since, as human beings we needed
recognition of who we are and how we became. At this meeting we must create a
networking agenda. But, since uncomplicated, pristine, identities were so attractive
we faced a very tough task. “So far this meeting seems rather scarily harmonious!”
Jackie Klopp (Columbia U, teacher at a policy school, advocate for IDPs). In 1988
she had taught physics and maths at a school in Maragoli, Buluyia, western Kenya. In
1994 her Logoli informants told her horrific stories about the violence of 1992. She
went to McGill U to do a PhD in politics. Since Kenyans were angered by land
seizures that was what she had to work on.
After each cycle of violence there had been a political forgetting, since ethnic
cleansing was a political strategy that was incomprehensible without the distortions of
history.
In the slums, by contrast, victims had held together. Njoroge from Muoroto
had been one of the first to oppose Moi in his essentialisation of ethnicity. It was very
hard to interview IDPs without becoming their advocate.
We needed to support those victims who had organised on an inter-ethnic
basis. The East African Standard yesterday reported a Kikuyu IDP on the Uasin
Gishu asking why government was not equally interested in re-settling Kalenjin IDPs.
“That’s why I’m here.”
Second Session, Thursday morning
George Gona presented ‘Reinventing History as a Public Project’.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights had said it was time to re-visit our
history, in order to revive nationhood. So far Mau Mau had dominated the narrative.
It was time to bring in others. But so far this more inclusive project had yet to take
off. There was talk of a travelling political history museum to show a shared history.
The KNCHR had also called for a public debate on “Where did Kenya go
wrong?”, which meant discussing previously taboo issues—at a time when NU had
banned public dialogue between staff and students. The public lectures had been held
at the Goethe Institute. They had brought together public intellectuals (including
Karuti Karing’a to talk about land conflicts) and the press—which had taken sides
during the 2007 elections.
The outcome of these public lectures had been very interesting:
(a) everybody had blamed treacherous, unpatriotic, historians who had not informed
the public well enough. The public do look to us for answers.
(b) but who would determine what was historical truth? And whose truth should be
the starting-point for reconciliation?
(c) should not justice take precedence over reconciliation?
(d) The Bunge ya wananchi [Peoples Parliament] of Jeevanjee Gardens blamed the
one-acre smallholders of Molo as if they had been a land-grabbing Kenyatta.
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Elazar Barkan discussed ‘What the IHJR does’.
What is feasible and what is not? Since the end of the Cold War ‘the guilt of the
nations’ has become commonplace, with the descendants of perpetrators asking
forgiveness for past wrongs. Eg, slavery, imperialism, Holocaust, etc. All this can be
important for national identity—eg., repentance for Vichy France.
IHJR has tried to make use of this contemporary interest in the moral question
of human rights—how to live together despite our divisive pasts. Eg., Palestine, exYugoslavia, Turkey and Armenia, China & Japan, India & Pakistan.
Our experience has taught us that local historical commissions are counterproductive. What we can do is to show that public discussion is possible. (eg., an
Israeli-Palestinian agreed map of 1948 Palestine, showing battles and expulsions).
This experience shows the need to focus on specific issues: eg., the Temple
Mount, on which one can produce divergent texts within a shared format.
Ex-Yugoslavia’s questions about resistance and collaboration in World War II
are very similar to Kenya’s about Mau Mau. Japan has been most reluctant to
acknowledge its World War II responsibilities.
In conclusion, there is much to learn from the creative text-books published
elsewhere. Here, we need concrete steps, to identify specific issues, and to create a
continuing structure for public dialogue.
Mamadou Diouf discussed ‘Engaging with the Public and with Each Other’.
What sort of history might we write? MD was born in one of the quatre communes of
Senegal, in 1887 a French city with French citizens who, as Muslims, nonetheless
refused to be judged by civil courts that demanded monogamy. Could we be French
citizens with a non-French culture? Post-colonial Senegal disbanded the Islamic
courts. The Senegalese were able to create their own Wolof modernity because they
had an Arabic script and their own tradition of urban civility and assimilation. So
ethnicity had never been a problem for MD. “Even the French never called us a
tribe.”
In France I wanted to be a German medievalist! I did African history only at
the Master’s level. My PhD was on the kingdom of Cayor and the French conquest,
1850-1890. I saw the need to understand the colonial process from within. This
made me realise that Lat Dior, the last king of Cayor, was not so much a national hero
as a self-interested dynast.
The four communes appropriated the French civilising mission, thinking to
enlighten the interior.
Historians are not the only producers of history in society. Governments
produce history all the time. We must learn from comparative history. For instance:
of Indian ‘communalism’; or from the continental African history once promoted by
the Ibadan school of history. And today nationalist history is being confronted by
local history: ‘indirect rule’ spawned the latter in the first place, even in French
Africa. But one-party rule destroyed everything that was outside it, including local
history (Ben Kipkorir nodded agreement).
Is our history to be only the history of the nation-state or can it also be a
history of people who, while different, share common goals and problems? To be
excluded from the past is to be excluded in the present.
Abdullahi Boru presented ‘The Media and the Learning of History.’
Kenya was witnessing much uproar now on the issue of media reform. Historians use
journalists as sources, while journalists select from history and in quick-time,
providing instant expert opinion. Despite our differences we nonetheless need to
negotiate working agreements, especially over the crucial question of packaging.
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Mutahi Ngunyi is the current guru looked to by journalists. But why is it that
our young can tell you more about Manchester United than about our own history?
Historians must be like the camel gradually begging more shelter from the
Arab (ie., journalists) in a desert rainstorm.
The session then opened for discussion:
Milcah: As Head of Department during the crisis I was asked to talk about Mau Mau
and then about the history of Rift Valley massacres. On both occasions I discussed
with the rest of the department how I should reply. I did so because of my doubts
about the motives of my questioners. And historians are reluctant to engage in such
issues since we cannot control the message that gets published.
Tabitha: Perhaps it’s time that historians as well as nations confessed to guilt. For
instance, we have feared to investigate stories that at the Lancaster House conferences
there was an ‘agreement’ to return the land of the White Highlands to its original
owners. And then in 1982 when I was applying for research clearance I feared to
submit (as required by the Archives law) my PhD on the Rift Valley squatters and the
roots of Mau Mau: so I was refused clearance.
We fear for our families if we speak out at times of crisis. So we need to
engage in public history in normal times. During last year’s crisis even intellectuals
of the Kenyan diaspora killed each other on the internet.
Lotte (ex-journalist): Our sole reason for being here is to discuss how to jump into the
public arena. Like politicians, we need media-training. We must learn to use the
media as much as they use us. Here in Kenya individual columnists become news.
Why not volunteer to be a columnist? Or get to know and influence existing ones?
Ole Kantai: We started learning history at school—the history of Britain and its
empire. We have replaced it with Kikuyu history. That’s why our [non-Kikuyu]
children aren’t interested. It’s foreign history to them. We need to make African
history into world history.
In 1959 Julius Kiano came to Alliance High School and said that access to the
White Highlands was more important than Uhuru! Minutes of the Lancaster House
meetings show a sharp division between Mboya and Odinga on the one hand and
Gichuru on the other on the question of the timing of land resettlement: Gichuru said
it could wait until after independence. Kenyatta had to open the White Highlands to
the Kikuyu in order to survive.
Kenneth: It was not entirely true that historians had not engaged with the media. But
it could be very embarrassing or even dangerous if an editor then set your views up
against those of a Minister!
Mamadou answered Mary Mwiandi’s question about how the production (or nonproduction) of graduate students with PhDs affected the future production of history
by remarking that without them historians could no longer fulfil the role of speaking
Truth to Power.
Abdullahi: in practical terms it would cost KShs 300,000/- to produce a 30-minute
historical documentary in Kenya (including payment of editor and researcher and
travel). And then you would find that your audience was actually on another channel,
watching ‘Friends’.
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Thursday afternoon
Presentations by Rapporteurs of Discussion Groups:
A: Lotte Hughes reported group conclusions on The Public Role of Historians:
1
A political will was essential
2
Kenya’s conflicts had been more about class than about ethnicity.
3
The historians’ focus must be on youth.
4
We must lobby government to have historians on the TRC.
5
History was produced in many venues more concrete than our own.
6
Divergent interests could nonetheless be represented in shared narratives.
7
We needed a new language that did not divide perpetrators and victims.
8
The colonial legacy, especially land apportionment, was the core of the
crisis.
9
We needed a history of mapping.
10
Education did not have to take place only in schools: historians should
meet youth where they found them.
11
A new syllabus was needed, and history made compulsory.
12
The young should be socialised into the world beyond the village, to be
able to compare personal stories.
[Lotte had announced 18 points: but these were the ones I recorded]
B: Abdullahi Boru reported conclusions on Towards a National Public History:1
School textbooks must be revised, with ascending levels of complexity.
2
No tribe was homogeneous.
3
All Kenyans had always had multiple identities.
4
None of us was innocent (with ref the Truth & Reconciliation Cttee).
5
Land had many different contestations, not just in the Rift Valley.
6
All faced the common cultural/ethnic problem of how to become adult: we
should historicise this core challenge comparatively.
7
We should similarly historicise on an ethnically-comparative basis the
marginalisation of all women and their more recent empowerment.
8
We could all agree that One-Party-ism was destructive.
9
Equally, all Kenyans were affected by the failure of successive
governments to industrialise, leaving land as our sole/shrinking economic
asset: what in our history had prevented diversification?
C: Hassan Mwakimako reported group conclusions on a similar theme:1
We needed a restatement of Kenyan history.
2
Shared national narratives were fine, but they also needed to be localised.
Eg., land was a divisive story nationally, but more co-operative locally.
3
Migration could be portrayed as a form of national networking.
4
We needed to investigate vernacular understandings of Kenyan history.
5
We also needed to examine processes of state construction.
6
And to bring more regions (including the Coast) into Kenyan history.
Discussion:
Ben Kipkorir agreed on the importance of a history of state construction and
governance. We were governed now as we were not under colonialism. We had
suffered what Mamadou called the vandalism of one-party-ism. And now, the
impunity of the executive (Lonsdale pointed out that of Kenya’s 12 colonial
governors one third were sacked or forced to resign, responsible to Parliament).
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Kenneth Ombongi: until Form 6 I was educated within half a kilometre of my
mother’s kitchen. This meant that I had so many enemies elsewhere in Kenya.
Jackie Klopp asked how we might construct actionable points:1
We needed not so much political will as networks of supportive action.
2
David Anderson (Oxford) has offered us a special issue of the Journal of
Eastern African Studies.
3
There were already various working groups on the land issue. Might we
offer a book on land’s historiography, including ecological perspectives,
and with towns too?
4
Might we revive the idea of a national travelling museum?
5
And produce a national history book not commissioned by politicians?
6
And what about a myth-debunking radio series?
Mamadou responded to Jackie: He was conscious that his privileged status at
Columbia gave him networking responsibilities.
Elazar concluded the session by calling for volunteers, to produce concrete outputs
within a reasonable time. We must not lose momentum.
Friday morning, 9th January
Discussion of Ways Forward
Hassan Mwakimako opened by asking if we should be thinking of a lead by the
Historical Association of Kenya (HAK) or some other group. Should we be aiming at
the production of textbooks? We needed a steering committee.
John Lonsdale suggested that it was easier to work through, or revive, existing
structures. The HAK had recently been revived. It did not have to be confined to
professional historians: all human scientists could be included. And Anderson’s offer
of a special issue of the JEAS could perhaps have a local edition presented as a special
edition of the Kenya Historical Review, to signal the KHR’s re-birth, dead now for
over 20 years.
Mamadou thought, to the contrary, that we needed a more broadly-based Forum.
Mwangi Gituto (St Paul’s Theological College, responsible for Communications)
was interested in the history of marginalisation and injustice. He argued for a wider
forum and for other actors than historians alone, able to act independently of the
HAK.
Milcah Amolo supported the idea that marginal groups should be a prime concern.
For many people neglect was the key issue, not land.
Felicitus Kinyanjui reported that a recent HAK conference had been invaded by
‘Mau Mau veterans’ who had claimed to have been commissioned by the Ministry of
Education to write a true history of Kenya.
Milcah: They wanted the ‘Truth’ to be told. When last heard of they had contacted
government via Sally Kosgei—who had talked of organising an ethnic- and genderbalanced editorial board. There had been talk of tie-ups with the National Museums
of Kenya. When the HAK revived itself with a conference at Baringo in 2003 or
2004 we had resolved to engage the public through the media. We had held three
conferences since but did not have the resources with which to publish our
proceedings.
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Hassan: We need a new structure—a monthly forum to discuss ‘Society and History’.
We must include geographers, economists etc in a ‘Forum for Society and History’.
Mary Mwiandi agreed: it was time historians broke out of their little room.
Ben Kipkorir had been HAK Secretary for five years before handing over to Godfrey
Muriuki and was delighted to learn of its recent revival. The HAK had formerly been
involved in preparing teaching materials for Teacher Training Colleges, through the
Chief Inspector of Schools. Indeed, the HAK had been central to the Ministry of
Education’s thinking on curriculum reform. The ‘Forum’ would seem to be a way of
restoring that nexus. In the past the HAK got money from government. Why not
now?
Felicitus: The HAK’s existing officers would be very receptive to public action.
Mamadou: But why had Kenya not participated in the African Historical Association
that Kenyans had helped to create? He believed that the HAK’s future and that of the
IHJR’s Project should be disaggregated.
Elazar: but what should any such body produce?
Alex Owiti: There were existing public bodies. Eg., ‘Vision 2030’ on the future
Kenyan economy. There was a ‘Land Conversation’, and the TRC. Why could we
not produce a Blog? And a public lecture series of ‘diversity narratives’ to make
people comfortable with diversity.
Elazar: since history is controversial do we need to have differing narratives?
[JML had to leave at this point, returning only at lunchtime]
Friday afternoon
Public Presentation and Discussion
Elazar Barkan opened the session by urging the need to stand up to those who abuse
history.
Hassan Mwakimako followed up by observing that Kenya was undergoing social
change. It was either forgetful of its history or else partisan. Historians were absent
from the public discussion of history. But historians could contribute to society.
Through a broad Forum. They could educate the public memory. They must
concentrate on youth.
John Lonsdale opened by regretting the absence of his mwalimu, Bethwell Ogot, and
then repeated much of what he had said on Thursday morning, stressing the following
points. Kenya’s problems were the same as those of every other new nation in
history. Nation-building required decisions over how to treat what would inevitably
be a contested past. Politicians were structurally and politically bound to get that
history wrong in their own partisan interest. But the answer was not to forget the past,
for that would give politicians still greater freedom to construct their own reality.
If Kenyans construed their own many ethnic narratives correctly, the core
lesson was that all ethnic history was a history of internal argument—about origins,
about hybridity, about men and women, young and old, rich and poor. ‘Tribes’ were
never unthinkingly united; they were arenas of debate. He recommended the local
proverb: “to argue is to love one another; to keep silent is to hate each other.” To
discover a history of argument within ethnic groups as much as between them would
legitimise the right of Kenyan citizens to argue with each other and with their
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government. In this way they would discover that while there was much in the past to
divide them there was also much that united them—especially historical traditions of
debate.
Mamadou Diouf: History is present everywhere—that which divides people. Good
history should open up conversation, because compromise is always temporary.
Ernest Renan had asked how societies imagined themselves. For Africa, Peter Ekeh
had remarked on the parallel imaginations of vernacular and official histories. But
how can one reconcile competing autochthonies? One means to understanding would
be African historical novels. But how can one recognise and make recompense for
past injustice? To remember is to argue about how to live together. Read Ranajit
Guha’s History at the limit of World History, which is about the understanding of
difference and the existence of multiple truths.
Dr Kilemi Mwiria (Assistant Minister for Higher Education): “All politics in Kenya
is about ethnicity. There is no principle involved.” There was “nothing national”
about either the Party of National Unity (PNU) or the Orange Democratic Movement
(ODM). “All of us, even academics, vote tribal. We all support our tribal chiefs.”
Even the churches took possessions in last year’s troubles. Journalists are as ethnic as
the rest of us “although they try to teach us good manners.”
Top historians are also tribal in their analyses. “We know those historians.”
Some of the brightest of the young don’t become historians, so how do we make
history attractive?
“How do we give the young uncontaminated minds?” . . . “Many of us
politicians have given up on ourselves as solutions to our problems.” There’s no
point in telling the young to live by standards not observed by the communities in
which they live. Schoolteachers are too parochially recruited, even up to University
level. “Our Universities are not national. Some of our Professors are the most tribal
people I have met—and are the more dangerous because they are smarter.”
Those politicians who urge you to cleanse your constituency are also
[implicitly] telling you not to seek opportunity elsewhere and are in this way
destroying the basis of your future. “Have the courage to tell the politicians that they
are the problem.”
The civil service is also very tribal. Ethnic voting is caused by the presidential
power to allocate opportunity. But what must we do to see to it that Kenya’s fate is
not left in the hands of only two people?
And what about inequality? Only the children of the rich can afford a
University education. So what sort of society are we building?
Land is not an inter-communal but a class issue. And is the land the only way
to solve our problems? Land is a finite resource, whereas educated minds have
infinite possibilities.
I wish the Muslims who are demonstrating today [with large crowds outside
the hotel, on their way to the Israeli embassy to protest against the invasion of Gaza]
had demonstrated during the ethnic clashes.
Ex-Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat: with his wide experience of negotating peace
processes, made three main points:1
Conflicts are only resolved not by papering them over but by bringing them
fully on to the table.
2
The problem with history: We Africans tended to lament too much and to
blame others, especially the colonialists. We should take the responsibility
ourselves. To blame another is to hand your problem to somebody who has no
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power to resolve it! Africans had taken initiatives, first in freeing themselves
and, more recently, mobilising the resources needed for war. Such energy!
We have become a continent of problems—but we can also point to some
successes.
3
We have identities both in conflict and in harmony:- African, national,
ethnic and clannish (look at Somalia!). In tranquil times we’re all Kenyans—
but not during multi-party elections! It’s the elite who need to be taught
history. At elections they say to constituents: if we don’t stick together we’ll
be left out. A Kikuyu-Kalenjin-Luo coalition could rule for ever. To vote
PNU in the Rift Valley was to betray one’s community. But I told the Nandi
we should be the last to kick anybody else out since our own diaspora is
spread throughout East Africa. We have to confront that sort of truth. But
how do we constitutionally eradicate the fear of being marginalised? When
the NCCK did so much to reconcile communities at Burnt Forest why did the
problem return again in 1997 and 2007? People don’t want to fight each
other, but the induced fear of being marginalised in an already poor country is
made to seem overwhelming. And yet half our Cabinet are university
graduates.
Tom Wolf (political analyst). History can explain the processes of injustice. But
what about personal culpability?
Elazar Barkan: That’s a critical problem but judicial procedure is very specific with
regard to evidence and issues. Historians have more general tools—complementary
to legal ones. What we have to ask is what we historians can add to other processes.
And the answer must be empathy with and respect for difference, while not standing
in the way of other (criminal) issues.
Kiplagat feared that the search for justice might spark fresh, defensive, violence,
against ‘unfair’ political bias. And if one’s Minister is sacked a whole community
may feel marginalised.
Kilemi Mwiria. It’s time we stopped blaming the colonialists. They left to us many
useful public spaces that the nationalists have since grabbed! ‘Goldenberg’ and
corrupt road deals have killed more Kenyans than the ethnic clashes did. So do we
need a different sort of democracy? How can a non-tribalist find the money with
which to enter politics? Could an Obama succeed in Kenya?
Babere Chacha: even university-student unions are ethnic!
Karega Munene (USIU): In a KBC broadcast talk before the last election I suggested
that no teacher trained at a Teacher Training College (or indeed any other
professional) should be posted to their home district—in order to de-ethnicise Kenya.
?Sammy Maina? (?Legal Resources Institute?): International Commissions of Justice
don’t seem to be able to convict. In Kenya most culprits will be absolved for
technical reasons. “But Mwalimu Kilemi: you have accepted too quickly that it’s
impossible to bring charges!”
Mwangi Gituto (St Paul’s): called for monthly breakfasts to discuss marginalisation.
It was so difficult and costly to get access to the people who needed to listen! The
elite had captured higher education by means of private schooling.
Kilemi Mwiria: Reform is possible. Many Minsters recognise its need. I have not
given up! But we also need people with the courage to disobey their chiefs and risk
de-selection. How many historians will contest parliamentary seats? And why don’t
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we rotate University vice-chancellors out of their ethnic backyards? “We glorify
thieves, even in churches!” Kleptocrats sit in the front seats.
Kiplagat: We need to know what happened last year and archive it somewhere!
Corruption comes from the dependence-syndrome that prompts you to ask the
politician to solve your own problems. The Minister is right to say you need money
to enter politics. What’s going on is really immoral.
Kilemi Mwiria agreed completely! What’s the answer? Perhaps proportional
representation? Or why don’t we allocate ministerial posts per region before the
election, to lower the temperature? And we need recruitment and promotion
procedures, not patronage. Black Americans voted for Obama, knowing they would
get no rewards from him. He praised David Sperling (at the back of the room) for
Strathmore College’s open admissions policy.
Jackie Klopp thanked the Assistant Minister for his frankness. Honest historians
were silenced in the 1980s. But now there’s political space for openness, even about
the recent past. Universities, however, are only now recovering from a period of deep
depression. They never used to be ethnicised.
What about hate speech? Do we try to suppress it or, rather, try to improve the
general quality of political dialogue? But the hate speech is archived in Kenya’s past.
There could be a role for historians, and for archivists, in the Truth and Justice
Commission. So: is there a public role for people in this room?
Mamadou Diouf referred back to Tom Wolf’s question. Historians should never try
to be judges. History can also be for pleasure. Violence is never the only thing that
people do. One should also analyse achievement!
Remember Achille Mbembe’s remark that states are their own historians,
always justifying themselves. Historians must deconstruct these official histories.
You can’t de-ethnicise Africa. We need to see and use ethnicity’s positive
side. Also, we all have multiple identities—which make it possible for us to live!
Diversity is productive! It’s too easy to blame politicians when in fact society is sick.
It’s that which historians should document, not judge. Politicians are too easy targets.
Kenya National Archives staff member: our data are very uneven as between our
different communities. Who else had the sources that we can’t supply to enquirers?
Tom Wolf: hate-speech continues with pro-natal propaganda to supply the next
generation of warriors.
Ole Kantai thanked Richard Ambani (present) for his help in the KNA (Applause!)
Kiplagat: Kenya’s Association of University Chancellors was determined to raise
money for research. Popular history is as important as science. For instance The
Origins of the Kalenjin traced them all the way back to Egypt.
Richard Ambani stressed the need to reinforce the Kenya National Archives (KNA).
John Nottingham: it was a major scandal that history had almost disappeared from
our primary schools. History was needed to destroy myth. March would see the 50th
anniversary of Hola. Ten years ago the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation had never
heard of it! But thank goodness historians don’t think like judges. The Hola case
Judge had found nobody guilty of the 11 deaths and many injuries because one could
not tell who had delivered the crucial blow. But history knows who was guilty.
Kiplagat made what proved to be the concluding remark: “We must remember those
Good Samaritans in last year’s crisis. We have both ugly and inspiring history.”