Women are the ones holding Kenya together

What have you been up to since returning to Kenya last year? Some media reports have it that you are still in self-imposed exile...

I have been very much around, just not in Nairobi.

I have spent a good deal of time lately travelling around Kenya, essentially reconnecting with my country, which went through such terrible convulsions while I was away.

I do this as the head of two small new organisations — Twaweza [We can do it] which is an East Africa-wide initiative aimed at empowering wananchi to solve their own problems, especially the provision of quality essential services like water, health and education — and the Zinduko [Awakening] Trust, which is involved more in societal issues —working with people to help build trust where ethnic issues have undermined them, and to address the suspicion and bad faith that infect all important national processes.

You said you have been travelling around the country, “reconnecting.” How exactly?

I have travelled throughout Kenya and this safari is nearly complete.

I have talked to a great many people to try to understand how they view themselves as Kenyans; to understand how much has changed in people; their thoughts about the future; and what they think the solutions are.

It has been a humbling experience.

As far as possible, I have been staying not in hotels but with ordinary people, who have welcomed me into their homes with a generosity that demonstrates that even though the referendum and post-election violence tore the social fabric apart, Kenyans remain Kenyans — hospitable, God-fearing, generous with the little they have.

What else have you learned?

Every region in Kenya, every community is affected by the same issues, but expressed differently because of our diversity in terms of experience, culture and the different conditions people face.

At the Coast, I was shocked by the insidious effects of heroin on the youth and the really outrageous situation that has seen many in Pwani turned into squatters on their own land.

We have a few individuals in this country who between them own land the size of a province when put together. This is not tenable.

In parts of Western, vigilante groups of unemployed, angry young men have sprung up.

In Central, the effects of alcohol and violence have “castrated” many youth and the existential questioning of a future in which one of their own won’t be president informs all debate, implicitly or explicitly.

In Nyanza, a high level of political awareness and an overpowering sense of victimhood are mitigated by a determination and courage to agitate for a changed political dispensation in Kenya. I could go on and on.

What are the commonalities?

Unfortunately at this point in our history, there is a disheartening level of antipathy towards a single community — a direct transference of attitudes towards a small exclusive cabal of politicians and businessmen who have behaved in a manner that expresses utter contempt for other communities.

This feeling is so strong that even if Kenya grew at 10 per cent per year, the politics will remain toxic so long as this poison continues to reside in the hearts of so many people.

This alienation of the ruling class from the majority of Kenyans is replicated among all communities, by the way.

In some regions, I found that MPs were afraid of their own people because of the anger on the ground as a result of broken promises and the corruption that has become brazen in the midst of harsh economic times.

Second, I was astonished by the extent to which a large section of Church leaders lost credibility because of the perception that they took sides during the elections.

Third, I am continually surprised by the belligerence of the youth, who tasted real power during the post-election violence.

Lastly, on the ground across Kenya, it is women who are holding society together under extremely difficult circumstances.

They are most clear in their opposition to violence.

As a woman told me one evening in Uasin Gishu: ‘We don’t like this thing democracy that causes our sons to be killed and our sons to turn into killers.’

What hope is there for the country then?

The coalition government has been helpful.

It has taught us that our leaders are a single avaricious tribe regardless of their ethnicity.

When it comes to corruption, their unity is impressive.

So people realise that single leaders will not solve all their problems.

A group I met recently around Kitui were emphatic: “The ICC should arrest all our MPs and take them away.” Still, people have not given up and there are many good people both in and out of government working hard to solve the great problems of the day.

I believe as a friend told me when I returned last year that the new Kenya is being moulded painfully in its most cosmopolitan areas — the cities, the Rift Valley and Coast Province.

The accommodations, compromises and hard choices that shall be made in these areas will determine how we resolve our most difficult issues and what Kenya will look like 10 years from now.

In the new year, I hope to publish my findings, which will inform what I do next.

I am hopeful because Kenyans can see through the lying rhetoric of most leaders.

While ethnic polarisation is a nationwide reality, no one is thinking through the consequences of civil war and instead, there is a fear that we may be about to lose something we cherish called Kenya that deep down we all desperately want to hold on to.

Secondly people are hardworking and still willing to believe that good will triumph over evil.

What is the biggest problem you see facing Kenya today?

As I have travelled around over the past several months, our challenges fall into three categories.

First are identity issues — tribalism and nationhood in particular. We have never questioned our Kenyan-ness as we have since the post-election violence.

This is not a bad thing.

We had taken it for granted for too long.

Even in the IDP camps, there were those who insisted they did not want to be counted in the census by a government that had failed to carry out one of its key mandates — to protect its own people and their property.

At the Coast, in North Eastern and other areas that have been marginalised, many feel they are not part of Kenya and repeat to me endlessly that, “Kenya ina wenyewe” (Kenya has its owners).

Second, it is glaringly clear that some regions and peoples have been deliberately discriminated against in development since Independence, which undermines their sense of nationhood and consolidates their sense of exclusion. This neglect is then in turn used as a political weapon.

Third, security is in crisis. The police seem to have had their resources reduced to the point where morale is disastrously low.

The spread of a group like Mungiki is caused by a combination of unemployment and this security gap — especially in the slums of our cities that are among the fastest growing in the world.

For me, it is also an issue that the middle classes, especially in Nairobi and the Diaspora, have yielded some of the most virulent and articulate ethnic chauvinists, including some top church leaders, businessmen and key figures in the security services and media sector.

So, you are saying we are on a one-way trip to disaster?

The first thing to realise, as a wise man in the Rift Valley told me, is that facts can imprison you.

The facts are clear and painful — we have stolen from each other, lied to each other, maimed and killed each other.

To grapple with these facts, commissions and taskforces have been established.

But these are no substitute for leadership, and in an atmosphere poisoned with mistrust these efforts will achieve less than is needed for a peaceful and prosperous future.

But while facts can imprison you in an angry, bitter and dark place, the truth can set you free, and the truth is that Kenyans of all tribes, races, denominations and political persuasions have to live with each other.

Dealing with land issues at the Coast and in the Rift Valley is important.

Constitutional reform and creation of an independent electoral commission are key as well.

After this we need to accept that some regions and communities have been left behind in terms of development.

Affirmative action is a must both in terms of production and distribution.

Given the threats to your life in the past, do you feel secure doing this type of travel – especially in Central, given that there are those who consider you a “traitor to the tribe”?

I am careful as I travel but have discovered that when you meet with Kenyans in their own territory, its not that much of an issue.

Kenyans at the end of the day are generous, warm, eager to discuss their troubles and eager to do something about them.

And yes, Central has been most surprising.

Incredibly welcoming.

This has been less to do with me than with the fact that people feel catastrophically let down by their leaders.

There has been talk of your applying for Justice Ringera’s job as director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission. Any substance to that?

I want to thank the thousands of Kenyans who sent me messages asking that I apply for the KACC post.

But at the end of the day, it is clear the machine is broken — something I have said several times in the past.

Under the current administration, success in that job is impossible, regardless of the tired rhetoric.

I’m not keen to sit there eating public money for nothing.

To apply would have been tacit approval of a system that is currently like a tick on a cow’s back that’s grown so fat it’s in danger of becoming as big as the cow.

I want to be effective in propelling change through Zinduko Trust and Twaweza and working with wananchi.

githongo@githongo.com