Ethnicity in Kenya is both a precolonial reality and a colonial creation. Precolonial Kenya had communities, clans, regions with their own identities. But the modern ethnic categories (Kikuyu, Luo, Maasai, etc.) were partially created or crystallized by colonialism.
The British classified people into ethnic groups. This classification was convenient for administration and it was backed by power. The classification became real. People understood themselves in these terms. Ethnic identity became a primary way of understanding oneself and relating to others.
In the colonial period, the British used ethnic distinctions to create hierarchy. Certain ethnic groups were favored for military recruitment. Certain regions were more developed. The British created and reinforced ethnic distinctions.
After independence, ethnicity remained powerful. The Kikuyu, the Luo, the Luhya, the Kalenjin, the Maasai, all had their own political organizations and interests. Political parties formed along ethnic lines. Competition for resources and power became competition between ethnic groups.
The state, rather than moving away from ethnicity, has often reinforced it. Political leaders have mobilized ethnic constituencies. Resources have been allocated (or withheld) along ethnic lines. The state has used ethnicity as a tool of governance and political control.
The ethnicity question remains central to Kenya's politics. The 2007-2008 violence revealed how violence can be mobilized along ethnic lines. The constitution's devolution has created incentives for ethnic-based county politics. The question of how to transcend ethnicity as a political organizing principle remains unresolved.
What Kenya inherited from colonialism is not ethnicity itself but a particular ordering of ethnic identities, a colonial understanding of ethnicity that persists. The work of creating a national identity that transcends ethnicity, of building political structures that are not organized around ethnic competition, remains incomplete.
See Also
- The 2007-2008 Scar
- Devolution Legacy
- Language Politics
- Sheng as Cultural Legacy
- Urbanisation and Identity