Tribalism in Kenya: “Our Time to Eat”

Abstract

The article examines the ethnic history of Kenya during the years of colonialism and on the eve of the country’s independence. I argue that the Kenyan society may be considered as an essentially typical case in research on tribalism, national question, and federalism in Africa, as well as elsewhere in the world, and in the study of a country-specific version of “African socialism”. Having a short-lived experience of federalism on the eve of independence (the era of majimbo) and an experience of unitary state order during the independence period, Kenya in the 2010s turned back to decentralization and regionalism as a system of territorial and political structure. Some researchers believe that Kenya is returning to the practice of majimbo, i.e. devolution, and that a specific version of “ethnic federalism” is being established in the country when its administrative-territorial system is being adjusted to the tribal composition of the population. I attempt to demonstrate the relationship between the choice of regionalism and the prospects for political, economic, and cultural coexistence of different peoples within the confines of the country. Without analyzing the colonial experience, it is impossible to understand what is happening in modern Kenya, including the “ethnic policy” pursued by the Kenyan authorities.