Tribal Identity Shapes Kenyan Views, Realities

Blocks Apart in Nairobi, Sharply Divergent Lives

NAIROBI -- They grew up in farming villages -- Teddy Chwanya in the rolling hills of western Kenya and Samuel Mathu amid the cattle and flower farms of the country's lush central region.

Both men left home to take their chances here in the capital, settling just a few crowded blocks apart in Kangeme, an enclave of one-room cinder-block homes, stick-built markets and dirt roads off a smoggy main highway.

They are in their early 30s now and making ends meet, Chwanya as a salesman for a security firm and Mathu running a busy electronics shop.

Aside from migration to the city, age and middle-class aspirations, though, the two have little in common. In the particulars of their lives, their perceptions and -- especially now in the violent aftermath of a disputed presidential election -- their politics, Chwanya and Mathu remain separated by one of the most volatile and enduring features of Kenyan society: tribalism.

"I am at a disadvantage because I'm Luo," said Chwanya, a supporter of opposition leader Raila Odinga, who is also a Luo and who has accused President Mwai Kibaki of stealing the Dec. 27 election. "We have been oppressed, and we are tired of it."

That sentiment, shared by many Luos across the country, mystifies Mathu. He is a member of the Kikuyu, the president's tribe and the nation's largest. Although the Kikuyus have dominated Kenyan politics and commerce for more than 40 years, Mathu, like many Kikuyus, has never considered that an advantage. "We are all treated equally," he said, as the TV behind him broadcast the post-election riots. "The Luos, they are angry with the Kikuyus, and I don't know why."

Tribe in Kenya is a matter of culture and tradition, a designation -- often invisible to the casual observer -- that defines social networks and political power and at times serves as the foundation for stereotypes used by politicians to manipulate and divide the electorate. Kibaki claimed victory in the elections despite early returns showing a large lead for Odinga and his party, which won the most seats in parliamentary balloting held the same day. Although international election observers characterized the vote as deeply flawed, Kibaki was quickly sworn into office despite opposition protests, another round of which is scheduled to begin Wednesday.

Of the dozens of tribes in Kenya, the Kikuyu and to a lesser degree the Luo and the Kalenjin -- the ethnic group of former president Daniel arap Moi, who during his 24 years in office remained allied with the financially powerful Kikuyus -- have remained the primary political forces since independence. At the same time, there is a public consensus that tribalism undermines the founding idea of Kenya as one nation. Any politician hoping to appear as a statesman deplores tribalism in public, even though Kenyans tend to vote in tribal blocs. In certain circles, it is considered rude to ask someone's tribe because it is not supposed to matter.

Though the Kikuyu and Luo have different ethnic roots, they are virtually indistinguishable physically -- so much so that during recent election violence, rioting gangs often asked Kenyans for their national identity cards. It is possible to identify a person's tribe by his or her name.

But neither ethnicity nor religion, which does not divide the groups, explains the sharply divergent perceptions that Kikuyus and Luos have of their place in Kenyan society. Tribe, woven as it is into day-to-day life, is the way many members of each group explain their successes and failures in a country that until the recent elections was considered the most stable in East Africa.

In Mathu's case, tribe is so ubiquitous he hardly notices it.

For Chwanya, who came home from work early last Thursday after arguing with a colleague about the elections, it has become the raging undercurrent of a frustrated life.