I AM NOT MY TRIBE

I am a Luo by birth. If you ask me which tribe I’d rather be, I’d slap you! Today, if I introduced my girlfriend to my mother, the first thing she would ask me is her tribe, not even how we met. Where do people get the idea that Luos are proud, Kikuyus are thieves, Kisiis are violent, people from the coast are lazy, and what have you? It only makes sense in comedy, but very disgusting in real life.

I am a Kenyan. That’s all I know. What makes me better than any other just because I belong to my tribe? Are there not thieves in Kisumu, Nyali, Mandera, Kapsabet, Narok, Meru, and all other places? Do I hate differently? Smile differently? Cry differently or even love like an angel? And we mock God by being tribal. What is the basis of riding on stereotypes that escalate mental poverty? If that be the case then all our phone books would be full of people from our tribes only, because then it would really mean that we do not need others.
But this sort of hypocrisy is not leading us anywhere, that politics creates the basis of our reasoning. Who can even face God and tell Him that they hate people from a certain tribe because of A, B, C, D? Isn’t He the one who created them? Doesn’t He have the right to even choose who to hate because they are His creation? Yet, He loves us all even in our small mindedness.

I get mad when I hear my father or mother talk ill of a certain community. Yes, these things are in our homes. I imagine that someone else is talking ill of them just because they are Luos, yet, perhaps they even work together. How are we even able to cope up with false lives? I honestly don’t get it. If having your tribesman as the president is the problem then the Rift Valley and Central Kenya would have no one sleeping hungry.

I am not my tribe. I am my thoughts, my desires, my imaginations, my talk, my walk, my beliefs, my passion, my dreams. I am me, not my tribe. I refuse to be enslaved by stereotypes. I stand to be free by accepting everyone for who they are. I’d rather we judge each other from character, if judging is a must, but not on the basis of tribe. It would make more sense. From the look of things, I may not even marry a Luo. Call me all the names you want but am living a very happy life. Good luck in your tribalism.