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| Among the Akamba, Kioko is a name given to a baby boy born in the morning |
This piece has been
inspired by what Kalonzo Musyoka recently told a journalist in a press
conference that the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) had called to
give their assessment of a myriad of topical issues in our country.
The country was stunned
when Kalonzo refused to answer the journalist since his name of Kikuyu origin
had allegedly 'betrayed' him.
Kalonzo fell short of
saying that he could tell the political leaning of the journalist the moment he
heard his name, read, his tribe. With this he gave us the best case study from
a leader of his stature of looking at issues in a pathologically stereotypical way.
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| Our names are cultural artifacts |
Now, to say 'pathologically'
is to say, naturally. It is saying if I wereto appear before Kalonzo today and
I said my name is Kioko wa Kivandi, then he would conclude, naturally, that from my birth
I have supported all that Akamba leaders have said including him, because my
name identifies with the Akamba.
It is also like saying
if Barrack Obama were to meet Kalonzo today then Kalonzo would say, "aah, I
see, your name is Obama, you are a Luo. I am in a coalition with Odinga so we
can talk."
For this reason I am
writing to argue that pathological stereotypes are what have killed us as a
nation. And Kalonzo is not the only person who may exhibit such. You saw Prof.
Anyang Nyong' laughed, almost in approval of what had been said. Yet, I cannot
even attempt to teach him, the writer of the famous poem Daughter of the Low Land about
these issues. He is more learned than me. He knows better.
Kenya has been crushing
out of the negative narratives that we have told our offspring about the 'other
tribe.' And we have told them in such a manner that they appear to have been
so since creation.
That is why our names
are no longer gems of a heritage, but the sources of our betrayal. You
introduce yourself in a forum and kaboom, "your name betrays you" and
"I cannot say more."
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| No name is chosen in a vacuum, its part of a culture |
In 2007/2008 post
election violence and throughout the history of negative ethnicity our names
have betrayed us. Many a times they have defined our destinies, especially
negative ones.
But our names are our
heritage. They are part of our culture. My name Kioko means a boy who was born
in the morning. Your name also has its meaning. It was not picked in a vacuum.
Behold, we need to
retell narratives about ourselves and those about our neighbors, and more so in
instances where we have painted images of neighbors who are ogres when in real
sense they are true replicas of us as the holy books say.
