{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Standard Digital News - Kenya : Moses Kuria and the art of tribal jingoism

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000168658/moses-kuria-and-the-art-of-tribal-jingoism

Standard Digital News - Kenya : Moses Kuria and the art of tribal jingoism

There is as much to learn as there is to condemn from the character and actions of Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria.

He is a man who has clearly decided that no matter how crude, uncivil or blood-thirsty he sounds and looks, by making such inciting statements as a call for chopping off the heads of Jubilee critics as long as he presents himself as a Kikuyu hero.

What do we mean? To understand this, let us go back to the days of former President Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity. We all recall Mr Kibaki taking the oath of office at nightfall after that controversial 'victory' in 2007. Mr Kibaki's final term started in violence and ended up in confusion, with impatience running high against the nusu mkate government.

But something else happened; the election was fought on what Mr Kibaki's supporters came to claim was the 41-against-1, which they conveniently blamed on their fiercest rival, Raila Odinga.

When the gale of the 2007-2008 ethnic clashes calmed, already there had emerged people perceived to be 'professional' defenders of PNU and by extension, Kikuyu elite's Napoleonic political appetite.

Their brief appeared to be to counter anything deemed to question Mr Kibaki's second term and to uphold what they saw as the entitlement to power of the ex-golfer's community.

One of them, gifted with an acidic tongue came to be known in media circles as PNU spokesman, even though the party sent an advisory to the media to stop referring him as such. That man was Moses Kuria.

Long after Mr Kibaki left, and with the death of the Gatundu South MP, Mr Kuria stood and campaigned on the platform of a Kikuyu defender. There are reports that his main opponent was prevailed upon by President Uhuru Kenyatta, also the area's one-time MP, to "leave" the seat to Mr Kuria.

In fact, when in his latest vitriol against the 'other' Kenyans he linked to yule mtu wa vitendawili (a reference to Mr Odinga popularised by Deputy President William Ruto), Mr Kuria also boasted he knew people in high places.

There is no way this was just pretence he had Mr Kenyatta's direct line. Why? Because at the President and Mount Kenya MPs meeting where the agreement was reached to wage a war against users, stockists and brewers of alcohol, Mr Kuria stepped out of the brood to catch up with the President as he walked away. Even though another MP disrupted the one-on-one session he may have staged for the camera, you can be sure Mr Kuria relished that moment that was beamed on TV.

Now a little walk back in the footsteps of history to 1997, when Mr Kenyatta tried to run for the seat and lost to another Moses with the surname Muihia. See, everything was going in Mr Kenyatta's favour but hours to the election, Mr Muihia "vanished" and rumours went round he had been abducted by Mr Kenyatta's team.

Months later, after Mr Kenyatta had tasted his first dose of electoral humiliation, rumours did the rounds that this was hoax; a stage-managed kidnap that was meant to make Mr Kenyatta and his Kanu party look bad, and funnel sympathy votes to Mr Muhia! So Mr Kuria is not a fool, he has to perfect the political game of clinging to the Big Man and to the coat-tails of his voters.

The point we are making is that like all cunning politicians who excel in playing the tribal card, Mr Kuria has perfected the art of making himself sound and look like the most hawkish and fiercely loyal leader to the king of his tribe.

Two, to keep this political currency appreciating in value even in peacetime, he knows he has to inculcate a sense of siege mentality among the foot-soldiers, or the rank and file, a sample of which are the peasant panga-wielders he was addressing! He does this by always instilling the fear among them that there is someone or communities out there working day and night to bring down Mutongoria (the Big Man) and to isolate his people.

As he does this, he coins messages, not for the national constituency, but the ridges and valleys around where he was born. He does not, otherwise he would have stopped when he was fined Sh2 million. That time he had linked Muslims to terror and even warned that other Kenyans would soon rise against them. But he does not care the fact that to many Kenyans, he may sound more of a tribal jingoist than a party hawk. What is keeping him going is the heroic image he is carving for himself within the tribe ahead of the next elections and the fact that the Big Man will not fail to notice!

There are, however, three problems with the Moses Kurias of this world. First, their education has taken a back seat and they have decided to instead speak the language of the party foot soldiers by 'worming' their way into their hearts through tribal cards! Secondly, Kuria counts on the 'Big Man' to shield him against the consequences because he is, after all, fighting "his war". Thirdly, Mr Kuria is just one, but out there all our politicians are busy strumming the wires of the tribe in our hearts and the outcome is our perennial ethnic race at election time.

In a nutshell, Mr Kuria is no different, he was just outed by technology. There are many of his ilk in our midst.

Standard Digital News - Kenya : Moses Kuria and the art of tribal jingoism

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000168658/moses-kuria-and-the-art-of-tribal-jingoism

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