The Dominion - Kenya

Machetes, Ethnic Conflict and Reductionism

dru — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:44:03 +0000

Racist assumptions mar western media coverage of Kenya

Arriving back in Montreal after a brief journey to my home country of Kenya during the December elections there, I went online to get the latest updates. In the days immediately following the election on December 27 the incumbent President Kibaki stole the vote and had himself sworn in before a motley group of dejected government officials. Opposition supporters rose up to protest the rigged result. Ironically, the only source of news in Kenya before I left was the BBC. The government had banned the local media from reporting any conflict, leaving the country in a domestic media blackout.

Reading media reports from Montreal, I found myself more confused and afraid than when I was still in Kenya. According to many of these reports, my country was suddenly in the midst of a "civil war," or even a "genocide," not unlike the stories the media told about Rwanda in 1994. It was as if the situation could be reduced to a few violent images, like those of machete-wielding youth dancing next to burning houses.

Among the mainstream media's favourite words when referring to the current political crisis in Kenya are "ethnic," "chaos" and "tribal." In its report on January 27, the Los Angeles Times carried the title "'Tribal war' spreads in Kenya." The same article provided almost no historical context or explanation for how this "tribal war" was linked to the December elections, save for two paragraphs that clumsily summed up the country's history since its independence in 1963.

The word "tribal" itself is denied specific meaning. Kenya is composed of more than 40 ethnic groups, none of which media reports have attempted to describe with any accuracy. Instead, we get scant descriptions of men from the Kalenjin or Luo ethnic groups "at war" with their Kikuyu neighbours.

Again and again, the corporate media has reduced complex political events to simple binary conflicts. In Rwanda, it is the "Hutu" versus the "Tutsi." In Sudan-- the "Arabs" versus the "Africans" or the "Muslims" versus the "Christians." In the vast territory of the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, the "Hema" fight against the "Lendu."

All these groups do exist on the African continent, but not as rigidly fixed identities dating from time immemorial. Identities are complex and often fluid in nature, sometimes hardening in the crucible of political movements or colonial struggles. Simplifying every violent episode down to an “ethnic conflict” has a familiar effect: making every conflict on the African continent seem irrational, chaotic, and without historical precedent.

The BBC’s reporting is no less culpable for oversimplifications. On one of the broadcaster's news pages, provocative quotes entice readers: “We will start the war. We will divide Kenya.” These are the words selected by the BBC to reflect the views of one Kalenjin "leader," Jackson Kibbur. Readers relying on the BBC to find out about the Kalenjin are likely to assume that he represents the views of all Kalenjin. Elsewhere in the article, snippets that seem to have been cut and pasted from an action film are quoted in isolation. “We will of course kill them,” an interviewee is reported to have said of the Kikuyu.

This variety of sensationalism and oversimplification is not atypical of corporate media reporting from Africa. Their representations perpetuate the racist assumptions that have historically influenced western perceptions of "Africans" as barbaric, primitive and inherently destructive. Such representations also have the advantage of justifying external intervention in the region which in most cases serves to disguise many different kinds of exploitation.

Western journalists reporting on the current situation in Kenya frequently approach their work with an air of adventure and sensationalism mixed with disappointment at the direction in which Kenya is moving. Doug Miller, the host of "Amandla!" -- a radio program on Montreal's CKUT dedicated to political events in Africa -- says this approach does not help readers understand what is going on.

Miller praises the Globe and Mail's Africa correspondent Stephanie Nolen for her "wonderful stuff on AIDS in Southern Africa," but criticized her approach to the political crisis in Kenya. It is, he says, a "cheap thrill kind of journalism."

"The emphasis was on her going into the 'valley of death' and facing these bloodthirsty warriors. It's an awful attraction for a journalist to go out there. But is it giving us any insight into the situation? I don't think so."

In her article, entitled "Into the Valley of Death," Nolen writes, "the Kenya I travelled through this week was not a country I recognized ... the Kenya that was prospering and ambitious and dignified and peaceful." Nolen is echoing a frequent refrain in the media since the conflict: that Kenya was the last remaining "democracy" -- the only hope on a continent ravaged by senseless violence. In the words of one writer and according to the sentiment of many, the situation is a "tragic setback for democracy in Africa."

Missing Colonialism and Class

Celebrated Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o has observed that the current crisis does indeed concern two tribes: not tribes based on ethnic identity, but on the divide between "the haves and the have-nots." It is not accidental that much of the violence has taken place in Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa and also in Mathare, another collection of slums.

Writing for African news publication Pambazuka, Nunu Kidane and Walter Turner remark that the people living in Kibera and Mathare have "nothing to fear and nothing to lose." Running battles between armed police and residents of Kibera were fought in the post-election period, while the middle-classes and elites remained largely unaffected by such conflicts. The media has neglected to report sufficiently on the heavy-handed tactics of repression used by the Kenyan police and the notorious paramilitary General Service Unit in areas like Kibera and Mathare.

Nonetheless, Kibera has attracted international attention; it is becoming increasingly popular as a venue for "slum tourism." Reuters correspondent Andrew Cawthorne recently wrote of Kibera: "Any journalist wanting a quick Africa poverty story can find it there in half an hour."

How, then, to make sense of the situation in Kenya while avoiding the pitfalls of sensationalistic reporting and racist assumptions?

If the media claim this is an ethnic conflict, how did it begin? When did it begin? It is important to first differentiate between the different acts of "violence" that are taking place in Kenya. Security forces are responsible for a large number of the killings. Acting on government orders immediately after the election results were announced, they have largely been operating on a shoot-to-kill policy.

Disturbing scenes of police brutality have been aired on local television. In one case, a young man in western Kisumu -- a region with a large number of opposition supports -- is shown taunting the police by sticking his tongue out and jumping up and down. A police officer runs toward him, shoots him from a few feet away and kicks him in the ribs. Little or none of this makes it into corporate media reports.

As “ethnic violence,” it certainly did not emerge out of nowhere, and not all members of the Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Luo communities are bent on destroying each other. But what other impression would people get when they read headlines like “Rival Kenyan tribes face off with machetes and clubs” next to photographs of black Africans holding weapons, silhouetted by the sun?

Certainly it is not ordinary Kenyans who benefit from the climate of terror stoked by politicians who manipulate ethnic differences to serve their own political agendas. They have mobilized gangs of young men, who are marginalized and cut off from any participation in the country’s economy, to target ethnic groups, thus prompting revenge attacks.

I received an alarming text message from a friend who had to leave home for fear of being targeted by members of the Kikuyu community. "Am ok," it read, "There were revenge attacks from Kikuyus as the place is predominantly Kikuyu. Looking for another house." The same friend was rushing to the Rift Valley three weeks ago to help evacuate members of the Kikuyu community who were being targeted by Kalenjin supporters of the opposition in the elections.

These kinds of stories -- of ordinary Kenyans who are trying to help each other and who are troubled and alarmed by what is happening as the result of a power struggle between two men -- are not covered by the many foreign correspondents visiting Kenya.

A notable exception to the lack of critical and accurate coverage in the corporate media was an article by author Caroline Elkins, who wrote about Kenya's national resistance movement in her book Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. Writing in the Washington Post, Elkins explains: "If you're looking for the origins of Kenya's ethnic tensions, look to its colonial past... we are often told that age-old tribal hatreds drive today's conflicts in Africa. In fact, both ethnic conflict and its attendant grievances are colonial phenomena."

In Kenya, says Elkins, the British spent much of their time trying to keep the Kikuyu and Luo divided for fear that if they united, the colonial order in the country would collapse. A Kikuyu-Luo alliance in the 1950s forced the British to release Jomo Kenyatta, who would later become the country's first president, from a colonial detention camp and hastened the removal of the British colonial structure. But the alliance was short-lived, and the imperial "divide-and-rule" policy was applied time and again in Britain's colonies. The policy was strong enough to create the "ethnic units" that are now playing into the hands of elites.

These same elites, carefully cultivated by the British to protect their geopolitical interests in the region, took control of the legal systems left behind that, according to Elkins, "facilitated tyranny, oppression and poverty rather than open, accountable government."

We also have to consider the many other factors that make possible the kind of violence currently taking place. Kenya is a very poor country whose more serious troubles concern low wages, unemployment, structural poverty, lack of social security, poorly funded health and education systems and lack of access to land and resources.

Doug Miller of "Amandla!" says, "It is no wonder that the structural poverty imposed on Africa throughout history has created an underclass of young people who have no hope and no future. Many people are getting an education but there is nowhere to go with it."

"The economies have been undermined by world capitalism. Even if you do what they say and you grow tobacco or something, you get crap prices and you can't live off what you do as a farmer. What this is about is people with no access to resources in a country where they can't do anything and a rich person can come by with any amount of money and mobilize them into what I call 'the army of the unemployed.'"

It is these armies of disenfranchised youth that have been mobilized to set Kenyan against Kenyan. Understanding the origins for their exclusion will bring us closer to transcending the stereotypes that dominate Western media reportage, and perhaps a little closer to envisioning a resolution.

Machete-wielding men

Daily Life

Ending Female Genital Mutilation?

Sat, 12 Feb 2005 02:50:35 +0000

Rights, medicalization, and the state of ongoing struggles to eliminate the FGM in Kenya

Prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation in Africa (darker shading denotes higher rates of FGM). Map adapted from data at State of Women in the World.

NAIROBI, KENYA -- Being a deep-rooted cultural practice for many communities in Kenya, no one assumed it would be an easy task to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). For the first time in 1998, the Kenya Health and Demographic Survey included questions on FGM and found that 38 per cent of women had undergone the procedure. In 2003, the survey found that 34 per cent of women had undergone FGM, however in communities where FGM was almost universally practiced there was very little change. The slow rate of progress is discouraging to organizations that have been working on this issue for many years. Realizing just how much of a sustained and tailored effort FGM eradication campaigns require, international organizations and NGOs are trying to collaborate on research and intervention efforts to make greater inroads into eliminating this practice. At a conference held in Nairobi in December, UNICEF, Population Council and several other NGOs presented their latest research findings on FGM, with a particular focus on the Somali community in Kenya.

"How much longer?" said Abdi Abdullahi of National Focal Point at the conference. "There has been 80 years of campaigns and yet there's been little impact."

The papers presented at the conference showed many FGM intervention campaigns have had little to no impact, and some may have even contributed to further entrenching the practice.

FGM, female genital cutting or female circumcision, are the terms used to describe several types of mutilating operations performed to the external genitalia of girls and women. The types of procedures can be broadly classified into four groups, ranging from the removal of a small part of the clitoris, all the way to infibulation, where the clitoris and labia minora are completely excised, the wound sewn shut, and just a small opening is left for urine and menstrual flow. According to No Peace Without Justice, an Italian NGO working to eliminate FGM, there are now between 120 million to 130 million women worldwide who have undergone FGM. Another two million girls and women are subjected to the practice every year, which takes place in 28 African and Arab countries, as well as by immigrant communities from these regions.

The Somali ethnic group in Kenya has the highest prevalence of FGM - 97 per cent of Somali women have undergone the procedure, and almost all are infibulations. As in many other communities, pre-marital virginity is very important for the Somali, and FGM is considered essential in preserving virginity and family honour. Many Somali also believe that FGM is an Islamic requirement, although some Sheikhs, community elders and Muslim women's groups have clarified that infibulation is in violation of the Koran. This has led to a shift from infibulation to a less-severe form of FGM, and it is a complex issue for groups working to eradicate the practice to encourage its abandonment instead of the adoption a less-severe form.

There are many negative health consequences associated with FGM, including hemorrhage, cervical infections, urethral damage, urinary tract infections, dermatoid cysts, chronic pelvic infections, difficult and often dangerous childbirth, and a variety of other complications that can lead to death. While the health implications of FGM are very serious and form a key component of any campaign, many say that focusing almost entirely on the health aspects has not addressed the violation of rights or contributed to the elimination of the practice. Instead, a strong focus on health implications appears to have contributed to the adoption of less severe forms of FGM or having medical professionals carry out the procedure in a more sanitary manner. A Population Council study in 2001 found that 70 per cent of circumcised Abagusii girls in Western Kenya reported having been cut by a nurse or doctor, whereas virtually all of their mothers had been cut by a traditional circumciser. There are also reports that the amount of tissue cut in FGM procedures for girls in the Kisii area of Western Kenya is reducing in response to the sustained FGM campaigns that focus on adverse health outcomes.

"This is a logical reaction," explains Ian Askew, senior program associate of Population Council in Nairobi. "People want to keep practicing and they want to do so safely."

Medical staff undertake the procedure mainly for the financial incentive, while to parents they provide a relatively safe and hygienic service. The preference for medical staff to carry out FGM has significantly increased in the past decade, although trained health providers performing these services are contravening medical ethics, disregarding the Ministry of Health policy, and violating the 2001 Children's Act. According to some activists, the trend of medicalization is a major impediment to the abandonment of FGM because it only decreases the risks involved, rather than eradicating the practice altogether.

In 1999, the Ministry of Health developed a National Plan of Action for the Elimination of FGM in Kenya to eliminate the practice by 2019, and in 2001, the Children's Act made FGM illegal for girls under 17. However, the Children's Act is not well-known or understood by many communities, and there is little support for enforcement of the law. The threat of imprisonment for those caught performing the procedure has driven the practice underground in some communities, and politicians representing regions where FGM is prevalent speak cautiously on the issue in fear they will not return to parliament if they openly condemn the practice. While laws banning FGM are seen as important, there is a general consensus that a grassroots, community-level approach is best, as top-down legal policies have shown to be ineffective in changing people's attitudes.

The idea that FGM is a violation of girl's and women' rights is not accepted in many communities. Population Council found that in Somali refugee camps in Northern Kenya, most people considered FGM beneficial because of the social acceptability it brings. Women who abandon the practice have a lot to loose; their position in the community is affected, they have a harder time finding a partner for marriage, and often their dowry is affected because they are not considered virginal. While a girl's mother and grandmother make most of the decisions about circumcision, many argue that the father still holds the most influence. If men continue to alienate uncut women and encourage their daughters to be cut, it seems the practice will never be abandoned. However, recent studies have shown that men appear to be more open to the idea of abandonment than women, which presents an opportunity for FGM campaigns.

Girls are now being circumcised at earlier ages, most frequently between seven to 12 years old, compared to 15 before. It is believed young girls are better able to survive the painful experience and they are easier to convince. Circumcising girls at a younger age presents a major problem to campaigns aimed at empowering women to refuse FGM. A girl at the age of eight has considerable difficulty asserting her rights when no one is asking for her consent, and support is not available within her community. The alternative rite of passage, developed to replace FGM as a transition into womanhood without any cutting, also has little impact when girls are cut at earlier ages, because by the time girls reach the age where the ceremony would be relevant, their families may have already had the procedure done.

Education of girls is the key to the long term elimination of FGM, as women with higher levels of education are more likely to refuse that their daughters undergo the procedure. School curriculums should also teach the rights of the child and awareness on sexuality issues, which would provide awareness on what FGM entails. Some have urged NGOs working within communities where FGM is prevalent to offer support, and even temporary protection when necessary, to those who publicly declare themselves against the practice.

While FGM is a deep-rooted cultural tradition which is continued through taboos and myths, culture is not static and some changes are inevitable.

"This is a gradual process of social change that we need to accelerate on, and it's already started in some communities" says Askew.

Programs for FGM eradication must be sustainable, collaborative, and multi-faceted if they are to achieve any significant change in attitude and practice, and must be tailored to meet the needs of each specific community. This requires massive resources, time and commitment, and until the international community and governments are willing to provide this, FGM will continue virtually unabated.

In Kenya, major campaigns for the eradication of female genital mutilation have met with little success. Gemma Richardson finds out why.

Tiomin Given Final Approval for Kwale Titanium Mine

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:59:46 +0000

NAIROBI, KENYA -- After years of negotiations, the Kenyan government has given a Canadian mining company, Tiomin Resources Inc., the final approval to start a multimillion dollar titanium mining project in Kwale. On Feb. 2, the Kenyan government signed a fiscal agreement with Jean-Charles Potvin, President and CEO of Tiomin, which includes a 50 per cent reduction of the corporate tax rate for 10 years from the start of commercial production of the mine. The agreement also stipulates a 2.5 per cent gross revenue royalty to the Kenyan government.

The biggest foreign investment deal since the current government came to power, the mining project will exploit the titanium-rich sands in Kwale for at least 14 years. The Kwale project is the first of four large mineral sand deposits along the coast of Kenya that Tiomin started exploring in 1995 . The Kwale project is expected to produce large quantities of ilmenite, rutile, and zircon, which are used in the paint, ceramic and electronic industries.

The Kenyan coast is a unique tropical expanse of beaches, ancient Arabic architecture, diverse coral reefs and mangrove forests that stretches 402 kilometres. The Kenyan coastal forest is considered by Conservation International to be one of the world's 25 hotspots – areas of extraordinary biodiversity that are seriously threatened. Many endangered species, including the only bands of Colobus monkeys on the East African coast and also Kenya's last remaining herds of sable antelope, depend on the coast's fragile ecosystem, which is already under stress from the tourism industry.

The mining project will not only impact the coastal ecosystem but also the residents of the area who must be relocated. There has been opposition to the project from local communities who are concerned over the destruction of their land and compensation issues. However, construction of the project will likely begin later this year, and commercial production is expected to start by early 2007.

This agreement with the Kenyan government comes at a time when Tiomin has also received a license to begin mining gold and other minerals in Peru.

Gemma Richardson

» Dongo Kundu, a film about the impact of the Tiomin project

» Tiomin Resources, official site