Relative peace is required for societal stability. We all, therefore, want and even dream of a country that all its citizens despite their voluminous differences, tribe, age, physical appearance, colour, creed, race, civilian or not, level of education, gender, etc., cohabit peacefully. This looks very utopic and unattainable, at least in this our time characterised mostly by various conflicts! But peace is possible. Yet, what have we done so far to come closer in achieving this dream?
The handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Hon. Raila Odinga on March 9th 2018, is a political attempt to make this nation prosper peacefully. I think, since then, we haven’t seen our youth go on streets ready for bloodshed in the name of demonstration. We haven’t seen our property vandalised by the demonstrators. Indeed, we haven’t seen casualties or deaths due to protests! We haven’t seen the police using excessive force on the populace, only in the case of the scoundrel police! But a political move to a peaceful nation isn’t enough, though good. It is just one step ahead to peaceful coexistence.
Yet much of our conflicts are also propelled by some of our cultural practices and beliefs.
Regrettably, that is why, peace, the absence of violence, is far from achievable in Kenya, specifically in the Northern Rift Region, precisely East of Lake Turkana and its environs. Why?
Because, in this region, like some parts of Kenya, some cultural practices and beliefs are catalysts of war and social fear. In fact, for the majority of the inhabitants in this region, political handshake, as a means to peaceful cohabitation, isn’t telling them anything to do with peace. They need a cultural approach to peace building and conflict resolution.
In this pastoralist region, being arid and semi-arid, cultural conflicts are easily generated not only by the presence of both pasture and water, but also by following strictly certain cultural beliefs. While the former, a problem from without, leads to severe life-threatening competition over these scarce but precious resources; the latter, a problem from within, makes the persons involved inhabit uncontrollable urge, mori, to cause chaos.
One would expect that the low human population in these areas should tame such conflicts. Simple geographical logic dictates that since they are few in number, they should peacefully cohabit. But no! Actually, here, the livestock- cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys and camels- surpasses the inhabitants both in need and in numbers. Pushing the owners to a mile further in safe guarding their livestock, even at the expense of other few human lives.
August-September 2019 is a memorable moment. Being in Arapal, a small village East of Mount Kulal and Gatab, a village on top of the same mountain which is basically inhabited by the Samburu people, I witnessed a ceremony of the institution of Moranhood to 83 youth. This beautiful cultural event takes place only after 10 or 15 years! Hence, I count myself lucky to have witnessed it in my lifetime.
All went well in this ceremony of the rite of passage, until when the initiates, teenage boys facing the knife, came to the oath taking ritual. Which I saw as intrinsically the root cause of various cultural violence in the region. Not that am against the oath taking rites, for I too, live under some oath that I took some ten years ago.
This is what happens.
The initiate, at some point, takes a piece of meat, known as menong, hooks it on his knife and figuratively takes to his mother. He then vows in front of her to never consume any meal seen or cooked by any married woman, not even his mother, so long as he is a moran, a warrior. And that marks also the sign of gratitude for all that the mother did in raising him.
By the virtue of this vow, the Samburu culture dictates two things. Primo, a moran, if dead, is not worth a burial. The moran’s corpse would be left at the peril of the wild animals especially the hyenas who will consume it. Secundo, a moran ceases to have a domicile. He is a persona non grata in his very home! Henceforth, his legal place is either the fora or wilderness looking after the livestock and ensuring overall safety of the community. Hence, he becomes a wanderer!
What is then, the social consequence of living such kind of a treacherous oath?
I know, this might be the cultural way of inculcating in the moran some basic cultural virtues of trust in independency and self-reliance, which will mature and be put in use in the adulthood. Sounds good!
Alas! The same moran, due to such a vow, may develop identity crisis that may affect his relationship with others in the larger society.
On one hand, the moran will eventually either be a threat to his mother and by extension to other women in the society. A threat to the mother, is a threat to the life of the society; consequently a threat to the peace in the society.
And on the other hand, a moran living with the knowledge that at his death, he won’t be accorded a decent cultural burial, risks considering himself as a lesser person. Henceforward start to threaten others so as to prove that indeed he is worthy in the society. We have witnessed to what extent such threats may go!
Therefore, this section of the oath taking in the institution ceremony of moranhood should be rechecked or revised if not evangelised. After all, our cultures get modified and modernised with time. This oath actually makes the morans predisposed to quick elimination of others in the society, especially in the name of defending the precious resources- pasture, water and livestock- and culture.
There are indeed various benefits of cultural initiations to various age groups; which include among others perseverance, vigilance, courage, self-esteem, self-sacrifice, etc. It shouldn’t be a form of cultural indoctrination or a school to manufacture warriors. Let us tame such cultural practices and beliefs. Otherwise, we shall never have peace in the North Rift Region of Kenya and the whole nation.
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