Coming to Kenya: Imagining and Perceiving a Nation among the Borana of Kenya

Abstract

Studies of nations and nationalisms are as complex as they are diverse. Post-colonial African nation-states epitomise many of the problems inherent in the definition of ‘nation’, ‘national identity’, and ‘nationalism’. All these notions have been deeply contested. There are cultural, political and above all historical explanations for failure to bond a national identity. This article considers these explanations through an examination of the ethnic perception of the Kenyan nation held by a minority ethnic group known as the Borana. Using the example of a group of town-dwelling Borana (‘Urban Borana’), it is argued that in the highly ethnicised social and political context of the Kenyan nation minority communities such as the Borana will always find themselves on the periphery. And on the periphery, Urban Borana migrants are marginalised even further. The article outlines the events that have shaped the experiences of the Urban Borana in relation to the ‘core’ Borana ethnic groups found in northern Kenya, with reference (in part) to written historical records, but drawing heavily upon oral sources and on ethno-history, that is, ‘the history of a localised group of people, at that time without historians and academics’.

Studies of nations, and all the ‘-isms’ that accompany the attempt to unravel the concept of the ‘nation’, are as complex as they are diverse. Developing countries, and in particular post-colonial African nation-states, epitomise many of the problems inherent in the definition of terms such as ‘nation’, ‘national identity’, ‘nationalism’, and so on. The pursuit of the nation in the context of the developing world has been a turbulent and circuitous process. Not even the ‘invention’ of ‘historical continuity’, or the personification of ‘the nation’ in symbol or in image as a distilled and bounded entity,1 has saved independent African states from experiencing the severe disturbances which have stemmed from divergent ideas, perceptions and imaginations of what should constitute the nation, and what the objectives of the ‘national process’ should be.

In Kenya, as in many other states, the biggest hurdle on the path toward consolidation of nationhood has been ethnicity. According to the Kenyan scholar Osaga Odak, ethnicity remains the dominant principle for cultural differentiation, to which agents routinely ascribe their own experiences of cultural incompatibility.2 Eriksen has argued that nationalism and ethnicity are kindred concepts, and the majority of nationalisms are ethnic in character. Modernisation and the establishment of a system of nation-states have created a new situation for the people now known as ‘ethnic’ minorities or ‘indigenous peoples’.3

In the context of Kenya, ethnicity has remained one major way of perceiving identity, and ethnic conflict, especially between the dominant or hegemonic groups and the dominated minority groups, has remained at the heart of national debate. Four decades after independence, minority groups such as the Borana still feel detached from the Kenyan nation, a nation that continues to appear to them as something very remote. There are cultural, political and above all historical reasons for this. This article is concerned with the ethnic perception of the Kenyan nation by a minority ethnic group known as the Borana. Using the example of a group of town-dwelling Borana which, for the purposes of this article, is to be referred to as the ‘Urban Borana’, I argue that, in the highly ethnicised social and political context of the Kenyan nation, minority communities such as the Borana will always find themselves on the periphery and that the migrant Urban Borana, who form part of an already disadvantaged minority group, will be marginalised even further. This article will attempt to offer an outline of the events that have shaped the experiences of the Urban Borana in relation to the ‘core’ Borana ethnic groups found in northern Kenya. The article will refer partly to some written historical records, but most of the analysis offered here is based on ethno-history, ‘that is, the history of a localised group of people, at that time without historians and academics’.4

The Urban Borana

In his book on the 1887–88 expedition of Count Samuel Teleki, Ludwig von Hohnel describes one of the earliest encounters with the Borana of Marsabit in northern Kenya. He wrote:

North of Samburu live the Borana, their district stretching from the east of the Basso Ebor far away to the north-east. These Borana appear to be a numerous and powerful people, owning cattle, sheep, camels and horses.5

The Borana are a branch of the populous Oromo people found in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. The economic system of the Kenyan Borana follows a nomadic-pastoralist subsistence pattern, in the drier northern parts of the country. Most of northern Kenya consists of rangelands that are either arid or semi-arid with low and erratic rainfall. In Kenya, the Borana are concentrated in three districts, namely Moyale, Marsabit and Isiolo. Moyale is on the Kenya–Ethiopia border, whilst Marsabit is a large multi-ethnic district which lies south of Moyale and east of Lake Turkana. The Moyale and Marsabit Borana represent the ethnic and cultural core of the ethnic group in Kenya, and they have maintained markedly conservative ritual, economic and social values. The Borana share many linguistic, ritual and other cultural characteristics with neighbouring communities, namely the Gabra, the Sakuye camel-pastoralists, the Adjuran and Gurreh.

In terms of period of occupation, Isiolo is one of the relatively ‘new’ territories settled by the Borana. The settlement in Isiolo developed during the 1930s after the transfer of Wajir, a key water location, to the Somali by the colonial government. This relocation was designed to separate the warring Borana and Somali clans. Thus, due to their proximity to the Waso Nyiro River, the Borana of Isiolo came to be referred to by the other Borana as the Waso Borana. As the Borana gave up the control of their wells to the Somali in return for the Waso territory, they became separated from the mainstream Borana of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia.6 A third group of Borana, who constitute the main focus of this article, are those who settled in the urban areas of Kenya, especially Nairobi. The Urban Borana are referred to as Borana Dirra, which literally means ‘the Borana of the townships’. Sometimes they are referred to as ‘Borana Kenya’, ‘Kenya’ in this context meaning an urbanised area such as Nairobi.

Much work remains to be done on the history of the Urban Borana, and some of the earlier periods are still obscured from our view; however, Urban Borana come more clearly into focus during the colonial period, and especially during the Second World War when some Borana were recruited into the British colonial army and the police forces.7 Actually recruitment into the armed forces took place in areas such as Mega and Moyale; the former is now part of Ethiopia while the latter is divided between Kenya and Ethiopia. After the war, with Britain having handed Mega and other smaller territories to Ethiopia, some of the Borana soldiers settled in Nairobi. Their family members followed them soon after and by the late 1950s and early 1960s there was a substantial number of Borana migrants settled in Nairobi. The first group settled in a part of Nairobi then known as Digo, close to the large African quarter also known as Majengo in eastern Nairobi. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the area around Digo was earmarked for major government resettlement schemes and therefore most of the Borana who lived there moved to different parts of the city. Another major area occupied by the Urban Borana was Grogan Road, now known as Kirinyaga Road. During the colonial period, Grogan Road was an exclusively Asian location, but since the Borana and the Somali were also considered to be part of the ‘Asian’ racial category, they were permitted to live in ‘Asians Only’ areas.

In colonial Kenya, as was the case in many territories under colonial rule, the racial categories of ‘Whites’, ‘Asians’ and ‘Africans’, while being used to physically separate communities, also described the types and levels of opportunity open to an individual or a community. Therefore while the ‘Whites’ had the best educational and economic prospects, the Asians were placed second in the racial hierarchy, with the native Africans at the bottom. Being categorised as ‘Asian’ during the colonial era, therefore, offered the Urban Borana rather better prospects than were available to the ‘native’ groups such as the Kikuyu, Kamba, Meru, Embu or Luo. The latter were collectively categorised as ‘Africans’ and were thus denied the opportunities open to Europeans and Asians; however, for the Borana and other related groups, these categories constructed by colonial patronage were to prove a disadvantage in the post-colonial era.

Although the colonial period offered the Urban Borana better opportunities than many, they did not convert this into long-term benefit. To begin with, Kenya was, to them, a ‘temporary’ location, and as a migrant labour force they did not see the need at that time to formulate plans or invest in activity that would be suitable to a long-term or permanent stay in a ‘foreign’ place.8 Second, unlike the Indian and Pakistani Asians, the Borana do not appear to have placed much value on sending their children to school. Even the few who took their children to school had low aspirations, and rarely considered progressing to further education. Failure to utilise the educational and economic opportunities offered to them during the colonial era was to severely restrict the social and economic progress of the Urban Borana in the post-colonial state.

The Politics of Independence and the Shifta War

By the early 1960s, as Kenya prepared itself for self-government and eventually full independence, the problem of majority rule versus minority rule came to the surface. In the north, the issue of the integration of the people from the northern districts, collectively known as the Northern Frontier Districts (NFD), was sensitive and ambiguous. On the one hand, the NFD was, and still is, made up of different groups with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and affiliations, and hence it was difficult to arrive at a clear consensus on the political future they required. On the other hand, especially in terms of the future of the Borana in Kenyan territory at that time, there was the issue of whether or not to join the growing calls for a ‘larger’ nationalist Somalia. The independent republic of Somalia had embarked on a political – and ethnic – project of forming a greater Somali nation-state from parts of north-eastern Kenya.

The political ideology that was linked to the creation of a Greater Somalia soon took root in the predominantly Somali-occupied districts, where a heightened sense of Somali nationalism was developing. The Borana, with the exception of the mainly Muslim Waso Borana, were not directly involved or even interested in the creation of a Greater Somalia. They feared that their amalgamation into Somalia would lead to a loss of Borana territorial and political rights. Although the Borana and Somali belonged to the same linguistic family and practised nomadic pastoralism, there were certain religious and cultural differences between them that militated against the formation of a united front. The Somali were predominantly Muslim while the Borana (apart from a number of Waso Borana) followed customary practices linked to their Gada generation-set system. It is also important to note that to many Borana, it was southern Ethiopia, not Somalia, which was viewed as the ‘homeland’.

The Urban Borana formed a political caucus under an umbrella party known as the National Peoples United Association (NPUA), which had its headquarters in the River Road–Grogan Road areas of Nairobi. The most ardent supporters of the NPUA were mainly non-Muslim Urban Borana individuals who hailed from Marsabit, Moyale and southern Ethiopia, and to whom the idea of joining a Somali state was wholly unacceptable. The NPUA was a ‘nationalist’ party whose ideology was pro-Kenyan as opposed to the other northern parties such as the NPPP (Northern Peoples Progressive Party) and the Somali Youth League (SYL) which were leaning towards the formation of a Greater Somalia. The Somali viewed the Urban Borana as representing the views and sentiments of the ‘pagan’ Borana whom the Somali collectively referred to as ‘Borana Kufar’, a group which they greatly disliked.9

In a show of pro-Kenya, integrationist ideology, the NPUA mobilised the Urban Borana and in 1962 they visited Jomo Kenyatta, shortly to become president of independent Kenya, at his home in Gatandu, in Kiambu District. This visit followed the 1962 Lancaster conference which was organised to discuss the future of the NFD as part of an independent Kenya. Commenting on the critical issues that were unresolved as Kenya prepared for independence, Markakis notes that:

In February 1962, representatives of the parties in the NFD were invited to attend the second Lancaster House Conference in London. Their claims were a minor issue at the meeting, whose main task was to resolve the differences between the two major Kenyan nationalist parties concerning the structure of the post-colonial state … The NFD delegation, which represented only the Somali nationalists, did not consider federalism an adequate solution and argued for the separation of their region from Kenya and its union with the Somali Republic … It was finally decided by the British to send a commission to the district to ascertain the wishes of its inhabitants, and it was promised that a decision based upon its findings would be taken prior to the independence of Kenya. It seemed a fair bargain and gave rise to great expectations among the Somali and their allies. [But] the Kenyan nationalist leadership did not share this sentiment. KANU10 under Kenyatta was dedicated to centralism, and it made short work of the federal scheme once it came to power. Invited to Mogadisho shortly after the second Lancaster House Conference, Kenyatta was polite but firm. The NFD was part of Kenya, he told his hosts, and the issue of its future was a domestic affair.11

Despite lacking a strong elite representation at the Lancaster conference on the eve of Kenya's independence, the Urban Borana, in particular, were politically active. They participated in the Legislative Council (Legco), which was set up by the colonial government just before independence, and had a senate seat, which was held by Senator Sora. They also participated in various conferences and workshops organised by the colonial government to discuss the future of the Northern Frontier Districts. At the forefront of Urban Borana political activities were people such as Chief Wario Guracha, Tarole Arero, Galgalo Arero, Godana Dambala, Dima Dulacha, Wako Galgalo and Dabasso Wabera. They were mostly in favour of being part of an independent Kenyan nation, an idea that was not popular with the pan-Somali protagonists.

The different positions adopted by the Somali and the Borana – especially in the districts of Marsabit and Moyale, and in the urban areas – led to heightened tension between the two groups. This culminated in the assassination of two prominent Borana leaders, Dabasso Wabera and Chief Hajji Galma Diida. Commenting on the centrality of these assassinations in determining the political future of the Borana, Mario Aguilar wrote:

In June 1963 Daudi Dabaso Wawera [sic], who at that time was District Commissioner of Isiolo, and Chief Hajji Galma Diida were killed in a Somali ambush near Mado Gashi, fifty kilometres from Garba Tulla, in the area surrounding the Waso Nyiro river in Eastern Kenya. While both of them were killed, their companions and escorts were not touched, in an ambush that was premeditated and calculated. It was a political assassination, insignificant for the processes leading to Kenya's independence later that year, but quite significant for the subsequent historical responses offered by the Boorana of the area, to their eventual integration into a newly created independent African nation.12

These assassinations and other incidents heralded the beginning of the shifta (‘bandit’) conflict that began in May 1965 and lasted until 1969. The conflict marked a bloody chapter in the history of the NFD region. The shifta war is still viewed as severe, indiscriminate and collective punishment of the Cushitic-speaking pastoralists of Kenya by the ‘new’ Kenyan government.

The Implications of the Shifta War

One of the most important consequences was the collective impoverishment of a community whose chances of political and economic advancement in the ‘new’ Kenyan nation were now severely restricted. Another consequence, still felt today, was the isolation of the Urban and other Borana from the mainstream socio-political and economic landscape of the young Kenyan nation. In fact, in the aftermath of the war all Borana and Somali were lumped together and regarded with deep suspicion by the state. Soon, any person from the NFD region was commonly referred to as a shifta, and this display of hostility on the part of the state (and many Kenyans) stemmed directly from the general belief that all ‘northerners’ supported secession to Somalia.

Among the Borana, the time of the shifta atrocities is still remembered as gaf Daba, or ‘the period when time stopped’. The gaf Daba and its aftermath had a major, though initially undocumented, impact on the Urban Borana. In the assessment of the consequences of the shifta war, it is relatively straightforward to evaluate the impact in terms of loss of cattle and the number of people killed in areas such as Isiolo, but it is more difficult to assess the ‘ripple effects’ of such tragedies on those sectors of the community which suffered indirectly. In the case of the pro-Somali Waso Borana the devastation was considerable. Aguilar's work on the Kenyan Oromo and Dahl's analysis of the situation among the Waso Borana have detailed the impact of the war and the on-going, and increasingly desperate, coping strategies during its aftermath.13 The Urban Borana were sometimes affected directly, in terms of the deaths of relatives and loss of cattle, but more commonly the impact was indirect. As noted above, the blanket attitude of suspicion toward all northerners as shifta collaborators disadvantaged even those who had lived in cities such as Nairobi since the colonial period. The economic crisis caused by the shifta war in Waso and other areas also led to an increased migration of Borana to Nairobi.14 Although this migratory movement bolstered the population of the Urban Borana, it did not translate into any form of political or economic power; in fact, quite the opposite occurred. Even deeper mistrust developed between the community and the Kenyan government, as a result of which the Urban Borana experienced a further erosion of their political and economic power.

Ultimately, the decision of the Kenyan government to declare the NFD a closed district and to distrust, en masse, all the groups from the region had a significant influence on the lives of the Urban Borana.15 Thus, even the Urban Borana – some of whom were by then multi-lingual and settled as ‘Kenyans’ – found themselves in a hostile social and political environment that was exacerbated by government propaganda stemming from the period of the shifta conflict. The Borana felt they were being punished for a problem caused by the activities of the Somali, and as a result they began to lose faith in the young Kenyan nation. To most Urban Borana, the only available options left to them were ‘going back’ to the northern parts of Kenya, or else returning to the ‘ancestral’ lands of southern Ethiopia.

Although Ethiopia in the late 1960s and in the 1970s was a country dogged by internal difficulties – particularly the drought and the political turbulence that followed the toppling of the imperial regime of Haile Selassie – the idea of one day ‘going home’ had, particularly to the elderly Urban Borana, a powerful attraction. The 1970s and 1980s was a period of mixed opportunities in Kenya but it was also a time when the government had begun to mature, in terms of the implementation of the economic, social and educational policies drafted in a series of post-independence blueprints. As the Kenyatta-led state extended its control, and gained more confidence in the management of internal affairs, the Borana and other Cushitic groups of northern Kenya continued to feel alienated. This alienation was not, in relative terms, such a major problem for the Somali because they had a strong ally in the Somali republic. For the Borana, a community without a strong political elite, difficult economic and political circumstances merely worsened. In particular, economic privations caused disillusionment among the Borana as their hopes of a prosperous post-colonial era were increasingly proved to be groundless.

Eventually, in the 1980s, some families tried to return to Lafa Borana (‘the land of Borana’) because many of the older generation had reached retirement age and now sought alternative means of survival. Most of them had worked as night-watchmen or security guards in urban firms run by fellow Borana, Asians and Europeans, while others had engaged in casual and poorly paid labour. The wages from such labour were sent back to the rural areas to support the extended family, and were often used to buy more cattle in the attempt to replenish stock decimated by rustling and recurrent drought. Many of those who participated in the 1980s ‘exodus’ back to the ‘ancestral’ land eventually returned to the city, more impoverished and disillusioned than before. The situation was complicated further by Ethiopia's political problems in the 1980s and 1990s. New immigrants were now added to both the rural and the urban Borana populations. Those who settled in the shanty-towns of Nairobi – such as Kariobangi, Korogocho, Kibera, Kia-Maiko and Kawangware – began to diversify by moving into petty trade such as butchery, the running of market stalls and establishing security guard companies. In 2002 many more continue to settle in towns in search of better prospects, as the nomadic-pastoralist subsistence systems continues to come under extreme ecological, economic and social pressure. Nevertheless, the Borana in general, and the Urban Borana in particular, continue to play a relatively insignificant political and economic role in Kenyan life. Since the experience of the shifta war, the Borana have tended, notably, to support the ruling party, whatever the consequences.

Despite the relative growth of the educated elite, and in the number of successful business entrepreneurs, the main weakness of the Borana remains the lack of political power in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya. Although they vote as a block for any candidate identified by their communal elders, the Borana in Nairobi, for instance, have never backed one of their own for either a parliamentary or a civic seat. In Kenya, the lack of a political power-base is normally equated with the lack of solid economic and ethnic support. Despite being part of an early urban populace in Kenya, many Urban Borana still align their future with the general political and economic plans of the other Borana because in Kenya both political and economic power depends not so much on government policy but on ethnic calculations. Up to now most Kenyans would rather live in urban squalor but construct a ‘good’ house in the rural areas. ‘Home’ to many Kenyans is perceived ultimately as the ancestral land, despite the fact that some groups such as the Kamba, Kikuyu, Luhya and Luo have long settled in other parts of the country.

Being ‘Urban’ and Continuing to be Borana

It is difficult to define the term ‘Urban Borana’, especially when used in the context of specific ethnic identity. The Urban Borana in this context are obviously a mixed, multi-lingual group of former nomadic pastoralist Borana people who settled in towns and cities to find alternative means of subsistence. The historical and cultural developments that led to the ‘emergence’ of such an entity as Urban Borana were not necessarily ‘constructed’ as is the case in, say, the current emergence of Oromo consciousness.16 The Urban Borana group itself was constituted of other Borana-speaking groups such as the Sakuye, Burji, Gabra and Burji who were viewed as part of the Borana ethnic group.17

The distinction between urban and non-urban Borana is not necessarily indicative of a dichotomised division. Most Urban Borana still maintain close links with the Borana in the northern districts and also continue to be active in pan-Oromo issues. Although many of them converted to Islam, the Urban Borana still contribute actively to pan-Borana, as well as pan-Oromo, fora and ceremonies such as the Gadamoji, a generation-set ritual held every eight years. Currently, many educated Urban Borana use the generation-set system, Gada, as a key component of their wider Borana–Oromo identity. It is noteworthy that the Gada system has also been identified by the Oromo, led by the Oromo intelligentsia in the diaspora, as a pan-Oromo emblem. In the same vein, many Urban Borana, themselves a ‘diaspora’ community due to their historical detachment from mainstream Borana society, found a pan-Oromo identity based on the Gada system and used this to depict their uniqueness in the Kenyan context, a context in which one's ‘ethnic affiliation’ or ‘ethnic orientation’ is an omnipresent issue and determines the outcome of many activities in most spheres of life.

As a migrant population which was ‘cut off’ from the mainstream Borana, the Urban Borana acquired distinctive traits. The other Borana view the urban-dwelling group as ‘different’ in terms of identity because many of them are bilingual and often multi-lingual. Some have intermarried with other groups, although there is still some resistance to intermarriage with non-Cushitic or non-Muslim groups. Many Urban Borana, again, converted to Islam as a means of widening constituencies and opening opportunities. The creation of the Eastern station at what was then the Voice of Kenya in the late 1960s enabled groups such as the Borana to use radio to broadcast their music, views and news over a wider area. The ‘cultural revolution’ created by the use of radio was indeed dramatic. The Urban Borana used the radio to spread their distinctive urban music and sense of Borana identity. For the Borana youth in Nairobi it offered an opportunity to spread a new type of youth-oriented music in the 1960s and 1970s.

Led by Abdullahi Jirma, some urban Borana youth formed the Gurumesa, a now legendary band. The Gurumesa comprised young, well-educated and urbanised youth who sang about love and sexual relationships, two topics that had remained almost a taboo to the Borana. The Gurumesa were influenced by Somali guitar music but their style and fashion was encouraged by the ‘Afro’ culture of the ‘swinging sixties’. The liberated music of the Gurumesa first faced resistance from the rural Borana, who were still loyal to the kind of traditional music that was based on traditional poetry and commentary.18 However, in time, the Gurumesa became more popular, and their music was used to highlight the socio-political and economic problems faced by both the city-dwelling and the rural Borana. Through his music, Abdullahi Jirma attempted to highlight the plight of the Borana in Kenya. In one of his more controversial songs, Finna Akana Kan (‘This Way of Life’), he addressed the issues of both urban and rural poverty and the lack of support from the Kenyan government. In the excerpt of the song below, he addresses the issue of the pauperisation of the former pastoralist herd owners who on arriving in the city became security guards:

Sila in-nagata, hori lafa hinqabu,

Wal-ira likifatha, gomita wal ira hinqabu

Kara Hori dabat na fise ama balbal biya ega, ama balbal biya ega … .

I would have looked after cattle, but I do not have any;

I could have borrowed [money] from someone, but we are all the same.

In the first place I came here after losing my wealth [cattle], [that is why] I now guard someone else's door … .

Before his death in 1995, Abdullahi and his Gurumesa had used music to place the Urban Borana in a wider Borana context.

Despite the economic hardships facing them, the Urban Borana are in a relatively stronger economic position than other Borana. They continue to actively participate in various customary economic activities, such as raising funds to help needy Borana families in other parts of Kenya, and in Ethiopia. It is this traditional system of reciprocity, known as busa gonofa, that has helped many victims of drought, famine and conflict; this kind of activity, so important to the collective interest of the Borana, has over the years helped shape the Urban Borana into an entity that is recognised and respected in traditional circles in wider Borana society. Being ‘urban’ and being ‘Borana’ is no longer regarded as an identity crisis, but rather as representing a distinctive part of the wider Borana group located in the modern metropole where capitalism and ‘modern lifestyles’ predominate. Despite their location, the Urban Borana continue to articulate and promote some primary customary responsibilities such as the cooperative system noted above, albeit within an urban and ‘foreign’ environment.19 Through the busa gonofa, the Urban Borana provide important economic support to the mainly pastoralist rural Borana who suffer periodically from economic and environmental hardship.

Conclusion: Ethnicity and Nationalism in Kenya

Some four decades after Kenya's independence, many minority and some majority groups view themselves as being isolated and left to operate at the periphery of the ‘nation’. In post-colonial Kenya the issue of ‘who contributed to the fight for freedom’ and ‘who did not’ has been part of an on-going debate.20 The general view is that it was mainly the Mau Mau war and the concerted efforts of the elites from the major groups such as Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya and Kamba that paved the way for Kenya's independence. The contributions of groups such as the Borana are therefore not mentioned or given any significance. Although the Urban Borana and other northern groups contributed to pre-independence political activity in Kenya, their history has been, and largely remains, hidden and neglected, and their contribution is unacknowledged in the Kenyan national consciousness.

In this article I did not offer a biographical account of the lives of Urban Borana, as Aguilar, for example, did for the Waso Borana.21 I have, rather, presented a voice based on my experiences as an Urban Borana myself. Most importantly, I found that being Borana and being urban presented one with a complex identity framework. This framework consisted, in fact, of at least three identities: one is ‘customary’, the second is ‘urban’, and the third is ‘national’. In the context of this article, it is the ‘national’ identity of the Urban Borana in Kenya that has been under examination.

Poor infrastructure and banditry were among the explanations commonly given for why communities such as the Borana remained detached from the socio-economic and political mainstream of the country. Major roads and railways which encouraged the development of commerce and several urban trading centres were constructed both during and after the colonial period in the more productive agricultural regions of Kenya. Both the colonial and the post-colonial governments saw the arid and semi-arid north as a territory with no hope of economic return. Hence the notion of developing such infrastructure there, including road and rail networks, schools, health centres and other amenities, was regarded as ‘uneconomical’. However, if we accept that it was such infrastructural ‘isolation’ which produced the disadvantaged environment in which most pastoralists of northern Kenya find themselves today, how can we account for the similarly disadvantaged position in which the Urban Borana find themselves?

It is important to note that ‘banditry’ and other related security problems rife in many parts of northern Kenya were not, as was apparently believed by the Kenyan government, due to the ‘hostile nature’ of the people in the region. Most of the banditry and small-scale inter-ethnic or clan conflicts were greatly exacerbated by the shifta war and the civil wars in the neighbouring states of Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda. Kenya has enjoyed relative internal stability and comparatively solid economic progress since independence. The central problem for the nation's post-colonial economic and political planners was how to manage a country of such staggering ethnic diversity – forty-two recognised ethnic groups, to be precise – and how to ensure an equitable distribution of national resources. In Kenya ‘national wealth’ is known as the ‘national cake’; and since independence, the hopes of building a viable Kenyan nation relied heavily on the successful distribution of the ‘national cake’ across ethnic divisions. One of the clearest means of access to the ‘cake’ was through active participation in the political process, and thus those with better political representation hoped to gain such access. The clamour for political power vis-à-vis the ‘national cake’ in fact exposed the flaws in the very make-up of the Kenyan nation. Despite its relative stability, in recent times Kenya has experienced ethnic tensions which have challenged the very foundations on which the nationalist ideology rests. During the era of President Moi (1978–2002), ethnicity became an important factor in national politics; the Kenyan nation became, during this time, an ethnic group awoken.22 Regions such as the Rift Valley and the Coast experienced ethnic clashes that had major repercussions.23 Public appointments favoured certain ethnic groups and those left outside either joined the ranks of the opposition or disengaged completely from the mainstream political process. Ethnicity and other related practices of nepotism, favouritism and endemic corruption remain the key challenges for the ‘united nation’.

If we concur with Gellner that nationalism is not the awakening of extant nations to self-consciousness but the invention of nations where do they not exist,24 then the Kenyan nation was a Western construction that was bound to fail. However, since independence, African elites have continued with this project of national construction, attempting to create the nation from disparate historical, linguistic and cultural elements within a territory where the influence of ethnicity remains potent. Thus, using Anderson's analogy, 25 Kenya is made up of several communities that continue to imagine themselves to be members of the larger Kenyan community or nation. Each community imagines Kenya differently. Those communities that comprised the politically and economically powerful elites, such as the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Luo, Kamba and Meru, will have a different perception of the Kenyan nation from marginal groups such as the Borana, Rendille or Somali of northern Kenya.

Jacquin-Berdal discusses notions of ethnicity and nationalism in the Horn of Africa by criticising the interpretation which suggests that ethnicity played a key role in the formation of nations in this volatile region. She uses the examples of Eritrea and Somalia, one a country carved out of Ethiopia and formed as a nation through political strategic and international pressure rather than through ethnicity, the other a country that collapsed despite being viewed as a model African nation with a homogenous ethnic base.26 The collapse of Somalia led to the formation of Somaliland, which was founded according to the frontiers of the former British protectorate rather than to the requirements of ethnicity. Given the two examples used in Jacquin-Berdal's thesis, it is still premature to argue against the forces of ethnicity which lie beneath the veneer of these ‘non-ethnic’ nations. Talking about nationalism in Africa without mentioning ethnicity is not only impossible but is misleading in terms of both theory and practice. In many African countries, pastoralists continue to be viewed as people who defy the territorial and political constitutions of the nation-state. According to Markakis,

The pastoralist imperative of movement was challenged within the boundaries of the new states, as the colonial regimes sought to curtail population shifts in order to facilitate control. Pastoralist peregrination defied the administrative, security, fiscal and political imperatives of the state; in effect it challenged its very existence.27

To paraphrase Markakis,28 colonialism was the historical reference for contemporary ethnicity in Kenya, and the ethnicity of groups such as the Urban Borana who found themselves in the emerging urban sector during the late colonial period acquired new contours as well as functions in the post-colonial era. The experience of the post-colonial era shaped the contours and the functions of the identity of the Borana in general and the Urban Borana in particular. This case therefore shows us that, by extension, the ‘location’, within the Kenyan nation, of groups such as the Borana, where rural or urban, remains difficult to determine. Kenya is still imagined as a distant, somewhat hostile country with which some are still coming to terms.

Notes

1. Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, 7.

2. Odak, ‘Inter-ethnic Relations’, 228.

3. Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism, 118, 121.

4. Aguilar, ‘Writing Biographies of Boorana’, 352.

5. von Hohnel, Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stephanie, 185.

6. See Aguilar, Being Oromo in Kenya for the historical background.

7. There are divergent views on whether the Borana were enthusiastic about entering the wage labour market. In personal communication with the author, Paul Baxter suggested that during his research in Marsabit in the 1950s, the Borana were reluctant to join the labour market, largely because they had, at that time, sufficient wealth in livestock to pay the various taxes imposed on them by the colonial authorities. In fact the Waso Borana had so much livestock wealth that the British were unable to recruit them for any kind of labour. Nevertheless, there are references to many Borana doing just this, particularly in oral history. Asmarom Legesse, for example, mentions Borana who served during the Second World War and who were decorated: see Legesse, Gada.

8. The Borana name for ‘other’ or ‘enemy’ land or territory is Lafa Nyapa. The Borana prefer to live in their ancestral lands, Lafa Tena (‘Our Land’), as opposed to Lafa Nyapa. Actually, many Asians fleeing the unknown fortunes of a future African-led government offered to sell their properties to Borana in Nairobi. Nearly all of them declined because, according to one elder, ‘buying property in the land of the nyapa was not in our plan. We came here to visit, we are still waiting to return home’ (Godana Dambala, personal communication, 1995).

9. As a result of this, the Somali preferred to work closely with the Muslim Borana of Waso (Isiolo), whom they used as political ‘bait’ to encourage wider support for the secession of the NFD.

10. KANU – the Kenya African National Union – was, and is, the largest political party in Kenya. KANU's pre-independence rival was the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) which favoured a federal system of government to KANU's centralised model. Through a political alliance, KADU was abolished and for many years, until recently, KANU remained the only active political party in Kenya.

11. Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 186.

12. Aguilar, ‘Writing Biographies’, 351.

13. Aguilar, Being Oromo; Dahl, Suffering Grass.

14. See Schlee, Identities on the Move for more detail on the impact of the shifta war on the Borana, Sakuye and other related groups.

15. People in the ‘closed districts’ were subjected to a range of punishments and political engineering, including compulsory attendance of public meetings, designed to engender a sense of ‘nationhood’ in the area.

16. See the introduction to Baxter, Hultin and Triulzi, Being and Becoming Oromo.

17. There is an increased level of ethnic differentiation in northern Kenya. Groups such as the Gabra, for example, now view themselves as being separate from the Borana, even though they continue to have links with Borana clans in terms of ritual, economic and a range of cultural activities. In the 1960s and 1970s, there had been a strong feeling of unity, particularly in the political arena. Figures such as Elisha Godana (a Bujri), Umuro Sora (a Gabra) and Dabasso Wabera (a Gabra) were accepted as leaders of the Borana-speakers. With the emergence of elite groups, and with administrative changes, new shifts in ethnic identity are underway.

18. On the style and form of a traditional Borana song, see Baxter, ‘Giraffes and Poetry’.

19. The Borana of Nairobi, for example, have a system whereby several boroughs or locations in the city are amalgamated to form a ‘communal’ area known as ardha. An elder, known as Jarsa ardha, then heads each ardha. The Jarsa ardha plays a similar role to his counterparts in the rural areas, presiding over meetings, resolving disputes, announcing deaths and collecting money for burials, and also acting as a representative of his location in a wider gathering. The Jarsa ardha keeps a list of all those participating in communal activities. Those not on the list are, in most cases, ex-communicated and should not expect any help when they are in need. This can only change if the person in question makes a public apology.

20. The issue remains of who actually fought for independence, whether ‘elites’ or ‘peasant’ movements. Certainly, it was the former that took power and portrayed themselves as the ‘true’ nationalists. The celebration of Mau Mau has largely remained a Kikuyu ethno-nationalist affair with little recognition by the governments of Kenyatta and Moi.

21. Aguilar, ‘Writing Biographies’. I very much agree with Aguilar that the biographical approach, when attempting to comprehend the history of people such as the Borana, who had a non-writing tradition, offers much historical insight.

22. Jacquin-Berdal, Nationalism and Ethnicity, 22.

23. The ‘ethnic/land clashes’ in 1992 in the Rift Valley and the ‘ethnic/political clashes’ in the coastal town of Likoni in 1996 brought Kenya to the brink of a major inter-ethnic conflagration. According to reports compiled by various commissions set up by the government to investigate the causes of the clashes, national security personnel such as the police and the paramilitary forces should be held responsible. Many critics of the government pointed the finger at the possible use of ‘ethnic cleansing’ as a political strategy to weaken the resolve of ethnic groups that were not supportive of the government. Whatever the argument, a major point here is that ethnic divisions have remained a major stumbling block to the building of a genuinely united Kenya.

24. Gellner, Thought and Change, 169.

25. Anderson, Imagined Communities.

26. Jacquin-Berdal, Nationalism and Ethnicity.

27. Markakis, National and Class Conflicts, 30.

28. Markakis, ‘Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Horn of Africa’, 72.