The late General Francis Omondi Ogolla. PHOTO/KDF
By MORRIS ODHIAMBO
The passing on of General Francis Omondi Ogolla found me in the middle of a “hot” discussion about the topic of “national character” or “national culture” on one of the many social media platforms I patronise.
The conversation regarded the role of members of the Somali community in Kenya’s socioeconomic and nation building processes. In the middle of the conversation was the usual displeasure at what many saee as the over-sized influence of prominent members of the Somali elite on the Kenyan state, and their success in the field of business.
Indeed, I have come across this conversation many times. My position has always been that the profiling of a single community in this fashion is dangerous and constitutes what in conflict management we call “othering”.
A simple definition of “othering” would be the attribution of negative characteristics to an individual or group of people within a given socioeconomic framework. It has mainly negative connotations.
My disagreement with this approach to conflict analysis and management is that it glosses over the deeper structural causes of conflict, grounded in societal power relations and material realities. It therefore only deals with symptoms rather than seeking to establish root causes of conflict.
My approach to conflict analysis and management is grounded on Johan Galtung’s structural theory of conflict (A committed “structuralist”, Galtung also wrote on the Structural Theory of Imperialism based on Marxist analysis of the relationship between “centres” and “peripheries” of capital accumulation).
My reflection today situates the death of General Ogolla within what I hope is a coherent framework within Kenya’s sociopolitical realities that may inform broader analysis and reflection. It is informed by a number of concepts and theories in the area of conflict management.
As an important footnote to this reflection, Ogolla’s death and the circumstances surrounding it, reminded me of another death of a prominent personality, at another time: that of Professor George Saitoti.
I had spent three days at a peace conference in Mombasa City representing civil society organisations in June 2012 where key leaders, including Professor Saitoti, gave powerful speeches confirming their commitment to peaceful campaigns and the elections that were later held in 2013.
After all the nice peace talk, when we arrived at Moi International Airport in Mombasa at around 10 am to catch our flight to Nairobi, the trending news was Professor Saitoti death!
The Professor and his assistant in the national security docket, Orwa Ojode, had died after a police Eurocopter AS-350 model “crashed” around the Kibiko forest area in Ngong, Kajiado County. Of course, like many other deaths of prominent personalities, this one has remained a mystery.
Some of those participating in the conversation I have referred to in the opening paragraph quoted liberally from Frantz Fanon, the Algerian psychologist and scholar. There is no doubt that Frantz Fanon’s theorisation helped to cement the place of cultural consciousness within the movement for liberation at a critical juncture in Africa’s struggles for freedom.
But it also represented the real tension between intellectuals who opted to look to the African past to find meaning and revolutionary vitality, and those caught up in the enveloping aura of materialistic modernism based on the cultural norms of the colonisers.
This tension is depicted in the following passage from Frantz Fanon’s masterpiece “The Wretched of the Earth”: “The claim to a national culture in the past does not only rehabilitate that nation and serve as a justification for the hope of a future national culture. In the sphere of psycho-affective equilibrium it is responsible for an important change in the native.
Perhaps we have not sufficiently demonstrated that colonialism is not simply content to impose its rule upon the present and the future of a dominated country.
“Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. The work of devaluing pre-colonial history takes on a dialectical significance today”.
(It is when writing on the topic of national culture in “The Wretched of the Earth” that Frantz Fanon wrote one of his most memorable quotes: “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it”).
Even though very illuminating, I felt that Frantz Fanon’s framework did not adequately capture the gist of the social media discussion. I was convinced that the more appropriate framework of that discussion is that of “national character”, which is often informed by political, social and economic socialisation based on real material conditions and the forces and factors that shape them within a given polity.
This is the sense in which Hans Morgenthau, the father of realism (in this sense, one must consider the “grandfather” of realism to be Niccolo Machiavelli, the author of “The Prince”), theorised national character. In “Politics Among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace”, Morgenthau wrote as follows:
“Of the three factors of qualitative nature, which have a bearing on national power, national character and national morale stand out both for their elusiveness from the point of view of national prognosis and for their permanent and often decisive influence upon the weight a nation is able to put into the scales of international politics.
Bell UH-1H Huey II helicopter similar to the one General Francis Ogola and nine of his military colleagues perished in. PHOTO/UGC
“We are not concerned here with the question of what factors are responsible for the the development of a national character. We are only interested in the fact, contested but incontestable, especially in view of the anthropological concept of the “culture pattern”, that certain qualities of intellect and character occur more frequently and are more highly valued in one nation than in another.”
When researching for this article, I came across an article by a Nigerian author, Lekan Sote, titled “Nigerian national character”. Though not very flattering, the article brings out national character in a way that is easy to understand.
In fact, it reminded me of one of the most profound books by Chinua Achebe, “The Trouble with Nigeria”, a masterpiece that discusses the crisis of leadership in Africa using the illustrative case of Nigeria. Interestingly, Lekan also relies on the understanding of national character by Hans Morgenthau.
To bring the point closer home, one might remember a remark by Michael Joseph, former Safaricom Chief Executive Officer, about Kenyan’s peculiar calling habits! If Michael Joseph was defining national character, he would most likely make the claim that “peculiar calling habits” form part of Kenya’s national character.
Assassination of political opponents, mass killings of “ethnic” opponents before, during and after elections, criminalisation of poverty, police impunity, promotion of narrow sectarian interests at the expense of broader national interests, commitment to mediocrity as opposed to meritocracy as we saw in recent diplomatic nominations by President William Ruto, and tribalism (as we were pointedly reminded by former Tanzania President, John Pombe Magufuli) are some of the dysfunctional elements of Kenya’s national character.
In the fullness of time, General Ogolla’s death will bring back (though, judging by social media posts, one might say it has done so already) the discussion on Kenya’s national character, in whichever way it is framed.
It will bring back conversations about power, resources and ethnicity and the “Inter-Ethnic Hatred Thesis” so aptly discussed by Professor Wanjala Nasong’o in one of his many writings about conflict. It will rekindle David Ndii’s thesis of a “cruel marriage” when he talked about a history of stolen elections, ethnic exclusion and the “tyranny of peace” in 2016.
Of course David Ndii is now one of the intellectual pillars of the Kenya Kwanza regime and, safely embedded in power, may not entertain talk about political divorce or more deeper issues that inform the country’s multiple political crises. Maybe until a time when he will no longer be close to power and talk about political divorce will be useful to regain a foot in the corridors of power.
The above conversations will happen on the backdrop of a social media post (whether true or not, I do not know) that has gone viral capturing warnings given by Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale that the state would punish General Ogolla for perceived misdeeds during the 2022 presidential election.
This is one of the posts that fully describes the vindictive nature of the KK regime. Clearly, the anger that brought the disastrous UhuRuto regime to power in 2013, continues to be the main anchor of the KK administration.
For the Luo nation, both elite and the “walala hoi”, the death of General Ogolla represents yet another proof of the nation’s alienation from the state, political and bureaucratic power, and resources. It is a reminder of its historical and permanent “othering” within the socio-economic realities of the Kenyan state.
They will remember the assassinations and suspected assassinations of key leaders such as Tom Mboya, Argwings Kodhek, Robert Ouko, etc. They will remember the Kisumu massacre of 1969 provoked by Jomo Kenyatta and his associates. They will remember the trauma of mass killings every electoral cycle.
They will remember the words of David Ndii in the Daily Nation at a time when his friendship with Luo elite was useful in his pursuit of power:
“I think it is about time that the Luo nation asked itself whether it is not time to cut its loses. If the Luo nation channeled its considerable human capital and political energy to the development of Luoland, it will without doubt be an enviable nation and economic powerhouse in no-time!”
Rest in Power, General!
Morris Odhiambo, vice-chairman, Diplomacy Scholars Association of Kenya (DIPSAK) and Coordinator, Missing Voices Coalition (MVC) in Kenya.
