A Prologue to Ethnic Diversity in Eastern Africa

Ethnicity, Language, and Identity in Kenya

“…6 As indicated earlier, since independence in 1963, there have been instances of inter-ethnic clashes -the most pronounced ones having occurred after the reintroduction of plural 7 democracy in 1991 (Chege 2010). This occurred on the eve of the general elections in 1992, 1997 and 2002 with the most devastating conflict taking place in 2007-2008 after the 2007 general elections (Njogu 2010;Karega-Munene 2010). Over 1300 people lost their lives, several hundred thousands were displaced, and millions-worth of property was destroyed (Cheeseman 2008).…”

“…Like other African countries, Kenya, is a product of the 1884 Berlin Conference and the scramble for and partition of Africa among European colonial powers (Ogot 2012). The country has intermittently seen conflicts either between neighbouring ethnic groups (Mungai 2007) or almost a full-blown "civil war" after the 2007 general elections (Njogu 2008(Njogu , 2010Chege 2010) and the 2017 general elections (Biegon 2018). What baffles keen observers is that in many multi-ethnic and multi-cultural polities worldwide, which were created through colonialism, their different ethnic groups live side-by-side, e.g., Malaysia (Gill 2014), mainland Tanzania (Sigalla 2010) and South Africa (Webb 2006) among others.…”