Summary-Citizens Minus: Rights, recognition and the Nubians of Kenya

PhD Thesis Samantha Balaton-Chrimes Monash University

Summary

This thesis examines the unequal nature of the citizenship of Kenya’s Nubians. The Nubians of Kenya trace their origins to the Egyptian slave armies of the nineteenth century. Brought by the British to Kenya as soldiers they were categorised as detribalized natives during the colonial era, neither settler nor fully native. This anomalous status has carried over into the postcolonial political community, and the Nubians can today be considered ethnic strangers. Far from being liminal in an inconsequential sense, the various ways in which the Nubians have occupied anomalous social, political and legal categories since they arrived in Kenya have been symptomatic of the hierarchical and exclusionary tendencies of the colonial and post-colonial citizenship regimes.

This thesis argues that the Nubians are not full citizens, but citizens minus. They experience an unequal and insufficient quality of citizenship. The deficit in the Nubians’ citizenship can be measured by the extent to which they lack participatory parity. Although (most) Nubians now have formal membership in the form of citizenship status (a national identity card), they are lacking in social and political standing, that is, lacking in effective membership. Treated as inferior and limited to the margins of the political community, it is more difficult for Nubians to exercise their rights, and both their formal membership and those rights are insecure.
In understanding these deficits, this thesis explores three mechanisms which sustain the Nubians’ marginalisation as ethnic strangers and citizens minus: discrimination in relation to access to national identity cards, the withholding of collective recognition as a tribe of Kenya, and the withholding of recognition of Nubian land in the form of communal land title. In evaluating these mechanisms the thesis draws on political theories of recognition and connects the Nubians’ exclusion from full citizenship to the widespread privileging of indigeneity and autochthony as conditions of full citizenship in Kenya.
In making this argument, the thesis addresses a number of critical questions about the nature of citizenship in Kenya, arguing that national citizenship in Kenya is largely subordinate to and defined by ethnicity. Throughout the thesis, and particularly in the final chapters, the thesis seeks to understand the Nubians’ response to their marginalisation, and the reasons why, and ways in which, they affirm a role for ethnicity in public affairs. In the final chapter the thesis engages in a critique of this role, and an exploration of a moderately transformative approach to ethnicity in the form of moral-inter ethnicity. Such an approach may allow Kenyans to affirm the importance of ethnicity in daily life and in the polity, without affirming ethnic parochialism and inter-ethnic competition, and thereby undermining equal citizenship.

Swahili

Tasinifu hii ni utafiti kuhusu uraia wa jamii ya Wanubi nchini Kenya. Utafiti unachunguza kwa makini vile Wanubi hawana haki sawa na Wakenya wengine. Wanubi wa Kenya, mwanzoni walitoka kwenya makabila mengi ya kisudani na walikuwa wanajeshi watumwa miaka ya karne ya kumi na tisa. Waingereza waliwaleta wanajeshi watumwa huku Kenya na wakawaita ‘Wenyeji wasio na Kabila’ – watu ambao wanaishi kimjini na hawakuwa na uhusiano na makabila yao. Hali hii isiyo ya
kawaida kwenye jamii imedumu na sasa Wanubi nchini Kenya ni ‘Kabila geni’. Shida zinazowakumba wanubi ni kwa sababu ni ‘Kabila geni’ zinaeleza sana siasa na ujamii nchini Kenya.
Tasinifu hii inajadili kwamba Wanubi hawana uraia sawa na Wakenya wengine. Badala yake, ni ‘raia-bila’, kumaanisha wao ni raia lakini uraia wao hauna thamani au maana kama vile ulivyo kwa Wakenya wengine. Kuna tofauti nne kati ya uraia wa Wanubi na uraia wa Wakenya wengine:

 Haki za Wanubi ziko tahadharini kuliko za Wakenya wengine
 Wanubi hawana haki sawa na Wakenya wengine (kwa mfano haki za kumiliki Ardhi)
 Wanubu hawatambuliwi kikamilifu kama jamii la Wakenya
Wanubi hawawezi kushiriki katika siasa rasmi au siasa duni kwa njia sawa na Wakenya wengine. Hii ni kwa sababu hawana uhakika na wakati mwengine hawapewi heshima kama Wakenya.
 Ili kuzielewa shida hizi, Tasinifu hii inapeleleza shida tatu zinazowaadhiri Wanubi:
 Kubaguliwa katika kupata Vitambulisho
 Kutotambuliwa kwa Wanubi kama kabila la Kenya
 Kutokuwa na Ardhi.

Tasinifu hii inatumia mafikira ya kimasomo ya ufumbuvu ili kueleza mambo matatu yanayozusha shida kwa Wanubi. Mafikia haya yanajadili kwamba siasa za Kenya humilikiwa na makabila ya wazawa. Isitoshe, fikira la ‘Uenyeji’ – kwamba watu Fulani wamemiliki nchi toka zana za kale, lina ongoza sana kwenye siasa.. Mwishoni, Tasinifu hii inajadili kuhusu uhusiano kati ya ‘Kabila’ na ‘Uraia’. Inajadili kwamba nchini Kenya, Kitambulisho sio muhimu kuliko kabila. Ni kwa kuwa mwanakabila la ‘wenye siasa’ ndivyo watu wanaweza kufurahia ‘matunda ya uhuru’
Tasinifu hii inaeleza vile Wanubu wanakabiliana na kuadhirika kwao kwa kuuliza maswali kuhusu kutambuliwa kama kabila la Kenya na haki zao za Ardhi katika eneo la Kibera. Njia hii ya kujaribu kupata usawa na Wakenya wengine inazingatia uhusiano kati ya Uraia na Kabila. Hii ni kwa sababu, nchini Kenya, Uraia na Kabila zinalinganishwa, na si rahisi kufikiria njia zingine za kupata usawa.
Lakini, Tasinifu hii inajadili kwamba uhusiano kati ya Kabila na Uraia nchini Kenya unaweza kuanzisha shida nyingi, kama vile ukabila. Hususan, Watu wengi wanasema ukabila inafaa usiunganishwe na Uraia. Mimi ninajadili kwamba ukabila na Uraia zilinganishwe. Kwa mfano, Kwa sabau ni muhimi, Wanubi wawe yote mawili, Wanubi na Wakenya, lakini ukabila na uraia zinalenganishwa tu katika demokrasia kama watu wa makabila tofauti wanaheshimiana na hawashiriki katika ubaguzi wa kikabila.

Kinubi

Bahth de garaya ta jinsiya asli ta mujtama’a ta Nubi fi Kenya, u hadaf to aina tofauti ma qabila wadin ta Kenya. Nubi ta Kenya awal abidu min gabaail ketir ta Sudan al kan min askeria mamluk fi qarni ta tisa tashar. Englisia ta British ya jib askeria mamluk dolin de fi Kenya. Englisia jib askeria dolin de fi Kenya, u mon nadi umon nas al ma endis qabila, yaani, anas al gi ishi maisha ta madina u mon gata umon min qabila to umon ta asli.
Bahth gi nakish au jadil za gal Nubi ma endis haki ta jinsiya za anas ta Kenya wadin. Walakin, mon raia nuksan, maana to umon muwatinin, lakin jinsiya to umon ma endis thaman ma maana za fi na anas wadin ta Kenya. Fi fajwa muhim arba bain ta jinsiya ta Nubi, ma jinsiya ta anas wadin:
 Haki ta Nubi fi khatar zaid.
 Nubi ma endis haki sawa za anas wadin fi Kenya, (mathal haki ta ardhi)
 Nubi ma gi itirafu za anas ta mujtama’a ta Kenya.
Nubi ma agder sharik fi siasa rasmi u ab ma rasmi sawa ma jinsiya wadin ta kenya ashan saa taan mon meendis haiba, u saa tan ma gi hishma umon za nas ta kenya.
 Ashan kede ta fahim taab dolin de, bahth de gi fetish taab talata al gi qabil Nubi:
 Gishiri fi ligo Butaka shaksiya (ID cards)
 Ma gi itirafu Nubi za qabila ta Kenya
 Faqada ardhi
Bahth de gi istamil taaluma ta garaya ta taaraf, weri namna al ajana talata de gi taban Nubi. Bahth gi nakish au jadil za fi Kenya, fikra ta ‘qabila asliya’ ya Wakenya chapi baraa ya gi saitar fi siasa. Ma de baraa, lakin fikra ta ‘autochthony’ yaani nas flan ya amsuku badu ma ardhi min zaman – Kaman gi saitar fi siasa. De maana to qabila barau al fi ma belee ya gi aina umon za asiliya ta Kenya. Akhir, bahth de gi wonus fi alaka bain ta ‘Qabila’ ma ‘Ujinsia.’ Gi jadil za gal fi Kenya itiraf ta Jumuia ma muhim za gal itiraf ta qabila. Kun fi qabila ‘al sahih fi siasa’ ya azol bi farih zaid fi akul ’fawaakiha ta Istiklal.’
Bahth gi jarib wadih namna al Nubi jawab fi asuru to umon. fi asadu itiraf za qabila ta Kenya, ma asadu haki ta ardhi ta Kibra. Sika de, ta jarib kun sawa fi jumuia ta Kenya gi kutu wasila bain ta jinsiya ma qabila. De shor fi Kenya, jinsiya ma qabila mara zaid gi amsuku badu, u ma rakhis feker sika wadin ta ligo usawa.
Walakin, bahth de gi jadil au nakish za gal alaka bain ta uqabila ma jinsiya fi Kenya agder jib taab Milan za uqabila. Anas wadin gi kelem za uqabila kede ma kun ma suhba ma jinsiya. Ana gi jadil za gal uqabila ma ujinsiya agder yunga, mathal ashan muhim na Nubi kede kun Nubi u Wakenya, lakin jinsiya ma qabila agder yunga fi democracy kan anas min qabila muktalif agder hishma badu, u kede mon ma dakal umon fi uqabila.