"Even You?"

[GTF]

ELDORET, Kenya -- He slips into the backseat of a parked taxi and hides behind its darkly tinted windows. What he is about to say could get him killed.

He won't give his name. On the way over, he couldn't shake the thought this might be a police sting. If he didn't trust the human rights activist who brokered the meeting, he wouldn't have showed. But here he is, uneasy, eyes following every person who walks past the car -- and those who sit inside. From the back, he asks the driver, a member of a rival tribe, to wait in the parking lot.

Then he takes a breath and begins to tell the story of the mysterious death of Lucas Sang.

The witness is a Kikuyu. Sang was a Kalenjin. During the 44-year history of Kenya, like the North and South in early 19th-century America, these two tribes mostly managed to keep an uneasy peace, despite tensions over money, land and power. Then, after December's presidential election, that peace was shattered. For a few weeks, it was as if the earth had split open, taken almost 1,000 lives, then snapped shut again.

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[Ed]

I know it is how they are raised but I don't understand going after someone for something that happend when I was only a couple of days old.  If I met the Nazi that shot my grandfather in WWII I wouldn't want to kill him or his children/ grandkids - but again that may just be the way that I was raised.

[GTF]

Well, I doubt that any human group is immune to the trappings of tribalism.  Xenophobia, jingoism, racism, sexism, etc. are all still alive and well thanks to the natural need to belong and oppose those who do not belong as we do.  Even in the USA minorities get treated like crap and there are (WASPy) citizen vigilante groups taking up arms to combat "outsiders."

[Ed]

It is sad that this still exists in places where education is moderately high.  I am glad that I was not raised with these beliefs and that I can therefore raise my children to find that way of life unacceptable.

I dop not want my children to even think of WASPy groups in those terms becuase then that group of people becomes an outside - not like me - not as good as me entity.

Racism works in all directions not just against the minorities.  Of course the minorities face the biggest challenges - that would be impossible to deny.