After all of the chaos, violence, indecision and intransigence it appears that Kenya may be on the way to peace. The country's newly configured Parliament has met under the country's power-sharing agreement and everyone seems to be saying and doing the right things.
But what are the prospects for reconciliation? Clearly the election revealed fissures within Kenyan society that ripped open with terrifying speed and scope. And yet let's, for a moment, acknowledge that while most of the violence broke down along ethnic lines, the divisions were fundamentally political and that ethnicity (or the even more problematic term “tribe”) became the tool to manifest that political division. If, then, there has been a political solution, is it possible that the healing can begin and that reconciliation can occur without the country continuing to be divided along ethnic fault-lines that are largely constructed (even if the colonial foundation of that construction became quite strongly entrenched)?
Now is no time to be pollyannaish. But nor is it a time to engage in that peculiar brand of Afropessimism that pervades so much commentary on Africa. Kenya has taken several steps from the abyss. The hard work of reconciliation may still be a long time in coming, but it has surely begun.
