Is it cool to be a tribalist?

Why are we so passionate about tribe?

Who is a "tribalist"?

I have spent painful days listening to our leaders and followers alike. A lot of political commentary on social media and the wake up to the hate speech shebang borders around tribalism. So I take time to understand this term “Tribe” and “Tribalism” and if the terms are used in their right framing or is it just a case of mass ignorance.

Research on how people of Kenya refer to themselves as "tribes", leaves a lot to be desired. |Tribes" have no state, nation or country and neither do tribes have governments. A look on social media will tell you how Kenyans insult and degrade themselves a great deal. What is the real meaning of "tribe"?

Here is how the free dictionary defines tribe:

1.   “A unit of sociopolitical organization consisting of a number of families, clans, or other groups who share a common ancestry and culture and among whom leadership is typically neither formalized nor permanent.

2.   A group of people sharing an occupation, interest, or habit: a tribe of graduate students.

3.    Informal A large family.

4.   Biology A taxonomic category placed between a subfamily and a genus or between a suborder and a family and usually containing several genera.

Clans define our ancestry and rich history.

So a tribalist could be someone belonging to a group of University students who studied the same course right?

It could be a group of people who belong to the same clan right?

So in the political contexts of our country, who exactly is a tribalist? And is it wrong to belong to any of the categories?

TRAIB could also be defined as any aggregate of people united by ties of descent from a common ancestor, community of customs and traditions, adherence to the same leaders, etc.

Ever heard of a tribunal? Yes, it is a grouping of tribalists from a tribunus headed by one person.

The Thesaurus goes on to state that a tribe is a group of people who share the same social relation. So next time you are drinking with your buddies, you are all tribalists because your social relation is drinking either tea, coffee or beer right?

According to Wikipedia, A tribe is viewed, historically or developmentally, as a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states "Tribe" is a contested term due to its roots in colonialism. The word has no shared referent, whether in political form, kinship relations, or shared culture. Can the Kenyan people begin to push so that tribes become polities granted by legal recognition and limited autonomy by the state? Over to you people.

ED