African Trinitology A Response to Ethnocentrism in Kenya.

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dc.contributor.authorODIGWE UCHENNA, FRANCIS
dc.date.accessioned2019-03-04T11:56:30Z
dc.date.available2019-03-04T11:56:30Z
dc.date.issued2001-02
dc.description.abstractThis essay sets out to achieve dual objectives. It serves the purpose of making the doctrine of the most Holy Trinity intelligible to Africans. This intelligibility lies in the essay's focus on the communitarian model of the Trinity, which evokes familiar communitarian sentiments among the Africans. The sentiment is deepened with the use of African communitarian categories like the ancestors and their descendants. Besides the objective of intelligibility, the other objective is relevance. The essay seeks also to make the communitarian Trinity respond to a specific African problem, ethnocentrism. The relevance of the communitarian Trinity to the question of ethnocentrism makes the essay not just theoretical but also practical and thus dispels the abstract connotation that goes with the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, the goal of the essay is to demonstrate the intelligibility and relevance of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to an African mindset. The essay is presented in the methodology of liberation theology designated as pastoral cycle. The methodology begins with an observation and an analysis of the social situation, followed by an evaluation from the gospel point of view of the social situation, and ends with some plans of action(s) towards ameliorating the situation. Chapter one of this essay tries to analyze the dynamism of ethnocentrism in Kenya. This analysis is presented in a socio-political frame such that it traces the evolution of ethnocentrism in the political history of Kenya. In this section of the essay my sources are both library and some fieldwork. I used some books, journals, and reports of researches especially from the Kenya Human Rights Commission resource center, Nairobi. I also tried to check out some bits of information I got from the library materials by actually visiting some ethnic clash sites like Mob, Nakuru, and Likoni. At these places, with the help of the Sectariate of Catholic Justice and Peace of Kenya, I was able to interview some of the victims of these clashes. The facts in this chapter represents the fruit of these researches both in the library and in the field. The second step in pastoral cycle methodology is the evaluation of the social situation in the light of the gospel. This second step is used in chapters two. While chapter one ends with the observation that the reflection on the implications of our belief in the doctrine of the Trinity could respond to ethnocentrism, chapter two exposes a nascent model of the Trinity ascribed as the communitarian model. In this chapter this model is presented and ethnocentrism evaluated from its perspectives. The final step of the pastoral cycle is planning, the mapping out of courses of actions to combat the social malady. Chapter three of the essay is dedicated to this planning. The chapter advocates for a re-definition of the African concept of community using the trinitarian community as a model and goes further to suggest concrete ways of executing this plan through the declaration of Christ as the Ancestor of the Kenyan citizens, based on the trinitarian ancestral concept of the Trinity. On the trinitarian ancestral interaction is based the christological ancestral relationship to us which forms the point of the unification of the ethnic groups in Kenya. It is in this manner that an African trinitology will respond to ethnocentrism in Kenya. However, before delving into the essay proper, we will present a brief sketch of Kenya. Kenya lies across the equator in east central Africa on the coast of the Indian Ocean. It is a moderate sized country with an area of 582, 650 square kilometers in which only 25 percent is inhabitable and the vast remaining 75 percent is either arid or semi-arid. I Kenya has a population of 28.7milion with an average annual increase rate of 3.4 percent. This population is a conglomeration of 64 ethnic groups ranging from small to large groups. The 1999 population census2 puts the percentages of some of the groups as follows: Kikuyu 22 percent, Luhya 14 percent, Luo 13 percent, Kalenjin 12 percent, Kamba 11 percent, Kisii 6 percent, Meru 6 percent, Asian, European and Arab 1 percent and others 15 percent. In view of the diversity of ethnic communities in Kenya, Kenyans speak English language as the official language and Swahili as the national language. There is also a diversity of religions in Kenya. The religious distribution is: Protestants 46 percent, Roman Catholics 30 percent, Traditional religionists 6 percent, Moslems 16 percent and others 2 percent.3 Historically, paleontologists' researches show that human beings inhabited Kenya about 2 million years ago. The Arab seafarers established settlements along the coast and the Portuguese took control of the area in the early 1500. The largest group of the Kenyan ethnic groups, the Kikuyu, migrated to this region at about the 18th century. This whole area became a British protectorate in 1890; a crown colony in 1920 when it was ascribed as British East Africa. In this area, nationalist stirrings erupted in the 1940s and in 1952, when the famous Mau Mau movement rebelled against the colonial government. Kenya became independent on December 12, 1963 under the leadership of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. From 1964 to 1992, the Kenyan African National Union (KANU), first under Jomo Kenyatta and then under Daniel Arap Moi, ruled the country of Kenya as one-party state. It took demonstrations, riots and international pressure to get the government of Moi to repeal the one party state and accept multi-party elections in 1992. In the Republic of Kenya, there is a one-house National Assembly constituted by 188 members elected for five years by the universal suffrage, 12 nominated members by the president and 2 ex-officio members, to make a sum total of 202 members of Kenyan Parliament. Among the many problems that besiege economic and political growth in Kenya, is ethnocentrism. Several authors and publications depict this reality. "Intricately connected to most of the economic and political challenges and problems that Kenya faces today is the question of the place of ethnic groups"' Atieno Odhiambo puts it that, "Ethnicity forms the strongest cleavages in the Kenyan society"5 Kiraitu Murungi writing on Multi-Partism in Kenya warns; "We cannot pretend that ethnicity is not an important factor in Kenyan politics. It is part of our historical and social reality."6 He then concludes that "the time for lies on this issue is over and an honest and open national discussion on ethnicity should take place."7 These statements bring us to the end of the introductory pages of this essay. We shall now delve into the essay proper.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12342/736
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherTangaza University Collegeen_US
dc.subjectAfricanen_US
dc.subjectEthnocentrismen_US
dc.subjectTrinitologyen_US
dc.subjectEthnicityen_US
dc.titleAfrican Trinitology A Response to Ethnocentrism in Kenya.en_US
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