Change the tune.

The Jubilee alliance is not an alliance of two ethnic communities, not if the strict letter of the law is to be observed. After all, in accordance with the law, again, the constituent members of the alliance are "national" parties, aren't they? Therefore, why is it still being promoted on the national airwaves, across all media platforms, that Jubilee is an alliance between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin, and why is an argument being advanced that CORD's machinations are, (a) meant to destroy the alliance between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin and, (b) therefore, bring Kenya to the brink of civil war, or tip it into civil war after all?

There are those promoting the hypothesis that the Kikuyu and Kalenjn have lived in hostility "for decades" and that peace between them must be given a chance, even when it goes against the "natural instincts" of the Kikuyu and Kalenjin. The priniple limb of this hypothesis is that CORD is an obstacle to the "national reconciliation processes", thereby conflating the Kikuyu-Kalenjin comity with national peace and reconciliation. This line of thinking contributed considerably to the post-2007 general election violence and consequent political stalemate. It cannot be permitted to rise again like the noxious political weed it is.

Political violence in the Rift Valley is a recent phenomenon, coming to life during the post-section 2A repeal in 1991. The period between 1991 and 2007 may indeed be longer than a decade, but the hostility that erupted in 1992 was not decades in its festering. The spark was certainly the repeal of section 2A and the KANU fear of loss, KANU being personified in Baba Moi himself. The clashes might be painted as ethnic clashes then but the language of 1992 was "land clashes" with the ethnic identity of the "grabbers" being the convenient backdrop to the massive electoral fraud that took place that year.

While the violence of 2007/2008 may have brought the nation to a halt, it was not violence between Kikuyu and Kalenjin, even if the ones who were eventually charged before the International Criminal Court as being responsible for it were largely Kikuyu and Kalenjin (with apologies to Amb Muthaura and Gen Ali). Therefore, it follows that comity between Kikuyu and Kalenjin, in the wake of violence that touched Luo, Luhya, Kisii, Miji Kenda, Maasai, Samburu, Pokot, is not national peace and reconciliation because of the Kikuyu-Kalenjin rapprochement, but because all other ethnic communities in Kenya agreed to live in relative political peace. Though t is the stalwarts of the Kikuyu and Kalenjn communities who take the lion's share of the praise for the peace that prevails, their two communities in Kenya cannot hold the entire nation at ransom over their comity or lack of it, and if CORD really does manage to bring down the Jubilee house of cards, unless the other ethnic communities pick violent political sides, that will not be the spark for a repeat of 2007/2008.

Jubilee wishes to convert its coalition into a unified political party, a vehicle to solidify its political gains in 2017. It is time it dumped the rhetoric of Kikuyu-Kalenjin comity and the fragility of the peace that comity engenders. That is the myopia of the pygmy. Jubilee is the ruling alliance; it is not the victim of an anti-Kikuyu-Kalenjin conspiracy. Those peddling the incredibly incendiary view that it is weak because of CORD's machinations are the true enemies of national peace, reconciliation and integration.