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As for other communities exposure levels weren’t as high. For instance, five out of 10 Luhyas worked for the settlers while 1 out of 5 Maasai worked for the settlers. The rest either grew food for subsistence or simply kept livestock.
But should Kikuyus look back and feel sorry that others didn’t enjoy the economic head start? Zero! But here is another question. After 100 years of economic advantage, are the Kikuyu staring at an ideology that threatens their flukish dominance? And the answer is yes. And that ideology is William Ruto’s ‘Hustler’ narrative. In fact, Ruto’s ideology pre- supposes that Kikuyus never made it. It suggests that Kikuyus can only accumulate through crooked means. And we say crooked because the central thesis of ‘hustling’ is earning by way of hook or crook.
It’s a means of accumulation that places indecency and gluttony ahead of industry and innovation. In sum, ‘Hustling’ is an insult to our fore fathers, an insult to our core of wellbeing. It’s a glorification of poverty. Not just poverty of wellbe- ing, but poverty of the mind, poverty of dignity and poverty of association. In fact Kikuyus should ask Ruto-“Who should we listen to, You or Cavendish?
The purpose of a white paper is to advocate that a certain position is the best way to go or that a certain solution is best for a particular problem. In 1923 the colonial secre- tary, Victor Christian William Cavendish, the Duke of De- vonshire published the white paper regarding the status of all settlers and natives in the Colony of Kenya.
SEPTEMBER ‘20
ISSUE N. 001