Ethnic tendancies

I was thinking about this today. Its amazing how "tribalistic" some Kenyans are, it's a phenomenon that doesnot leave them regardless where they end up (socially or geographically).

Two days ago I was in a city I havenot visited in 7 years and met some black "brothers and sisters". As soon as I mentioned that am from Kenya, one American guy promptly told me he will introduce me to some XYZ Kenyans (where XYZ is a Kenyan tribe that shall remain anonymous).

I kept asking to myself, why would these Kenyans insist on identifying themsleves thus? Most African countries have multiple ethnicities (yes even Botswana does) but in my XX (where XX is a large number) yrs experience living in the diaspora, Kenyans and Nigerians rank way above everyone else in unhealthily identifying their ethnicities before the nationalities.

That said, socio-ethnic tensions are not necessarily unique to the continent. My recent experiences have reminded me of the similar societal conditions. Canada has been dealing with the separatist Quebec issue since the 1970s (thankfully with only traces of physical
violence but with extensive violence against the national psyche...last week the finance minister announced the federal budget and basically "bribed" the province to stay on after their provincial elections today). Spain has been dealing with the Basque separatists
for years (rather painfully). Tamils in Sri Lanka, East Timorese from Indonesia and of course the obvious two some (Yugoslavia that broke into 6 states and USSR that broke into 15 states). The list is endless, Pakistan and India, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sudan, Czechoslovakia, Somalia etc

Each of these situations of course have their own of set of unique issues but, in very general terms, they demonstrate trends that are worrisome.