Harambee

Harambee is a Kenyan tradition of community self-help events, e.g. fundraising or development activities. Harambee literally means "all pull together" in Swahili, and is also the official motto of Kenya and appears on its coat of arms.

This article is about the Kenyan tradition. For the gorilla, see Killing of Harambe. For other uses, see Harambee (disambiguation).
Coat of arms of Kenya

Harambee events may range from informal affairs lasting a few hours, in which invitations are spread by word of mouth, to formal, multi-day events advertised in newspapers. These events have long been important in parts of East Africa, as ways to build and maintain communities.

History

Following Kenya's independence in 1963, the first Prime Minister, and later first President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta adopted "Harambee" as a concept of pulling the country together to build a new nation. He encouraged communities to work together to raise funds for all sorts of local projects, pledging that the government would provide their startup costs. Under this system, wealthy individuals wishing to get into politics could donate large amounts of money to local harambee drives, thereby gaining legitimacy; however, such practices were never institutionalised during Kenyatta's presidency.

Etymology

The etymology of the term is cited as genuinely Bantu, from the Miji Kenda term halumbe "to pull or push together".[1]

Criticism

The word Harambee and the concept of harambee funds-drives have received criticism. The word was originally adopted by Jomo Kenyatta as the signature Kenyan national philosophy to mean pulling together or cooperating in community projects.

Historical abuse and poor performance

Due to repeated abuse, the word Harambee is often perceived to refer to manipulative or deceptive collection of monetary funds from the public.

Harambee funds drives have been repeatedly abused through:-

  • misappropriation of publicly collected harambee funds by individuals;
  • force contributions by government officials;
  • forced contributions through forced and unofficial deductions on the salaries of government employees;
  • corruption and use of harambee (funds drives) for personal gains;
  • many stalled harambee projects (schools, hospitals, roads, State owned factories etc);
  • poor coordination of harambee funded projects;
  • use of harambee funds drives as campaign platforms by political aspirants;
  • use of harambee funds drives to publicly attack and embarrass political rivals;
  • use of harambee funds drives to launder money stolen by officers who attempt to clean their public image by appearing to give generous donations for public projects;
  • use of harambee events to give bribes under the guise of issuing public donations;
  • poor performance of State controlled entities that have the word Harambee as part of their name e.g., the national football team Harambee Stars;
  • perceived inferior status and poor management history of Harambee schools which were established through Harambee fund-raising projects; and
  • perceived legitimisation of dependency on donations or external assistance at the expense of promoting self-sufficiency, resourcefulness and innovation.

Religious criticism

Kenyan Christians have criticised the use of the word Harambee as an official term due to its apparent hindu origin. Harambee is neither a Hindu god nor a hindu word; it is a Swahili word and Kenyan. The objections have also been dismissed on the basis that even if the supposed derivation from Hare Ambeh (Hail Ambeh) were true, it has become irrelevant to the term's modern usage and meaning.[2]

Attempted replacement

In January 2002, the Risk Advisory Group Ltd commissioned by President Moi's administration as part of the anti-corruption efforts recommended the abolition of harambee or the spirit of pulling together[3].

In 2003 when the National Rainbow Coalition NARC took over from the Kenya African National Union KANU, President Mwai Kibaki enacted the Public Officers Ethics Act which prohibited Members of Parliament and Cabinet Secretaries from presiding over Harambees.

In February 2018, a petition was presented to the Kenyan Parliament, Senate, seeking to have the word HARAMBEE removed from the Public Seal on the claim that it represents a Hindu Goddess [4].

See also

References
  1. [http://blog.jaluo.com/?p=8900 Kenya:
  2. "Kenyan National Motto Controversial to Some", Hindu Press International, July 5, 2003 "Kenya: What's in a Name? Goddesses Have Always Been Worshipped", The Nation, May 5, 2008
  3. "Efforts to end corruption in harambees", The Standard, August 27, 2013
  4. "Petition over word ‘harambee’ splits senators", The Standard, February 15, 2018
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