Indigenous Languages as a Prerequisite Tool for Democracy: The Case of Kenya

Abstract

Democracy is an integrated political system which came about through the infusion of two political traditions; liberty which is often called freedom and popular sovereignty or self-government. Liberty belongs to individuals, while popular sovereignty is a property of the community as a whole. Therefore, democracy is a systematically structured form of freedom. It is about justice, equality and the freedom of expression. Freedom of expression fosters publics to clearly put forward their needs and demands on governance. This is only made possible through a language that the citizens understand best. Language embodies knowledge, identity, and human relationships, it creates and is created by society. Therefore, democratic politics is politics in vernacular. It therefore implies the use of a language that encourages all players to make an effort to understand each other. This involves the willingness to overcome the barriers to mutual understanding, including the linguistic ones. Using the three communicative democratic theory tenets discussed by Young (1996): greetings, rhetoric and storytelling, this paper analyses the strategies that are used to enhance the possible democratic space by our leaders through the use of the indigenous languages having in mind that Kenya is a multilingual society. Data was purposively sampled through You-tube to get a leader who used indigenous languages during various public meetings. The Right honourable Raila, Amolo, Odinga strategically used greetings in the indigenous languages of every community before addressing them. He also used rhetoric and storytelling/narration to bring the people together to appreciate an intimate experience that brings out a deeper understanding and respect for each other’s language.