By the way; even if we banned everything tribal,we would still find something else to hate each other for!! It is much easier for human beings to hate each other than to love one another. So don't blame the PEV on tribes! It was driven by hatred...tribe was just an excuse for the hatred... Politicians find it easier to gain support by asking their followers to hate the opponents...remove tribe and they will find a new reason to hate. Remember what I wrote here a few months ago: 'Imagine the tragedy of the world losing 40-odd languages and cultures?' Behind the gardens...Behind the wall...Under the tree (Including: Red...Dark Blue...Yellow)

@ Mukiha, I like the pride you take in your cultural heritage. It is all good. But what is the essence of tallying the numbers? What economic or planning rationale does tribe fulfil? What is the contextual statistical value in tribe? Do the merits of publishing statistics of tribe outweigh the demerits? Lets suppose I live in Thika town and I'm maasai,my wife is luo and my son's wife is kikuyu. How would the tribe influence planning? And by the way,have the results of the last two census ever been useful apart from being used by students,foreign agencies e.t.c -read to produce more paperwork? In my opinion,the last two have been monkey business. This one looks headed that way too... I have tried to think around but I can not get a good reason why that question should be fronted. Mukiha nisaidie kama unawesamek.

@spendthrift; I answered your question in the immediate previous post. But on a different level,I think this whole census business is a complete wast of time and effort...and money!! No one needs to know the exact number of people in a country to make plans for it! An estimate to the nearest million will do...and you don't need a census for that. After all,Steadman gets very accurate opinion polls from samples of only 1,500 people. KNBS (what a mouthful,compared to the former CBS) only needs to sample the population and study the demographics of the sample... Behind the gardens...Behind the wall...Under the tree (Including: Red...Dark Blue...Yellow)

@ all this is my humble opinion... every country needs tribal statistics... the only problem with kenyan case... we are always political... and viewing things from a very negative angle.. tribal statistics are vital for archives... like we always read that this and that tribes originated from this and that place.... i mean they help us know the social division of people and their cultural heritages and no one can dispute that... failing to answer the tribal question in the forthcoming census does not help you at all and it won't help heal our tribal wounds... as mukiha said both politicians and ourselves will always invent another reason of hating... just like most of us do it at SK.... you've heard me..

census data is anonymized i assume? it wouldnt matter anyway since a machette yielding youth would not care what your answer to the census was.....just if you can answer the greeting. you cannot run away from your heritage....not that it is a desirable thing...actually it is detestable! najivunia kuwa mkenya ndio lakini i have roots which i will not shy away from because of rumors. 'mkenya' is not a cultural concept yet but a political (patriotic) one. perhaps one day we will reach the stage where being kenyan becomes a cultural identity...how i long for that day! hii tabia ya wakenya ya ku-politisize each and evry issue is getting out of hand...at this rate,how can we hope to progress into the 21st century?!!