A renegade view of Kenya’s Heroes Day
Tuesday October 20, was Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) when Kenyans honour all those who contributed to the struggle for Kenya’s independence - or positively invested efforts in post-independence nation-building and doing good things.
Like in many other nations, Kenyans also tend to take a municipal view of their heroes - with who is a hero or not informed by national prejudices and ancient political rivalries.
Outside its borders, and especially in East Africa, there is often a slightly different view of Kenyan heroism. As one of those East Africans, my view is a little renegade. I also think it is good manners to allow the passage of time, before a man or woman is hoisted onto a heroes’ pedestal – to permit their actions to ferment, their sins to be considered, and for their contributions to be enriched by history.
Which is why all the few Kenyan heroes I will list here, are from before Year-2000. And I am also avoiding the usual suspects.
• Alumidi Osinya: In 1977, a remarkable book, Field Marshal Abdullah Salim Fisi: Or, How the Hyena Got His!, was published in Kenya. It was written by Alumidi Osinya (a pseudonym). It is a riveting Orwellian tale of life in a military dictatorship. The book was widely seen a satirical critique of Uganda’s then-military dictator Field Marshal Idi Amin. In Uganda - where the story was as fascinating as who the mystery Ugandan or Kenyan author was - the book went viral and was circulated widely underground.
It was, a time when brutal military rule was rampant in Africa, so the book was relished as an attack whichthe men in khaki couldn’t respond to, as several people in Africa read their own tyrant into Fisi. Field Marshal Abdullah Salim Fisi: Or, How the Hyena Got His! was a light in a dark period - and, with Joe Publications, they are heroes.
• Gitobu Imanyara: The human rights lawyer and politician founded the Nairobi Law Monthly in 1987. Its story was ultimately entangled with Imanyara’s activism against Daniel arap Moi’s repressive one-party rule. The Nairobi Law Monthly print was as ugly as its content was brave and bold - and thought-provoking.
Our region had not seen anything like that. The personal torture and ‘beat-downs’ Imanyara endured were shocking, even at a time when strongmen fed their critics to crocodiles. One of the most enduring photos of that time, was of Imanyara shackled to a hospital bed. It was bewildering that a man could go through so much pain for a cause. Imanyara has come a long way since then. But - in both the Nairobi Law Monthly and his tribulations - he represented something special at the time.
• Hilary Ng’weno: Scientist, journalist, historian and Daily Nation’s first African editor-in-chief, Ng’weno is a genius. Often abrasive, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and his journalism courted a load of political controversy later. His founding of The Weekly Review in 1975 was a defining moment in Kenyan and East African journalism.
Weekly Review was unabashedly elitist, upmarket, even snotty, and had a lot of in-your-face gustiness. It was the first major break from the humdrum of daily “he said... she said...” journalism. In Uganda, the few copies that came were prized, and passed around the country’s deflated middle class until they got dog-eared. Ng’weno aimed for Mars, when most were content with the clouds overhead.
• The next heroes are a musical set: ‘Them Mushrooms,’ and ‘Slim Ali and the Hodi Boys.’ Them Mushrooms - of Jambo Bwana fame - play Chakacha, Benga and reggae. The Hodi Boys did mostly soul. Them Mushrooms, gentler in tone, serenaded East Africa like few bands had done. The Hodi Boys were edgy, experimental - and invoked the rebellious global spirit of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
They were the zeitgeist of an East Africa which was going through a crisis that would end in the collapse of the first East African Community in July 1977.
• Sundowner, on KBC: In the days of shortwave radio and government-only broadcasting, every East African country had an “international service”, beamed to the world – or at least the continent – the way BBC does. Tanzania and Kenya were particularly good at it. Tanzania - steeped in southern Africa liberation and Nyerere-era internationalism - was simply superb on news and culture, especially surfacing material by socially conscious African artists.
KBC - then the Kenya Broadcasting Service - was trendy. It was where you first heard the new songs that had come out in the US, Europe, and other parts of Africa. And then, as the sun set, there was the enduring Sundowner. After all the madness, the tears people cried from oppression, the desolation where hope was faint, there was Sundowner. Sundowner was the chamomile tea to calm the nerves. It was the sedative people in Kenya and across its borders took so that they would not wake up in the night to nightmares. We could do a spread with more heroes; but we can’t have it all - can we?
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The author is a journalist, writer and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”.Twitter@cobbo3
