Σημείωση: Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (21 Μαρτίου 1929 έως τις 2 Μαρτίου 1975) ήταν κενυατικός σοσιαλιστικός πολιτικός κατά τη διάρκεια της διοίκησης της κυβέρνησης Jomo Kenyatta. Υποστήριξε τις διαφορετικές κυβερνητικές θέσεις από το 1963, όταν η Κένυα έγινε ανεξάρτητη χώρα, έως 1975, όταν δολοφονήθηκε. | Πιό εδώ |

Από Njonjo Mue

Τον είχε μια πλήρης ζωή, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (γενικά γνωστό ως JM) θα είχε γυρίσει 79 τελευταία Παρασκευή.

Αλλά το πρώην μέλος του Κοινοβουλίου για το Βορρά Nyandarua δολοφονήθηκε άγρια στις 2 Μαρτίου 1975, τρεις εβδομάδες απότομα των 46$ων γενεθλίων του, ληστεύοντας την Κένυα ένας από τους αφιερωμένους πρωτοπόρους των δικαιωμάτων των φτωχών και ενός θορυβώδους κριτικού της ανισότητας.

Ο θάνατός του, εν τούτοις που αναγνωρίζεται κατά ένα μεγάλο μέρος ως πολιτική δολοφονία από τους ανθρώπους κοντά στην κυβέρνηση Kenyatta, δεν έχει επιλυθεί ποτέ.

Με την ευφορία που περιβάλλει την εθνική διαπραγμάτευση δύναμη-διανομής ακόμα στον αέρα και τη συζήτηση μιας νέας πολιτικής διαταγής επικείμενης, είναι ένας κατάλληλος χρόνος να απεικονίσει σε ποια JM αντιπροσώπευσε, ποια διαφορά θα είχε κάνει στο σώμα μας πολιτικό είχε αυτός έζησε, και πώς να προστατεύσουν την κληρονομιά του και να εξασφαλίσουν ότι τα ιδανικά που έζησε και πέθανε για δεν χάνονται σε μια νέα γενεά των δραστών στο κοινωνικό, πολιτικό και οικονομικό στάδιο.

In the wake of the crisis that has engulfed Kenya since the disputed election last December, which plunged the country into unprecedented chaos, it is common ground that the election results announced by Mr Samuel Kivuitu merely provided the spark that lit the fire that threatened to consume this nation; the fuel had been accumulating over a long time.

Tribalism, past injustices and unequal distribution of resources such as land as well as pervasive poverty and economic inequalities were a time-bomb ticking away and waiting to explode.

And yet we cannot say we did not see it coming, for had we listened to our prophets, such as JM, we would not have come to this sad place. From the onset of independence in 1963, JM constantly warned those that seemed to have acquired a new disease of ‘grabbing’ thousands of acres of land while the majority of Kenyans remained landless.

“This is greed,” he thundered in Parliament in March 1974, one year before he was assassinated.

“It is this greed that will put this country into chaos. Let me state here that this greedy attitude among the leaders is going to ruin this country.”

JM specifically warned privileged elites from Central Province who were taking advantage of their positions to buy up land cheaply from other communities.

“They have even gone as far as Maasailand, saying that they are doing an experiment whereas the whole Masailand has been taken by those greedy people.”

His insight into the creeping inequality in the country acquired a prophetic tone when he warned that if we were not careful, the Kenya would become a country on “ten millionaires and ten million beggars”.

A walk through the slums of Kibera, Mathare, Korogocho and Kawangware today clearly illustrates that this prophesy has sadly come true.

Surrounded by rogues

JM foresaw the danger of ignoring the youth even before formal independence was granted to Kenya.

“If we forget these people (the youth)”, he told Parliament on November 14, 1963, “we will find ourselves surrounded by rogues who are rogues not because they want to become rogues but because they are hungry and this leads them into temptation… The Government should take action immediately before the situation goes from bad to worse.”

He called for a national assistance scheme for the widows and orphans of those who had been killed in the war of Independence and affirmative action for people living with disabilities. He condemned corruption and proposed that no minister or assistant minister should be allowed to sit on any board of a private company because this would lead to a conflict of interests.

On freedom, JM reminded us that political independence was not an end in itself.

“Political independence without economic independence is like having a wedding without a bride,” he told Parliament on March 21, 1974. He condemned dictatorship pointing out that emergent African leadership had perverted democracy to mean “Government by a few for a few on behalf of many, whether the many like it or not.”

Kenya is a country of forgetting and moving on. We ignore injustice after injustice until a crisis such as the one we are struggling to recover from catches up with us.

In these times of national reflection, one cannot help but wonder how far ahead we would be along the journey to true nationhood had we listened to prophets and statesmen like JM instead of killing them; had we taken care of our weak even as we celebrated our strong; had we understood the simple truth that there is enough to go around if it is shared equitably; had we resisted the urge to use our positions to take care of ‘our own’ because we understood that our own included all who call Kenya home.

Mercifully, it is not too late to build the Kenya that JM dreamed and spoke of. If we put our hearts and minds to it, we can be the generation that recovered the promise of a truly independent and democratic country where the individual and the state work together to build a just society.

Only then can we be able to enjoin ourselves to the hopeful vision of JM, proudly proclaimed in 1974, when he said: “In Kenya today, I can only see the dawn of a June morning rising majestically from the white oblivion into the serenity of life.”

About The Author: Njonjo Mue is the head of advocacy at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights

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Writes Barrack Muluka

Isaak Denisen, also known as Karen Blixen, begins her world famous story, Out of Africa, with a description of the mammoth farm she once owned in Kenya.

She says: “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.”

Karen Blixen In Kenya - Click PIC For Larger Image

She reports that she experimented with coffee growing, besides sundry rural activities on the farm.

She goes on: “I had six thousand acres of land, and had thus got much spare land besides the coffee plantation. Part of the farm was native forest, and about one thousand acres were squatters’ land, what they called their shambas.

“The squatters are the Natives, who with their families hold a few acres on a white man’s farm, and in return have to work for him a certain number of days in the year. My squatters, I think, saw the relationship in a different light, for many of them were born on the farm, and their fathers before them, and they very likely regarded me as a sort of superior squatter on the estates.”

There are diverse views on Karen Blixen’s story of her adventures in Africa and of the Oscar award winning movie that they crafted out of the story.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o in an essay ‘Her cook and her dog’ describes Blixen as a woman gifted with words in a dangerous way. He particularly takes umbrage with the passage where she writes of her cook in the following terms: “He stuck to the maize cobs of his fathers. Here, even his intelligence sometimes failed him. He came and offered me a Kikuyu delicacy — a roasted sweet potato or a lump of sheep’s fat – as even a civilised dog that has lived with people, will place a bone on the floor before you, as a present.”

Out of Africa is a capsule of the origins of what Kenyans will be addressing in the coming weeks, as they come to terms with what are being called ‘historical injustices’. When they arrived in Africa, European explorers, settlers and allied adventurers did not recognise the humanity of the people they found here. They did not therefore recognise their right to the things and instruments that support life. They pretended to ‘discover’ rivers, mountains, lakes and other relief features that had been there from creation day. This was a deliberate ploy to rob the African of his natural heritage. For if you were discovering land, a lake or a river, you could very well own it and do with it as you pleased.

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