Post by Matunda on Oct 24, 2005 8:19:03 GMT 3
Kenyans’ Love for Deviance and Rebellion – Part I
By Matunda Nyanchama, PhD
Toronto Ontario
October 23, 2005
------------
The culture of deviance is entrenched in the Kenyan psyche and many admire
those that protest against coercive central power. It is no accident
therefore that the most contentious issue in the current referendum debate
is that of executive power devolution and the power to impeach the
president.
------------
Growing up in post-independence Kenya of Kenyatta and Kanu’s de facto
one-party rule, many of us were always fascinated by those that stood up to
authority. And for good reasons: the democracy promised at independence was
not developing as expected, what with the return of detention without trial,
the banning of opposition parties and detention of those opposed to
“Onyatto”, as some people called Kenyatta.
Post-independence Kenya also saw the assassinations of Pio Gama Pinto, Tom
Mboya and JM Kariuki, something that instilled fear and cowed many that
would stand up to Kenyatta’s authority. In the face of this, therefore,
anyone seen to be brave enough to rebel against the powers that be was seen
as a valiant soul ready to take the establishment on.
Oginga Odinga was one man who had been the most consistent voice for
Kenyatta’s release prior to independence. The British are said to have
coaxed him to betray Kenyatta and become prime minister. Odinga would have
none of it and went out with the rallying cry that there would be no
independence for Kenya without Kenyatta!
As such when Odinga was sidelined from Kanu leadership, many sympathized
with his cause. His formation of the Kenya People’s Union (KPU) was
initially popular as a significant number of MPs crossed the floor from
Kanu. The tide was stemmed only by Mboya’s constitutional amendment that
required members switching parties to seek fresh mandate. Many of them beat
a retreat to Kanu. Those who stuck with KPU faced the electorate in the
mini-general elections of 1966.
The results confined Odinga and KPU to Luo Nyanza. Despite this, his
supporters saw Odinga’s defiance as an act of bravery in the face of an
emerging dictatorship!
KPU’s opposition reign lasted three years as it was proscribed in 1969
following a riot, seen to have been instigated and supported by KPU, in
Kisumu. A number of people are said to have died in the pandemonium. The
anger leading to the riots arose from the assassination of Tom Mboya, Odinga
nemesis in Luo Nyanza. And the event was the official opening of New Nyanza
General Hospital (at the time referred to as Russian Hospital) that had been
built through Odinga’s connections with Communist Russia!
Mboya’s assassination itself was followed by a fiasco in which police lobbed
tear gas at protesting masses in Nairobi. The funeral mass in the nation’s
capital would have been a debacle were it not for the government’s tight
security. Those who came out to protest this heinous crime, in our eyes,
were heroes; brave sons of the soil that expressed the yearning for a
better, more accommodative Kenya.
In the period that followed KPU’s proscription, the country became a
one-party state in which Kanu reigned. Yet even within the party there are
those that stood up against the coercive central authority.
For example in 1969 the government decreed a ten percent increase in the
number of primary school teachers. The move was intended to address teacher
shortage as well as provide employment for a number of Kenyans that had
completed school. The Ministry of Education, seen as a bastion of Kenyatta
influence, recruited and posted teachers to far-slung regions in the country
largely without caring about local needs and sensibilities. I recall my then
member of parliament, the late George Morara, protesting against this
outside imposition of teachers when we had locally qualified candidates,
leave alone that these “foreign” teachers could not speak the local
language. The MP’s protests made him a darling of his constituents! His
popularity rose further when he declared that such teachers would work in
our constituency “over my dead body”!
His subsequent death a few months later leaves many wondering whether his
protest and anti-government stance had anything to do with it!
George Morara was a friend of JM Kariuki. This is the JM of the “ten
millionaires versus ten million beggars” fame, pointing to the increasing
gap between the haves and havenots. A member of the ruling elite and Mau Mau
detainee, JM had amassed huge amounts of wealth following independence. He
also used his wealth to command political support. It is said that he
allocated free land to some of his landless constituents through subdivision
of some of his farms.
JM’s riches also found expression in Harambees where his generosity stood
out. It was common for him to challenge the crowd to donate money to which
he would match every penny! This made him popular, which in turn angered
some in authority. This rebellion was something for many of us to admire.
And we loved to follow parliamentary debates in which he, alongside Martin
Shikuku and Jean Marie Seroney, among others, challenged the emerging
one-man rule and dangerous trends in the entrenchment of corruption.
JM was soon dead, his body dumped in Ngong Forest, perhaps with the
intention that it would be ravaged by hyenas or some other vultures. JM’s
assassination shook the country, as did Mboya’s six years earlier. The
impact of his assassination was even greater considering that he was an
“establishment person”, a member of the ruling elite and a rich man to boot!
Also not many saw him as an ideologue, as was Odinga and his eastern
European leanings.
JM’s assassination made heroes of some rebels who took issue with the
Kenyatta government and pointed to government complicity in the crime. The
list included Charles Rubia, Jean Marie Seroney, Martin Shikuku, Mark
Mwithaga, and Elijah Mwangale, among others. For those of us fascinated by
politics, we loved the theatre of rebellion and revelled in subsequent
protests against the murderous regime. And many were thrilled with the
annual university students’ commemoration of JM’s murder! These students, in
their own way, became heroes as they stood up to authority! We loved them.
Subsequent years saw the detention of key “rebels” such as Shikuku and
Seroney, which left space for others to emerge to fill the void. And into
the space arrived two young firebrands, George Anyona and Chelagat Mutai,
who were seen not simply as political allies but friends at heart as well.
When the government brought up a bill that would allow the president to
pardon individuals convicted of election offences, only the Anyona and Mutai
stood in opposition to the bill. One could say that the parliament of the
time was extremely cowed and towed Onyatto’s line. For admirers, the act of
opposition by the two was seen as act of courage!
Following the 1979 elections there emerged a group in parliament seen to be
too radical for the establishment, one that Charles Njonjo termed the “Seven
Bearded Sisters”. This included people like Abuya Abuya, James Orengo, Koigi
wa Wamwere, Mwashengu wa Mwanchofi, and Dr Chibule Tsuma. They were a lovely
bunch to watch in debates and provided a good counterweight to the
straightjacket of central authority. Subsequent efforts to form an
opposition party by Anyona and Odinga, efforts curtailed with the enactment
of Kenya as a one-party state, were seen as heroic.
© October 23, 2005 Matunda Nyanchama
----------------------------------------------------------
Matunda Nyanchama, a Canadian-based computer security professional, is a past President of the Kenyan Community Abroad (KCA).
By Matunda Nyanchama, PhD
Toronto Ontario
October 23, 2005
------------
The culture of deviance is entrenched in the Kenyan psyche and many admire
those that protest against coercive central power. It is no accident
therefore that the most contentious issue in the current referendum debate
is that of executive power devolution and the power to impeach the
president.
------------
Growing up in post-independence Kenya of Kenyatta and Kanu’s de facto
one-party rule, many of us were always fascinated by those that stood up to
authority. And for good reasons: the democracy promised at independence was
not developing as expected, what with the return of detention without trial,
the banning of opposition parties and detention of those opposed to
“Onyatto”, as some people called Kenyatta.
Post-independence Kenya also saw the assassinations of Pio Gama Pinto, Tom
Mboya and JM Kariuki, something that instilled fear and cowed many that
would stand up to Kenyatta’s authority. In the face of this, therefore,
anyone seen to be brave enough to rebel against the powers that be was seen
as a valiant soul ready to take the establishment on.
Oginga Odinga was one man who had been the most consistent voice for
Kenyatta’s release prior to independence. The British are said to have
coaxed him to betray Kenyatta and become prime minister. Odinga would have
none of it and went out with the rallying cry that there would be no
independence for Kenya without Kenyatta!
As such when Odinga was sidelined from Kanu leadership, many sympathized
with his cause. His formation of the Kenya People’s Union (KPU) was
initially popular as a significant number of MPs crossed the floor from
Kanu. The tide was stemmed only by Mboya’s constitutional amendment that
required members switching parties to seek fresh mandate. Many of them beat
a retreat to Kanu. Those who stuck with KPU faced the electorate in the
mini-general elections of 1966.
The results confined Odinga and KPU to Luo Nyanza. Despite this, his
supporters saw Odinga’s defiance as an act of bravery in the face of an
emerging dictatorship!
KPU’s opposition reign lasted three years as it was proscribed in 1969
following a riot, seen to have been instigated and supported by KPU, in
Kisumu. A number of people are said to have died in the pandemonium. The
anger leading to the riots arose from the assassination of Tom Mboya, Odinga
nemesis in Luo Nyanza. And the event was the official opening of New Nyanza
General Hospital (at the time referred to as Russian Hospital) that had been
built through Odinga’s connections with Communist Russia!
Mboya’s assassination itself was followed by a fiasco in which police lobbed
tear gas at protesting masses in Nairobi. The funeral mass in the nation’s
capital would have been a debacle were it not for the government’s tight
security. Those who came out to protest this heinous crime, in our eyes,
were heroes; brave sons of the soil that expressed the yearning for a
better, more accommodative Kenya.
In the period that followed KPU’s proscription, the country became a
one-party state in which Kanu reigned. Yet even within the party there are
those that stood up against the coercive central authority.
For example in 1969 the government decreed a ten percent increase in the
number of primary school teachers. The move was intended to address teacher
shortage as well as provide employment for a number of Kenyans that had
completed school. The Ministry of Education, seen as a bastion of Kenyatta
influence, recruited and posted teachers to far-slung regions in the country
largely without caring about local needs and sensibilities. I recall my then
member of parliament, the late George Morara, protesting against this
outside imposition of teachers when we had locally qualified candidates,
leave alone that these “foreign” teachers could not speak the local
language. The MP’s protests made him a darling of his constituents! His
popularity rose further when he declared that such teachers would work in
our constituency “over my dead body”!
His subsequent death a few months later leaves many wondering whether his
protest and anti-government stance had anything to do with it!
George Morara was a friend of JM Kariuki. This is the JM of the “ten
millionaires versus ten million beggars” fame, pointing to the increasing
gap between the haves and havenots. A member of the ruling elite and Mau Mau
detainee, JM had amassed huge amounts of wealth following independence. He
also used his wealth to command political support. It is said that he
allocated free land to some of his landless constituents through subdivision
of some of his farms.
JM’s riches also found expression in Harambees where his generosity stood
out. It was common for him to challenge the crowd to donate money to which
he would match every penny! This made him popular, which in turn angered
some in authority. This rebellion was something for many of us to admire.
And we loved to follow parliamentary debates in which he, alongside Martin
Shikuku and Jean Marie Seroney, among others, challenged the emerging
one-man rule and dangerous trends in the entrenchment of corruption.
JM was soon dead, his body dumped in Ngong Forest, perhaps with the
intention that it would be ravaged by hyenas or some other vultures. JM’s
assassination shook the country, as did Mboya’s six years earlier. The
impact of his assassination was even greater considering that he was an
“establishment person”, a member of the ruling elite and a rich man to boot!
Also not many saw him as an ideologue, as was Odinga and his eastern
European leanings.
JM’s assassination made heroes of some rebels who took issue with the
Kenyatta government and pointed to government complicity in the crime. The
list included Charles Rubia, Jean Marie Seroney, Martin Shikuku, Mark
Mwithaga, and Elijah Mwangale, among others. For those of us fascinated by
politics, we loved the theatre of rebellion and revelled in subsequent
protests against the murderous regime. And many were thrilled with the
annual university students’ commemoration of JM’s murder! These students, in
their own way, became heroes as they stood up to authority! We loved them.
Subsequent years saw the detention of key “rebels” such as Shikuku and
Seroney, which left space for others to emerge to fill the void. And into
the space arrived two young firebrands, George Anyona and Chelagat Mutai,
who were seen not simply as political allies but friends at heart as well.
When the government brought up a bill that would allow the president to
pardon individuals convicted of election offences, only the Anyona and Mutai
stood in opposition to the bill. One could say that the parliament of the
time was extremely cowed and towed Onyatto’s line. For admirers, the act of
opposition by the two was seen as act of courage!
Following the 1979 elections there emerged a group in parliament seen to be
too radical for the establishment, one that Charles Njonjo termed the “Seven
Bearded Sisters”. This included people like Abuya Abuya, James Orengo, Koigi
wa Wamwere, Mwashengu wa Mwanchofi, and Dr Chibule Tsuma. They were a lovely
bunch to watch in debates and provided a good counterweight to the
straightjacket of central authority. Subsequent efforts to form an
opposition party by Anyona and Odinga, efforts curtailed with the enactment
of Kenya as a one-party state, were seen as heroic.
© October 23, 2005 Matunda Nyanchama
----------------------------------------------------------
Matunda Nyanchama, a Canadian-based computer security professional, is a past President of the Kenyan Community Abroad (KCA).