By Rasnah Warah
ON VALENTINE’S DAY, I received a message that made me want to cry. No, the message was not a declaration of undying love. It was a news flash stating that President Kibaki had reinstated William Ruto and Sam Ongeri as ministers, hours after his own prime minister had called a press conference to announce they had been suspended.
This is the sad reality of Kenya. Even on a day that is meant to celebrate love and all good things, we were forced to think about the shenanigans of our politicians. That evening, like many Kenyans, my husband and I spent the night of Valentine’s Day discussing whether we loved this country enough to fight for it, or whether we should just retreat into our own tiny little worlds — and hope that the pain would one day go away.
There was a feeling of déjà vu that day. It reminded me of December 30, 2007, when Kenyans woke up believing that they had finally slain the dragon of impunity and that a fairly elected president would lead a government committed to the people of Kenya. But that was not to be.
The election was botched and before the day was over, Kenya was in mourning. New Year’s Day in many homes was marked by mass funerals and psychological trauma. Most Kenyans, including myself, believed that Kenya was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Two years later, I still believe we are not completely out of the woods.
Many may think that I am being overly pessimistic. In fact, some of my readers have told me that I should be more positive and talk about all the good things that are happening in the country instead of focusing only on the negative. The argument they present generally goes like this:
We may have had some glitches in the past, but our economy is on the verge of taking off, our infrastructure is improving, arts and cultural activities are flourishing, and to top it all, the country is scenic and beautiful.
This sentiment was also expressed in a column last week by literary critic Chris Wanjala, a man I admire for his unswerving commitment to promoting Kenyan literature, who wondered why Kenyan writers fail to capture the beauty and magic of Kenya in their writings, and why this task is left to foreign writers.
Wanjala claims that Kenyan writers can do wonders for the tourism sector by writing about the country’s wonderful culture, climate, and natural heritage instead of focusing on problems such as post-election violence, IDPs and poverty.
In other words he wants Kenyans to write about things that fascinated the likes of Karen Blixen and Elspeth Huxley, who wrote about exotic Africa where the locals feature either as part of breathtakingly beautiful landscapes or are servants. Despite its inherent literary merits, much of this literature is today being dismissed as racist.
Besides, as Blixen herself noted, the discovery of a new place is fodder for any writer. She wrote: “The discovery of the dark races was to me a magnificent enlargement of all my world.” It is the unfamiliar, not the familiar, that inspires most writers.
More importantly, depending on which economic strata of society you belong to, it is difficult for many Kenyans to experience the magic of Kenya simply because they are too hungry, too desperate, and too downtrodden to marvel at the beauty of a scarlet sunset dipping into the Indian Ocean or a herd of gazelle dancing across a savannah.
How is it possible for a writer to write about the magic of Kenya when the world around her is crumbling? Some of the most stunningly beautiful places on this planet (Afghanistan comes to mind) also harbour some of the world’s most oppressed and scarred people. I can pretend that what is happening in Nairobi will not touch my life, but I would be lying to myself. If Kenya burns, we will all feel the heat, regardless of income or social status.
I am finding it increasingly difficult to write about anything except politics and the economy because every week, another scandal erupts, reminding Kenyans that corruption, impunity, and total indifference on the part of the political elite have come to define our country and that every shilling that ends up in the pocket of a politician or civil servant could have helped a parent enrol a child in school or buy maize meal for a family.
One would think that these difficult times would have by now given birth to what could be called “the Kenyan protest novel”. But on even that count, Kenyan writers have failed.
-As posted in the Daily Nation
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