‘These songs of freedom are all I ever have: redemption songs’
I have a confession to make. Considering how electric the Macondo Literary Festival was, it was surprising that I had to scratch my head so hard to put my thoughts together for this article. I was right at the heart of pan-Africanism; a sort of therapy session for our colonised and traumatised minds. Maybe it is because of the grief of knowing we might never fully know our history or the fact that we remain colonised by systems that ensure we never get to know our history, systems that will forever hold us hostage. When you don’t know where you have come from, it is hard to know where you are going.
The theme for the fourth edition of the festival was, “The Sea is History.” That vast abyss of salty water, as Jeferson Tenorio, one of the remarkable authors at the festival, described it, radically changed our lives. I struggle to piece together the feelings of the first of Kenyans’ ancestors who saw boats approaching the shores of Ziwa Kuu or Nam Chumbi alias the Indian Ocean. What must have gone through their minds at that moment?
Influence of colonisation
Our Kenyan curriculum is highly influenced by the tides of the West, so much that our history was lost in their perspectives. If you went through the Kenyan system or any East African school system for that matter, you would certainly have heard of the Mau Mau rebellion and the Maji Maji uprising in Kenya and Tanzania, respectively. Rebellion? Uprising? Against whom? These narratives are a classic example of the adage, “Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”
Our young minds sat happily in class absorbing these half-truths as our reality and history that our mannerisms, language, and culture matched those of our colonisers. It is no surprise that there is a pervasive mentality that what is European or American is better. I once held strong beliefs about raising children who spoke Dholuo. But it is a pity that I cannot converse adequately in my mother tongue and when I desired to show up as an Indigenous Luo woman at a cultural festival, I had no authentic reference point. “Just put on an owalo (sisal skirt),” my mother advised.
It is true that the quickest way to colonise a people is to take away their identity. Capitalise on convincing them that their practices are odd; that their skin is odd; that they are uncivilised, and see how quickly you would conquer them. “There are similarities in the lives of dark-skinned people across the world,” said Tenorio during one of the sessions. His book, The Dark Side of Skin, which explores the violence and racism that Afro-Brazilians face in the country, caused such controversy in Brazil that it was banned in three states and removed from school libraries. “The conservative government of that time claimed that there were inappropriate sex scenes but what I find to be truly pornographic is the racism and violence in Brazil,” he asserted.
In Kenya, the government of the day swung to political fame using God’s name. Grandiose claims of “A government chosen by God” rang through our ears and were blasted on social media posts for our eyes to see whenever there was tension among the Kenyan populace. How can you argue with God when he chose the government? Yet again, religion inherited from colonial masters was used to distract the masses from talking about the real issues, subjecting them to a downward spiral of silence.
Push Gen Z! Harder!
I introspect about the tagline that seemed to sweep the Macondo Festival by Tenorio: tenderness as a form of resistance. When protests broke out in Kenya in June following a proposal for increased taxes and other insensitive measures, the youth insisted that they were only armed with words and placards—for which many were jailed, some abducted and others killed. Mshai Mwangola, one of the hosts of the sessions at the festival, read a poem so powerful that it showed just how much power words have. One of the lines was, “Why is speaking out met with much aggression?” What is in words that threatens governments and strongholds of corrupt systems?
“We are peaceful!” “I am only armed with my voice!” These were the chants of many young people who flooded the streets of Nairobi and other cities, sick and tired of the economic and physical violence meted against them. Yet, the police showered them with bullets, silencing forever unarmed children of the soil. Maybe Oginga Odinga was right, we truly are Not Yet Uhuru. There is a collective consciousness of the need to continue the struggle that our ancestors started. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.
Writing as a form of protest
“Be careful that the weapons you create in your writing don’t come back to hurt you,” Tenorio warned. After the youth uprising in Kenya, there was a wave of activism on platforms like X and Tiktok. Suddenly, the youth woke up from their slumber and nonchalance in participating in politics; suddenly, everyone became an activist! Short-form blogs on X by various political analysts, and people across the country, stirred emotions that lit the fires of the first phase of revolution. The country was talking. Children were talking and sadly some were consumed by the pangs of this revolution.
Despite this awakening, a lot of misinformation seeped through, creating what I would call a mass psychosis. If you don’t know what lethargy is, scroll mindlessly on social media platforms on volatile topics like politics, and you will get to understand.
“You can still fight wars and remain sensible, “ Tenorio advised. These words still echo in my mind, considering how the country quenched its thirst at the fountains of violence as it teetered on the edge of anarchy. I am convinced now more than ever that it is not guns or atomic bombs that threaten systems but words, art, and voices. This time, we are killing them with tenderness.
Monkeys and bananas
Have you ever heard of the five monkeys experiment? Five monkeys were placed in a cage with a ladder leading to bananas on the top rung. Whenever a monkey attempted to climb the ladder, the experimenter sprayed all the monkeys with cold water. Over time, the other monkeys learned to pull down any climber to avoid the spray, and eventually, none dared to go up the ladder.
Eventually, one monkey was replaced with a newcomer. The new monkey instinctively tried to climb for the bananas but was quickly beaten back by the others. It never experienced the cold spray itself, yet learned that climbing the ladder was unacceptable. One by one, the original monkeys were replaced until none remained. Each time a new monkey attempted to climb, the others, even those who hadn’t been sprayed, would pull it down. By the end of the experiment, all five monkeys adhered to the rule of not climbing the ladder, unaware of its origin. If asked why they maintained this behaviour, they might have simply said, “I don’t know; that’s just how it’s always been.”
This story relates to the efforts of Kenyans and Africans at large to attain emancipation from mental slavery, as Jamaican lyricist Bob Marley put it. Yet every time, history unflinchingly reminds us that those who rise against systemic oppression and injustice get silenced or intimidated. However, fearlessness is necessary; telling the truth is necessary. How do we speak of resistance, grief, and hope when history itself feels elusive? To all this I say, Aluta Continua!
Tracy Ochieng is a staff writer with Books in Africa. Email: tracy.ochieng@ekitabu.com
‘These songs of freedom are all I ever have: redemption songs’
I have a confession to make. Considering how electric the Macondo Literary Festival was, it was surprising that I had to scratch my head so hard to put my thoughts together for this article. I was right at the heart of pan-Africanism; a sort of therapy session for our colonised and traumatised minds. Maybe it is because of the grief of knowing we might never fully know our history or the fact that we remain colonised by systems that ensure we never get to know our history, systems that will forever hold us hostage. When you don’t know where you have come from, it is hard to know where you are going.
The theme for the fourth edition of the festival was, “The Sea is History.” That vast abyss of salty water, as Jeferson Tenorio, one of the remarkable authors at the festival, described it, radically changed our lives. I struggle to piece together the feelings of the first of Kenyans’ ancestors who saw boats approaching the shores of Ziwa Kuu or Nam Chumbi alias the Indian Ocean. What must have gone through their minds at that moment?
Influence of colonisation
Our Kenyan curriculum is highly influenced by the tides of the West, so much that our history was lost in their perspectives. If you went through the Kenyan system or any East African school system for that matter, you would certainly have heard of the Mau Mau rebellion and the Maji Maji uprising in Kenya and Tanzania, respectively. Rebellion? Uprising? Against whom? These narratives are a classic example of the adage, “Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”
Our young minds sat happily in class absorbing these half-truths as our reality and history that our mannerisms, language, and culture matched those of our colonisers. It is no surprise that there is a pervasive mentality that what is European or American is better. I once held strong beliefs about raising children who spoke Dholuo. But it is a pity that I cannot converse adequately in my mother tongue and when I desired to show up as an Indigenous Luo woman at a cultural festival, I had no authentic reference point. “Just put on an owalo (sisal skirt),” my mother advised.
It is true that the quickest way to colonise a people is to take away their identity. Capitalise on convincing them that their practices are odd; that their skin is odd; that they are uncivilised, and see how quickly you would conquer them. “There are similarities in the lives of dark-skinned people across the world,” said Tenorio during one of the sessions. His book, The Dark Side of Skin, which explores the violence and racism that Afro-Brazilians face in the country, caused such controversy in Brazil that it was banned in three states and removed from school libraries. “The conservative government of that time claimed that there were inappropriate sex scenes but what I find to be truly pornographic is the racism and violence in Brazil,” he asserted.
In Kenya, the government of the day swung to political fame using God’s name. Grandiose claims of “A government chosen by God” rang through our ears and were blasted on social media posts for our eyes to see whenever there was tension among the Kenyan populace. How can you argue with God when he chose the government? Yet again, religion inherited from colonial masters was used to distract the masses from talking about the real issues, subjecting them to a downward spiral of silence.
Push Gen Z! Harder!
I introspect about the tagline that seemed to sweep the Macondo Festival by Tenorio: tenderness as a form of resistance. When protests broke out in Kenya in June following a proposal for increased taxes and other insensitive measures, the youth insisted that they were only armed with words and placards—for which many were jailed, some abducted and others killed. Mshai Mwangola, one of the hosts of the sessions at the festival, read a poem so powerful that it showed just how much power words have. One of the lines was, “Why is speaking out met with much aggression?” What is in words that threatens governments and strongholds of corrupt systems?
“We are peaceful!” “I am only armed with my voice!” These were the chants of many young people who flooded the streets of Nairobi and other cities, sick and tired of the economic and physical violence meted against them. Yet, the police showered them with bullets, silencing forever unarmed children of the soil. Maybe Oginga Odinga was right, we truly are Not Yet Uhuru. There is a collective consciousness of the need to continue the struggle that our ancestors started. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.
Writing as a form of protest
“Be careful that the weapons you create in your writing don’t come back to hurt you,” Tenorio warned. After the youth uprising in Kenya, there was a wave of activism on platforms like X and Tiktok. Suddenly, the youth woke up from their slumber and nonchalance in participating in politics; suddenly, everyone became an activist! Short-form blogs on X by various political analysts, and people across the country, stirred emotions that lit the fires of the first phase of revolution. The country was talking. Children were talking and sadly some were consumed by the pangs of this revolution.
Despite this awakening, a lot of misinformation seeped through, creating what I would call a mass psychosis. If you don’t know what lethargy is, scroll mindlessly on social media platforms on volatile topics like politics, and you will get to understand.
“You can still fight wars and remain sensible, “ Tenorio advised. These words still echo in my mind, considering how the country quenched its thirst at the fountains of violence as it teetered on the edge of anarchy. I am convinced now more than ever that it is not guns or atomic bombs that threaten systems but words, art, and voices. This time, we are killing them with tenderness.
Monkeys and bananas
Have you ever heard of the five monkeys experiment? Five monkeys were placed in a cage with a ladder leading to bananas on the top rung. Whenever a monkey attempted to climb the ladder, the experimenter sprayed all the monkeys with cold water. Over time, the other monkeys learned to pull down any climber to avoid the spray, and eventually, none dared to go up the ladder.
Eventually, one monkey was replaced with a newcomer. The new monkey instinctively tried to climb for the bananas but was quickly beaten back by the others. It never experienced the cold spray itself, yet learned that climbing the ladder was unacceptable. One by one, the original monkeys were replaced until none remained. Each time a new monkey attempted to climb, the others, even those who hadn’t been sprayed, would pull it down. By the end of the experiment, all five monkeys adhered to the rule of not climbing the ladder, unaware of its origin. If asked why they maintained this behaviour, they might have simply said, “I don’t know; that’s just how it’s always been.”
This story relates to the efforts of Kenyans and Africans at large to attain emancipation from mental slavery, as Jamaican lyricist Bob Marley put it. Yet every time, history unflinchingly reminds us that those who rise against systemic oppression and injustice get silenced or intimidated. However, fearlessness is necessary; telling the truth is necessary. How do we speak of resistance, grief, and hope when history itself feels elusive? To all this I say, Aluta Continua!
Tracy Ochieng is a staff writer with Books in Africa. Email: tracy.ochieng@ekitabu.com
Share :
Delete