For those who walked the walk
Even to the graves of those who fell
Those who held out…

The sorrow is long
But the sparrow must return
To the nest
He served well
And brightened our lives and our thoughts
I am sad still
And pray that we all find a dry eye
With which to remember our giants
As they fall
Go well Giant Friend
You touched our lives!

Where do you hope to join my life
Flowing
Not like a river
But as torrents and currents of the tide
Buffeted by multitudinous waters of change
Going back or forth?
Lapping up the high and low banks
Dazzling the plains with illuminous floodings
Awash against the orange red sky of our history?
Where?
Do you and I
Merge as minor or major (con)tributeries
To the great sea -
Vast ocean of change?
Or where do we become engulfed by (o)the)r tides of the past
Of victory and of shame
And of what futures unforetold, then and now?
What do we become?
Droplets of vapour
Carried under the translucent sky
To descend on unsuspecting blossom of spring-tide freedom
As a dew drop - inseparably defiant;
Or swallowed by the parched earth of our desert(er)s
Or a hail stone in the tropical storm?
Here we stand poised to (e)merge
Like Gikuyu and Mumbi
In a world of numerous possibilities
Drawing from history
And awed by the great expanses of the earth, the sea and the sky
That our our future
And which hold promises of infinite, infinite...
Possibilities
London 1997

Cast aside your fears
For once,
Nervously
As on the day you wed,
Have faith in the universe
that beauty can be borne
of hope,
your hope
and positive energy
which we must radiate
not on the hurts of the past
or fear of ourselves
but because
history breathes
this whispered hope
because if we cannot hope now
then when?

Wangui Wa Goro makes the case that hope for democracy in Kenya and Africa is with the civil society and citizens and calls for a national convention to map the way forward.

The Kenyan elections on Thursday December 27th 2007, after polling stations were closed, were supposed to fulfill an African dream, to have a free and fair closely contested democratic election. The outcome has shown the fragility of the postcolonial and post-dictator state of Kenya and much of Africa. After the carnage which has left over 500 people dead, over a quater of a million people displaced and many others fleeing from the region in fear of reprisals and for their lives, the dream had become a horrible nightmare, manifesting itself through murder, spontaneous rioting, organized thuggery, politically motivated and ethicized targeted attacks.

That was the week that was gripping the democratic world with shock and utter dismay and waking the world to the reality that the haven of peace, the African show case of democracy and the darling of the West was crumbling and revealing an unpleasant underbelly which has been camouflaged for far too long. It revealed the real Kenyan who is the casualty of party political posturing, a weak state, a world which has preferred not to see the decay of many years and the rot which has set in since colonial times to the present. The vulnerable, dispossessed, the economically and socially marginalised; and things may get worse before they get better. Kenya is a test case of what is happening all over Africa and the post-colonial world: The crumbling of a colonial and postcolonial order. It is not just an electoral moment, but the foundation of democracy, not just in Kenya but beyond. The question, after the storm, however is how Kenya and indeed Africa is going to move forward beyond the impasse created by a state and electoral system which has essentially collapsed and dictators who want to hang on to power to their very last at the expense of lives and the people.

We must look to the Kenyan people for an answer, as it is they who have to face the next morning, their children, their families, and not policies hatched out far away by well meaning, interested and benevolent friends, kith and kin, from which ever guise they may come. Here-in lies the answer to the question of the secret or not so secret passage out of the mess, and a huge mess it is.
Although from where we stand it does not look like it, the time for Kenyans and Africans has come. The overreliance on state, on the goodwill of parties or individual politicians, on paternalistic/maternalistic international benevolence has shown up the weaknesses in a nation which does not listen to its own people and which does not function within universally accepted democratic principles (please let me not hear the word relativism again!)

An emerging strong civil society is finally flexing its muscle on behalf of the Kenyan people and reminding the contending and other interested parties that the crisis goes beyond the electoral and constitutional issues to the very core of the identity of Kenya and Kenyans. In addition to adding a very clear political voice into the debate, the civil society and pro-people organisations have also rolled up their sleeves and stepped into action to alleviate the humanitarian suffering of their fellow citizens and have been acting as their own advocate both at home and abroad, thus performing the role of the state and its conscience in many instances.

In many ways, Kenyans have been pushing towards a Kenyan voice to be heard long before and after independence, only to be drowned and ignored by those holding state power and others whose interests seem to supersede those of the majority of Kenyans. This is through failed promises such as those of institutionalizing the constitution and holding of free and fair elections since Kenya became an independent state and worse, when it became a one party state. The history of Kenya is littered with the undermining of the constitution, banning opposition, repressing individuals, fraudulent elections and bypassing of the instruments of democracy by party, class and individual interests which have so far been the order of the day. No longer. As well as a very vocal opposition and in true Kenyan tradition, the Kenyans are not having it. Through the opposition party, civil society and Kenyans of conscience across all class, ethnic and social spectrum all over the world, a powerful message is emerging and the world needs to listen. The civil society and pro-people organisations in particular, speaking on behalf of the Kenyan people have issued a powerful statement which rejects the highjacking of people's democracy by refusing to recognize what they consider a "palace coup" which is what lies at the heart of the current disquiet despite its varied manifestations. However, they are not seeking piecemeal solutions and have quickly grasped the fact that solving the current crisis will require more than a temporary fix; a whole reconstruction. They recognize that Kenya needs to move on beyond the current crisis towards a longer term solution which calls for reconstructing a new democratic foundation. They feel that this is a national crisis and not just a party political issue which in any case, the country cannot leave to the interested parties to resolve on their own.

It is a courageous call on behalf of the Kenyan people that the civil society has called for a rejection of the regime as it is currently constituted and called for a process where electoral and human rights justice are pursued through all the means available. They have gone further and asked the international community not to recognize the regime. They are have also called for an interim government of national unity to oversee a transitional justice process which would go beyond the electoral crisis and one which would begin to look at the underlying issues which led to the current crisis including weaknesses in the system such as the constitutional and electoral arrangements. They are also calling for a national people's convention which would be part of building the road map out of the crisis and also leading to fresh elections. Such a legally constituted and recognized body as an interim government of national unity would be empowered to oversee such a transitional arrangement. Justice seems to lie at the heart of such a demand.

The international community has also moved swiftly by rallying to the Kenyan people's call and particularly the intervention of imminent people such as Desmond Tutu and President John Kuffour of Ghana, also the current head of the African Union. This demonstrates that there is hope in democracy through solidarity. The hope for a Pan-Africa solution seems highly prized and many in the world are watching with bated breath and hope that Kenya, for Pan African's sake can heed the wider call of the continent and its peoples. The world intellectuals, activist, ordinary people from all walks of life and media too, (despite initial negative reporting by the Western media in particular) has played a crucial role in engaging the Kenyan process with keen interest and itself is a promise of global democracy and solidarity out of which much of the democratizing process can be learned for all humanity.

The world wills it, only those without eyes will not see, those without ears will not hear and history will judge them individually and collectively, very harshly, in the public global glare of the media in the here and now and in the future.

* Dr. Wangui wa Goro: Kenyan human rights activist, writer, translator, academic and public intellectual. Currently Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice; London Metropolitan University.

*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Wangui Wa Goro analyses the role of the Kenyan voter in averting a betrayal of a genuinely democratic platform and those who suffered and died to make the platform possible.

When we struggled in exile against the Moi-Kanu regime, our mantra which reflected the name of our organisation was UMOJA – UNITED MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRACY IN KENYA which spelt out an agenda for change, long before multiparty democracy in Kenya was possible. Much has changed since then, particularly the removal of the dreaded Clause 2A of the Constitution which barred Kenyans from forming opposition political parties. Elections have since been held on two consecutive occasions but whether this represents the much vaunted “multipartism” is yet to be tested.

The fact that there are briefcase parties and several of them does not necessarily mean that the country has turned to a multiparty democracy although we can rejoice at even the ability to register these. In our vision then and in my vision now, we were determined as were many Kenyans to see an end to dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in Kenya which would end violence against fundamental freedoms such as the right to life, the right to associate, the right to conscience, the freedom from want and the freedom of expression amongst others. We hoped that the rule of law and the respect of the rights of all Kenyans would be the baseline from which a new dispensation could be built.

Key to our campaigns was the restitution of democratic rule and governance and the rule of law which protected the lives of every Kenyan no matter what their class, gender, creed or ethnicity, whether they were inside the country or out. It has been my enduring hope that Kenya can quickly get back to track because many Kenyans know what is right, they are decent and hard working people and we are blessed with a nation which is truly gifted in its natural and human resources and well located to harness these gifts for all of us and offer hope to others. I was lucky enough to grow up in a free, post independence Kenya to know from an early age that this was possible.

At the end of the second post Clause 2A election period, five years ago, however, I wrote an article entitled KENYA AT 40 which asked whether we were going to see new wine in old bottles or old wine in new bottles. Despite my misgivings, given the volatile nature of elections and the pre-election Kenyan history which had kept Kenyans repressed through the Moi-Kanu regime, I allowed myself that momentary jubilation with millions of other Kenyans that a milestone had been reached and Kenya had taken a bold and symbolic step of removing the one party-one person dictatorship which meant that the country was finally on the road to democratisation. Despite this, I remained sceptical at both the processes leading to multiparty elections which nearly returned Moi to his “two terms!” and the hurried way in which NARC was formed without much democratic process in the country and in the party. Worrying too, was the fact that the key players of the various “coalition parties” had at one time or another served in the Moi-Kanu dictatorship.

What excited me however, in the last election in 2002, was the will to change and the way in which the Kenyans embraced the ballot box to see off the dictatorship, thus heralding a new approach to the democratic processes. The key promises that were made for this to happen were firstly, the delivery of the new constitution which had been initiated during the Moi-Kanu era and for which the consultative processes had involved all Kenyans and secondly, the end to nyayoism which was synonymous with dictatorship. The referendum also gave us another peak at this will and eagerness to use the ballot box to make decisions.

Yet deep inside, despite these and other cosmetic changes, however, unlike many of my fellow Kenyans, I remain sceptical because I believe that old habits die hard and many of the new players in the new regime and others in the opposition, with the exception of a few had really not been involved in the pro-democracy struggles which led to the toppling of the single party single person dictatorship. They were unlikely to change not for want of trying but they would not know how and in some instances, preferred not to know how in their arrogance and belief in their God given right. I believed that many still do not know or care about what the desires of the Kenyans really are, nor the full extent of the price that has been paid through detentions, killings, exiling, jailing and other state led repressions nor the struggles for democracy which finally led to the momentum which saw Moi and his cronies off. I was soon proven right as old faces began reappearing around the president including, now in the final stretch, Moi himself: Old wine in an old bottle, a scenario I had not contemplated.

We had campaigned for multiparty elections as a tool to democratisation, not just for the changing of guards at the top of brief case, overnight formed parties. A vision was for a Kenya where equality, justice and freedom from fundamental needs could be shared both through the rule of law, particularly for those in the greatest need, but also engaging people in democratic decision making processes at all levels of society including their parties, and not just at election time. What lessons can be learned from the last elections?

I hoped, perhaps cynically, that explicit mechanisms, institutions and personnel would be put in place early enough after the departure of the nyayo regime which had violated the social, economic, political and human rights of the large majority of Kenyans and which all the players, now united through NARC would endeavour to reverse. At the state level, the government was buoyed by the post election feel-good factor and the overwhelming euphoria and expectation that nyayoism and all its tendencies had been shown the door. The Rainbow Coalition also bore promises in that it had activist/reformers who were elected into parliament and even to ministerial and cabinet positions. New bold blood was also engaged in some critical positions. There seemed to be real hope for the foundations for democracy. The hope was that NARC and the other parties would begin to strengthen their parties in preparation for the next elections.

In the early months of the Narc government there was promise that democratic accountability and mechanisms for democracy would come into being and would begin to deliver restorative justice, processes and outcomes which would begin to address some of the gross human, social, economic and political violations and begin to reverse the fortunes of every Kenyan. Key to this was the Constitution which would not only safeguard Kenya from dictatorship by diminishing the power of the presidency and empowering institutions and other mechanisms, but also modernise Kenya for the 21st Century.

Sadly, this was not to be and remains a major stumbling block for democratisation as a mechanism. Other mechanisms would include independent institutions of the Judiciary, Parliament and Executive and the setting up of specific offices and institutions to redress the ills of the KANU years as well as reforming the Public Services. Institutions such as the Anti-corruption Commission were formed, the office for Governance and Ethics in the office of the President and the Kenya National Commission for Rights amongst others. There were promises and attempts to reform the Judiciary, corruption at all levels would be rooted out, people would be held to account for violations of human rights, those who had embezzled public funds or employed their relatives and cronies would be dealt with etc.

In other examples, what has happened to the Permanent Secretary for Ethics and Governance in the person of John Githongo who was forced to flee the country and his job is well known world-wide. His post has not been refilled, nor his work followed up. In other instances, institutions such as the Anti-corruption Commission and the National Human Rights Commission which began with great promise do not have enough authority to carry out their duties. In their weakness, they appear to have been calculated token gestures as corruption, violence and poverty have continued unabated. In another example, the late appointments and processes for the Election Commission of Kenya do not inspire confidence. Equally, the last minute formation of political parties, the wrangling and the violence has also not helped and may predetermine the outcome for democracy even before Kenyans have a chance to get to the ballot box. The unravelling of the official opposition and the joining of the Kibaki party by the leader of the opposition Uhuru Kenya has undermined that democratic space and left the other opposition parties (which are not recognised within this parliament) without a voice.

But after a while, the whole systems began to unravel both at the state and party level, firstly with the breaking up of the Rainbow Party that was not founded on democratic, transparent unifying principals beyond the desire to rid Kenya of the Moi-Kanu regime. The breakdown of the rainbow party (which was based on a coalition of parties) was so bad that at one point, the Kenyan state was governed by an individual, the President whose party nobody knew and there were no mechanisms or checks and balances either at party or state level. President Kibaki did not belong to NARC as it had disbanded and he did not belong to any of the constituent or new parties. This had never happened even in the worst of the Nyayo-era period as Moi conducted the dictatorship under the aegis of KANU.

At the social level, racism, religious intolerance and sexism are at a rampant high including the rape and violence against women and children, attacks on specific ethnic communities and day to day vigilante activities which include violent killings and violation of the law including the killing of police officers. Further, attacks on the media, (and other gestures such as slapping of public civil servants and journalists without censure by those associated to high public office) continue to erode the right to fundamental freedoms and send out the message that there are those who are above the law.

The fact is that through such gestures which happen on a daily basis, many communities and individuals feel under siege through continued political, social, religious and ethnic pressure including vigilante activities like extrajudicial killings and corruption some of which are perpetuated by people perceived to be in position of power and authority, a far cry from what Kenyans had hoped for after what looked like the crushing of nyayoism. The law is not applied equally, thus the poorest and most vulnerable are hit the hardest and the system does not protect them from exploitation by those who purport to be in power, including small localised power linked to big power.

The civil society has also been weakened by the promises of reform from their former colleagues now in government or in parliament, but Kenyans should know by now that reform is the avoidance of change and that is why it has always been preferred by the ruling classes and their intelligentsia who have gone unusually silent or have failed to pick out the nuances that will undermine true multiparty democracy in Kenya. How much longer are Kenyans going to be expected to wait?

The impunity that the poor face in relation to access to justice, fundamental services and the inability to have a say in their day to day lives has been so normalised that paying bribes before accessing any service is a way of life still and expecting that one might be attacked or killed for not conforming makes the lives of many Kenyans miserable. Many communities also feel alienated through exclusion. The rich can pay for protection but the poor remain exposed in desperate conditions and in many instances below what can be called minimal human conditions. Failure to account and be held accountable has to be a measure by which Kenyans can articulate their desires. The delivery of these in the past and in the future are a serious indictment and barometer of democracy, equality, freedom, justice and the rule of law. As Kenyans go to the ballot, they must ask themselves whether the different parties/individuals will address these fundamental needs.

It is in fact these tenets for the road to democracy they must use to measure their promised leaders and to underpin their election decisions. At least that is what I would do if I had that promised right to vote which at present I do not have although I am a Kenyan citizen. At minimum, democracy should guard the most fundamental of needs which alleviate fear and want. This requires a vision for democratic change and rule and engagement at all levels. The institutions, mechanisms and processes which treat all Kenyans as equal before the law must be strengthened and the rights of every Kenyan protected no matter what their race, gender, class, ability or creed. Our right to multipartism must be underpinned by real parties not paper parties. Elections are only the first step and that was secured even before 2002.

The score sheet will read disappointingly if Kenyans fail yet again for a third time to seize this golden opportunity by selling their hard won rights to the class interests of the rich and therefore, they can be told again to their own faces that they are willing accomplices in their own violation.

While one can only rejoice at elections as the first step forward towards democracy and the fervour in which the Kenyans have seized this, they are only means to an end and this is what the Kenyans should bear in mind as they exercise their right on December 27, 2007. They are the best guarantee of democracy and not the leaders, whatever their party. Most Kenyans are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in the current elections as true multipartism has not really arrived in Kenya, but token paper parties with little track record and nearly all of them tarnished by their associations with Nyayosim one way or the other. Kenya needs a clean break through a new republic and a national debate for this needs to happen urgently. Choosing leaders who will genuinely facilitate this may be the way forward.

Kenyans therefore have to fix the wider vision of a better place for themselves now and for their children tomorrow. There is much to be won beside short term, last minute token gestures, empty promises, and those who can vote must keep their eye on the ball for true development, justice, democracy, peace, unity and equality. Kenya has the promise and the potential and if those with the right to vote fail to seize it now judiciously, this may well be the last chance.

*Dr. Wangui wa Goro is a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic who has been living in the UK and campaigning for democratic rights for Kenya for the last 25 years. She is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

Wangui wa Goro writes that to talk of the African Renaissance when Africans go without food and die unnecessarily of curable diseases, when children have no access to clean water and basic education, compels us to ask ourselves who is this renaissance intended for. “That unless we can meet the fundamental needs of the majority of African people, words like Renaissance (rebirth) in the face of death for many sound like a mockery.”

It is easy to forget that culture is ever evolving and we are what we are today. Some may want to hark back to a specific historical model of culture in the eighteenth or nineteenth century or some other period which appeals to their desires. Some may have profound knowledge of their desired historical culture, while others may just be armed with nostalgia which they acquired through a variety of ways. Neither is invalid, nor undesirable.

Recently, in an imaginary African country, some people in their mid forties and fifties have taken to occasionally donning an animal skin to show their ‘elder’ status. Some are probably four wheel driving drunkards, rapists, thieves or murderers living in secluded areas of the city in gated properties with little or no connection with their rural communities.

Others are steeped in religious or cultural sentimentality acquired dubiously for social mobility, acceptability or political or economic expediency. This is then promoted as “our way of life”, as if culture cannot be contested, as if the values of tradition and modernity cannot be put to the test to scrutinise who they serve; for what purpose and to which ends.

Most worryingly, is the fixing of tradition as something staid that will never change and which condemns the majority into servitude or slavery. For me, culture should answer the question whether it can promote and deliver democracy, equality and social justice for the majority. A pro-people culture would bode well for peace, justice and democracy in Africa; a culture that would enable a re-engagement with the self that has been lacking - a re-engagement with our neighbours and the world in ways that are powerful and which would yield tremendous wealth, enjoyment, creativity, learning and exchange.

Amnesia and denial

Instead, on the whole, we have been living with our heads in the sand like the ostrich. But the ostrich compensates for this behaviour in that it can run, and run very fast when it needs to. What has struck me as absurd is a wilful forgetfulness of what has happened to Africa in the recent and not so recent past such as the colonial era and its aftermath. We have forgotten our heroes and role models.

In Kenya for instance, years after independence, the question of freedom fighters sits uneasily with the nation as does its colonial and post colonial history. Practices which women and men have fought against such as female genital mutilation, and entrenched views about women’s roles in society, are yet again up for contestation. Coming from a former settler colony and having visited several countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, I am struck by how patriarchal and colonial our cultures still remain, from our means of production, our means of consumption and our participation in the production.

All of these are directed as they are at somebody else rather than ourselves.In another example in Kenya people have been forced to wear used underwear from second hand stocks in Europe! What happened to the thriving textile industry? It has been decimated by cheap second hand used imports and Kenyans are wrongly forced to wear used underwear.

What happens in the name of culture?

In most African countries and in the Diaspora, owing to the lack of attention paid to this significant field of African culture much is done quietly on the cultural scene through the efforts and sacrifice that individuals and small groups make. This is true of most art forms which are produced in private and painstaking ways, with little public support. Occasionally, interested private or foreign investors such as the British Council, the French Cultural Centre or the Goethe Institute (who see their linkages with Africa and promotion of African culture as integral to promoting their own cultures) enable us to catch a glimpse of what is possible! The gesture is not reciprocated! Imagine, African cultural institutes sponsored by African governments in every key capital of the world!

Here, in London, where you would expect to find thriving cultural institutions displaying the long links between Africa and the UK, you will be hard pressed if you can point to one. The only institution which is supposed to broadly represent Africans which has existed for a while, is one you will want to run a mile from. It is currently shamefully closed and dilapidated after several years of struggling to survive. Although it has played an important role in democratic struggles for Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora, its governance remains shrouded in mystery and secrecy and many people have gradually been put off from going there as they do not wish their culture to be promoted in this impoverished way. It sits there, right in the heart of the thriving Covent Garden, 200 yards from the UK’s prestigious multimillion Opera House. This sorry state of affairs is a travesty, to both British and African Heritage. It is a general measure of how we see ourselves at home and abroad and how we want to promote ourselves. It is also a measure of how we are seen by others, alienated. Changing this perception may be the way to that much-vaunted renaissance.

Elsewhere for instance in fashion, Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria continue to impress with a sense of dress all their own, and what is even more refreshing is that it is not for tourist appeal. Yet what is worrying for even these thriving economies, heritages and creativity, is their reliance on Brick Lane or Switzerland for lace and for designs (sold as African) but produced in India or somewhere further away, thus creating jobs for others elsewhere.

This is all well and good for south-south or any other collaboration. However, the question of how the relationships are defined, the moral, social, cultural and economic cost for Africa and the loss of the possibilities to replenish creativity is one we must be concerned about. As they say, practice makes perfect and we have been forever perfecting everybody else’s things which are then directed at us for consumption whether we like it or not. There is a subtle and not so subtle disparaging of anything home grown that does not pander to somebody else’s appeal or taste.

What is Kenyan? Is it the donning of animal skins and harking back to some golden era in the 19th Century before the Europeans came? And whom is this supposed to appeal to?

What is popularised and cheap is the man-eat-man culture of the bourgeoisie, both Western and African which is often crude and vulgar as it is dependent on making a mockery of the dignity of majority of the people and allowing them to forget that what is theirs is being siphoned off slowly and sold back to them repackaged (cheaply) at ten times the price. The mass media, often Hollywood oriented, continues to dominate the nations’ outlooks on themselves and it is rarely kind about who Africans are, or what our aspirations are.

African Cultural Production and alienation

But what is the real lived experience of cultural production in Africa? I work as a translator and challenge anyone reading this article, to name me ten African literary translators and the titles of their books. You will be hard pressed. This phenomenon is replicated across all cultural production, with perhaps the exception of music by the greats - Baaba Maal, Angelique Kidjo, Hugh Masekela, Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba and others. Ask any African which 10 books by an African writer they have read outside academia, or who our ten leading painters, sculptors or film makers are and you will be faced with blank faces. I learnt this the hard way, through being a member of the jury of Africa’s 100 best books. The majority of the books that came through the list were foreign-published and in European languages. They were written mainly for academic purposes and for adult consumption.

Port Louis and the ideals of the Cultural Charter for Africa
Such moments make you realise that, as Africans, just how alienated from ourselves we are. This alienation makes one wonder what happened to the OAU’s Charter on Culture and the mandates, aspirations and ideals that brought independence to Africa.

The OAU had made a brave attempt in 1976 in St Louis in Mauritius to define a vision for an African Cultural Policy. The ideals then articulated still remain relevant today and it is pleasing that this debate is set to continue in Addis Ababa, and better still that we might live to implement it. For culture must belong to people and their governments, as government departments will not themselves produce culture, but facilitate it.

My hope is for the debate on national and regional policies to be a continuous one and the lessons that have been learned from festivals, exhibitions, competitions, creativity and interactions across the continent and the globe to be shared more widely. Wonderful initiatives and models exist but only linking them and the wider populace will make a difference. Engaging in the debate of what democratic culture is and what it can become and its links to schooling, arts, sport, entertainment, heritage, leisure and general socio-economic and political production in every arena, is crucial. It should engage the practitioners and policy makers but most of all, it should engage the consumers.

Arts, culture and heritage are seen as a luxury, as a world apart from the real. They are not seen as the pulse which can feed blood into the arteries of justice, peace, democracy and development. Talent and achievement can be nourished and nurtured through state support for arts, heritage and culture in meaningful ways. Young and old people should be allowed to discover their heritage, and here, I recall the work of a wonderful scholar George Senega Zake who spent most of his lifetime trying to retrieve the dying musical art forms of East Africa as well as educate new generations to appreciate their heritage through music. Like him, we should become not only curators and archaeologists, but take up our responsibility to make the past a thriving part of the present and the future.

It seems that the task of excavating must go hand in hand with the task of creating new and vibrant cultural industries which are pro people: sustainable and economically viable. Projects which engage the majority and contribute to national development and democracy, hold up a mirror to society, allowing us to see a true picture of ourselves. Instead, we have exiled, jailed, tortured and killed our artists by smashing the mirror into thousands of fragments because we do not like what we see. The freedom to culture is an important arm of the freedom of expression. It is a fundamental human right.

Elsewhere, culture is what makes the humanity pulsate. One of the things about Britain is the amount of thriving traditional and global cultures represented there. They do not threaten what the nation thinks of its own heritage. I am thinking here of the museums on slavery and colonialism in Liverpool and Bristol which tell unflinchingly (although sparsely) about those chapters of British history! Such institutions have come out of people’s struggles for these spaces, and so their story is told, and in that way, the story of Britain is holistically present. In similar ways, Africans must continue to strive for their ways of life, past and present, to not to be deleted off the page.

Vision

I do not ask for much as we look forward to the outcomes of the AU conference on culture in Addis Ababa. I hope that the conference yields deliverable outcomes that will engage the minds of the young and the old through modern and traditional means, through technology, through information, communication and through travel. We have a right to ask for as much as we wish, but equally, we must be willing to play our part in bringing it into fruition.

A first step in acknowledging our heritage is through its most important medium, our languages, whether, visual, oral, physical or musical. The AU has taken the bold step of adopting Kiswahili as the all African lingua franca.

But language, whether the mother tongue or nation tongue or neighbour tongue, must be a democratic tongue that allows people to express their aspirations and imaginings without demeaning others. What is important, is that these languages enable us to confidently excavate the past as well as yield new possibilities for today and tomorrow. For what then are we wearing borrowed clothing?

Culture is about dignity and self worth. It is about knowledge and confidence in knowing the good, the bad and the ugly. In Africa, as elsewhere, culture emerges through our understanding of this soil, its fauna and flora, through its numerous waters and skies, through unfurling the secrets that it harbours through our ancestors, and through us and our dreams for the future.

Culture is universally compelling in its call to a moral duty which can engage every human being. It is a fundamental human right and a very fulfilling one. Hear the songs, watch those films, go to those bookshops and readings. Go to those museums, produce those crafts, participate in the production of art, consume it or produce it. Marvel at how rich our heritages are. Marvel at the artefacts that were looted and are stashed in vaults across the world. Feel the desire to demand their retrieval, or share in the secrets which only a dying few can decipher. Engage them with trips to this heritage sites of looting, physically or through technology. Touch these totems. Let the totems or replicas be restored and returned. There is so much that we can do and that must be done.

Our attitudes towards education are as important as the paramount questions of justice and equality. In our own case, the question of restorative justice is one which we must pay close attention to so that the ghosts of those genocides, holocausts, dictatorships and theft do not visit us again. What upholds our dignity and our humanity today has to be central. It cannot be a case of “this is how our ancestors did it so we must do it in the same way” if this means violating women’s rights, children’s rights, the rights of one ethnicity or the privileging of one section of society over another. It should uplift us all into valuing each other for what we are and for what we can become.

African Renaissance

Measuring the African Renaissance is a perilous task. When people go without food and die unnecessarily of curable diseases; when children have no access to clean water and basic education, then we have cause to ask ourselves who and what this renaissance is intended for. Unless we can meet the fundamental needs of the majority of African people, words like Renaissance (rebirth) in the face of death for many, sound like a mockery.

Yet without being cynical, there are many promising initiatives such as the journal Kwani, the Paa ya Paa gallery in Kenya, Xarra, the only black bookshop in South Africa, the various Africa wide, book, cultural, music, film and theatre festivals and many other events that are good examples of initiatives trying to place a different kind of culture on the map.

For me, these institutions/events represent different ways to culture, and even then, I ask Kwani and Xarra: where are those African language narratives? What medium is best to disseminate these? Nollywood may hold an answer but even so, where are those technicians and publishers, like the Henry Chakavas, the Aseneth Odagas, the Aminatta Sow Falls, the Ayebia Clarkes and Kassahun Checoles who are brave to risk a different kind of economy by publishing Africa? Where are those film makers who are willing to bring the oral traditions on to our screens without apology while making films that feed contemporary culture and document our heritage? Where are those musicians and painters and sculptors? Where are the beautiful ones? The reception and funding of their work, and how governments, citizens and policy makers engage with them, will tell you even more about who we are.

The continuity of African Centred initiatives promise a re-awakening breed, a different breed trying to nurture out of the postcolonial vacuum, the kind of vision that Port Louis began as initiatives such as FESPACO and FESTAC. This vacuum was interrupted by the abyss of repressive regimes and apartheid on the continent. And although it is always easy to blame somebody else, those years were a product of global culture which was vehemently anti-African. Our governments aided and abetted the denigration of African humanity. The perilous work and courage of cultural activists was key to restoring some sense of normality to Africa today. So our task is to support these initiatives as a part of democratic norms.

Pan-African global heritage

The contribution and role that the traditional and new diasporic communities have played in contributing to continuity in the face of that vacuum cannot be underestimated in the economic and cultural value they have continued to offer. That is why we must embrace our multicultural global heritage instead of being myopic and ethnocentred. We must enjoy wider global Pan African heritage. In this way, everyone stands to gain, through sharing of skills, through trade, through promoting excellence, through dialogue, through linking the various trajectories of culture in their new locations whether on the continent or beyond.

But further, we must see our African culture as part of a thriving global heritage. Living internationally as I do, I have been privileged to dip into the numerous cultures of Africa, Asia, North or South America, Europe, Australia, the Atlantic, the Pacific and from the African Ocean and their collaborations. I readily eat my fufu, aloco, ‘chapoo’, couscous, tchiabu jdian, mukimo, attieke and rice and peas as if I have done so all my life.

Appreciating other cultures makes you appreciate what belongs to you and also allows you to enjoy the wealth and beauty of the human heritage of which we are a part. Global democratic culture should be encouraged as a wealth, as it gives new perspectives on others and on the self, but it should be done on terms which edify, not denigrate.

Our legislators must create a platform for our heritage for which they can be remembered. Our governments must contribute to it, embrace it and run with it. Most importantly, the everyday practitioners and artists have a moral obligation to safeguard, nurture and defend our cultural heritage for peace, justice and development as they have always done. For without them, there can be no culture to speak of.

• UK based Kenyan, Wangui wa Goro is a public intellectual, academic, writer, translator, and cultural promoter. She is currently the director of Amber Cultural Productions as well as the president of the African literary translators and subtitlers association (ALTRAS) and (TRACLA) Translations Caucus of the African Literature Association (ALA) [email][email protected]
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

It is hard to write about Wanjiru in the yesterday. Her indefatigable, vibrant energy, her love of freedom, justice and equality defy that.

I met Wanjiru in those grim Nyayo years and did not realise what a huge impact she was going to have not only on my life and the lives of many others. For instance, she was present when I had my first labour pang, and she read the eulogy for me at my sister’s funeral when I was unable to go home. These moments are not personal to me in the way they seem here but epitomise Wanjiru, private yet public in a seamless way, always present for others, compassionate and caring.

Much of her contributions in the public have been spoken about in the years she has been recovering from the fatal plane crash, which ultimately took not only her life but that of the Labour Minister Ahmad Mohammed Khalif with two pilots in the crash in the town of Busia in 2002. We all believed that she was going to pull through and even then, she managed to comfort us with her courage summing up how she lived her life, with stoicism and optimism.

As has rightly been said repeatedly in this period when Wanjiru was ill, she was a leader, activist for democracy, freedom, human rights, equality and justice and always stood on the side of the oppressed, particularly women and the poor. She worked tirelessly and with courage, using her razor-sharp intellect to focus thousands, of the task at hand in creative ways which brought her knowledge and everyday life together in very practical ways. For she was an intellectual and academic and she brought this to her activism. Equally, she brought her activism into her academic and intellectual life. One day she would be working with global power brokers in suits, and the next she was in the grass roots, engaging power in its different manifestations and locations with equal ease. This subtle ability to succinctly carry what was applicable in one context to another successfully and appropriately was Wanjiru’s greatest strength and she had many. Her sense of humour allowed her to do this.

We spent many a day and night together particularly in those tough Nyayo years when many, including her husband were jailed, tortured, disappeared, killed, exiled or harassed in other ways. What was moving during this period is the way in which Wanjiru applied herself to the personal as well as the public matters with equal fierceness and compassion. Many will attest to her generosity in these difficult days when she became the hub of activity around all matters freedom, not only for Kenyans and women, but for the international community as it is represented in the United Kingdom and elsewhere and she has been recognised with public accolades for her contribution.

Wanjiru urged particularly women and others to take responsibility for their lives by become leaders and to live their lives in the centre-fold of humanity, not its margins and she did this by example through practicing what she preached, but also training others and advocating for others. This is exemplified by her work in Akina Mama wa Africa which she founded with others and later, she took the principles of working to bring women into the centre-fold of life through her work with ABANTU where they developed policy, training and advocacy from feminist perspectives through all aspects of life particularly in Africa, but also globally. She firmly believed that feminism would benefit all of society and therefore engaged with men, women and children.

Despite her very public life, there was a seamlessness in Wanjiru’s life which made the saying the personal is political real, even her love life from start to finish. She met and fell in love in politics and she has passed away in love and politics with her loving and courageous husband at her side very publicly as they began. If you went to Wanjiru’s house, you would just as easily find her rolling out another mandazi or chapati just as readily as she would be unfurling yet another freedom manifesto for Kenya, South Africa, Grenada, Nicaragua, political prisoner or the women’s movement.

Similarly, her public life carried a great deal of her public life as she worked closely with her sisters who adored and emulated her as well as her husband and many of her friends such as those with whom she experienced the plane crash. I met her children, Wangui, Pambi and Mugure involved in the performance of the Trail of Dedan Kimathi! She was a family oriented person, and although many would wonder where she found the time, she did, and in very personal ways. She would write that card with her fountain pen when she could not come and if she could, she would trek to you at night or morning and give you her own personal touch. This is the way she was with her family and with the young ones particularly who always adored her. She was loved by her immediate and her wider global family and she had a way of making you feel that you were part of her world. Wanjiru also drew inspiration from her parents whom she kept abreast of the developments whether she was abroad or at home. This was very moving as it fed both ways and inspired everyone. She would tell us of her family’s acts of courage and said how much her mother’s acts of courage were an inspiration to her. This courage has been witnessed in the last few years as the family supported Wanjiru through her illness daily.

There was a vulnerable and shy Wanjiru which made her self effacing to a fault, as it was so incompatible with the giant that she was. This for me, is her most endearing quality and it drew many people because she did not hide it. It made her human and exceptionally lovable. I write these things with a heavy heart because I had plans like everybody else who was waiting for her to recover.

Her life spans very long days and very long nights and vast, vast spaces, cultures and individuals across the globe. Her impact will reverberate for years to come and her name is now written amongst those other greats that she sang of: Mekatilili, Mbuya Nehanda, Queen Amina of Zaria, Mary Muthoni Nyanjiyu, Muraa wa Ngiti, Anumbai Patel, Sojourner Truth and many many other living heroes and heroines of our time.

Wanjiru always sang but also told the funniest anecdotes at every possible occasion and in a very natural way, so it must be with song that we must say goodbye:

For me, what Wanjiru really epitomised came to me when I lost my sister and did not hesitate in thinking about who would represent me at the funeral when I could not go home due to my exile: She was my comrade, my sister, my friend and my ‘mother’ (I share her daughter’s name) and nobody else could be those things for me. And I know that these sentiments are shared by many others across the world in public and in private and hope that her legacy will endure, for the things that she held dear and the things that she cherished, this monumental life. This was a life well lived and much more will be said by all those lives she touched and hopefully, we will all carry fragments of what she was into our daily lives both at home and in our work where-ever we are. And us she leaves behind, we are very, very proud to have been blessed to share special time with this very special ray of hope.