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A literary review of prison literature in Kenya provides the reader with an insight into political dissent in Africa and the irony that imprisonment itself becomes a catalyst for radicalisation of the prisoner.

Prison Literature-namely novels, short stories, poems or plays - that delve into the horrid conditions and experiences in prison, has increased immensely. It is a global phenomenon whose importance in examining the struggles in the society cannot be ignored. It would for instance be fallacious and inadequate to study the body that is African Literature without mentioning prison writings and the writers who have been so prolific in prison.

Like any other artistic venture, prison literature is an indicator of the various parameters that govern and shape society. It can on the one hand be closely linked to the democratisation of our society and an indicator that even jail has not and cannot dampen the fury of the pen, on the other hand. A brief explication of these writings indicates clearly that they can also be used to give an adequate, accurate and comprehensive commentary on the socio-economic, political development of Africa and Kenya for that matter. They are an important resource in showing where we are coming from and what sorts of fragments are scattered along the political, economical and social path that we have used.

Further scrutiny reveals that this body of literature is complex and can be classified differently. The two major classifications are the traditional ones namely-fiction and non-fiction. The non-fiction is further sub-divided into those that are mainly historical or just a diary of events. However, whether fictional or non-fictional, these writings capture vividly the horrid and gruesome experiences in the state corridors of silence. These writings can be traced as far back as colonial days in some countries and have become eminent beacons of many other countries and particularly Kenya's post independence histories.

They generally tell where the continent has come from and reached in its quest for justice, upholding the rule of law and ensuring that the fundamental human rights are respected. Prison writings, whether fictional or non-fictional, have become a major source of a vast body of knowledge that tells the African tale.

Kenya's experience can be traced as far back as during the British rule that saw many militant Kenyans agitating for self-determination thrown into jail and detention camps. Graduates of these jails and detention camps captured their experiences on paper and subtly outlined a path that has been followed by subsequent writers. The late J.M. Kariuki was amongst the first Kenyans to capture their horrid experiences in his non-fictional account Mau Mau in Detention back in 1963. Others soon followed suit. Gakaara wa Wanjau, an established writer and publisher, who had the misfortune of being imprisoned in both the colonial and independent Kenya, documented his experience in the British corridors of silence in his book, Mwandiki wa Mau Mau Ithamerio-ine (Mau Mau Author in Detention).

Independent Kenya has however produced more and better works of art that are indicative of many things. The doors were opened by Abdulatif Abdullah, the first post-independence Kenyan political prisoner. Abdulatif was imprisoned by the Kenyatta regime for four years and hard labour after he wrote an article titled Kenya Twendapi (Kenya Where are we Headed), in reaction to the disbandment of K.P.U. While serving his term, he wrote a collection of poems called Sauti ya Dhiki, which ironically won the second the edition of the erstwhile prestigious Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.

Other writers were later to follow and each chose a unique way to capture the grisly events in jail. The most famous of these writers is Ngugi wa Thiong'o. His activities in the community theatre in Kamirithu led to his detention in 1977. While in Kamiti, he wrote Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary, which is a diversion from his other fictional works. Others, who have contributed a great wealth in this body, include Maina wa Kinyatti, Koigi wa Wamwere and Wanyiri Kihoro more recently. Maina wa Kinyatti perhaps has the highest number of books that vividly describe his harrowing experience. He has a collection of poems A Season of Blood: Poems from Kenyan Prison (1995), his day-in-day-out recollections, Kenya -A Prison Notebook (1996) and a third one that details events covering his arrest, torture and imprisonment called Mother Africa. Wanyiri Kihoro, the Nyeri Town MP has documented his ordeal in Never Say Die, which another writer, the late Wahome Mutahi described as a brilliant piece of work that was the closest work of art that detailed events that want on at the infamous Nyayo House basement cells.

There are hordes of other works that have been written that are largely fictional. Several others have a thrilling fast-paced drama. The East African Educational Publishers, who have a big collection in this area, have listed them under their Spear series. Most of these writings that are largely confessions of erstwhile crooks like John Kiriamiti's My Life in Crime, Kiggia Kimani's Prison is Not a Holiday Camp or Charles Githae's Comrade Inmate, amongst other offer scintillating narratives but they are all shrouded by the gruesome prison experience and the grotesque Mutahi's is shocking. The late Wahome Mutahi's Three Days on the Cross Karuga Wandai's Mayor in Prison and Benjamin Garth Bundeh's Birds of Kamiti are amongst those listed in the spear series in spite of their strong real life experience. Wahome was arrested a few days after he had submitted his manuscript to the publishers and when he was released, the publishers asked him to revise it incorporate other details of his incarceration.

Bundeh's Birds of Kamiti is a detailed account of his close shave with the hangman's noose. It is a personal account that is gripping and quite emotional. However, these works whether autobiographical or biographical or confessions are representative of pertinent issues. They provide a social commentary that needs consideration. They open new insights for both the authors and society at large. Incarceration did not provide an opportunity for Ngugi to write a prison diary but within this physical prison, Ngugi stumbled upon a non-physical prison, namely language. He sought the refuge in the power of the pen and wrote Detained. He defied the subordination of-physical prison and found refuge in Gikuyu. In cell 16, he wrote Caitaani Mutharabaine (Devil on the Cross) in Gikuyu as a demonstration of his new found freedom and EAEP boss intimated to me that his latest manuscript is being scrutinised.

For others like Maina wa Kinyatti, "writing and reciting poems in solitary confinement under conditions of unendurable physical and psychological torture hardened the heart and steeled the mind to remain steadfast and truthful to the cause". Incarceration has not been limited in Kenya only. Apartheid South Africa jailed writers like Dennis Brutus, who wrote Letters to Martha, the late Alex La Guma amongst others. Jack Mapanje from Malawi, Kofi Awoonor from Ghana, Sherif Hatata and Nawal el Sadaawi from Egypt, and the first African recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Prof. Wole Soyinka have all been imprisoned. They have also served to help raise fundamental questions on the dispensation of justice and the entire process of crime and punishment.

The works, whether biographical like Wanyiri's Never Say Die, which was also nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, or confessions by erstwhile bank robbers or other crooks or other real-life drama experiences, have served as clear indicators that system is rotten and closer scrutiny is necessary.

WHAT DRIVES THEM TO WRITE ?

Could it be the appalling, grotesque, grisly conditions in the state corridors of silence that has kept the number of prison writings growing year in year out or just an insatiable desire to write and keep the tabs? It is certainly this and many other reasons that keeps that pen rolling. A discussion with a number of these writers reveals that it is a combination of these and many other reasons. It is a bottomless pit of stories and the experience cannot be bottled inside. "One normally feels that the story has to be told", comments one writer.

"For many writers", observed the late Wahome Mutahi, who has two books - Three Days on the Cross and Jail Bugs - on prison writing, "Writing about their horrid experiences behind bars is often cathartic". It is a way of telling time to comment on many things that go on both behind bars and outside. Writing is a way of telling the rest of the world, the awful conditions that persist in these places that society places some of its members for correction and punishment. It has been described differently by many writers. It is a place, where like Benjamin Garth Bundeh describes in Birds of Kamiti as a totally new world. "A world of prisoners, of warders, and of the tragic twist of fate. It was a world in which either the spirit was completely broken and degraded, or true courage was born". "When you enter this place", writes Bundeh, "you have to forget everything about the outside world. The dungeon becomes your home and you must survive, smoking is treason here - but we still manage to pass the traffic load of fags and like stone age man, we create fire in these caves". It is a place where the basic instinct of survival reigns supreme.

Writers want to talk about this place where every effort is geared towards removing any trace of humanity that could be remaining to these inmates. Bundeh notes in his non-fictional dossier that after his first night a truer picture started forming. "I saw more people and most of them looked like creatures out of a nightmare. Together with them, we had ceased to be human beings. Our names had been taken away from us. We had been relegated to more numbers in a heap of files. Both the beginning and end of life seemed to have been lost".

They want to narrate about these correctional places that are a law unto them selves. Into the damp mould and stagnation of these tombs, "the warders would from time to time burst in to remind us that unlike free people", inmates "could be tormented again and again, physically and spiritually, subtly and brutally, collectively and individually, day and night. "The warders enjoyed treating us to the choicest of gutter oaths", notes Bundeh. The authorities find several ways to further break and degrade the inmates. There is torture that targets the most vulnerable parts of our bodies and every writer seems to have endured this. The occasional beating is often capped with eating partially cooked food and solitary confinement that many writers argue that it is not different from a shot of L.S.D. or any other hallucinogen. They both degrade people "only that the drugs make one mad more quickly thus removing the utter hopeless".

Besides the deplorable and dehumanising conditions behind bars that most writers want to vividly point out, the other issues that often come out in prison literature appeals to the outside prison conditions. These books, whether fictional or non-fictional all offer important questions that society needs to consider for further scrutiny. In their writings, the writers often want to focus society on the entire system of justice and its dispensation. Many question the whole system of crime and punishment and although some don't ask directly, the effectiveness of the whole system is put to test. Bundeh, who was on the death row and actually witnessed some of his inmates and friends executed packs his narrative with so much energy and emotion that you can feel it deeply and is more direct when he poses these questions.

"I wonder, should any human being be allowed to condemn another human being to death? Should one form of killing be lawful and another one unlawful? Should the law be allowed to take away that which it cannot create? Is there any correlation between the execution of treasonous, murderers or violent robbers and the number of crimes committed? The gallows in Kenya, the guillotine, the electric chair, and firing squads elsewhere - are these deterrents?"

Many books that are non-fictional have a similar trait. The authors are in many instances unwilling guests of the state in their corridors of silence. Most of these authors repeatedly turn to writing as a catharsis. The majority have been thrown behind bars for their political beliefs and in their writings, they have more than once provided new insights into the political machinations of this country. Karuga Wandai, an erstwhile deputy mayor in Thika, provides interesting insights of the "siasa za kumalizana" in the Kenyan political arena in his prison account "Mayor in Prison". Although it is an account of his survival and fight for his freedom, he nonetheless manages to show the country's struggles, transition and some of the central issues that greatly influenced the political under-dealings.

Wanyiri Kihoro, the erstwhile Nyeri Town MP in his biography Never Say Die or Wahome Mutahi's work of fiction Three Days on the Cross capture the dark days in the country's political spectrum. They vividly document their gruesome ordeal in the hands of the state security machinery in the infamous underground cells of Nyayo houses was an experience that couldn't be bottled inside. The other way that many authors have managed to give a commentary on the political manoeuvres has been by giving the politicians central parts in the narratives. They (the characters) have in turn revealed how they manipulated people in society and how laws have been turned to suit a few and how these laws are in turn used against them once they fall out of favour.

* Kimani wa Wanjiru is author of the blog: “Arts and Culure – Kenya” (http://artsculture-kenya.blogspot.com)

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

Escalating clashes over fertile land in Kenya's Mount Elgon region have killed 60 people and forced tens of thousands more from their homes since December, the Kenya Red Cross has said. Local members of parliament say the latest clashes broke out when people displaced from their ancestral land attacked communities now occupying their land. Police blamed the violence on criminal gangs.

Some 50 people have been killed in the past month in clan violence over land in Kenya's western province, local government officials say. Spokesman Abdul Mwasera told the BBC more than 30 people had been arrested in connection with the clashes. Hundreds of families fled to camps after conflict began during a government land allocation programme.

A new phenomenon is gaining currency in the country: Lesbians, gays and transsexuals are coming out openly to demand their rights. The group stole the show at the World Social Forum which ended at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, with their stand being a crowd puller.

The cost of international broadband is set to drastically reduce within 18 months after the Kenyan government confirmed that it is ready to adopt three different under sea cables provided through various routes. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Information and Communication said that Kenya was taking a three-pronged approach calculated to reduce the cost of international connectivity.

The World Social Forum (WSF) that took place in Nairobi was one of those 'once in a life time' events for many people; and 'once a year' events for the veterans who continue to attend every one.

It is an all-comers forum. For instance, the gay and lesbian lobby in Africa are there along side the Maoists, Anachists, peasant movements, trade unionists, radical scholars, grassroots movements, all kinds of gender activists and more. The reactionaries will say: all lunatics are in town.

It should be no surprise if there were many Africans since this is taking place in Africa, but so marginalized are we in our own affairs that one is always happy to see Africans at these meetings even when they are happening here. Many of the usual suspects are around, from the veteran radicals to the budding ones; and not only from Africa but from across the world. If you want to gauge the state of global revolutionary consciousness, the frustrations, the challenges and opportunities of the global forces for change and transformation, the WSF is the place to be.

But these gatherings always frustrate me for many reasons. One; they show up Africa's weaknesses whether they are held outside or inside Africa. One of the critical areas is our level of participation and preparedness. A majority of the African participants - even many from Kenya itself - were brought by foreign paymasters or organisations funded by outsiders. Often they become prisoners of their sponsors. They must attend events organized or supported by their sponsors who need to put their 'partners' on display, and the 'partners' in turn need to show their loyalty to their masters.

Two; even when these meetings happen in Africa, the participation of local groups and citizens are constrained by the three factors of fees for participation, language of discourse, and location. Local activists and sympathizers in the WSF had to organize a protest and even a temporary occupation before the fees for Kenyan participants were waived.

Three; we go to these events without adequate preparation about our own agenda and line up behind other peoples' not-so-hidden agendas, although at this WSF there were a number of attempts to forge a Pan-African agenda before the summit consultations. One of them was the Pan-African Youth Forum working closely with the Youth Commission of the WSF. But the truth remains that many of the youth who came did so on the platform of one donor or the other and were mostly not African.

This dependence on foreigners, both financially and ideologically, is so pervasive that it cannot be ignored anymore. There are signs that an increasing number of Africans are not only outraged by it but becoming ashamed by it, and are looking for ways and means of freeing our activism from the clutches of donor funding and donor-driven agendas. These issues were frankly and honestly discussed at many forums before and during the summit.

This dependence on foreigners raises a lot of disturbing issues about the state of Africa's NGOs and CSOs, and their capacity to contribute to lasting changes in the social, economic and political conditions of Africans in favour of social justice.

The first is a question of legitimacy. Who do these NGOs represent? Who are they accountable to? To whom do they owe their loyalty: to their donors or to the African people they claim to speak for? The second is the related question of the generally anti-government posture of these NGOs. They take money from foreign governments/agencies like DFID, USAID, DANIDA, SIDA, allegedly as independent CSOs. But why should foreigners be helping us to be independent of our own governments? How are their own citizens independent of them? The same African NGOs that queue up to suck up to all kinds of foreign governments and funders will raise their eye-brows and shout 'autonomy' and 'sell out' if any of their members has close financial or political links with their own governments.

In effect, the autonomy they are asserting is one of being sovereign against their own government and subservience to any foreigner. Where governments are illegitimate or have bad governance records this may hold for sometime, but in the long run it delegitimises the NGOs concerned.

The third issue is the constant conflation of NGOs to mean CSOs which should not be the case. Genuine CSOs will include trade unions, guild and professional associations, self-help groups, village or town associations, faith-based charities or interest groups, etc. Their most distinctive character is that they are voluntary, membership-based and generate their funds from their members.

How many of our busy-body, noise-making NGOs qualify in this sense? It is similar to our governments being dependent on the aid of outsiders, and we demanding that they should be accountable to us. We do not pay taxes but demand representation and wonder why the leaders are more responsive to any noise that comes from outsiders?

The worst excesses of the dependence on foreign sponsors are the various scams that have developed in many of these NGOs about 'creative accounting', which does not mean accountability: Per diem wrangles, multiple claims, bogus ticket refunds, multiple accounting, budgeting and reporting for similar proposals from the same organisation and many other unsavoury practices that make these organisations not dissimilar to the governments we climb on holy mountains to attack for being corrupt, inefficient and unaccountable.

And this issue of dependence on foreign donors is not just because there are no resources. How come the nationalists freed this continent from the yoke of colonialism without writing proposals to any funder? Why are our peoples not willing or able to support our activism? Could it be that the people do not associate themselves with the self-given mandate of these largely middle-class led, elite focused, and urban-based counter elite? Or worse still, people may be seeing that these self-declared crusaders, whether foreign or local, are only there for their own interest. The proliferation in the last decade of MONGOs (My Own NGO), GONGOs (Governmental NGO) , BONGOs (Business NGO), PONGO (Private NGO), all over Africa, may be an indication of democratic openings, or state collapse, or of the irresponsive state, but are not good indicators of building democratic, people-led, people-based organisations connected to and organically linked to the wider social movements without whom social progress, democracy and development is not possible.

If they truly belong to the masses the masses will defend them. And if they are truly based on the interests of our peoples their first allegiance will be to those they serve.

In that sense it should worry us that the African participation in the first ever WSF in Africa in Nairobi is more of a gathering of NGOs than that of the real social and political movements and peoples' organisations who can make lasting change possible. Many of our successful NGOs and INGOs, like their forebears, have become gate-keepers - or to use a better term - commissioned agents between the masses and their oppressors, occupying spaces for the poor and the marginalized when most of them do not or no longer belong to that class or share their vision of change.

* Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.

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

Key members of the local chapter of Transparency International board have retired in a move widely seen as aimed at ending the perception that it was close to President Kibaki’s Government. The Daily Nation reports that the decision is being seen as a move by TI-Kenya to cleanse itself especially after two directors were forced to resign by the board.

Two leading political parties are preparing budgets running into billions of shillings to finance their candidates in this year’s General Election. While ODM Kenya has a tentative budget of Sh2 billion, Narc Kenya’s leadership is working on its own estimates for the election which sources said could go up to Sh5 billion.

Duncan Otieno, 22, lives in Huruma, one of four main slums in Kenya's capital, Nairobi. Otieno has lived there since coming to the city in 2003 after finishing school in Kisumu, in the west of the country. Four years on, he remains unemployed except for the odd construction job, which helps him pay the rent of his one-roomed house and support his younger brother.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has vehemently condemned the unlawful sacking of seven members of the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) from the Nation Media Group who lost their jobs because of their involvement in the union.

George Wenda from Kenya talks about the plight inflicted on rural people in his country by foreign TNCs who land grab.

As part of our special reports from the World Social Forum, conscious musicians Hope Raisers speak to Robtel Pailey from Pambazuka News about their music, justice and the obstacles they face being political artists living in the slums of Nairobi. Music in this podcast is brought to you by Hope Raisers and Freddy Macha.

The provision of life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has emerged as a key component of the global response to HIV/AIDS, yet little is known about the impact of this intervention on the welfare of children whose parents receive treatment. In this working paper CGD post-doctoral fellow Harsha Thirumurthy and his co-authors use longitudinal household survey data collected in collaboration with a treatment program in western Kenya to provide the first estimate of the impact of ARV treatment on children’s schooling and nutrition.

Voluntary Youth Philanthropists (VYP) is a Kenyan based organization, with active regional networks that has been lobbying for good governance and youth participation since its inception in 2000. The theme for the Peace Camel Caravan 2007 is “Youth leading change”. Its mission is creating awareness on leadership and peace in Kenya, targets 5 million people directly and indirectly in all eight provinces. It will start in April 2007 in Nairobi and with support vehicles will cover 1,500km in 15 days, according to AfricaFiles.

This week a number of us are at WSF in Nairobi. To keep you up to date with events, analyses and commentaries, we will be sending out Pambazuka News on several occasions, mostly with single articles. We hope that readers will find this service useful.

We have also set up a blog site in collaboration with Institute PANOS West Africa to provide regular features. You will find these published at

Bookmark this site. We plan to bring you recorded interviews that you can listen to online or download, or you can subscribe to them as podcasts. There will also be video footage, documents, photos and other interesting items.

To start this week's report, we bring you the popular column 'Pan African Postcard' by our regular columnist, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem.

Best wishes from Nairobi

Firoze Manji
Editor

The Development Specialist under the direction of the Africa Ministry Quality Director shall provide knowledge management support and services to the ministry quality team and National Offices. This involves research, documentation and dissemination of development programming information.

Religious leaders, the Law Society of Kenya and Kabete MP Paul Muite have added fire to demands that President Kibaki consults widely before appointing 19 new commissioners to the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK).

There are fears that the killer Rift Valley Fever could spread, with scores of goats reportedly dying from an unidentified disease. Veterinary officers in Meru Central, Taita Taveta and Laikipia districts have raised the alarm over the fever.

More than 100,000 delegates are expected to attend the World Social Forum conference to be held in Nairobi in a fortnight. Organisers said yesterday (9January 2007) the preparations for the conference were almost complete.