Renegade view of Mashujaa Day

President Uhuru Kenyatta (second right) and his deputy William Ruto (right) together with (from left) Ford Kenya party leader Moses Wetangula, ANC party leader Musalia Mudavadi, Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka and ODM party leader Raila Odinga during the 11th Mashujaa Day celebrations at Gusii Stadium in Kisii county on October 20,2020.

Photo credit: Ondari Ogega | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Kenyans tend to take a municipal view of their heroes with who is a hero or not informed by national prejudices and ancient political rivalries. 
  • Outside its borders, and especially in East Africa, there is often a slightly different view of Kenyan heroism.

On October 20, Mashujaa Day (Heroes’ Day), Kenya honours all those who contributed to the struggle for Independence or invested in the post-independence nation-building and good deeds.

Like in other places, Kenyans tend to take a municipal view of their heroes with who is a hero or not informed by national prejudices and ancient political rivalries. 

Outside its borders, and especially in East Africa, there is often a slightly different view of Kenyan heroism. As one of those East Africans, my view is a little renegade. I also think it is good manners to allow the passage of time before a man or woman is hoisted on a heroes’ pedestal — to permit their actions to ferment, their sins to be considered and for their contributions to be enriched by history.

Which is why all the few Kenyan heroes I will list here are from before 2000. And I am also avoiding the usual suspects.

‘Alumidi Osinya’: In 1977, a remarkable book, Field Marshal Abdullah Salim Fisi: Or, How the Hyena Got His!, was published in Kenya. It was written by Alumidi Osinya (a pseudonym). It is a riveting Orwellian tale of life in a military dictatorship. 

The book was widely seen a satirical critique of Uganda’s then-military dictator Field Marshal Idi Amin. In Uganda, where the story was as fascinating as who the mysterious Ugandan or Kenyan author was, the book went viral and circulated widely underground.

It was at a time when brutal military rule was rampant in Africa, so the book was relished as an attack on the men in khaki couldn’t respond to, as several peoples in Africa read their own tyrant into Fisi. Field Marshal Abdullah Salim Fisi: Or, How the Hyena Got His! was a light in a dark period, and, with Joe Publications, they are heroes.

Gitobu Imanyara: The human rights lawyer and politician founded the Nairobi Law Monthly in 1987. Its story was ultimately entangled with Imanyara’s activism against Daniel arap Moi’s repressive one-party government. The magazine’s print was as ugly as its content was brave and bold, and thought-provoking. This region had not seen anything like that. 

The personal torture and beat downs Imanyara endured were shocking, even at a time when strongmen fed their critics to crocodiles. One of the most enduring photos of the time was of Imanyara shackled to a hospital bed. It was bewildering that a man could go through so much pain for a cause.

He has come a long way since but, in the Nairobi Law Monthly and his tribulations, he represented something special.

Hilary Ng’weno: Scientist, journalist, historian and the Daily Nation’s first African editor-in-chief, Ng’weno is a genius. Often abrasive, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and his journalism courted a load of political controversy. His founding of The Weekly Review in 1975 was a defining moment in Kenyan and East African journalism.

The Weekly Review was unabashedly elitist, upmarket, even snotty, and had a lot of in-your-face gustiness. It was the first major break from the humdrum of daily “he said, she said” journalism.

Across in Uganda, the few copies that came were prized, and passed around the country’s deflated middle class until they got dog-eared. Ng’weno shot for Mars when most were content with the clouds.

The next heroes are a musical set: Them Mushrooms, and Salim Ali and the Hodi Boys. Them Mushrooms, of the Jambo Bwana fame, play chakacha, benga and reggae. The Hodi Boys did mostly soul. 

Them Mushrooms, gentler in tone, serenaded East Africa like few bands had done. The Hodi Boys were edgy and experimental and invoked the rebellious global spirit of the late 1970s and early ’80s. They were the zeitgeist of an East Africa which was going through a crisis that would end in the collapse of the first East African Community.

Sundowner: In the days of shortwave radio and government-only broadcasting, every East African country had an “international service”, beamed to the world — or at least the continent — like the BBC. Tanzania and Kenya were particularly good at it. Tanzania, steeped in southern Africa liberation and Nyerere-era internationalism, was simply superb on news and culture, especially surfacing material by socially conscious African artists.

The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), then Voice of Kenya (VoK), was trendy. It was where you first heard the new songs that had come out in the US, Europe and other parts of the continent. 

And then, as the sun set, there was the enduring Sundowner. After all the madness, the tears people cried from oppression, the desolateness where hope was faint, there was Sundowner. Sundowner was the chamomile tea to calm the nerves. It was the sedative people in Kenya and across its borders took so that would not wake in the night to nightmares.

We could do a spread with more heroes, but we can’t have it all.