For many men, underneath the patina of anxiety are layers of shame.
Is this a safe space? I have an embarrassing secret. In this era of receipts, I fear someone will post my photo with a not-so-flattering caption: “Nairobi man who thinks he is who he is, is actually not who he thinks he is.” I never want to be described as (just) a Nairobi man, so let me out myself.
At a traffic stop on Ngong Rd, I was busy texting God knows who about God knows what, flipping between online gossip columns—who has bought a new car, who is sleeping with who in a new car, the usual standard-issue morsels—when someone, in the melee of Lonely Planet’s Nairobi’s “cacophonic traffic,” hit me from behind.
Perhaps it’s the video of that 20-something-year-old “flamboyant businessman” and forex trader who’d just bought a brand-new Mustang for his baby mama as a push gift that set me off, but I pretty much think it was getting that kick from behind.
My anger could boil yams. The man, in his 40s, was reticent, if not, er, demure. In fact, he seemed exceptionally sane, painfully regular, as normal as soup. And yet, here was a dreadlocked man, foam in his mouth and smoke bellowing from his ears—the suppressed violence threatening to erupt in a lava of hot fury. See what this government has done to law-abiding Anglican Rastafarians like myself who only eat plants and sometimes smoke them? Okay, most of the time. Sawa, all the time.
Anyway, the man was repentant, pointing out that he hardly touched me. Pole, boss, he said. He was right but he was also wrong. He touched me. There was no scratch on the car, to be fair, his bumper barely grazed mine, but the police don’t (won’t?) know that. Besides, what about my ego? He scratched it. Who’s going to account for that emotional turmoil?
In the end, I drew that famous Nairobi line, “Do you know who I am?” while fake-calling some bouncer I met at a Nairobi bar and made him (our victim, not the bouncer) part with a few thousands to “buy” my silence and a finger-wagging, “Mzee usirudie tena. Drive carefully. Kwani hujui town?” When I told someone’s daughter this story, she told me off, asking if that is how we (she) want to raise our children, bending the law. We (she) are better than that and I need to apologise. She told me it is important to know the law. I told her it is much more important to know the judge. I also resolved not to tell her any more of my “experiences” with the law.
Here's the sitch, though: whenever I pass that spot, I am tinctured with guilt. I am ashamed of how we (okay, I) extorted someone, and I realized I am no better than the leaders we seem to vent against. A guilty conscience, said those who say things, needs no accuser. I was reminded of this recently after a family secret that has been wedged deep into my conscious, like maggots burrowing into a dead body not just to finish off but to enjoy—made its way to the foreground.
I have been spending quite some time upcountry, ushago. A relative of mine, who I cannot name because s/he reads this paper, asked me for money to fly. Well, that could be interpreted in many ways so let me be clear. They wanted to fly a plane. In Aviator. Aviator is a gambling game where you fly a virtual airplane before it crashes, the catch being the longer the aircraft stays airborne, the higher the amount you earn.
In case you can’t tell, my relative is not a very good pilot, seeing that s/he still hasn’t won the jackpot. That aside, I was in shock because this is a person I admire, the only one I could tell things while growing up. I felt a lump swirl in my throat, and even now, I struggle to say more. I was ashamed a) of how far they have fallen (problematic metaphor aside) and b) that I had to stand up to them and say no, I cannot support your gambling habit. It felt like a landscape-poem, an elegant melancholy sometimes, a lump in the throat, a knot in the stomach, a burning sensation in the eyes. The Kikuyu have a proverb, Michie ni ndogo. Yaani a lot happens in a home and those who aren’t part of the family think it is smoke from a meal being prepared but sometimes it is smoke from the little fires in families.
To douse that fire, I refused to give money, and I could see the face drop, like when Judas kissed Jesus in a deliberate act of betrayal, when Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar, when Robin Van Persie joined Manchester United. It’s betrayal, yes, but it’s also honest, ruthless ambition. Where I come from, we say he that beats the drum for the madman to dance is no better than the madman himself. It’s not my secret to reveal, but I carry the shame of carrying it. And unlike guilt, the wicked sister of shame, which says, “I did something bad”; shame says, “I am bad.” Michie ni ndogo.
I believe shame greatly affects men, snapping at their tendons and rendering them immobile. It can be as little as not being able to provide for your family to hiding an addiction to considering yourself not worthy. Nearly everyone, except maybe sociopaths and “DM for price” entrepreneurs and government officials, goes through this world with some self-loathing. Most of us think the only person we hurt when we indulge in it is ourselves.
But that kind of shame is insidious. It seeps into our relationships and wounds everyone around us, sometimes mortally. This kind of toxic shame is in direct contradiction with the healthy shame that we all need to feel to acknowledge mistakes and take responsibility.
I have found that for many men, underneath the patina of anxiety are layers of shame. Shame at having feelings at all, shame because they believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them, shame that they, too, fail as men. The Good Book says for what lies in the hearts of men apart from evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander? It was only partly right. Shame is the soil under which these emotions sprout.
I carry my secret shame too, some personal, others political. It’s an accumulation of scars, a temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell. Michie ni ndogo. I never got to talk to that man on Ngong Rd again, but if you are reading this, I am sorry. The shame is killing me. I am just a Nairobi man.
