Njathi wa Kabui
Back in 2004, I visited California for the first time. It just so happened that it was around election time. The voting was actually taking place on the day following our arrival. This was a very special trip on various levels. Some of the reasons were planned and others not anticipated at all.
Yet, the trip was memorable for various reasons. I have obviously revisited the trip in my solitude from time to time, and maybe it's to admit that as we age, we see things quite differently than we did during our young days. The laws of sustainable dictates that we share our expertise with the next generation to ensure that our culture becomes more efficient, effective and endearing.
My trip to California marked the first time I met my own "elder" scholar, the one and only Ngugì Wa Thiong'o. Elder Ngùgì was teaching at UC Davis and we were visiting our friends a few counties over. I had to pull all kinds of moves to make it to the meeting. Mugo Muchiri was extremely helpful in guiding me through the process. I met him then for the first time and our friendship is a remnant of that era. I also remember taking a taxi for the first time for the final leg of the trip there.
I can't tell you how excited I was even at the thought of meeting a man who had influenced my intellectual development in ways I could never recount.
When I arrived on campus, I actually ran from where I was dropped off to his office. It wasn't hard to find, but once there, it was hard to leave.
I was a bit surprised about his height, but that was nothing compared to the lovely conversation. He is a true African intellectual. From his hair to his shirt, everything matched the image I always had of great thinkers of history.
From our conversation that lasted about an hour and a half, I mostly remember of classic statement that he made. Ngugi looked at me straight in the face and told me, in a parable sort of way, and in impeccable Gìkùyù “ Tùciaraga tùgongithia ciene". That essentially means that we give birth and suckle other peoples children, which means that our babies ultimately starve or are demented.
Shortly after, the polite Ngùgì called the Cab for me, and following our final exchange of niceties, we parted ways.
I thought a lot about our conversation and even about the meeting itself. My head was spinning. I therefore hardly noticed when we arrived at my destination. I was going to a kenyan house where a group of fellow Kenyans held a weekly Bible study meeting. The preacher would give me a ride back to our host as he lived in the same neighborhood.
I knocked on the door and a young lady called me by both of my names. She continued to inform me that they had been expecting me. I was ushered in and offered a seat on one of the few empty spaces on the couch following the introduction. The Bible class was going on. The Bible verse they were reading was about the false promise. A corrupt idiot by the name of Laban worked Jacob, his future son-in-law, for seven years and reneged on his promise to offer his second daughter in marriage. We all know the story and how seven years contract or indenture turned into 14 years. Jacob ended up marrying the two sisters.
I had already gotten over the Christianity gaze by then and I might have as well stayed outside. I had declined an opportunity to do a formal PhD and instead decided to do a 4 year independent study. I was suspicious that none of the PhD programs I had considered would answer my most fundamental question: why is Africans the world over in chains and how can they be free? I felt as though I would feel jilted at the end of my PhD program the same way Laban had done to Jacob.
My reading had led me to understand what role religion played in our exploitation and also as an obstruction to our true liberation. Our conversation with elder Ngùgì wa Thiong'o was like a honey brew. It was causing my head to be light.
Out of politeness I opted to seat around and simply be quiet. Nobody seemed to notice my silence. The discussion went on as expected and was finally concluded. I sat there patiently, even as the others closed their eyes and prayed together. I uttered not a word. Not even an Amen.
With the Bible study over, the host offered the guests some tea and Mandazi. The TV was turned on as everybody wanted to get an update of the elections. John Kelley and George Bush were the two contenders.
It quickly occured to me that the group was mostly in support of George Bush. His belief in Jesus was a major reason stated.
At some point the host noticed that I had said nothing. She wondered out loud if I was a supporter of Kelley as I did not seem all too excited with the news that showed Bush ahead.
In response, I told the middle aged woman that Africans have an eternal marriage of inconvenience with the West. Jacob was lucky he worked for 14 years for his bride. We have been living under the White gaze beginning with the fall of Egypt to the Romans, from 31 BC. The fall of Egypt marked the beginning of the fall of Africa. Now the Asians and Arabs have joined the fray in search of the Black Gold.
I don't agree with Magesha Ngwiri's recent article where he argued that we are children of two worlds. Which World is hospitable to the Africans? If my grandmother in my village died while waiting for Jesus to come back, you know that the White Gaze is a serious matter.
Africans know first hand that BLM doesn't mean anything to the Afrian leaders and power brokers. Most Africans don't know either of the two worlds Ngwiri was talking about. You can't be bilingual if you are not proficient in any single language.
Study how Whites gained power and how Asians have changed their status relative to the west. We don't have to copy anyone, but we can't avoid the work of a statecraft. We don't have a double considering as W.E.B Dubois once said almost a hundred years ago in his book "Souls of Black Folk ''. What we have instead is a false consciousness. Only a false consciousness can tolerate the delay of our struggle for true liberation. Only a people with a false consciousness would keep hoping for free liberation without a cost.
Tom Mwiraria was the last person I would have expected to call a clarion call first articulated by the real "elder" to many of us. How are we to grow up and fight for our own liberation if we continue to believe in contracts signed by dishonest powerful global elites that keep feeding us lies, both literally and figuratively?
Africans are not any special from any other group of people, liberation struggles and revolutions are not beauty contests. It wasn't easy as Maximilien Robespierre found in France found out, or Toussaint Louverture quickly found out in Haiti and so did Oliver Cromwell find out the getting rid of the crown in England wasn't necessarily a solution. Ironically, Englad did so badly after the revolutionaries beheaded king Charles I that they had to reinstate the monarchy.
I am beginning to suspect that some Africans seem to think we can adjust and conform to injustice and cultural domination.
James Baldwin once stated that " I am not your Neggar". Whatever or whatever you are willing to sacrifice your liberty for, that is what or who owns you.
The revolution belongs to those who dream of tomorrow and those who appreciate that understanding that our lives are a sum total of all the battles that have been won and lost before. That same same rule of yesterday and today will apply to the next generation following yours.
Dream if you fancy, or study closely and understand the pains and fears that motivate those who dominate you. They shed a lot of blood to get to where they are ,and by extension, to where we are.
Socrates lived a simple but principled life. Few know who the wealthy people were in Athens at that time. Yet, this deadbeat father and not exactly the most handsome guy has the honor of dividing a discipline as glorious as philosophy. All philosophers are classified as either pre or post Socratic.
I returned from a memorable vacation in California and the only thing that I am found worthy of writing from the whole trip was not all the fun things that I did with my friends but a meeting with this most ardent critic of all manner of injustices from linguistic oppression to human rights. Here is a man that I can honestly say has been living justly.. I live under the gaze of such souls.