In October 1979 Nairobi University students demonstrated against Moi’s one year-old government which they accused of having barred opposition politicians from taking part in that year’s general election. They demanded the reinstatement of Ngugi wa Thiong’o as their professor of literature. Six university student leaders were expelled and the student representative body, the Nairobi University Students’ Organization (NUSO), proscribed as the university was closed for a purported “early Christmas vacation”.
Writing things can be tiring, because we write the same things, using the same letters, on the same machines to a never ending cycle. Maybe this is why it is considered something that one can ‘grow out of.’ Eventually, the world imagines, it is natural to conserve your energy and focus on what concerns you.
What concerns you.
The Kenyan middle class is extremely resilient. Consistently paying to leapfrog the gaping holes in public infrastructure. Knowledge that systems have failed is common – even the president’s big idea was to find us jobs elsewhere. Anywhere but here, because we can all agree on one thing – here doesn’t work, here wasn’t designed to work and here will never work.
“Ideas persist.
They persist because they define something that may define something else that inevitably defines us.
They persist because we are only the little bits that we share with each other,
Because we believe in each other,”
On 22nd June 2024, 60,000 Kenyans gathered on a twitterspace following the abduction of Crazy Nairobian, who was then outed to be Billy Simani, a disappointingly sane Nairobian. Billy was taken from his home on Friday June 21. They say he sent a threatening message, but this remains unclear. What we do know is BIlly is an active part of the #RejectFinanceBill protests. The faceless spontaneous act of democracy that has dared ask a simple question – why?
Why is it that here shouldn’t be an option? Why is it that we can’t create systems that benefit and protect us? Why is it that even when we choose to stay, our actions are so greatly impeded from having any lasting impact? Why this idea, that the state should be set up in a way that it only benefits the few? Why must the path always involve there? What will it take until here finally matters?
These questions are dangerous, because they introduce a different imagination, a similarly persistent concept – hope. One can only be disappointed because if one believes. It’s the hope that kills could be taken to mean it is hope that makes you die inside as things continue to refuse to change. Here though, the hope is killing ideas that have long settled where they shouldn’t have. It is the hopeful on the space who reminded the MP’s what the country should be. It is the hopeful in the streets imagining a better future for themselves, and those around them. It is the hopeful, bright eyed, and bushy haired whose hearts were broken hard enough
The charred remains of 23 year old Solomon Muruli were found in his apartment on February 23 1997. It was said he died in an explosion, but this remained unclear. What was clear was that Solomon was a Safina party affiliated student leader who was demonstrating against police brutality and poor living conditions in the university. Safina part was headed by Richard Leakeya. Richard Leakey was made Cabinet Secretary, and overall head of civil service in 1999 following the freezing of donor funding. He was frustrated out of office in 2001.
It’s the hope that kills.
Dictatorship, at the end of the day, is an exercise in resilience. It is highly improbable that you will beat the monopoly of violence at violence. Like a boxer who knows he has a cardiovascular advantage, the state merely waits out their opponent. Letting them swing themselves to exhaustion before they strike the lethal blow.
Despite the students’ cry, Ngugi wa Thiongo was never reinstated as Proffesor of Literature at the University of Nairobi. Ngaahika Ndeenda (I will marry when I want), rose to popularity through the community centers and was banned in 1990, remaining off stage until 2022.
#OcuppyParliament in itself, shouldn’t even be a rallying call. Parliament, by its definition, should already be occupied. It should be composed of the people. Who kicked us out of our own house?
“Kenya has three official languages: English, Kiswahili and silence.”
The official tally of people who were killed by the Moi government has never been done. The 24 years took many victims. The effect was a nation fluent in silence and adept at opting out of needing the government by pursuing enough to ‘game’ the system. By knowing a guy who has a connection to a doctor in India. Another who knows how to navigate getting you a passport. Another who can get your children into the right school. And yet another who will make sure that your title deed is, indeed, yours.
On Tuesday the 18th of June 2024 the #RejectFinanceBill protests began. With no discernable single leader, the kids, tired of living in a space long given up on, asked why. Old enough to question and young enough to hope, they turn to the rest of the nation and ask why? Why have we accepted this – when it could be so much more?