Kenyan thoughts and distant memories of genuine resurrection at Eastertide

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and Literature. [email protected]

PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • In Upper Hill, our borehole water will be turning brown as usual this time of year. Budalang’i, where that uniquely scholarly genius, Calestous Juma, rests in peace, is particularly on my mind.
  • I was in a personal energy crisis when Juma passed away late last year. So I was neither able to mourn him appropriately or attend his final farewell.
  • I have not been able to visit in recent times either, but my hope is that our leaders there have been working on the drainage system. But alas! Narok was caught off guard again, for the second year running.

“Oh, to be in Kenya, now that détente is there and whoever wakes in Kenya sees each morn, unaware…” Now that is what they call a “variation”, a parody, on the lines of a well-known poet. Robert Browning wrote his poem, “Home Thoughts from Abroad” in Italy in 1845.

In his poem, Browning expresses a nostalgic regret at not being home in England to witness the enchanting, intriguing onset of spring and all its vivacious exuberance. I, too, felt a kind of regret at not being in Nairobi to witness first-hand the stunning events of a Friday just over a week ago. I do not write extensively about such matters, for several reasons, the most important being that I really do not have a head for them. But my restraint does not mean that I ignore them.

Be that as it may, that Harambee handshake reminded me of another Friday event, two decades ago and a few thousand miles away from Nairobi, which had a historic impact on the lives of many millions of people and two countries with an indivisible destiny. This was the Good Friday Agreement, also called the Belfast Agreement, referring to the City in Ulster (Northern Ireland) where it was signed.

The agreement, between Britain, the Irish Republic and the political parties in Northern Ireland, brought a reasonable end to a long-running, violent and bloody struggle between those who wanted one, united Ireland, with Britain completely out, and those, in Ulster, who preferred to remain under British rule. The agreement ended the “Troubles” by granting devolution (a kind of ugatuzi) to Ulster, which still remained British territory.

The Irish détente was called”Good Friday” because it was signed on April 10th, 1998, which was, according to Christian tradition, Good Friday, the one just before Easter. I thought that, coming within sight of the Easter season, the Harambee handshake somehow brought Good Friday forward for Kenya, signalling prospects of a genuine resurrection for the spirit of togetherness, not necessarily sameness, on which the nation was founded.

I called the handshake “détente” because in semantic terms, if not in diplomatic ones, it is a step in a process. It suggests a shift from hard, uncompromising positions, towards a realistic harmonisation of the best elements from each of the competing forces. That would, hopefully, lead to the more refined state of “entente”, a togetherness where no one feels arbitrarily excluded.

FLUENT IN FRENCH

That, I suppose, shows you the importance of being fluent in French if you are going to talk topflight diplomacy. But more graphically, it illustrates what I told you earlier, that my mind is too speculative for the hard-headed and hard-nosed world of “realpolitik”.

Still, my half-penny’s worth contribution to the debate, for both the enthusiastic and the pessimistic alike, is that the early “Good” Friday, Harambee, handshake signals a process, not a happening, in the long search for national cohesion. No two people, however powerful, can move it to a meaningful level on their own. It will take all of us and, indeed, time.

Even the Irish Good Friday affair that we mentioned earlier was neither the beginning nor the end of that island’s search for its identity. It was a step in the long liberation struggle with many episodes, like the rebellion that, for example, inspired W. B. Yeats’ poem, “Easter 1916”. In Dublin, the Republic’s capital, where they are celebrating their National Day (Saint Patrick’s) this Saturday, they are trying to work out how they will handle their borderless existence with Northern Ireland in the aftermath of Brexit.

There, anyway, is an insight into how the mind of an elderly scribbler works, by free association. A handshake at Harambee House leads it to the glorious motto ingrained in the mind of Kenya’s uhuru (independence) children. A good gesture on any Friday is linked not only to the Irish Good Friday but also to the universal Good Friday that heralds the Resurrection, the inevitable triumph of life and goodness over death and the powers of negativity.

Incidentally, such memories and associations are believed to be good therapy for us senior citizens, whose minds are constantly threatened with incapacities like dementia or Alzheimer’s syndrome. A snatch of old song, a glance at an old black-and-white photograph or a session of an old movie, all can do wonders for the memory of your dear forgetful senior relative. We will talk about it systematically some time.  

Back to home thoughts, we should be gathering in Yala anytime now, to commemorate and celebrate Grace Akinyi Ogot and all our departed female literary greats, especially Asenath Bole Odaga, Margaret Ogolla and Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, all daughters of the Lake. I am hoping and praying that the showers heralding the arrival of Easter are spreading to most of the parched land, and that they will not lead to the dreadful floods of which the weatherman has been warning us.

In Upper Hill, our borehole water will be turning brown as usual this time of year. Budalang’i, where that uniquely scholarly genius, Calestous Juma, rests in peace, is particularly on my mind. I was in a personal energy crisis when Juma passed away late last year. So I was neither able to mourn him appropriately or attend his final farewell. I have not been able to visit in recent times either, but my hope is that our leaders there have been working on the drainage system. But alas! Narok was caught off guard again, for the second year running.

Anyway, while the moisture is here, I would like to add my voice to the many others urging us to regenerating the earth with at least one tree planted with our own hands. That would, indeed, be a way of participating in the great resurrection. Incidentally, Easter this year, 1st April, coincides with Wangari Maathai’s birthday.

Would it not be a good idea to abolish all the other names for 1st April and simply call it Wangari Maathai Day, or at least Green Belt Day? 

 

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and Literature. [email protected]