Wa Angalican

Micere Mugo Framed in the Image of Miriam, the Prophet:

Faced with the despotic rule that replaced the colonial cruelty of her youth, Prof. Mĩcere Gĩthae Mũgo took her stand and stood her ground and, like the biblical Miriam, spoke truth to power.

By Francis Omondi

No one, in my view, personified the Utu philosophy as Prof. Mĩcere Gĩthae Mũgo did.  She made this her life’s relentless pursuit. Although she asserted that she was not a loser, and acknowledged that she was not always a winner, she finally lost to cancer. But the irony in this is that, although dead, Mĩcere Mũgo still speaks to us. She speaks with a forked tongue, words of sorrow and words of joyful pride.

For the many who loved and embraced her, the many whom she embraced and whose lives she impacted, Mĩcere’s death speaks pain. A pain felt deep in the family, the academic fraternity, and in the social activism circles across the world.

It is the neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us – never to sit with us at the table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, never to embrace us, never to sing, or read poetry with us. All the rest of our lives, we must live without her. Only our death can stop the pain of her death.

Yet we must learn to live as faithfully and as authentically with her gone, as we had tried to with her present.

And what does that mean?

It will take a long time to learn.

It means not forgetting her.

It means speaking of her.

It means reading her poetry and acting her plays.

This is remembering her.

We are to hold the past in remembrance and not let it slide away. Because all around us are her things, her clothes, her books, her garden, her works, her words and her ideas.

We are to resist amnesia and live up to her ideals in Utu.

This is remembrance.

I parallel Mwalimu Mĩcere’s story to Miriam’s in the Exodus 2 passage. And to honour her memory, I will look at the Exodus narrative from a feminist perspective. I am indebted to Prof Alan Boesak (2017) whose ideas I have adopted in interpreting the biblical text… his works are in “The riverbank, the seashore and the wilderness, Miriam, liberation, and prophetic witness against the empire.”  

The story of Exodus, like other biblical narratives, is written to be read in multiple ways, allowing for multiple interpretations, and so, hinders fundamentalists from weaponising the biblical texts. It also avoids imperialistic designs to impose a single view in this plural world, where we ought to be aware of the other. The Hebrew Bible and feminist scholar Phyllis Trible traces the life of Miriam’s prophetic tradition of faithful resistance against empire to the contest against pharaonic patriarchal power and privilege.

Through Miriam, we see God beginning the act of the exodus with the women. It is to these women of faithfulness, courage, and defiant obedience that the freedom of the people is  first entrusted. The first two chapters of the book of Exodus articulated this fact.  So exodus from Egypt was initiated by women who acted in faith.  A faith anchored in trust,  not sight. There seems to be no expectation that God would intervene. For God is not even mentioned in these two chapters of the exodus story.

We first meet Miriam as a protector of her brother on the riverbank. Then as a prophet and leader after the deliverance at the Red Sea. And finally, as a prophetic challenger to power in the wilderness. It is in comparison to these three scenarios that I hope to speak about the life of Mwalimu Mĩcere Mũgo.

First, Miriam on the riverbank (Exodus 2:1-8)

When Moses is born, Miriam’s mother Jochebed takes a risky but courageous initiative. She weaves a basket, puts the baby boy in it, places it among the reeds close to the riverbank, then tasks the young Miriam to stand guard.

Exodus 2:4 records that Miriam is standing “at a distance” at the river bank. According to the Dutch Hebrew Bible scholar Jopie Siebert-Hommes, the verb translated as “distance” means “far away”, and can also have two other meanings, which are: “to take one’s stand” and “to stand one’s ground”.

So, on the riverbank, Miriam is “standing her ground”, waiting in anticipation. She is aware of her own limitations under the circumstances.

When Pharoah’s daughter appears, for Miriam, there is no rational expectation of a “motherly” response from one seen as a representative of the Egyptian empire.

This passage is crowded with uncertainties. It offers no perspective on Miriam’s frame of mind. What if it had not been Pharaoh’s daughter? I mean, what if it had been men acting in blind obedience to the Pharaoh’s killing instructions? And what if the Pharaoh’s daughter was in one mind with her father?

Despite facing uncertainty, Miriam’s firmness and resolve make her remarkable. Miriam was not sure what would happen to her brother. But what stands out here is her readiness to stand her ground and face a dangerous situation. If something happened to the child, it would not be for lack of courage or action on her part.  And as the opportunity presented for Miriam to act, her quick-witted response to Pharaoh’s daughter suggests not only spiritual maturity, but political savviness as well.

So, Miriam stands firm in the prophetic tradition begun by Siphrah and Puah. It is a prophetic engagement with the empire (patriarchy) no less courageous and faithful than the actions of the midwives.

Mwalimu Mĩcere’s struggle against colonialism, despotic government and her works advocating for human dignity began early in her life. In the anthology Mĩcere Gĩthae Mũgo: Making Life Sing in Pursuit of Utu edited by Ndirangu Wachanga, she recalls:

One Saturday afternoon, I was called from my dormitory and told that I had family guests. On going out to meet them, I was elated to find out that it was my mother, Grace Njeri, and her younger sister Tata (Aunty) Joyce, who was a teacher in Gaturi, Mũrang’a. But their gloomy faces cut down my excitement. After embracing, my mother told me to go back into the dormitory and put on my uniform because they wanted to take me to Boma, the name we knew Embu town by.

It all didn’t make sense, but on the way to Boma, they informed me that my father had been jailed and when they had visited him in jail earlier, he had asked for me. [At the time, my two elder sisters were miles away in Gatigũrũ boarding school, Mũgoiri, Mũrang’a.]

Apparently, my father had been accused of double-dealing with the government and assisting Mau Mau adherents by refusing to torture villagers and their families to force them to confess their linkages to the Mau Mau fighters. He had been sacked as the chief presiding over Mwea Division.

I remember speaking with my father from outside Embu jail, separated by what seemed unending rows of barbed wire. His hands were shackled and there were two guards on either side, plus many more swarming all over the place, all armed to the teeth.

I was scared to death. We had to shout out conversation through the rolls of wire. At first, I was just in shock and tongue-tied, but when the visit ended and the askaris (guards) escorted him back (I suppose to his cell), I simply broke down into tears and cried for so long that my mother and aunt were still begging me to dry my eyes as I waved them goodbye after they took me back to school.

While a young Miriam is plunged into resistance against Pharaoh, 12-year-old Mĩcere encounters the colonial cruelty of the British against the Mau Mau during this visit. From her parents and community she learns a sense of humaneness, Utu, as the antidote to colonial inhumanity.

Mĩcere later articulates her understanding of Utu in the words of her teacher, Prof John Mbiti: “I am because we are and since we are, therefore, I am”, which is the same as Ubuntu. Yet the sense of community and belonging that Mĩcere advocates is in what it means to be human, deeply rooted in African culture. Prof Mũgo took her stand in pursuit of the Utu philosophy:

I had to remind myself that part of the liberation process was not just to create a better world, but also to create better people of ourselves. [That involved] learning to humanise ourselves and be humane in the way we articulate our thoughts and treat others. I also learnt the difference between systems and institutions, and agents functioning in them. The person who oppresses you as an agent of an oppressive system is being dehumanised. Oppressive systems dehumanise their own agents as much as they seek to dehumanise those who resist oppression.

Mĩcere likened the exclusion of women to the cruelty of colonialism, and so, fought for women to have equal opportunities. This she learnt from her parents, who had no gender partiality. They, the five girls, were sent to school when it was not fashionable to send girls to school. And when they excelled, their father would quip, ‘Well done, my boys!’ Her mother would rebuke men who would ask: Gũtirĩ andũ gũkũ? Are there no people here?

Mĩcere adopted Rhoda Reddick’s definition of feminism articulated thus:

“Being aware of the structures and systems of injustices that held back women, that oppressed women … be they religion, cultural, educational and tradition, be prepared to do something about it, and to disentangle them. The greatest enemies of feminism are the women themselves who are purveyors of patriarchy.”

Mĩcere articulates her position in her poem To Be a Feminist Is:

For me, to be a feminist is

to be the mother of my daughters

it is to be the daughter of my mother,

it is to be more than a survivor,

it is to be a creator,

it is to be a woman.

Nothing explains her vision for women better than her poem: Ta imaaaagini!

Ta imagini that

you and I

and all the women

of this world

stood hand in hand

marched side by side,

crossing

dividing borders

constructing

connecting bridges

shattering

binding chains

creating

delinkable links,

across the nations

across the continents!

So, Mĩcere speaks to us that we must act as feminists. It is clear that her feminist advocacy was undergirded by this Utu philosophy. We are being called to take our stand for a humanised humanity. We become human when we defy the impetus to dehumanise others.

Second, Miriam at the seashore

And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. Exodus 15:20

And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he threw into the sea. Exodus 15:21

This is after the people of Israel walked through the sea ‘on dry land’, leaving the Egyptian armies ‘dead on the seashore’ and the mighty empire defeated (Exodus 14:30). Exodus 15 opens with the song of Moses.

Then in verses 20 and 21, Miriam the prophet took a tambourine in her hand, opened her mouth in song and led the people in a dance of praise. Benno Jacob ranks this song as the oldest text available concerning the exodus. It is the oldest poem in the Hebrew Bible reflecting the mood of an exodus experience.

Miriam stamped her position as the people’s prophet. While Moses acted as an individual, Miriam turns her song into a congregational hymn. For on Miriam’s lips, it became a song of praise and celebration for the whole people.

Miriam’s radical inclusion of all the people, not just the women, proved her to be a prophet of God from among the people, guiding them in the glorification and the ownership of the mighty acts of God. Thus, God’s people owned their agency in their liberation.

Analysing Miriam’s action, Prof Allan Boesak observes “ … a radical inclusivity of worship at work here, and a radical overturning of the patriarchal paradigm. It is also a radical embracing of the responsibilities that come with freedom. Miriam is the people’s prophet.”

Mĩcere was a prophet in this Miriamic tradition. As a poet, a playwright and an intellectual, she included outsiders through orature and made knowledge creation a communal affair.

Mĩcere honoured the tradition of “African orature”. A tradition, she said, was about not speaking to yourself but having a conversation and making sure that your audience is following and engaging. In “African orature”, Prof. Mũgo argued, telling an autobiographical story is not about telling “my story” but about telling “our story”. Thus, a “personal” narrative becomes a “public” narrative.

Although she was a professor of literature, Mĩcere realised the limits of written literature in the African context. Oral literature had a similar shortcoming, one of creating elitist academics, detached from their peoples’ lived experience.

Mĩcere often cited James Baldwin. Intellectuals used their power to speak against the challenges in their society. Mĩcere still questions us in her poem…. “Intellectual or Imposter?” Why are our intellectuals so aloof from their communities’ challenges?

Serving as the dean of the Faculty of Arts between 1978 and 1982 required courage as many opposed her election for being a woman. As Mũgo remembers,

We were given to understand that the government ordered the university registrar to nullify the elections immediately, which he did, even though he had been the election’s returning officer and had publicly announced my victory. He issued an official bulletin announcing that he had appointed the defeated candidate to serve as Acting Dean until further notice. The activists issued a counterstatement, with my consent, asserting that I was the elected Dean and would not step down. The CID [Criminal Investigation Department] police swung into action and threatened me with arrest if I did not step down. At times, they would coax me to resign, advising me that my activism was not befitting of a respectable woman.

Going beyond the privileges of office, Mĩcere broadened issues of concern beyond pedagogy, to include culture in development. For her, the ownership of knowledge, its production, dissemination, and custodianship were to be seen through the lens of Utu/Ubuntu.

Such education would be transformative since knowledge and scholarship can either be colonising or conscientizing, alienating or humanising, enslaving or liberating; therefore, creating new human beings with the agency to transform life and the world for the better.

Mĩcere refuted the false myth of dominating, colonising and imperialist cultures to monopolise knowledge, a position that justified the dehumanisation of the conquered, the attempted erasure of other knowledges, heritages and, ultimately, entire cultures.

Third and final, Miriam in the wilderness

The wilderness becomes the place for revelation of Miriam’s prophetic calling. To the people of Israel, the wilderness is more than just a place of wandering; it is the ‘wilds of the wildernesses’.

Phyllis Trible is right to note that uncertainties, complaints, confusions, and conflict make Israel’s wilderness experience wild. The frequent rebellion causes angst among the people. Yet, amidst this muddle, Miriam’s story sparkles.

So, in Numbers 12:2, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses: “Has the LORD only spoken to Moses? Has he not spoken also through us?’

Miriam’s question goes to the root of the matter.

First, Moses was increasingly becoming autocratic and unpopular with the people. Miriam’s speaking “against Moses”, Naomi Graetz claims, occurs within the broader context of the people’s rebellion. Miriam joins those who speak against the Mosaic authority in the recurring and intensifying rebellions narrated in Numbers 11, 12, 14, 16 and 20, beginning with the grumblings about food.

It is clear that Miriam’s act comes as a crucial intervention in the rebellion because she introduces the genuine issues of the people’s participation in their liberation, the quality and integrity of leadership and the questions of shared power and authority. She raises these issues because she had shown leadership before, at the seashore. Her leadership gave legitimacy to the radical inclusion of all God’s people in God’s acts of liberation.

Second, Miriam’s critical question also exposes a basic fault line in the rebellion: The nostalgic yearning for Egypt, the longing for the non-existent kindness of the oppressor, the desire to return to the imagined safety of Egypt instead of facing the hardships that come with freedom.

As a prophet (Exodus 15:20), Miriam is now re-asserting herself in her calling by inserting herself into the rebellion while also correcting the rebellion from its flawed position (romanticising Egypt and anger about bodily comforts) to the fundamental revolutionary transformation of leadership and the theological integrity of the god they worshipped.

Mĩcere, like Miriam, articulated a question raised by all oppressed people: their challenge to the empires, invaders, and colonisers everywhere who seek justification for their imperial designs, if possible, by using the Bible.

As the dream of a prosperous Kenya after independence from the British became a nightmare, beginning in the 1970s with the rule of President Kenyatta and going into the 1980s under the regime of President Moi, the shift from white colonialists to black oligarchy catapulted the prophetic voice of the past back to the scene.

Mĩcere called them out through plays like The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, co-written with Ngugi wa Thiongó and performed at the Kenya National Theatre. Mũgo and Thiong’o spoke truth to power. As a result, they were jailed for inciting people to rebel against their government.

“Has the LORD spoken only to Moses?”

We must understand Miriam’s question to be a prophetic and theological challenge. They were not words uttered out of jealousy, slander, or arrogance, but prophetic truth spoken to power. Miriam questions not only the channel of God’s voice, but also the character of Israel’s god; who is this god Moses claims to be on his side, who gives him sole authority, who punishes and strikes and kills at the slightest sign of challenge and protest?

This god appears different from the one Miriam had experienced at the riverbank. The one the defiant midwives had trusted. A god who rises in outrage against the violence and death-worshipping power of the empire, the god Miriam had proclaimed at the seashore, in contrast with the God of Moses, a vengeful, frightening mirror image of the gods of Egypt who know only domination, submission and death.

Miriam speaks prophetic truth to power, and it is so serious that Yahweh intervenes directly in defence of Moses. She knew how God showed a fierce partiality for Moses and male leadership in Israel with the brutal suppression of a rebellion over food. And yet, like her foremothers in Egypt, despite the risks, she speaks.

By refusing the privileges of her class, Mĩcere committed class suicide. She recounted when the Moi government offered her properties or positions:

“At one point, the government offered me land up there in Naromoru, about 50 acres. I was actually called to go to [Minister of Lands and Settlement] Mr [Nicholas] Biwott’s office in order to be given this gift from President Moi. While at the office, I told Mr Biwott, ‘Thank you very much. I really appreciate it, but please can you give this piece of land to some of the landless people, especially the former Mau Mau fighters?’

The next thing I knew was that I was being called in for questioning at the police station. ‘Look,’ interrogators yelled, ‘You were offered this piece of land by the president, and you were very rude, and you are now trying to tell him who to give it to. Who do you think you are?’

During the interrogation, if I did not write what they wanted me to, I remember a number of times they would hold my head and bash it on the table. Many times, I would go blank. Later, during hospitalisation in London, I was to discover that a minor strike I had been diagnosed with had come from these bashings. But I recovered sufficiently from the ordeal.”

In choosing a “people’s path” to promote the interests of the masses rather than the elite, Mũgo had become reprehensibly dangerous in the eyes of the elite and the state.

Exiled for speaking, Miriam is banished outside the camp. Although both Aaron and Miriam questioned Moses, only Miriam was punished. Naomi Graetz raises the question, “Why was Miriam punished and not Aaron?”

It is because Miriam takes the initiative, providing leadership, and it is not an easily forgivable sin. Miriam is neither terrorised nor cowed into submission.

Although Mĩcere had not fully recovered from the minor stroke suffered during her tortures, she fled the country with her two young daughters, eight-year-old Mumbi and six-year-old Njeri, to avoid detention.

Mĩcere still speaks to us in the words of her address to the Riara University students in 2016: “If you have chosen the path of struggle, you must have the courage to build a new home wherever your path leads. Don’t romanticise home; you must have the courage to make new homes and new roots.”

Our sister Mĩcere Gĩthae Mũgo has now travelled away from this world to her new home. As a priest, for the last ten years we prayed together, shared scriptures, and had spiritual discourse. She often said: “Who am I, to say there is no God.” We came to agree that Utu and the dignity of all humanity are not incompatible with Christ’s characteristics and teaching.

Wade in the waters

Wade in the water

Wade in the water, children

Wade in the water

God’s gonna trouble the water

(An African American Jubilee Spiritual Song (1901) – Text adapted from the sermon preached by Canon Francis Omondi during the Mĩcere Mũgo memorial service at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi, 15 August 2023.)

Read more at: https://www.theelephant.info/reflections/2023/08/24/micere-mugo-framed-in-the-image-of-miriam-the-prophet-a-sermon/ The Elephant – Explaining Society to the People.

References:

[1] Prof Alan Boesak (2017)  “The riverbank, the seashore and the wilderness, Miriam, liberation, and prophetic witness against the empire.”

[2] Graetz, N., 2001, ‘Did Miriam talk too much?’, in A. Brenner (ed.), A feminist companion to exodus to Deuteronomy, pp. 231–242, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield.

[3] Jacob, B., 1992, The second book of the bible, exodus, transl. W. Jacob, KTAV Publishing House, Hoboken NJ

[4] Siebert-Hommes, J., [1994] 2001, ‘But if she be a daughter … She may live’, in A. Brenner (ed.), A feminist companion to exodus to Deuteronomy, pp. 62–74, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield.

[5] Trible, P., 2001, ‘Bringing Miriam out of the shadows’, in A. Brenner (ed.), A feminist companion to exodus and Deuteronomy, pp. 166–186, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield.

[6] Wachanga Ndirangu (ed). 2022, Micere Githae Mugo, Making Life Sing in Pursuit of Utu. Ibadan Nigeria. Bookcraft.

But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him (Habakkuk 2:20). GARISSA TERRORIST ATTACKS IN 2020

The intensity of Al-Shabab attacks in the region along the Kenya Somali border and Garissa is terrifying. The shooting of 3 teachers on Monday 13th January in Garissa has left us worried. This was not the first time Christian teachers were killed by Al-Shabaab in the area. But the increased frequency and the plain helplessness to stop the attacks are concerning. And it sticks out as a cruel reminder of the danger and venerability we are exposed to. Apart from God, we are on our own.  

The intensity of the Al-Shabaab offensive in this region is frightening. A week into the new year, we have had 3 terrorist attacks that have left 10 fatalities (not counting the dead insurgents). 

 Al-Shabaab militants attacked a bus in the Nyongoro area, Lamu County, on Thursday 2 January, with three people losing their lives in the incident. Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers killed four suspected Al-Shabab fighters and captured one following the attack.

What caught our attention was the pre-dawn raid in Lamu on 5th January. KDF Spokesperson Col Paul Njuguna said, that around 5.30 am al-Shabaab attempted to breach security at Manda Air Strip, but they successfully repulsed the attempted breach. There were damages done to the aircraft but KDF reports that the airstrip is safe. 

Two days later, on January 7th, the Al-Shabaab terrorist made another pre-dawn attack in Dadaab of Garissa County, killing four people. Area Deputy Commissioner Kibet Bowen said they killed four Somali locals including a teacher in an exchange of fire. The terrorist though shot dead four children in Saretho village, near Garissa. The Somali children were boarders and they had been housed in teachers’ houses. They shot at them thinking they were Christian teachers, only to realize they were mistaken. On realizing their mistake, the al-Shabaab got in to bandage some of the wounded children. According to the Police, the attackers had also targeted telecommunication masts in the area. Later, the police killed two of the terrorists and recovered two AK47 rifles and two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) from the slain men.

The terrorists focused their gaze on Garissa town’s Bulla Iftin area. We got to School (GAP) on Friday 10th of January to the news that our school was in imminent danger of attack by the Al-Shabaab terrorists. The Safaricom communication mast in the school compound was a perfect match for their pattern of attack, besides those at the school. But this was the plot was foiled as it became public knowledge and needed security measures taken.  

It appears that the terrorists shifted their gaze on Kamuthe 30 Km away from Garissa Town. The attack at Kamuthe primary school occurred Monday 13th at around 2 am, where according to the police, the terrorists attacked Kamuthe primary school, Kamuthe Police Post, a telecommunications mast and murdered 3 teachers, and burned the police station in their wake.  

This attack affected us as well. The majority of teachers at Kamuthe primary in the northeastern region of Kenya, come from the Christian parts of the country. They were therefore accommodated in staff waters at the compound. There were seven staff members and family in this school compound residential unit. These included six teachers; five male (one living with the wife) and one female, and the seventh was a female nurse serving at the dispensary.  

During the attack, they killed 3 teachers: Caleb Mutangia Mushindi (28years), Titus Sasieka Mushindi (29years), and Samwel Mutua (29years). But Joshua Mutua (30 years) survived although he suffered 2 gunshot wounds on his lower leg and is undergoing treatment at Garissa general hospital. But Mr. Robert Kivuti (53 years), one of the teachers, escaped into the night. climbed a tree escaping the notice of the terrorist and stayed there most of the night. Meanwhile, his wife also survived for she hid under the bed all this time. 

Mr. Titus Mushindi, killed in this incident, is the husband of Ruth Mushindi, a teacher at GAP. And he is a cousin to Caleb also killed in this incident. Titus was a Keyboard player during the Sunday worship of 12th January at St. Peters ACK Garissa, where he is a faithful member. He would have traveled to his station early Monday morning, as he had done often. But this time, the Headteacher demanded his presence at the school Monday morning. The Headteacher was scheduled to be way taking his daughter to a school outside the region. So, Titus had to travel to Kamuthe that Sunday afternoon. 

Titus feared for his security, because of the heightened attacks, he, therefore, requested prayers for safety from the praise and worship members. He left Garissa town at 4 pm using public transport and arrived that evening. At 11 pm he spoke on phone to his wife Ruth at Garissa Academy and his son Baraka wishing them good night. The terrorists woke him up at 1 pm to face their death. Even with odds against them, Titus met death as he attempted to resist the attackers. 

Mr. Samuel Mutua Kamba had graduated from Garissa University. He had survived the Garissa University terror attack of 2 April 2015 that left 149 students dead and many injured. He did not escape this time.   

In a curious move that night, the terrorist spared the female teacher and the nurse with her infant child. They made the nurse recite the Shahada and confess Islam, and she obliged. She was then marched to the dispensary where they looted the medicine available and items they deemed of value.

As the terrorist left, they sprayed the house of the headteacher with bullets in frustration of not finding him.  

 The existence of a police-post nearby did not deter the attack, nor did it repulse terror. It did not matter, for the police at Kamuthe police-post, must have heard the gunshots that killed the teachers and fled abandoning their station. The terrorists burnt down the police post before bombing the telecommunication mast in the market. Police have since identified the mastermind of the attack as Maulid Bilal, who is wanted for leading attacks in the Fafi and Hulugho regions. 

We appeal to the security agents to double their efforts and devise appropriate security strategies to protect Christians and local Somalis in the region. The terror attacks have now paralyzed education services to the local population, for all schools apart from those in Garissa town are closed. 

The eye of the storm is on us. We mourn in grief for our departed brothers. We are concerned about how we must live in this tension. We contemplate what future may be ours. May God make us more aware of his presence with us.

Please pray with us: 

          Strengthen the weary hands, make firm the feeble knees. 

                                       Say to the anxious:

 Be strong, fear not, your God is coming with judgment. Coming with judgment to save you.

          The ransomed of the Lord shall return and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Canon Omondi (15 January 2020)

Elimo Njau’s last supper mural, (in Murang’a Murals by Harold F Miller).

The Last supper scene is one of 10 the most important murals on the walls of St. James’ All Martyrs Memorial Cathedral in Murang’a. 

The picture depicts Jesus, at home in Murang’a, using an old spoon, a ciihiru to serve his disciples, admonishing us the onlookers of a remote event without which our faith would be in utter disaster. It shows to the credibility of faith, founded articulated in this proclamation: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”. This is the theological and liturgical account of this mural.

The portrait is a testimony of history. It communicates to us stories of other followers of Christ. Those who made the story presented here their own. They drew it in their blood, tears, fears, and sweat, African and black. For they took their spot on the Lord’s table as Christian A’gikuyu, disregarding the Mau Mau oath administers who demanded confession that they were “Agikuyu karing’a”. 

We recognize faces Njau engraved on the murals covering walls of the St James Cathedral.  Among them was Rehab Ngendo, who opposed her tormentors… “I have drunk the Blood of Christ and how can I return to drink your goats’ blood?” They hoisted her up by the neck, but the Mau Mau oath she would not take. What about William Macharia who in 1954 refused to take the Mau Mau oath. They buried him to the neck. No amount of intimidation would persuade Macharia’s wife to take the oath and spare him. She belonged to Gaturume (lamb- Jesus). 

They hallowed this ground for us, they dedicated this Cathedral for us. They gave this place its name, ‘Martyrs Memorial Cathedral’. These are people we knew, or we may know about, for their testimony filled our nation. 

 As Anglicans assemble in this space Sunday after Sunday, our fears and the seductions of our times may blur the martyr’s message. The message Rev. John Gatu got, when he led Christians to dismiss the Gatundu oaths of 1969. 

The mural warns us that last supper is incongruous to all others. The martyrs are signalling us to value the ‘gaturume’ over the blood of goats. Can Christians, priests and Bishops take part in the practices of athuri a kĩama kia mbũri, administer in bloody ngurarios and irua ceremonies and minister the Lord’s table? I pray we are found true to the Lamb’s table.

The murals depict the tombstones of martyrs, hundreds, and thousands, who met their death with utmost cruelty: they inscribed their names on the plaques at the exits of All Martyrs (St. James) Cathedral, Murang‘a, for they were not afraid to die and go to God (Roberts 1954:15-33).

The entire Anglican Church of Kenya needs to gather in this Cathedral. Perhaps here the martyrs voices will be clearer that we belong to the triumphant Lamb. For: “we have died together, we will rise together, we will rise together”.

Canon Omondi

By Francis Omondi 

         Lady Justice Martha Koome’s appointment as our Chief Justice causes me angst. It wrings hope yet wrenches something in my gut. Her reputation for human rights is without peer and without question. Yet her confession at the JSC interview showed a bent to support the government. I wonder which of her two pasts will define her reign. William Faulkner, in Requiem for a nun, warned, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past”. 

      There is Koome activist past. The legendary past as the chairperson of the Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (FIDA). Koome, who from 2001 led civil rights organisations in securing women participation in the constitutional review. She frightened the Moi era regime. The government deemed her ideas dangerous in their battle. She pushed for children and women’s laws. Sought the release for people locked on trump up charges, whose rights the regime violated. It is inexplicable that they did not lock her in as well. That possibility frightened her… But not anymore.  

      Justice Koome hasn’t fought the government in a while. No sooner had she become a judge, than she jettisoned activism. In her own words, at the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interview, her work at FIDA was situational. As a judge, she said “I have changed completely….” She said, “I am government, as the Chief Justice of the Republic of Kenya… I head the other part of government.” This is her immediate past. And of this, many are anxious. 

         Writing on race equality in America’s 1940s, Faulkner’s message, was that some day, the people will rise above these divisions and will recognize the ties that bind all. They will recognize the fundamental lie of racism. But the protagonist fails that test, with his very Southern attitudes and bigotries. Hence, the past is never dead. For Justice Koome, which of these pasts is past?

         Our main worry is something that her 18 years’ duty as a judge has revealed. Petitioning the JSC to reject Koome’snomination, the President of Law Society of Kenya, Nelson Havi argued, her appointment will weaken the independence of the judiciary.  Havi cites the questionable Saturday night sitting of the Court of Appeal, in the Republic v IEBC Khalef Khalifa and another (2017) eKLR. During which Hon Justice (rtd.) E.M. Githinji, Hon. Justice Fatuma Sichale and Hon. Justice M.K. Koome delivered a judgement Ex-parte (done in interest of one side only), a final order reversing the entire judgement of the high court earlier that morning. 

          Holding an open court, heard ex-parte undermined justice, whatever urgent reason there was. Besides, sitting outside working hours without being authorised by the embattled Chief Justice strengthened the “systems pliable” narrative. It eroded the public confidence in the judiciary’s independence. That the Supreme Court affirming their ruling did not remove this stain.

        If Justice Koome is to deliver justice, she will have to regain her due north, i.e. that human rights past. Upholding justice must not be situational madam Chief Justice. Justice is about equal rights, and access for those being squeezed out.  

        Justice delivery ought to commence within the Judiciary.

 While interviewing Justice Koome, Commissioner Everlyn Olwande spoke for the Judges and magistrates. She spoke out of their fears using piercing allegory and questions. Is the judiciary hurtling fast towards another purge? The signal has always been claiming corruption in the judiciary. There was the radical surgery under Justice Aaron Ringera, or Judicial Vetting that saw another swath of judges evicted, these didn’t clean the perception. 

         In 2019, the state shifted its was on graft war on the judiciary. The Chief Public Prosecutor, Noordin Mohamed Haji, started a drifting charge against the Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, that she “abused her office for personal gain, undermining public integrity in the judiciary”. Haji claimed he had conjured enough evidence for “a reasonable prospect of conviction.” He so instituted a criminal proceeding against her in public interest.

        The case raised a critical constitutional conundrum. They charged the DCJ on suspicion of corruption, failure to pay taxes and improper dealings with a local bank. How can “a commercial transaction between her and a private institution”, amount to a criminal offence? This justice, Chacha determined.

      But observers saw through the scheme. If they did not forge the case to force JSC to eject her from office, then it is a guise of the promised “we shall revisit”. This, in my view, was the veiled fear in Commissioner Olwande’s questions. It will be tragic if the Chief Justice cede her power to the government. She stated: “No, no, my question is, is there any other structures that can stop the Chief Justice from abusing power?” 

       The thin hope the judiciary must hang on is Justice Koome’s statement, “An institution like the Judiciary should be self-cleansing… and that from within and should be not from without.” This should “ring-fence the independence of the judges, the judges’ decision making and the institution” she said. 

       Chief Justice Koome’s major challenge will be delivery of Justice to Kenyans. With compromised legislature and executive working on its own agenda, the Judiciary, as the custodian of law, remains the guard rail holding Kenya from tumbling into the precipice of chaos. 

          Governments have a propensity to oppress. Uhuru Kenyatta’s government isn’t unique in its little regard for the citizens justice. Justice Koome inherits a justice department the regime has battered to pulp with a punitive budget cut in the Judiciary, disregard of courts’ authority, and derisive rhetoric. How else can we explain the Presidents’ delay in appointing the 41 judges, the JSC recommended mid-2019? This delay, Justice Maraga complained, made work difficult for the courts. Makokha Kwamchetsi considers president’s agenda was to diminish the stature of the Judiciary. (https://www.theelephant.info/features/2020/08/29/)

         I appeal to Chief Justice Koome’s faith to make the judiciary work for Kenyans. An episode in Exodus one demands our attention, since it was a turning point in human history. Its heroines are Shifra and Puah, two outstanding women. The midwives Pharaoh instructed: “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live” (Exodus 1: 16). But they would not carry out the order: “The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live”(1:17). 

        Commenting on the episode, Rabbi Jonathan Sack termed it as “the first recorded instance in history of civil disobedience”. The two women refused to obey their world’s most powerful man’s order. The order they judgedunethical and inhuman. To Pharaoh’s questioning, they explained: “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive” (1: 19). Pharaoh had no reply. 

        In refusing to follow the orders, Shifra and Puah showed that ultimate Sovereignty belongs to God. A notion that sovereignty belongs to the people is fallacy. No. The state and people who put it in power can err. Rabbi Jonathan Sack argues that moral law transcends and may override the law of the state. 

         Kenyans expect independence of the Judges, and freedom for the judiciary officers to act in interest of justice and not to protect power. Explanation such as, in IEBC v Khalef Khalif case, excuse of being empaneled and acting on public interests won’t hold.

          During the 1946 Nuremburg trials, the war criminals’ plea was “… they were merely obeying orders, given by a duly constituted and democratically elected government”. But for a new legal concept of crime against humanity, the holocaust’s perpetrators guilt would have remained unestablished. Which Sacks comments: “The Nuremberg principle gave legal substance to what the midwives instinctively understood, that there are orders that should not be obeyed, because they are immoral.” So, any human order transgressing the will of God is by that fact alone ultra vires. Shifra and Puah are the first to teach humanity the moral limits of power. 

        We are a country, it seems, bankrupt of goodness. A space filled with evil we commit to each other. A good judiciary, without our cooperation in shunning evil against others, will become as useless as a scarecrow after harvest. We ought to do good because that’s what a human being is supposed to do.

           It has confounded me how attractive evil is to others. We give undue attention to evils’ whisper or shouts. Not that evil does not demand confrontation, but I wonder why it is so elevated. The formula in which evil reigns is bad versus good. Toni Morrison, the 1993 Nobel Prize winner for literature, noted that “Evil has a blockbuster audience; Goodness lurks backstage. Evil has vivid speech; Goodness bites its tongue.”

         To understand goodness for humanity, Toni explored the term altruism, the other, rather selfless compassion for the “other.” In her research, she learned something about altruism, weight, its urgency, and its relevance in contemporary thought. What defined goodness for her was a curious incident in the Amish community of Pa. USA. On Oct. 2, 2006, Charles C. Roberts 32, arrived at the West nickel Mines Amish school and ordered the male students to leave. He allowed a pregnant woman and three women with babies to leave. Roberts lined up 10 girls, ages 9 to 13, and shot them, killing five girls and injured five others. Then killed himself.

          Although Roberts was not Amish, the community forgave him, refused to seek justice, demand vengeance, or even to judge him. They visited and comforted his widow and children, just as they embraced the relatives of the slain. The Amish are averse to any killing of human beings. In refusing to judge Robert, the Amish community asserted, it was God’s place to judge. They said nothing or very little to outside inquiry. Held no press conferences and submitted to no television interviews. But only cautioned when saying, “Do not think evil of this man.” They buried their dead, then attended the killer’s funeral the following day. Then built a new schoolhouse, having torn down the old one. 

         Their silence following the slaughter, along with their deep concern for the killer’s family, seemed to Toni at the time characteristic of genuine “goodness” or altruism. And she became fascinated with the term and its definition.

          Toni Morrison identified three definitions of altruism. Altruism is not an instinctive act of selflessness, but a taught and learned one. It might be an ego enhancing in a desperate wish to decrease self-loathing as well. While others argued, altruism as an embedded gene firing to enable the sacrifice of oneself for the help of others. Such sacrifice for kin and/or community is innate, they claim. And is built into our genes, just as we hold individual conquest of others to be an instinctive drive that serves evolution. 

       This goodness we can learn. We can be taught goodness until it becomes a habit of helping strangers and/or taking risks for them at our expense. This should override the Goodness as instinct, because of genetics inclining us to protect our own kin or group such that what we seek for our group extends to all the people we meet. The unquestioning compassion to support not just kin but of members of the group.

        Mr. Justice John Khamoni (rtd) learnt this goodness. As a result, the Law Society of Kenya in 1999 awarded him distinguished service in administration of justice. Award which the then Chief Justice barred him from receiving. And in 2015 he received the 3^rd Justice  C.B. Madan Prize 2015, for his contribution in justice administration (Walter Khobe The Platform No. 13/14 Dec/Jan 2015/2016 p. 36-39). In my view, he is an example of altruism in the judiciary.

             Two of Justice Khamoni’s acts of goodness were done at significant risk to his carrier in the judiciary. For instance, in November 1991, at the peak of the movement for multi-party reform, the police arrested leaders of the famous proscribed Kamukunji meeting at Nairobi and charged in different centers in the country. The magistrate had refused the bail applications for James Orengo and Luke Obok. This case, therefore, reached the High Court in Kisumu before the newly appointed Judge, Mr. Justice Khamoni. In that charged atmosphere, Khamoni considered the application on legal principles of the grant and refusal of bail, and in an unimpeached ruling, He granted both applicants bail. 

           While in 1996, Justice Khamoni issued orders of prohibiting oppressive criminal proceedings by the state to punish opponents in settling civil cases. In Republic v Jared Benson Kangwana, Nairobi High Court Misc. Application No 446 0f 1995. Kangwana filed application praying for orders of judicial review. The court faced an application that continued criminal prosecution amounts to a travesty of justice. While Khamoni affirmed the AG’s unfettered discretion to institute and undertake criminal proceedings, he qualified the discretion, arguing that they should exercise it in a quasi-judicial way and not contrary to public policy. Insisting that the state must strain be extra alert to make sure that criminal proceedings are not used to settle civil disputes. Justice Khamoni rejected any party starting criminal proceedings to cajole an opponent to submit to judgement. Khamoni opposed the invocation of the law in unsuitable circumstances for wrong ends. 

         Justice Khamoni’s vision for a criminal justice system was one averse to oppression. He held that the high court had a duty to prevent vexatious and oppressive prosecutions, instituted for an improper purpose, mala fide, hence an abuse of the court. The two nurses acted like good people. So did Justice Khamoni, and that in quiet. By their act we learn to “feared God”, a generic description of those who have a moral sense.

            Have we wondered why Hon. Amos Wako changed during his 20 years as Kenya’s Attorney General? He served as LSK chairman from 1979 to 1981. And was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee between 1985 and 1992. The honour we paid him and the owe in which we held him reached beyond Kenya to places far away and in countries where the intelligence of Africans is the source of much amusement. Thinking he would check the Nyayo era excesses turned into a futile dream. As head of the state law office, and over saw torcher and suppression of Kenyans agitating for multi-party rule. He watched the wanton human right abuses without a wimp. Although to his credit, Kenya achieved multi-party rule and change of constitution during his tenure. But the KANU government tethered him to the Goldenberg scandal, a long-running corruption scandal his entire time as Attorney General. Which led to his sanction by the USA government. 

         The government is a toxic soil. This is something insightful we now know. Something we didn’t know at the beginning. This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers, to borrow the words of Claudia at the end of Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”. Certain seeds this soil will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear. Will Chief Justice Koome thrive in this soil?

         When we say the past is just a prologue, we mean the past should not enslave us, rather we spring into bright day from lessons we learnt from that dark past. Prologue because we follow a path blazed by leaders such as Shifra and Puah. 

Rev. Canon Francis Omondi, A priest in the Anglican Church of Kenya, All Saints Cathedral Diocese Nairobi. He is an Adjunct Lecturer St. Paul’s University Limuru.  

By Canon Francis Omondi

Stifling the “hustler” vs “dynasty” debate will not save us from the imminent implosion resulting from Kenya’s obscene inequalities. While the debate is a welcome distraction from our frequent divisive tribal politics, leaders in government and society are frightened that it might lead to class wars. Our sustained subtle, yet brazen, war against the poor has made class conflict inevitable. If only we had listened to Hon. J. M. Kariuki, the assassinated former Member of Parliament for Nyandarua (1969-1975), and provided the poor with the means to develop themselves, perhaps the prospect of revolt would now be remote.  

Could this be the angry ghost of J.M. Kariuki coming back to haunt us? Listen to his voice still crying from the grave, as did his supporters at a rally in 1974: “We do not want a Kenya of ten millionaires and ten million beggars. Our people who died in the forests died with a handful of soil in their right hands, believing they had fallen in a noble struggle to regain our land . . . But we are being carried away by selfishness and greed. Unless something is done now, the land question will be answered by bloodshed” (quoted by Prof. Simiyu Wandibba in his book J.M. Kariuki). Fired by this speech, his followers set ablaze 700 acres of wheat on Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s farm in Rongai and slaughtered cattle with malice. Thus did J.M. invite his death. 

What Hon. William Ruto propounds in his hustler vs dynasty debate is a shrewd way of redefining Kenyan identity politics. Ruto is re-directing the political narrative from the “us” vs “them” of tribalism, to one characterised by the poor and desperate (hustlers) who have seen subsequent governments betray their hopes for a better life, pitted against “them”, Ruto’s rivals, the offspring of politicians born to unfair and unearned privilege. 

Hon. William Ruto’s hustler vs dynasty narrative is a shrewd way of redefining Kenyan identity politics in order to avoid playing the tribal card in his quest for the presidency.

Wycliffe Muga, the Star newspaper columnist, has eloquently described them as the “sons of a hereditary political elite who absorbed all the benefits that came with independence, leaving ‘the rest of us’ destitute and having no choice but to beg for the crumbs under their table.” By opting for an alternative approach, Ruto hopes to avoid playing the tribal card to attain the presidency. For, besides his own, he would need support from at least one other of the five big tribes who often reserve support for their own sons unless there is a brokered alliance. But even then, the underlying logic of Kenyan politics remains that of identity politics, which creates a binary narrative of “us” against “them”.  

Meanwhile, Ruto has not only radicalised the poor, but he has also hastened the country’s hour of reckoning, a judgement for the years of neglect of the poor, and this may ignite the tinder sooner we imagine.

In their article in The Elephant, Dauti Kahura and Akoko Akech observe that, “Ruto might have belatedly discovered the great socio-economic divide between the walala-hoi and the walala-hai in Kenya”. Ruto has galvanized the poor and their plight around the banner of the “hustler nation”, a nation aspiring to erase the tribal or geographical lines that have kept Kenyans apart. As a result the poor are restless as they compare their state with the ease of the lives of the affluent. But Ruto is not organising to awaken class-consciousness among the exploited.  ‘As Thandika Mkandawire, citing Karl Marx, observed, “The existence of class may portend class struggles, but it does not automatically trigger them. It is not enough that classes exist in themselves, they must also be for themselves”’, Kahura and Akech further reiterate.   

The problem kicks in immediately he points to the “dynasty”. In juxtaposing the hustlers and dynasty, the poor find a target of hate, an object of their wrath. This situation can easily slide into violence, the violence emerging only when the “us” see themselves as all good and the “them” as all evil. 

I worry this controversy had led us to that radicalisation stage, where the poor see themselves as good children of light fighting against evil forces of darkness. In our case, the so-called hustler nation believe they are against the deep-state, which cares less about them, but wants to give their dues the “dynasty”. This collusion between deep-state and dynasty is preventing them from reaching prosperity. So, acting in self-respect, they deflect their situation to those who they perceive as the cause of their wretchedness. Interestingly, the colonial state always feared the day when the masses would rise up and topple it. Unfortunately, Ruto is using the crisis of the underclass created by the colonial state and perpetuated by the political class for his own self-advancement and political expediency. 

By declaring himself the saviour of the hustlers from the dynasties, Ruto — who is devoid of any pro-democracy and pro-suffering citizens political credentials — is perceived to be antagonising the Kenyatta family’s political and financial interests. He has with precision stoked the anger of the poor against particular political elites he calls dynasties and the Odingas, the Kenyattas, the Mois and their associates have become the hustler nation’s enemy. So, one understands why President Uhuru Kenyatta considers Ruto’s dynasty vs hustler debate “a divisive and a major threat to the country’s security”, which Kenyatta fears may degenerate into class warfare.

Hon. Paul Koinange, Chairman of the Parliamentary Administration and Security Committee errs in his call to criminalise the hustler vs dynasty narrative. If this is hate speech, as Koinange wants it classified, then neglect of the poor by their government is a worse form of hate speech. The application of policies favouring tender-preneurs at the expense of the majority poor, landless and unemployed will incite Kenyans against each other faster than the hustler vs dynasty narrative. The failure to provide public services for the poor and the spiralling wealth of the political class must be confronted. 

We have been speeding down this slippery slope for years. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data ( the 2020 the  Economic Survey in Nairobi on April 28, 2020 you published it in the Elephant). released in December 2020, only 2.92 million Kenyans work in the formal sector, of which 1.34 million or 45.9 per cent earn less than KSh30,000. If we accept that the informal sector employs another 15 million Kenyans, an overwhelming majority —71 per cent — would be in micro-scale enterprises or in small-scale enterprises which make up 26 per cent. This implies that 97 per cent of our enterprises are micro or small, and these are easily wound up. The situation is exasperated by the opulence at the top. The UK-based New World Wealth survey (2014) conducted over 5 years, painted a grim picture of wealth distribution in Kenya. Of the country’s 43.1 million people then, 46 per cent lived below the poverty line, surviving on less than Sh172 ($2) a day. This report showed that nearly two-thirds of Kenya’s Sh4.3 trillion ($50 billion) economy is controlled by a tiny clique of 8,300 super-wealthy individuals, highlighting the huge inequality between the rich and the poor. Without a clear understanding of these disparities, it is difficult to evaluate the currents that are conducive to the widening of this gap not to mention those that would bridge it. Hon. Koinange should be bothered to address these inequalities the masses are awakening to than the hustler narrative. Our government must be intentional in levelling the playing field, or live in perpetual fear like the British colonials who feared mass revolt across imaginary ethnic lines.   

Our government must be intentional in levelling the playing field, or live in perpetual fear like the British colonials who feared mass revolt across imaginary ethnic lines.   

In Kenya past injustices yielded gross inequalities, for which Okello and Gitau, in Reading on inequality in Kenya: Sectoral Dynamics and Perceptions, illustrated how state power is still being used to perpetuate differences in the sharing of political and economic welfare. Okello further observed that: “In a country where for a long time economic and political power was/has been heavily partisan, where the state appropriated for itself the role of being the agency for development, and where politics is highly ethnicised, the hypothesis of unequal treatment has been so easy to build.”

This, not euphoria from the “hustler nation”, is the tinder that is about to explode. The horizontal manifestation of inequality stemming from failure of state institutions or policies that have continued to fester inequalities, is what should be a concern to the state. How can the government not see the risk such extreme economic disparities within the population pose for the nation’s stability? 

Canon Francis Omondi, is a priest of All Saints Cathedral Diocese Nairobi, and an adjunct lecturer at St. Paul’s University Limuru. Views expressed here are his own.

This article was first published in The Elephant as https://www.theelephant.info/features/2021/02/20/for-j-ms-ten-million-beggars-the-hustler-vs-dynasty-narrative-is-a-red-herring/