I had to catch up with some friends on Kimath Avenue last Saturday when I was in Kenya. Prior to my trip, we had exchanged messages via Facebook and phone calls and they looked forward to welcoming me to Kenya since we last met a few years ago. The Nation Media group, where they work, is situated on the avenue which has a resemblance with our own Broad Street in Lagos.
The trip from the Safari Hotel where I was lodged to the city centre was quite a distance. The taxi took me through the heart of Nairobi where the lower class resides. Along the road is an open market where ‘bend down’ boutiques abound. It is a version of our Yaba market in Lagos. The slow moving traffic afforded me the opportunity to see young men, women, girls and boys ‘select and pay’ for shirts, dresses, jackets and so on. Some of them, dressed in ill-fitting clothes, were obviously shopping for replacements. They are the unfortunate ones who dwell at the bottom of the economic ladder.
As I watched them, I could recall some of the pre-independence, independence and post- independence literary issues treated in my literature class while in school, in particular, protest literature. Colonial Kenya had a very influential white settler community which eroded everything Kenyans could call their own, especially their culture. Kenya's liberation required an armed struggle. The Mau Mau movement was indeed a liberation army that resorted, from time to time, to what, today, would be classified as ‘terrorist’ methods. The Mau Mau fought the British on African soil. They fought to get back their land from the British who they accused of giving them the Bible in exchange for their land. That is why today, the largest chunk of the land in Kenya - including the one on which the hotel I stayed in is built - is owned by whites.
Years after independence, Kenyans are still suffering. Many of them cannot get the colonial mentality out of their system. Even the very poor ones on the streets are seen in dirty looking suits and those who cannot afford suits wear weather beaten jackets. “I don’t think these people have traditional dresses anymore,” observed Tope Ajayi, a Nigerian friend and brother who was in the taxi with me. His observation stemming from what we had seen on the streets. Almost everyone is in one form of suit or another.
“They don’t,” I replied.
“You won’t find this kind of situation in West Africa. In Nigeria, we have the iro and buba, adire and so on, which can be sewn into beautiful styles; even in Ghana, they have traditional dresses. It’s sad then, if Kenyans don’t have.”
“I bet what is left of their traditional wear can be found among the Masai who are rarely seen in town,” I said.
The metaphor for development in the postcolonial era throughout Kenya has been well documented in the novels of Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Meja Mwangi, among others. Through the characters they portray in their novels, they have shown how some Kenyans have been motivated largely by a desire to escape the pervasive malaise that has afflicted Kenya after Uhuru (independence). Each of the characters illustrates different strategies for coping in the oppressive conditions of the new black-run country. It is for this reason that in his novels, Wa Thiong’o condemns Kenyan ruling elites who exploit the country's workers and peasants. He vigorously criticises neo-colonialist institutions like Christianity, politicians, schools, businesses, banks, landlords including the highways.
I must say that in reality, Kenyans are yet to get over the oppressive conditions. As I watched some of them walking on the sidewalks around the symbolic Independence Avenue, I could tell they were battling with some internal struggles. The class divide is so wide. The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. The mentality of an average Kenyan is that of fear, oppression and deprivation.
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