urbanwasanii

The eventful early months this year, got me thinking a lot about the history and state of the Kenyan nation. In moments of cynicism, and they have been a dime a dozen, I have even argued that a nation called Kenya has existed only in name and never in the shared ideals of its people. At one point, in my weekly online column at KenyaImagine, I wrote:

“Let there be Kenya,” said Queen Victoria. And there was Kenya.

Suddenly, a diverse number of Peoples, not necessarily bound together by a singular set of shared values, boundaries or cultural connections were lumped together as one nation under the Queen. God would come later as a pacifying force when skilled labour and hut tax would be required for the extraction of natural resources and meeting the cost of pacifying the native.

I have thought deeply, on the issue of Kenyan history and this happening hand in hand with musings on why we, as writers, write. Kenyan history, and this was easy because there was a neat cliché to work with, was written by the victors while we, as writers, write to inform and influence the historical record. This simply means that in writing, we earn the power to change the face of the victor; the chronicler of history can shift from being that ‘amorphous self-aggrandising system’, that we all love to berate, to us. Us. We that, in the archetypal artist’s lack of modesty, believe ourselves to be honest documenters of our times and experiences.

Whether we are honest or not is one thing, that we are true representatives of the vox populi; that we are beyond subjective interpretations and a penchant for looking at Kenya through ethnic-coloured glasses (a condition we attribute to our politicians and never us) is another.

Being here in Mombasa, for this workshop, is yet another opportunity to continue soul searching. I have spent long hours at the Fort Jesus museum, listened to its guides and read all its display cases. I have asked and continue to ask myself: would the perspective change if this same museum was in Yemen, Portugal or the United Kingdom. As I listen to my guide, who is a Muslim and a Mswahili, do I hear the same history as a pentecostal Christian from Isebania, in the mainland of Kenya?

How much are real and tangible objects such as relics and artefacts instruments for the distortion of history? How much truth is there ever in the bones? How much of our religious, moral and cultural filters do we drag through a visit to the museum?

Questions… many questions….