KENYA’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION

“Unless there is expression, there will be no progress”. These words were said by a local writer, Kingwa Kamencu, whose book To Grasp at a Star won the 2003 National Book Development Council of Kenya (NCDCK) literary award. Miss Kamencu was speaking as a guest lecturer in my African literature class and I couldn’t stop wondering, how many people particularly university students know this author or her books?
The African reading culture is haunted by stereotypes and bad jokes, one of them being: If you want to hide something from an African, hide it in a book. The problem is the people who come up with such foolish sayings have a good defense as to why they say such things. It is true that the improvement of education (let’s call it improvement) in Africa by initiatives such as free primary education and compulsory education for a certain age-group has led to the increase in literacy. More people are reading books, but what books are being read? It is clear that most Kenyans read some books strictly for examination purposes, after which they either drop books completely or cover themselves in western forms of literature which in my opinion have nothing wrong, except if we call killing our very own literature and replacing it with an alien one right.
Literature has been through out centuries and was the only way of passing information and storing a people’s story. Our African culture had a different way of passing on information and this is oral literature. However the coming of western culture meant that some of our best literature gurus would learn to read and write; and so we had the likes of Okot p’Bitek, Rubadiri, Pio Zirimu and his wife Elevania, Odida, who headed the Heartbeat of Africa Dance troupe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, among others, who p’Bitek refers to as cultural revolutionists in his book Africa’s Cultural Revolution.
The Kenyan literary scene is growing everyday with the number of publishing houses increasing. This does not mean however, that bookshops are stocking our writers’ books. The few being shelved are those published by well known publishing houses such as Kwani? The problem with this is that literature tends to speak to a certain group of people, as opposed to everyone as it should. A certain elite group is coming up which holds book readings and recitals in posh restaurants and hotels, yet they call themselves African writers who are supposed to cater for the African people. You cannot solve Africa’s issues in a hotel conference room, or politicians tried and failed. One of the main reasons why Kwani? books are read is that they carry a certain identity for the reader. Half of the people who own these books do not read them and half of the people who need them do not get them.
We need a new breed of cultural revolutionist who will pick up from where Okot left from and take literature to where it is supposed to be. Hold cultural festivals, write real books with real stories, and by real I mean relevant to us as Africans and more so as Kenyans. We need to encourage our children to become writers and not chase impossible dreams that leave the lost in disillusionment. “I want to be a writer” should be a sentence children will say comfortably without rebuke from an unrealistic and overambitious society.
Kenyan Universities should embrace their literature departments if they intend to change the face of Kenyan literature. We have seen what those who graduate from universities do for the local media; why not for the literature scene? We have poets, short story writers, novelists, dancers, musicians, artists, story tellers and literature students who just appreciate it. Why not come up with events that include all these forms of literature and use them to change the world from even a Christian’s perspective? We have a lot to solve the problems we see.
Literature must be freed from the bounds of examination. We should not only embrace books for the sake of passing examinations but for the sake of appreciation and growing as a people out of increased literacy and social awareness. We communicate more if we all understand each other through expression. Let students dance, let students sing if at all it will improve their appreciation of literature. We have a responsibility as people, as students, as Africans and as Kenyans. We have a responsibility towards society to read and to write and out of this lead a society that is right.