When I was aspiring to be a writer and, finally, when I succeeded in being published, I did not do that with an intention of hurting anybody or any institution in my country. My business was simply to address the public and share with it my views about life.
But sooner had I been published did I realize that, indirectly, that public didn’t belong to me alone. In fact, on the ground it belonged to someone more than it belonged to me. In other words, I was sharing the platform with someone else and what I wrote was subject to please that someone somewhere just as much as it would displease him. The competitor I was sharing the platform with was the State-cum-the-politician. Each of the two competitors, myself and the state, wanted to impress the audience more than the other and prove to the audience that the other was irrelevant.
This is reminds me of a story about two men who were competing for a concubine. Let me call the concubine Lisa, one man Musa and the other Mpala. Now, Musa was a great actor armed with hypnotizing words which gave Lisa wonderful moments and flights to the moon. Musa had mastered the most moving behavior with which to furnish Lisa with praises about her beauty and promises of the great things he planned to give her. Her acceptance of his approach made him proudly say, “Lisa is my woman.”
The competitor Mpala was ruled by nobility. He was absolutely truthful and gave Lisa the best advice for her development. He was there when she needed him; unlike the romantic Musa who would give her all kinds of excuses to justify his failure. On top of his nobility, Mpala was a musician. He played wonderful tunes to Lisa on his special instrument. She loved his music so much. Because of his character and lovely music, she was attracted to him much more than she was to Musa.
In one of Musa’s desperate attempts to make Lisa his own concubine and kill her love for Mpala, he confronted Mpala by snatching his special musical instrument, which he destroyed in order to make devalue Mpala.
In 1973 in my attempt to impress my “concubine” I published a book called My Dear Bottle that, from the face value, sounded cheap and a joker. Actually, the cause of the book had been inspired by a poem I had written called “Mathare Valley.” By that time Mathare Valley was the only visible slum in the ten-year independent nation. I wanted to criticize the government but not President Jomo Kenyatta as a person. But, as Kenyatta had already established a culture of addressing the government personally as “my government” which remains in fashion up to this day, to criticize the government was to criticize Kenyatta. Kenyatta was the government and the government was Kenyatta. I had sent the poem to the Nation Newspaper for publication but it had been returned to me by an insider with a comment saying, “If we publish this poem Kenyatta will destroy you and we’ll be in problem as a newspaper.”
One day I thought I should create a drunkard as the main character in my book and let him say everything for me. That’s why the book begins by saying: “There’s an unknown woman/I ate yesterday/and man/I don’t feel good about it/so, my dear bottle/please talk to me/take me in your hands/and comfort me.” The book said everything else I wanted to say and included the full poem. Because of the style I had used in disguise, I got away with the murder. Somewhere in the book I said: These sayings that Akamba people are sex maniacs/Kikuyu people are thieves/Luo people are braggarts/Maasai people are animals/are saying preparing for civil war/soon or some time to come.” How prophetic that statement was!
It took time for Kenyatta’s men to discover I was more serious than they had thought in my employment of my musical instrument to attract Lisa more to me than to Kenyatta. However, in the course of what happened thereafter, Kenyatta’s men, indeed, snatched my special musical instrument and destroyed it. Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o has a bigger story to tell about how Kenyatta destroyed Wa Thiong’os musical instrument through detention. What angered President Kenyatta even more was that Ngugi was a Kikuyu and Kenyatta was a Kikuyu; hence challenging President Kenyatta’s” government. It was all nothing else but a duel between Musa and Mpala over Lisa, the concubine.
As I wrote I realized that there are topics which touch on the State’s raw nerves and, of course, there are consequences that would leave me at a delicate moment of balancing. I discovered that the state is not bothered at all when I wrote about clouds, rivers, sex, fidelity and infidelity, God and his creation, making money and marrying many wives, etc. If I wrote about that and I wopuld remain a good boy and even earn a ticket to the State house for a function, as long as I refrained from singing melodies to Lisa and trying to prove to her that I am a better asset to her life than Musa. If I dare challenge the government Musa that way, Musa would start dreaming of even castrating me.
It took me years to become disillusioned about the reality that, as long as politicians are empowered with the western perception of politics, politics being a mere business of perception as Mutahi Ngunyi is fond of saying, the writer and the state will remain at war with each other and, at it worst, when the state is less democratic and is ambitiously set to destroy Mpala’s musical instrument. We may easily forget that we are using the western version on democracy; not the African version of democracy. In the version we have adopted, a politician plays Musa’s role absolutely in promising Lisa a piece of the moon. He is an artist of fabricating lies with which to silence Lisa’s demands. In the name of politics, he can bypass Lisa as a concubine and become a political prostitute, thief, rapist and murderer. Yes, in his ambitious defence for Lisa to remain his own concubine.
The African concept of politics (African languages don’t have a word for politician) a leader is a truly honourable person. He stands out as the most trustworthy person before the eyes of the people he leads. He plays the Mpala character in the most impressive manner besides comforting and entertaining his audience with spiritual tunes. He is because they are and they are because he is.
