There are three things that are keeping our country poor. Poor morale, disunity, and our geographical positioning among ‘bad’ neighbors. Anyone looking at the African continent sees Kenya first. Nairobi is the lamp that shines brightest in Africa. Unfortunately, Kenyans have forgotten this – may be we were not taught that!
Most of the Western/Eastern world looks at Africa with pity and sympathy. We have been looked down on for the longest time. Many times we have been the recipients of grants and foreign aid which besides the helping aspect, have served to insidiously kill our pride, stifle our creative expression and furthermore increase our reliance on Western/Eastern nations. Our livelihoods become tied to them. So much that I recently heard talks of contraceptives becoming foreseeably unavailable in Kenya due to President Trump’s election policies. So much so that all Africans become the bearers of the banner of a poor, parasitic, hopeless, and clueless peoples everywhere we step foot on.
It is said history is written by the victors. Unfortunately, most if not all of Kenyan history and most of African history has been written by outsiders. Sometimes I get emotional about this stuff. What were our ancestors doing? What happened on this land 1000 years ago? What stories existed 1000 years ago? A lot of Western and Eastern peoples have that heritage. The Chinese for example can trace their thriving culture back 2500 years ago. Unfortunately, most Kenyans are clueless about ours. We watch Western media portraying ours as a corrupt and disorganized nation and it shapes our worldview, and with that our self-perception.
We have not forgotten our history; we were never properly taught it for whatever reasons. If you think you are educated in Kenyan history just by getting a conventional education in it, you are mistaken. I believe history – whether personal or apersonal is only relevant to a person if it ignites a fire in them and inspires pride. That is, history should always give the people purpose. Sadly, what we are taught does not serve us. Most Kenyans do not know where we came from. We only know what happened during the colonial time courtesy of our education system. We are angry, anxious, confused, and frustrated about this.
All historical sources are of necessity biased, and the historian who believes his sources is not worth his salt. It is what the historian can get from them, what he can read between the lines and deduce from the conflicts of evidence which the varied biases present, that produces historical understanding worth the effort
We must change our understanding and perspectives of our history to serve us. We are all historians. The only pieces of history we should appropriate are those which promote progressive behavior among ourselves. Not hate, anger, and disillusionment like what is happening in Kenya right now.
History is not objective. It is lopsided, subjective, and often manipulated! To illustrate this, American portrayals of conflicts in Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan reflect American interests, overriding the petrified lived experiences of the common people who were invaded. What actually happened during the Holocaust. And the genocide happening in Palestine currently. I call it all ‘tailor-made history’. Everyone is ‘photoshopping’ their own history book to fit their own interests. Kenya failed to craft its own version of history for its people to build a worldview from. So basically, we built our worldview from biased histories. But this is a chance for us to fix that. I say we start writing positive histories for ourselves.
What histories can we appropriate to serve our interests and how will we do that? First, how to appropriate history to fit an progressive worldview in Kenya? Propaganda. Second, what history to appropriate? All history about Kenyan prosperity before the 18th century upto date. Our shared identity, goals, and aspirations for our country. How we conquered disease before Western medicine. Our religious folklore, our culinary tastes, our diverse cultures, our technological pursuits, and everything that makes us us. For instance, instead of highlighting tribal rivalries, we could promote historical and contemporary instances of intertribal cooperation.
What the British Empire majorly did was to choke and suffocate our spirit and morale. And then foster disunity among the tribes. And when the modern worldview favored decolonization, they left us disorganized, robbed, and clueless. Case in point: the current rife between the Kikuyu and Luo tribe dates back to around 1960s with President Jomo Kenyatta and Vice President Jaramogi Oginga. What existed before all that rife was a mutual relation between the tribes. Today, the same thing is happening toward the Kenyan Somalis from the general Kenyan population. People we have amicably lived with since independence and who have long contributed to our nation’s growth. Negative propaganda like this continues to weaken us.
Let's write positive histories!