Fasihi and Decolonization
An Igby Prize essay by Malusi Mwongeli on becoming self-aware through the help of Swahili teachers, literature set-books, campus roommates and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Being is one thing; becoming aware of it is a point of arrival by an awakened consciousness and this involves a journey.
— Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
We had a double lesson of Swahili Fasihi¹ every Wednesday afternoon in my final year of high school. It was 2012. Mr. Lumasai, a small amorphously wide man, taught us Swahili Fasihi. On this particular Wednesday, we were studying a scene on Said Mohammed’s Utengano, one of the required mandatory Swahili set books during my time, where an old man was lamenting on how acquisition of independence had disillusioned him into thinking that post-colonial Kenya would have him eating Pilau² every day at home, while basking in the after-glow of self-rule. Utengano as a text was almost entirely apolitical and there were barely any events within the text or characters who consciously portrayed, through their actions or statements, any expected political stance. The scene in question was practically inconsequential and none of the character arcs hinged upon its resolution.
Mr. Lumasai was a deeply intellectual man who seemed to be perpetually frustrated at how our curriculum was entirely focused on the pursuit of good grades and never at questioning the value of what we learnt, a curriculum (and a pedagogy) that never encouraged us to develop our viewpoints and not simply regurgitate or faithfully reproduce what we read in books. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t surprised when he interjected the reading. He immediately embarked on explaining how almost explicitly the pre-colonial independence struggle had put almost all thought into becoming independent and none on what being independent meant. Especially among the masses. The ‘beyond’ was a new idea and no one could imagine an identity that was hinged on nationalism and above tribe. Being Kenyan was a new idea, and the ‘being’ was particularly an odd thought. I know instinctively that this was the context in which he mentioned Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s, Decolonizing the Mind, I just don’t remember the particulars of the why and the when, perhaps it is enshrined in the dreary and lazy nature of Wednesday afternoon classes.
I’ve always thought that there was one last moment, the superb moment of mental stasis. Everything was in balance, and pure and almost happy — a moment of en-passant blissfully ignorant perfection. But it was also the end, because it was changing and the moment he said ‘Decolonizing the Mind’, the change became imminent, it was already in progress — there’s nothing I could’ve done. In the face of a rather uninspiring and uneventful high school afternoon, the delicacy and implied strength and sheer possibility of such a statement made me almost stand up. Something in my mind shifted that day. Decolonize. Then decolonize the mind. I held that thought with me the whole day. Held its fragile ends, turned it upon itself, examined it beyond its borders but for the life of me, could not fathom its capacity. I started questioning my own reality. I had never done that before. And for a solid moment, I realized I had navigated through the murkiness of life without questions, well, the questions that matter. Full of shame, I suddenly realized, I had many questions. However, my mental liberation wasn’t political in nature. It wasn’t the idea of decolonizing the mind, the process of liberating oneself from all socio-political and psychological colonial influences that brought about a shift of thought. It was the fact that I was thinking, that I’d become psychologically aware.
Of course, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o was a familiar name. His work peppered our daily conversations. As part of our English Literature classes we studied the nuances of change, the harsh marriage between Gikuyu traditions and colonial Christianity and the embrace, the rejection or the accommodation of ‘progressive’ colonization and dispossession by white settlers through the characters of The River Between. We fiddled with ideas of cultural disintegration, colonial paternalism, traditional patriarchy and religious fanaticism in The Martyr and A Meeting in The Dark which were part of Half a Day and Other Stories, the required anthology for study. However, at this point, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o was valuable to me in the way knowledge and understanding of the mole concept and logarithms was — for the assurance of good grades come the national examinations.
The Kenyan 2012 was a fickle, fragile year. Reminders of unresolved trauma from 2007–2008 were eerily clear in ethno-political clashes in Samburu and Tana River regions. A series of terrorist attacks in both rural and urban centres, in the most unexpected places, matatus³, quarries, barbershops and even churches left everyone panicky and prickly. An election was looming and an undercurrent of the possibility of eruptions of election related violence was festering silently in our media, local TV shows, our music, our art and literature. Then there was the global fear of the end of the world on December 21st, as predicted by the Mayan calendar. It was also the year I’d sit my national examinations.
Mr. Lumasai and by extension, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, ignited a primordial desire to understand myself, my country and its history and my place in it. Up to that point, any knowledge of Kenya’s precarious colonization was what I had read in my history books. I, like most of my classmates, knew the skeleton of what transpired. The political parties, the important names, the places, the Mau Mau uprising and the dates. The many, many dates. I didn’t know of the atrocities, the concentration camps, the labour reserves, the brutal raping, the unmarked graves, the cultural whitewashing, the torture, the post-colonial corruption, the land grabbing, the madness of it all. We found out about these things later in life through blogs, threads on Twitter, video essays on Youtube, documentaries, Tumblr, plays and books from exiled authors.
After high school, Ngugi became a means through which I understood myself and my society. I consumed his work with the ferocity of a thirsty cat. Lisa, my hostel roommate in campus, was an English Literature student and I don’t think fate has ever worked in my favour like that before.
The foundation of our relationship was entirely built on our late-night discussions of Muthoni’s agenda in The River Between, imaginations of collective nationalism and belonging in Weep, Not Child. We imagined a socialist Kenya devoid of the underhands of Petals of Blood’s faceless systems of capitalism. We saw ourselves in Njoroge, the main character in Weep, Not Child, and his struggles of navigating personal ambitions in a world and time where they seemed sowed into the fabric of the desires of the collective. Decolonize the Mind reminded us and we laughed at the shared memories of the blue plastic plate — in Lisa’s school it was a round iron plate — we wore whenever we spoke in Swahili on English speaking days. It was later, through the prodding of that collection of essays, that I decided to learn how to read and write in my native tongue — Kikamba. When Ngugi lectured at the University of Nairobi in 2015, we were seated neatly on the 8th row and later that weekend, went for a book signing at a local mall. In 2016, when a colossal blanket of depression wound itself around me, I palliatively read The Wizard of The Crow almost obsessively.
2017. Kenya’s electioneering season. In light of all the politicking and legal jargon that has graced our social media, media spaces and daily conversations, I, like most Kenyans, find myself in a space of questions. Questions regarding my place in Kenya’s ethnic puzzle. Questions about our culture of historical amnesia, injustices and socio-economic marginalization. Questions on the revisionist tendencies embedded in our educative curriculum. Questions on how the stories we tell shape our national consciousness.
Earlier this year, a Ghanaian friend asked me why Kenyans are so mad at Kikuyus, as the word Gikuyu hegemony floats around on Twitter and on blog posts, that Kenyans should thank them for they single-handedly fought for our independence. I asked him from where he had gotten that fallacious information. “But Ngugi’s work!” he said. Sometimes, I question whether the sheer dominance of Ngugi’s work, how he has monopolized the global market on Kenyan literature and how his work is most referenced when it comes to pre-colonial Kenya and early independent Kenya has subconsciously shaped how we place value on tribal communities.
Even as I question Ngugi’s place in shaping a Kenyan consciousness, I cannot deny his influence on the growth of my personal political maturity. He has taught me, as I begin my writing journey, how to see the African in my repetitive and deliciously mundane rhythms of survival, how to observe the bits and pieces that perpetuate the oppressive systems in our communities, how to understand our collective flawed humanity and above all, to remember that we are becoming what we are not — bigoted, tribalised Kenyans — and that what we are is inescapable. I am still not sure what that is.
- Fasihi: Swahili translation for Literature.
2. Pilau: A Kenyan rice delicacy.
3. Matatus: Public service vehicles in Kenya.
Malusi Mwongeli is a Kenyan graphic designer who was born in Nairobi but raised in many parts of Kenya. She writes to calm herself because her fingers can’t stay still. She has been published on Afreada. She wishes she could time travel back into the unburdened times of her childhood. She would like to be an avid traveller and a certified chicken taster. When she’s not making lists, on Twitter or eating fruits, she’s probably thinking about it. You can read more work on Medium Malusi Mwongeli and on Twitter @MalusiMwongeli.
