Dear Willy: It's Back To The Trenches

MONDAY, 23 MAY 2011 15:19 BY MUGAMBI KIAI

 William Ruto who is the deputy leader of the Orange Democratic Party, said, “When it reaches a point where the person who is nominated to lead the judiciary is a man who puts on studs on his ears and says he talks to genies through the studs then we know we need prayers as a nation.”  His sidekick, Cherangany MP, Joshua Kutuny added, “There is one or two issues associated with men wearing studs. We want him to come out candidly to explain. If he can’t, let him forget it,”

 Naivasha MP, John Mututho “If they can’t tell us the meaning of this stud, then Dr Mutunga should forget about it. How will he come to the chamber during official special parliamentary sessions with this kind of attire when the Speaker recently ruled that wearing a stud is considered indecent in the House?”  The General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya Canon Peter Karanja says the immorality they warned about in the constitution was beginning to emerge. “We express our reservations with regards to their assuming these positions on account of our Christian values and beliefs.”

 I would, however, submit that the stud debate is a red herring: this debate is everything but about the stud. For if they have studied modern masculinity they will note that some of the most famous and iconic and successful males have spotted studs in their ears.  Diego Maradona, for example, was simply the most flamboyant and exquisite footballer the world has ever seen.  Diego almost single-handedly won Argentina the 1986 football world cup and brought that country such joy and pride that he remains a revered public figure there.  Did Argentines reject him because he spotted studs in his ears?  Michael Jordan – the most illustrious basketball star in modern times and whose mother Delores has been instrumental in setting up care for sexually abused women in Nairobi – also prominently spotted a stud in his ear.  Did we hear the people of Chicago whose franchise he so proudly and successfully represented question MJ’s morality or sexuality?

 A stud can be ornamental, spiritual, symbolic…it is really not the business of anyone to question one’s individual choice to spot one or not to.  We did not question Jomo Kenyatta when he traversed Kenya with a fly whisk and a bakora.  Or Daniel Moi with his rungu: these could have been personal accessories or they could, on the other hand, be perceived as articles of war.  So where do the Kenyatta-Moi orphans derive the temerity to question the simple spotting of the less harmful stud?

 Willy, methinks these folks want to misdirect us.  They would like us to miss the fact that you were the Secretary General of the University Staff Union at a time when the government of Kenya had developed a proclivity to detain without trial those academics it deemed to be a “threat” to public security.  Like Ngugi wa Thiong’o for whose reinstatement at the university you fought when he was released from detention following the death of Jomo Kenyatta in 1978.

 They would rather we totally avoided that you were arrested on June 10, 1982, detained without trial on July 29, 1982 and released on October 20, 1983.  That you were accused of being in possession of an allegedly seditious pamphlet headlined: “Don’t be fooled: Reject these Nyayos.”  They would want us to forget that prior to your detention you were actually charged on a Saturday, June 12, 1982 with your plea being taken at around 1 p.m.; long after official working hours.

 They would not want to hear what ideas you have on the role the judiciary can play in facilitating prison reforms, having experienced the brutal dehumanization of the prison system in Kenya firsthand.  They would prefer that you did not share your ideas about how to permanently stop the dehumanization you went through while in prison: strip searches, inedible food, congestion, lice infestation, lack of sanitation and abuse by prison warders.  I wish they would hear your narrative of the warder that was nicknamed nongwe (monkey) who used to visit untold violence on prisoners for the sake of it: the case of one whom the system had dehumanized despite belonging to it.

 These people understand the power of your struggle; which is why they would not like us to hear about it.  How, for instance, at great peril and imminent, personal danger to your liberty you – as the Vice Chair of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) - and other members of the council of the LSK were prepared to go to jail for contempt of court in 1990 for demanding that the Moi-KANU regime respects Kenyans’ freedom of association and allow the registration of an alternative political party. What is interesting was the court case against the council of the LSK at the time was initiated by one Aaron Ringera, who received tremendous political support when he was illegally re-appointed as Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from those same people screaming about your stud.

 Are we to forget the role you played in consolidating the pro-reforms movement from the mid 1990s which resulted in the Ufungamanoconstitutional reforms initiative that was interethnic, intergenerational and inter-religious and without which the dream of a new constitution would have expired?   Is it not pitiable that some of the groups that formed this very formidable change platform like the NCCK have now retreated into such vested, insular and parochial institutions?  Were you not the one who captured this gallant struggle in the book Constitution Making from the Middle?

 

 Your narrative reveals a rich, consistent tapestry for change.  As the Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, you were part of the bold decision to publicly back Mwai Kibaki for the presidency in the 2002 general elections when it was completely anathema for civil society organizations to throw their lot with any political formations.  Now, even those who are belatedly singing and shouting that Kibaki is their muthamaki (savior) are reportedly hostile to your nomination as Chief Justice.  Clearly, such contradictions are the reason we have to continue to engage in this struggle to bring real change to Kenya. 

 So Willy, we are back to the trenches: with our history of progress and reversals, our ideals and values for transformative democratic change…and our studs!    

 Mugambi Kiai is the Kenya Program Manager at the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA).  The views expressed in this article are entirely his own and do not reflect the views of OSIEA.