It’s been “back to school” preoccupation since last week, but back to school to study what? Imbibe which values? Acquire knowledge that serves whose interest? Learn to align with which historical thread?
These Ngugi Wa Thiong’o-like questions have been crossing my mind from the time I visited the Mbale Islamic University Department of Political Science in Uganda -last week. I was seeking the assistance of the department to enable me locate where the remains of Field Marshal John Okello were buried and where his family is located.
“I have never heard of that name,” a lecturer I found in the office quickly replied to my inquiry. I had to take him through the Okello story that happened in the 60s
“Okello was the leader of the Zanzibar revolution that overthrew the feudal Arab government. He was born in Northern Uganda but migrated to Zanzibar and led the military operation that culminated in the liberation of Zanzibar. After taking over, he invited Abeid Karume who was exiled in mainland Tanzania to be president.
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The nature of the coup that took only nine hours to effect its mission scared Presidents Karume, Julius Nyerere, Milton Obote and Jomo Kenyatta. They declared him an unwanted man in the region.
On his way out of Tanzania, he had to pass through Kenya but Kenyatta gave him six hours to live the country. He was later arrested and jailed. After serving eighteen months in Kamiti for being illegally in the country, he went back to Uganda. Upon arriving there, the reigning dictator Idi Amin Dada had him killed. The reason has been given that Okello was described by the title Field Marshall and that Amin could not stand having two Field Masharls in “his” country.
“When I travelled to Zanzibar in the year 2000, his legacy was best captured by the response of a citizen there after I asked him to direct me to any of the slums on the island. He told me that there were no slums in Zanzibar – the Okello-led revolution led to allocation of five acres of land to every family.”
Even after giving him this back ground story, the Mbale Islamic University lecturer still had no idea who Okello was and so he called his colleague in the department. On speaker phone he said, “Yaah I have heard something like that. It must have happened.”
And that was end of the story.
These lecturers were not fools. They were experts in another type of education that was carefully designed to create ignorance about Okello’s political activities in the East Africa region, which has been based on the running philosophy of colonial education – to shape new narratives- mostly half true.
Call this kind of education the official type, neo-colonial or bourgeois but what is discernible is that their education curriculum was inspired by a different moral foundation that was inimical to sharing resources equitably.
Okello’s legacy had undermined class privileges hence the ruler had to eclipse him from official history- which they did through rewriting education curriculums used in schools.
This is what I encountered when I went back to the University of Nairobi after the Mwai Kibaki’s government allowed us back in 2003. You recall that we had lost higher education following our expulsion in the mid-80s because of student activism. I have written on this paper before about this and cited former Deputy President Rigathi Gahagua as a classmate who was a beneficiary of hot student politics where he played for the state as we were critics of the state.
During my second stint at the University of Nairobi the lecturers I encountered in class were mainly products of the global United States education conveyor belt. Every lecturer got me clashing with them. Most of them would agree with me. Especially the late University Academic Staff Union Secretary General Charles Kulinjira Namachanja.
Over time they could not give me a chance to give alternative versions of issues we would be discussing as fellow learners started talking of “Bukeism.” Disgusted, I quit college and decided to live without a degree.
This week and last week as our kids stream back to school, we all know the values they will be taught:
“Work hard and buy your neighbours’ land”
“If you want to avoid being a farmer, read and pass exams”
“When you go to university, don’t be like Titus Adungosi, concentrate on learning like Dr William Ruto and Prof Kithure Kindiki. Look at where they are compared to the like’s of Wafula Buke who thought they were too clever”
When I was jailed in the mid 80s, my Secondary school headmaster at Kibabii Boys High School, Zakayo Simiyu gave a long lecture on parade about how I refused to heed his advice which during our days was punctuated by physical beatings.
“Check where the boy is now. Jailed for five years” Simiyu told Kibabii Boys on a morning parade.
After being released from prison, I met him at a bank in Bungoma town. He murmured a “pole” and walked away without looking back. He didn’t and couldn’t congratulate me for fighting a dictatorial regime of the day.
Today I ask myself is this not the type of teacher teaching my daughters, Albertina in Bungoma, Cherop in Germany, Fiani in Kangundo, and my son Garang in Rwanda? They are largely being prepared to: use us for their self-interest -fight us when we clamor for social justice and call us stupid when we challenge the authenticity and moral grounding of colonial education.
Under the Ruto inspired- curriculum, a mention may never be made about many things:
“How come Field Dedan Kimaathi’s Secretary was a mere form two, Karari Njama, while Field Marshal John Okello was a primary school drop-out deputized by an equally not very schooled Maragoli called Absolom Ingen?” What is it in education that removes the “educated from the theatre of struggle? “
“How come the Mau Mau and women were not represented in the Lancaster independence talks in London?”
“Why have Kenyan governments led by learned men after independence refused to release the remains of Dedan Kimathi from Kamiti prison? How come behind every major corruption scandal there is a professor or a PhD holder? How come our economy is sinking when we have the most learned president and deputy in the world?”
The education our children must study is the neocolonial education designed to prop up neocolonial values. The history they study can’t capture Rev Timothy Njoya as an architect of the new constitution. It will capture Mwai Kibaki instead as the main guy who fought for many years for freedoms in the country. It will teach that Zanzibar’s revolution of 1964 was engineered by Abeid Karume, you will see no mention of John Okello because- the reason is that he inspires revolution against the real beneficiaries who are nothing but land grabbers.
I look back through Kenya’s history and I say that a game changing mistake was made by the Kikuyu Central Association leadership. Instead of sending James Beauta to England to lobby for independence and justice in Kenya, they preferred the learned Johnstone Kamau allias Jomo Kenyatra.
Dr Njuki Githethwa, Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, among others thank you for organising the Inaugural Kenya Left Alliance conference that took place at the week of August 18. That was a perfect forum for discussing alternative education.
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By Wafula Buke