Message to the Miss Koch Assembly 2008
Otieno Wandei
Perth Western Australia
22 August 2008
Certainty of Purpose
Two events stand out today that embody the chosen theme. First is the Olympics’ being held in China, initially there was a lot of scepticism as to whether China could indeed pull it of - what with their human rights issues and a major outcry on pollution? But China has given the world the most memorable spectacle the world has ever seen so much so that Britain is now questioning itself whether the budget allocated for the Olympics is adequate. If that concern were to be unpackaged it means the Almighty Britain is questioning whether they can achieve what China has done or more so do even do it better! What the Chinese have proved to the entire world is that if people have certainity of purpose and then they will be un-stoppable. The fireworks at the opening ceremony perhaps signify how high China has pushed the Olympic legacy. Not so far from China though there are different kinds of fireworks as Russia pounds Georgia in what appears in my view to be a warped sense of purpose. The unfortunate occupation of Georgia is a pointer of lost purpose, lost cause.
These events might seem so far removed from the reality of life in Korogocho but I point them out as important and significant lessons of what can happen if we are to commit ourselves to our given objectives and aspirations. They also paint a context of the times we live in, times when it can be very difficult to define what we believe in, what we stand for and how we want to achieve our goals.
When Miss Koch emerged as an idea/concept it was viewed by some as un-achievable dream. We were saying that we the youth of Korogocho will take the centre stage in addressing our issues. This was at a time when the image of the youth of Korogocho was at rock bottom. It was during the era where the relationship between the youth and the community was characterized by suspicion this is aptly captured by the interaction between the police and the youth. The situation was so dire that every young young person was percieved giulty untill proven otherwise. But over the years I believe we have contributed in changing the image of the youth by addressing some of the fundametal assumptions that were held by the community and the young people. Miss Koch was also viewed as counter culture for we were reconstructing the notions of beauty and how young people relate to their identity. We were allowing the people of Korogocho to project what they held dear and once this was achieved we moved to embrace our beauty and used it as the basis to treat ourselves with respect and dignity and expected the same from the community. We realized that once we redfined who we were it would be possible to rally people to defend what we had defined as precious and worthy. Our work was also viewed as subversive as we were targeting the centre of political power, urguing for a paradigm shift. Asking difficult questions about governance and providing evidence of how things could be done differently to address the imbalance that had lead us to untold suffering and misery. We were presenting an alternative model of responding to issues like distribution of bursary, relating to people, communication e.t.c. We had numerous run ins with the powers that be, but I am reliably informed that the administration is now waking up to the reality and embracing some of the ideas we put forward.
With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to say that our analysis of the situation was correct and our response justified because over the past seven years we have continued to grow and make an impact at local, national and international level. I want to believe that we have achieved all that because we have certainty of purpose.
It would be misguided to assume that we have grown without pain, or that we have travelled without holding our breath or looking back and even at times despairing. The biggest challenge in my view has been internal harmonization and the recent loss of organization money. For me the priority of the organization must be to ensure that the membership is walking at the same speed and pace otherwise those who are running fast ahead will get tired of pulling the weight and in the process may be burnt out or worse bruise those who are moving slowly. The reverse is true that those who feel are following from behind also can be disillusioned and lose sight of the gaol, they could also be so heavy so as to drown those ahead. So as an organization we must periodically listen for feedback with sincere and earnest will to accommodate each other.
The reported loss of Miss Koch money again points to the fact that there could be a weakening of the trust we have bestowed on each other and a need for greater scrutiny of how we are conducting our financial affairs knowing that anyone who handles money is at great risk as there are so many forces at play to corrupt our souls. If one was to take a quick look at other agents of change in Korogocho one would be able to appreciate this fact. The St Johns Catholic Church for instance had its fair share of incidents at the beginning, so did the Tumaini Clinic (am not updated of recent events). That is not to say that it is excusable for anyone to work against the collective aspirations of the movement but I use these cases to illustrate that we are working in an environment that is quite unfavourable and any success we achieve we must guarded religiously.
It takes people of great courage and determination to achieve purposeful existence and I see all of us in Miss Koch born with that capacity. While there is need to acknowledge the people who sat around the table and brought into existence the organization, time has come now when we need an entirely new breed of leadership at the helm of Miss Koch. This leadership in my view should be individuals who joined the organization after inception and thus in theory have been mentored. Having new leadership is also strategic as it clearly shows that as an organization we have taken in the lessons we have learnt seriously-that given an opportunity and right structures we can all be leaders. I speak from a general point of view as I do not have the benefit of knowledge of day to day affairs of the organization....
Miss Koch continues to provide for me so much more than just a social gathering, it has provided for me over the last seven years with radical ideas, a place to sharpen my wits and I am better at what I do today because I am surrounded by people who we share a purpose.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
INVITATION TO THE MISS KOCH ASSEMBLY 2008
19th August 2008
Greetings to you all!
The Co-Founders of the Miss Koch Initiative have the pleasure to invite you to Miss Koch 2008 Assembly which will be held at the Miss Koch Community Resource Centre on the 24th August 2008 from 2 to 4 p.m.
The theme of the meeting is: Certainty of Purpose
The assembly will feature presentations and discussions from the co-founders, invited Government officials and other distinguished speakers. This will also provide participants with an in-depth perspective on lessons learnt and the future engagements of the Miss Koch Initiative.
Your participation will contribute to enhanced effectiveness, sustainability and advocacy of the Initiative.
Thanking you in advance.
Yours Sincerely,
Obonyo Raphael
CO-FOUNDER
Greetings to you all!
The Co-Founders of the Miss Koch Initiative have the pleasure to invite you to Miss Koch 2008 Assembly which will be held at the Miss Koch Community Resource Centre on the 24th August 2008 from 2 to 4 p.m.
The theme of the meeting is: Certainty of Purpose
The assembly will feature presentations and discussions from the co-founders, invited Government officials and other distinguished speakers. This will also provide participants with an in-depth perspective on lessons learnt and the future engagements of the Miss Koch Initiative.
Your participation will contribute to enhanced effectiveness, sustainability and advocacy of the Initiative.
Thanking you in advance.
Yours Sincerely,
Obonyo Raphael
CO-FOUNDER
Friday, July 25, 2008
Building a Reading Culture in Korogocho Slums
There is a common joke in Kenya that if you want to keep your money safely, keep it not in a bank but a book! Nobody will touch the book to get your money! This joke illustrates how far the reading culture is from many Kenyans. Those who study do it merely to pass examinations and forget about the hell of reading. It is therefore not surprising to hear students who passed their final national examinations a few months ago swear that they would fail the same examinations if they repeated them today. Why should they pass again when most of them burnt the mid night candle to save notes in their heads to pass their examinations and once this was accomplished, they deleted everything from their minds and donated their notes and text books to friends?
One institution is out to put an end to this culture of being allergic to reading. The St. John Community Library is in the fore front in encouraging communities in Korogocho not just to read for examinations but read for life too. The library located at Korogocho Slums in Nairobi stocks about nine thousand text books relevant for curriculum coverage and general reading fort life. Every day, hundreds of readers from Korogocho, Dandora, Baba Dogo and Kariobangi estates throng the library to read. Over eighty per cent of the readers are in primary and secondary school students though the numbers of students from higher institutions of learning are on the rise. The readers have not been disappointed with the services offered since four librarians are always available to serve them, listen to them and answer to their requests of new text books they need purchased.
While the library has grown rapidly in the last ten years, it is still underused according to the librarians. While the turn up of students using the library is overwhelming, few adults out of school turn up to read. This is because the community has not yet understood the larger role the library plays in transforming their lives. They have not come to terms with the richness of acquiring widespread knowledge which shapes their global perspectives in looking at things hence empowering them to participate competently in national building. To most of the adults, the library is a God sent messiah which has saved them from buying text books for their children but it has nothing to do with it.
Aware of this misunderstanding, The St John Community Library has organized a library day to sensitize the community about the services available for different classes in the community and how they can acquire knowledge through these services. The day whose theme is ‘Usomi Ni Ujuzi Na Uwezo’, will be marked on Saturday 26th July 2008 at 9.00am at St. John Catholic Church play ground. Several activities have been lined up for The Library Day which has been sponsored by Concern World Wide. The main activity will be essay writing and poetry competition on the topic ‘Importance of The Library to the Community’. Winners in the categories of primary school pupils, high school students, elders, women, teachers and youth out of school will be awarded. Other activities will include video shows, exhibitions, dances drama and speeches from invited guests. The Library Day has targeted readers from different backgrounds in the community to create awareness among them to read for life even among those who have not been to school.
By Oluoch Japheth
The Writer is an employee of The St. John Catholic Church.
One institution is out to put an end to this culture of being allergic to reading. The St. John Community Library is in the fore front in encouraging communities in Korogocho not just to read for examinations but read for life too. The library located at Korogocho Slums in Nairobi stocks about nine thousand text books relevant for curriculum coverage and general reading fort life. Every day, hundreds of readers from Korogocho, Dandora, Baba Dogo and Kariobangi estates throng the library to read. Over eighty per cent of the readers are in primary and secondary school students though the numbers of students from higher institutions of learning are on the rise. The readers have not been disappointed with the services offered since four librarians are always available to serve them, listen to them and answer to their requests of new text books they need purchased.
While the library has grown rapidly in the last ten years, it is still underused according to the librarians. While the turn up of students using the library is overwhelming, few adults out of school turn up to read. This is because the community has not yet understood the larger role the library plays in transforming their lives. They have not come to terms with the richness of acquiring widespread knowledge which shapes their global perspectives in looking at things hence empowering them to participate competently in national building. To most of the adults, the library is a God sent messiah which has saved them from buying text books for their children but it has nothing to do with it.
Aware of this misunderstanding, The St John Community Library has organized a library day to sensitize the community about the services available for different classes in the community and how they can acquire knowledge through these services. The day whose theme is ‘Usomi Ni Ujuzi Na Uwezo’, will be marked on Saturday 26th July 2008 at 9.00am at St. John Catholic Church play ground. Several activities have been lined up for The Library Day which has been sponsored by Concern World Wide. The main activity will be essay writing and poetry competition on the topic ‘Importance of The Library to the Community’. Winners in the categories of primary school pupils, high school students, elders, women, teachers and youth out of school will be awarded. Other activities will include video shows, exhibitions, dances drama and speeches from invited guests. The Library Day has targeted readers from different backgrounds in the community to create awareness among them to read for life even among those who have not been to school.
By Oluoch Japheth
The Writer is an employee of The St. John Catholic Church.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tsvangirai's Daughter speaks out
It is a sunday afternoon am in the middle of Perth Australia outside a church biulding. A small crowd is already gathering, there are a couple of television crew setting up their gear.
Rimbidzai Tsvangirai is dressed in a white tshirt with MDC slogans written all over. She is twenty two years old and today for the first time she is here to make a statement on the political situation back in Zim. The atmosphere is electric.
The rally starts with heated Zimbabwe chants..
New Zimbabwe!
Mugabe Out!
MDC a new beginning!
The convenor of the rally narrates how Zim has fought against oppression for a long time and the songs that they used to sing when ZanuPF was spearheading the independence struggle are still relevant today. He invokes the spirits of the ancestors to join in the liberation of Zimbabwe...
The next speaker is a representative from the Workers Union of WA who points out that the struggle of the people of Zim is the struggle of the worker, it is the struggle of men and women who desire and wish for peace...There is a mock election held to gauge the view of the Zimbabweans present in the rally...
We then sing the national anthem of Zim and Rimbidzai is invited to address the rally. We all inch foward with anticipation.
She strides and reads out a prepared speach. She talks about the countless times that they have prayed for the safe return of their father from the hands of police. She pledges to campaign for democracy in Zim for as long as she lives. She urges the Australian government to tighten pressure on the Mugabe regime and also extend aid to those suffering as a result of the violence.
"I will soon return home once we attain democracy" the crowd cheers at every pose...
I leave the rally wondering why history is so cruel, repeating itself albeit in different countries. Mugabe blatantly refuses to conceed defeat. He points out the freedom struggle and yet today majority of people in Zim are worse off than ever. It does not matter if you are killed by a bullet fired by an African soldier or by a white farmer both kill..It does not matter that you are bashed by a black Mugabe supporter or a racist white farmer both intimidate, maim and intend to oppress.
MDC has pulled out of the elections and this might be the last straw..but we must commend the oppossition for containing their supporters and for being peacful during this tyring times..
MDC and the oppossition should now seek massive support locally so that even if Mugabe wins it will be with the smallest number of votes ever..One danger though is that MDC supporters might be targeted if they do not go out and vote..my be they should still go out and spoil their votes..
I am reminded of the road that Kenya has travelled and how little the Mugabe regime seems to have learnt from other happenings the world over..
The best description of what is happening in Zim is that the regime has eaten the fruits of independence now they want to eat the indepence itself!
Wake up and smell the rain!
Oti
Rimbidzai Tsvangirai is dressed in a white tshirt with MDC slogans written all over. She is twenty two years old and today for the first time she is here to make a statement on the political situation back in Zim. The atmosphere is electric.
The rally starts with heated Zimbabwe chants..
New Zimbabwe!
Mugabe Out!
MDC a new beginning!
The convenor of the rally narrates how Zim has fought against oppression for a long time and the songs that they used to sing when ZanuPF was spearheading the independence struggle are still relevant today. He invokes the spirits of the ancestors to join in the liberation of Zimbabwe...
The next speaker is a representative from the Workers Union of WA who points out that the struggle of the people of Zim is the struggle of the worker, it is the struggle of men and women who desire and wish for peace...There is a mock election held to gauge the view of the Zimbabweans present in the rally...
We then sing the national anthem of Zim and Rimbidzai is invited to address the rally. We all inch foward with anticipation.
She strides and reads out a prepared speach. She talks about the countless times that they have prayed for the safe return of their father from the hands of police. She pledges to campaign for democracy in Zim for as long as she lives. She urges the Australian government to tighten pressure on the Mugabe regime and also extend aid to those suffering as a result of the violence.
"I will soon return home once we attain democracy" the crowd cheers at every pose...
I leave the rally wondering why history is so cruel, repeating itself albeit in different countries. Mugabe blatantly refuses to conceed defeat. He points out the freedom struggle and yet today majority of people in Zim are worse off than ever. It does not matter if you are killed by a bullet fired by an African soldier or by a white farmer both kill..It does not matter that you are bashed by a black Mugabe supporter or a racist white farmer both intimidate, maim and intend to oppress.
MDC has pulled out of the elections and this might be the last straw..but we must commend the oppossition for containing their supporters and for being peacful during this tyring times..
MDC and the oppossition should now seek massive support locally so that even if Mugabe wins it will be with the smallest number of votes ever..One danger though is that MDC supporters might be targeted if they do not go out and vote..my be they should still go out and spoil their votes..
I am reminded of the road that Kenya has travelled and how little the Mugabe regime seems to have learnt from other happenings the world over..
The best description of what is happening in Zim is that the regime has eaten the fruits of independence now they want to eat the indepence itself!
Wake up and smell the rain!
Oti
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Kawive's take on Participatory Theatre in Kenya
©kawive, wambua
The Artists as the Managers of the
Political
Transition in Kenya*
A paper by
Kawive, Wambua
*First presented at the KOLA Conference on East African Oral Literature,
Kisumu, Nov. 2005
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 2 ©kawive, wambua
Background
(a)The Kenyan Experience
Kenya, once described as an island of peace, has indeed know very little peace for the
man and woman of conscience. This individual has been faced with the task of society
mobilisation for change and development. The process of conscietisation of a community
or a nation must take in to consideration the “important questions about national or group
exclusivism and the impossibility of avoiding of syncreticism” (Ashcroft et al, 30).
Though here they refer to language appropriation, it is important for us to look at it in
relation to the political space in Kenya.
Some communities (and inevitably classes) were evidently left out in both the discourse
of community development as well as the material and resource mobilisation.
When the communities or groups of individuals rose to assert themselves, then there was
Kamiti, there was the Nyayo House cells, and there was a number of other outlandish
government sponsored atrocities. Consider here the crackdown on Mwakenya, on FERA
and that on the perpetrators of the 1982 coup that came before. The country was steep in
a plastic silence akin to that of isolated graveyards.
This was against the background of constitutional amendments that saw the declaration of
a one party state, the withdrawal of the security of tenure for judges, and the banning of
any other political activity apart from the praise to KANU –institutionalised as Mother
and Father of the nation.
Moi was a culture. He traversed the political, social and economic landscape like a
colossus. There were Nyayo Tea Zones, Nyayo bus, Nyayo pioneer car, Moi schools and
university…Moi this, Moi that. The state broadcasting station KBC took about one third
of its prime news time talking about the exploits of Moi. The whole country was
hypnotised by the presence of Moi. At one time when he had to leave the country to seek
medical attention and there was no reporting, the country was gripped by tension. People
demanded to know his whereabouts. It was not out of love, but out of conditioning.
Pavlov could not have done better.
Take for instance the Nyayo philosophy. It was not that there used to be no love or peace
or unity in this country, but when the president made those three the rallying point of
Moism, it started looking as if he was the one that had invented the words. In the advent
of multiparty democracy, he warned that there would be chaos, ostensibly because the
country was not ready for multipartyism. And indeed there was violence. The ethnic
violence that rocked the country in 1992 and 1997 (significantly around election time)
lend credence to his word. And he was re-elected on both cases to take charge of a ship
that could have sunk were it not for him.
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 3 ©kawive, wambua
Pressure from the international community and human rights watchdogs led to the
repealing of the Chief’s Act in 1991 and the subsequent adoption of multiparty politics in
Kenya. This paper does not intent to cover the political rigmarole of the period preceding
and after. But for two five year terms, it was a multiparty of a single party, otherwise
called “Multiparty ya Moi”. This image was very important in that it captured the irony
of democracy in which one individual/party dictated the trends. This was occasioned by
the question of resource mobilisation and the use/misuse of state machinery and resource
in politicking. And thus the jinx had to be shaken off and the land cleansed.
This was the thought in the heads of civil society leaders and politicians who had been
locked out of power. They each had tried to go it alone and failed or made insufficient
impact and now they had learned their lessons. This led to the formation of four main
bodies in the civil society: CRE-CO, ECEP, CEDMAC, and the Gender Consortium
Out of these it is CRE-CO that adopted theatre as the foremost tool for implementing
civic and community education. The others also had theatre components but not as
significant as in CRE-CO. The mandate was to work towards sensitisation of the people
away from the characteristic lassitude. It took advantage of the expanded political space
to make it a reality for the people to achieve what they had yearned for and had not been
able to actualise.
(b)Something About the Civil Society Movement.
The civil society movement in Kenya had been bogged down by intellectualism and
extremism. The former gave birth to the later. The players in these societies saw the entry
point as the rampant abuse of human rights by the government and its organs. And so,
like the arrogant intellectuals that they were, they focussed on the extremist conceptions:
reviving the call for a second liberation, resurrecting the freedom fighters creed of
“Uhuru na Mashamba”.
They missed the point that the people’s apparent complacency had been brought about by
the continual betrayal by their leaders. Again, the most immediate need for the people
was reclaiming their lost space in terms of identity, that is, redefining their environment.
It is only after this necessary step that the impact of the environment on the person can be
addressed. Therefore, it was difficult for this crusade to be successful for it is only when
the affected people see the need to change their status (not when they are shown or told
about this need) that viable and sustainable change can be realised.
Many workshops and plays on educating the people on their rights have remained just
that: “supplantations” of information. Not that this was useless. No. It was a useful stage
/process in the conscietization of a disenfranchised people. But change is not external.
You cannot change people. People have to see the need to change.
Human rights activists, either went far too back in history or far too ahead of the people
into the present social dialectic (in regard to universalism and the locus of world trends)
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 4 ©kawive, wambua
and hence were not in tandem with the target groups. Illiteracy has nothing to do with
this. Kenyan’s are a very resilient people. The question was whether the people had
enough will to act. The mundane issues of earning bread and the business of having sex,
giving birth, bringing up children and burying the dead were greater concerns than human
rights. An abstraction cannot beat the simple/usual things of life. Indeed it bores people.
The prevailing need was that the link between these mundane issues and their causality
relationship with human rights and the socio-political and economic situation had to be
made. And by the people. This was the entry point of IPCET.
Theatre in the four organisations named above, and especially CRECO, was a key
element. Its mandate was to adopt a language, mode and image whose metaphor would
be that of a people disenfranchised and which would then incite the people towards
taking control of the political aspect of their lives. It had to be simple enough yet
sufficiently complex to evade the still simmering heat of KANU’s tyranny.
The Power of Theatre.
(a)Cultural Expression and Identity
Kenya, on emerging from the dark ages of colonialism has never been able to find its
identity. The almost blanket adoption of westernisation has received more support than a
cultural renaissance. But for the postcolonial country, the reality of cultural hybridity in
the country’s expression is as inevitable as the presence of other artefacts of the
previously dominant culture. The artist is thus charged with finding the locus of culture
without necessarily antagonising the society. One of the things that the artists delicately
did was the choice of the forms of expression. C J Odhiambo’s observation in a paper
“New Wine In Old Wineskins: Exploiting Indigenous Folk Art Form In Our
Contemporary Pedagogical Practices In Kenya” that
the (con)temporary pedagogical practices must indeed, with all intent and
purpose, take cognizance the import of approaches of the “past”. For without the
past, the present and the future will be bereft of any meaning and significance
(118)
seems most significant in the CRE-CO play design, for it was an integration of forms that
the community had in their lore. In the nationwide campaign, the drama kept on remaking
itself. A skit that was ideally an offshoot of the original play was permanently called the
“Matrix” and could not get a Kiswahili replacement. This is what Ashcroft et al call the
use of code switching and transcriptions: a “most common method of inscribing alterity
by the process of appropriation” (72). Though in their book they talk of vernacular
transcriptions, it is clear that here the vernacular (strictly used here to mean local
language) appropriates and transcribes the English (foreign language). The skit was
performed in Kiswahili but the word was constantly repeated and never translated. It is an
uncommon word even among the elite. For non-academic set-ups like a village in
Mavindini where the people who are learned are teachers and the chief (and mostly the
word is not in their active vocabulary) this word worked wonders. Toothless old women
would see a drunk man talking nasally deflected English to his wife and would
immediately and unreservedly laugh at the stupidity of men, soon recoup themselves and
either give him a name or declare for all and sundry that such a man is wont to do ill to
the family.
The image of the learned individual as a leader and a community development mentor is
then interrogated vis a vis his quality as a person on the ground (not a heavy-vehicledriving-
grinning-son-of-so-and-so-who-wants-us-to-follow-him). In this case it was a
celebration of cultural bastardisation and or interrogation of cultural identity and the
acceptance of hybridity. Thus the learned and the “other” felt at ease in the interactive
space.
Larry O’Farrel in a landmark paper, “Building a Better World Through Drama
Education: Educational Drama as a Catalyst for Cultural Identity and Community
Development” explores the use of ritual drama in community development. The school
model he uses is in tandem with idealist development agenda: the reinvention of the
society. He argues that:
the renewal of community is central to postmodern epistemology. The individual
exists, not in splendid isolation, but as an interactive member of a diverse
community, embedded in a matrix of traditional values and practices. In such a
complex the structural imperatives inherent in humanist thinking – the cult of the
creative genius, the judgemental bias of education, the strict separation of high art
from popular culture – all prove hopelessly inadequate as means to achieve even
their own central goal of liberating the individual. (5)
And thus the role of theatre as a cultural tool of reinventing the individual and of
reconstructing identity becomes imperative. The culture of hero worship and of fixity to
channels of communication that are ideally external, i.e. not in the interest of the person
to whom the communication is directed, had to be eliminated so that the community
could get a new lease of life.
Dan Isiko Kisense in his paper “A Theatrical Approach Towards Attaining a Barrier Free
World” argues: “theatre obliterates boundaries, cultural norms and offers the most
desired and most effective communication not only (to) the masses but also policy
makers” (77)
The cultural situation in Kenya was (and is) no different from the one that Mzo Sirayi in
a paper “The Impact of a Cultural Bomb in South Africa” saw in South Africa. He says
that cultural groups were mobilised on short notice to perform on official functions, to
give them a face of inclusiveness whereas these people had not even been sufficiently
facilitated. And then when they performed, they played to the political axis and are not
essentially aware of the fact that that “delicacy” they give to state players can be their
own weapon of cultural reorientation. He says “South Africans have to be challenged
and conscientised about the importance of decolonising the mind and the indigenous
cultures and link them with development.”(42)
And this can only be done in educational drama. The reason is simply that drama
provides a situation in which the protagonist and antagonist share a space in which they
conflict and reconcile. Decolonising the mind, though it has often been used in the West
versus Orient dialectic by such scholars as Homi Bhabha, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and
Edward Said, in this case it applies to the challenge to the organs of discourse
“origination”. Mumma, in his thesis, observes that
Above all, in educational drama, the language of drama is accessible to the
participants themselves so that there is a certain understanding (on) how
they are progressing. Within the educational/theatrical/context (this)
provides for a vehicle of participation and a forum and focus for raising
and analysing problem; decision-making and collective action. (433).
Change is the product of the latter. Positive transformation of society is indeed
occasioned by the simplification of the points of conflict and the fragmentation of the
areas of difficult. The society therefore is able to view each vis a vis the social will power
and ability to handle them. Since it provides the opportunity to challenge dominant and
accepted values, drama thus is important in the creation of a counter culture.
(b) Theatre: Some Theoretical Precepts and its Practice in Kenya
Bill Ashcroft et al, in their book The Empire Writes Back, see the multiplicity of
linguistic and cultural forms of literary expression as the onset of a system of
conscietisation, a way towards the reclaiming of the empire from the self-imposed
emperor, a way of creating space for self-identity. Referring to new writings from
countries of the third world, they argue that, “Their literatures could be considered in
relation to the social and political history of each country, and could be read as important
images of national identities” (17)
This is important in the discussion of the artists as the managers of the transition. In the
first place, community theatre as has been explicated in the Boalian ideal is the negation
of the tetrarchial, and Aristotelian inundation of theatre as a whole, the removing it from
the monarchical and ruler orientation to its original place in the hands of the people:
Aristotle formulated a very powerful purgative system, the objective of which is
to eliminate all that is not commonly accepted, including the revolution, before it
takes place. His system appears in disguised form on television, in the movies, in
the circus, in the theatres. It appears in many and varied shapes and media. But its
essence does not change: it is designed to bridle the individual, to adjust him to
what pre-exists. If this is what we want, the Aristotelian system serves the
purpose better than any other; if, on the contrary, we want to stimulate the
spectator to transform his society, to engage in revolutionary action, in that case
we will have to seek another poetics! (Boal, 1979: 47)
These poetics are those of Community Educational theatre. Community theatre has its
inception in the postulates of epic theatre as envisaged by Bertolt Bretcht. Epic theatre
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 7 ©kawive, wambua
entailed the defamiliarisation of the theatrical space, a reorientation of the theatrical
conception of the Aristotelian time in which the role of catharsis was a hallmark of the
tragic to the translation of theatrical images to the reality of the audience member who
becomes an active participant.
Community theatre as envisaged by Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal constitutes a devising
and or creation of theatrical scenarios by members of the community that are used to
launch inter and intra-personal dialogue on issues that affect the community with an aim
of correcting an anomaly or initiating a process of action and thus change.
Ngugi’s experiment at the Kamiriithu centre in Kenya has been oft quoted as a leading
example. Opiyo Mumma in his paper “Drama and Theatre as Modes of Creative
Learning” notes that
education for transformation will help people to become critically creative, free,
active and responsible members of society. In participatory education, participants
are recognized as thinking, creative people with capacity for action and hence it
poses problems in its dialogue and communication. (30)
He explores the Kenyan theatre scene from the 70’s upto 90’s. He notes the kind of
reception that Ngaahika Ndeenda and Maitu Njugira by the Kamiriithu Community
Drama (KCECC) got from the government forces who saw these texts as an affront to the
rule of (unjust!!!) law.
He further explores Aminata and the frustrations that the writer and artists went through
in the 90s when the democratic space was seemingly wider. This goes to show the plan
by the government, like all oppressive governments the world over, to thrive on the
ignorance of the people.
Mumma observes that, Francis Imbuga’s play Aminata “took a leading role in getting
artists together for debates on ‘the role of the artist in time of political change’”. The
Free Travelling Theatre (FTT) and Kenya Drama in Education Association (KDEA)
“formed Aminata as an argument to mobilise artists and cultural workers in the quest for
political change. In this set up, Aminata became a launching pad for futuristic action.”
(Mwangi et al 39)
This “futuristic action” that Opiyo Muma talks about is interpreted as the effort the
actor/teacher/learner and audience/teacher/learner, as participants in the process of
performance and creation of the theatrical piece, take to remedy the issues affecting their
lives (for this matter the political anomaly) that they find themselves in. Perhaps
deserving a special mention is a performance by Theatre Workshop Productions;
“Drumbeats on Mt. Kirinyaga”, a monumental play that used the symbol of the Gikuyu
and Mumbi story as a call for unity to the diverse ethnic communities of Kenya, a call for
reevaluation of our values as a people and to eat fruits together.
Other plays that were significant in the 1990’s were such as Kivutha Kibwana’s Kanzala,
Wakanyote Njuguna’s Kabla ya Dhoruba, Kithaka wa Mberia’s Kifo Kisimani, Wahome
Mutahi’s Mugaathe Mubogothi, Makaririra Kioro, and Mugathe Ndotono among others.
Though these plays lack specific merit as PET or even IPCET texts, they were
unconventional (some even compromising style for messagism) and they interrogated
difference and diffidence in community leadership. These writers as well were prominent
figures in the intellectual and human rights movements and hence had a lot of influence
in the course of action on the educational theatre scene. Their plays, among others, were
the precursors of the underground NGO movement that came up with the IPCET play.
The individual and really forceful activities of civil society organisations like Citizens
Coalition for Constitutional Change (4Cs), Centre for Governance and Democracy
(CGD), and Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) and a plethora of other organisations
suffered the same fate of being but information points for the community. Information,
we should note at this point, empowers, but it is only communication that liberates. And
this key issue was never sufficiently addressed. Art was severally massacred at the behest
of militant advocacy. The exploration of whether or not these interventions led to the
development of a unique form of art necessitated by the milieu of the time is beyond the
scope of this paper.
I would like to isolate the 4Cs and say the following. The organisation started off as a
loosely structured lobby group for constitutional reform. But for three years, its single
programme was theatre. The theatre group used the rich history of oppression in the
country to create a play “Five Centuries” later to become the name of the group. The play
was an interrogation of the suffering and pain the people of Kenya have gone through in
the hands of selfish leaders, the fact of an independence that never was, and the need for
this century to be a century of nation reconstruction and a new constitutional order. This
trend has survived across the years, at times faltering at the intersection of artistic
expressionism and political advocacy.
Towards behaviour change, the clarion call of Kenya Drama in Education Association
(KDEA) was either not well understood or treated as suspect. But on organising a
congress of world artists in the country, a new wave of change was envisaged.
Commenting on the activities of IDEA Congress in 1998, the then Kenyan Minister for
Education Kalonzo Musyoka in a Paper “Powers of Performance: What Theatre has in
Store for Educationists” said:
What I witnessed is testimony that drama is being used as a powerful
medium of communication to expose pertinent and sometimes disturbing
experiences in our society. For instance issues such as corruption, bribery,
immorality, jealousy, misguided ambition, treachery and so on, which
have featured in this congress, educate and challenge the society to
seriously review their attitudes and values. The aim of the student artists is
noble. (Mwangi et al 1999, 12)
Kalonzo also observed that Educational theatre had demonstrated “clearly that forging
unity and a sense of nationhood can easily be achieved”(12). It is in my opinion that the
artist educators were well aware of this and took the opportunity to actualise it.
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 9 ©kawive, wambua
J B Okong’o, in a paper, “Fictional Constructs, The Theatrical Process and African
Communities in Development” observes that the “ participatory aspect between
facilitator and community enables for a fictional process that builds an understanding
through the cooperative construction of an imaginative world…in the process, the
creation becomes an inbuilt feedback system that tests whether communication is
effective.” (286). The artists therefore in the adoption of the IPCET model discussed
here, were sure that the message of change, the element of education had been shared by
both the actor educators and the audience teachers.
Theatre as a Tool in Kenya’s Transformation.
And thus the work of seeking to orientate the Kenyan people towards behaviour change
(from complacency/inactivity to active and effective decision making and
implementation). For this, the following theatrical modes were adopted and duplicated
across the country:
· Story telling
The story of the Lion and the Sungura and their conspiracy in the digging of a well.
In this story, the gullible animals are duped to dig a well and later the lion with the
help of Sungura as a think tank, repossess the well as a private property. The
dilemma is whether the animals should be silent and die in the drought or fight for
their right to access the well. This story was in over 90% cases cited by the audience
teachers as a case of the government fleecing the citizens. Every four out of five
people saw the lion as Moi. In a performance in Machakos, a team of artists was
arrested and spend a long time in the District Commissioner’s office pleading
innocence by asking the officers whether they had never heard the story before. They
had of course, for it is a common story. But they insisted to the chagrin of the artists
that it was mockery to the government. And then one lady artist asked whether her
great, great grandmother, who had told the story to their mother, had lived during
Moi’s era. They were released. Hurrah to the power of the story! In lauding the story
as a future form of Educational theatre, Opiyo Mumma said that:
The storyteller links incidents and events into a narrative construct that
echoes with similarities and a certain meaning. It allows the participants to
at once become the story, the constructors of the story, and the people
living through the story. (412)
· Simple Scenario Skits
1. Based on simple domestic violence against workers.
In this skit, the lady owner of the home gives just too much work to the house
help, including bathing between sessions) so much so that it looks
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 10 ©kawive, wambua
melodramatic. When she goes out, her son makes sexual advances at the girl
and when rebuffed offloads his own share of work on her.
2. Marriage of a beautiful girl: “Mschina Mzuri”
Here a learned and beautiful girl who can’t apparently get a husband decides
to marry the village buffoon without consulting anyone. It was based on the
story told in a popular old song. This skit was useful in appropriating both the
old people’s political space and tradition and/or cultural interrogation.
· Song /dance — eliciting the joy and pain for the people who went down memory
lane, interrogated why we fought in MAU MAU, and catapulted them to the pain
of the present. As well it captured the positivism and negativism of the present
socio-political ethos.
These theatrical pieces were strung together with the use of the Joker- a common
phenomenon in Forum Theatre and the Facilitator commonly used in TIE and TFD. The
multiplicity of form was to ensure maximum output. And indeed there was a great
impact. Theatre was voted the main (best) tool for education by the implementing
partners. Steven E. Finkel, et al in a paper “The Impact of The Kenya National Civic
Education Programme on Democratic Attitudes, Knowledge, Values, and Behavior”
observe:
“NCEP activities were effective in changing many important democratic
orientations, values, and behaviors; coupled with the findings from previous
assessments, there can now be little doubt that civic education can be an important
instrument for democratic change” (vi).
Educational Theatre was a major component of these activities and although the
programme was initially designed after a workshop orientation, the observation is that:
NCEP activities such as drama presentations, puppet shows, and public lectures,
also contributed significantly to changes in engagement and
competence…roughly equal, and in the case of efficacy and intentions to
participate, larger for the other NCEP activities than for NCEP workshops” (34)
This kind of deduction, coming from an assessment of a workshop oriented evaluation
matrix, is indeed a testimony of the fact that the people of Kenya remembered more the
theatrical symbols and images than the rhetoric of the
read enitre document?
The Artists as the Managers of the
Political
Transition in Kenya*
A paper by
Kawive, Wambua
*First presented at the KOLA Conference on East African Oral Literature,
Kisumu, Nov. 2005
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 2 ©kawive, wambua
Background
(a)The Kenyan Experience
Kenya, once described as an island of peace, has indeed know very little peace for the
man and woman of conscience. This individual has been faced with the task of society
mobilisation for change and development. The process of conscietisation of a community
or a nation must take in to consideration the “important questions about national or group
exclusivism and the impossibility of avoiding of syncreticism” (Ashcroft et al, 30).
Though here they refer to language appropriation, it is important for us to look at it in
relation to the political space in Kenya.
Some communities (and inevitably classes) were evidently left out in both the discourse
of community development as well as the material and resource mobilisation.
When the communities or groups of individuals rose to assert themselves, then there was
Kamiti, there was the Nyayo House cells, and there was a number of other outlandish
government sponsored atrocities. Consider here the crackdown on Mwakenya, on FERA
and that on the perpetrators of the 1982 coup that came before. The country was steep in
a plastic silence akin to that of isolated graveyards.
This was against the background of constitutional amendments that saw the declaration of
a one party state, the withdrawal of the security of tenure for judges, and the banning of
any other political activity apart from the praise to KANU –institutionalised as Mother
and Father of the nation.
Moi was a culture. He traversed the political, social and economic landscape like a
colossus. There were Nyayo Tea Zones, Nyayo bus, Nyayo pioneer car, Moi schools and
university…Moi this, Moi that. The state broadcasting station KBC took about one third
of its prime news time talking about the exploits of Moi. The whole country was
hypnotised by the presence of Moi. At one time when he had to leave the country to seek
medical attention and there was no reporting, the country was gripped by tension. People
demanded to know his whereabouts. It was not out of love, but out of conditioning.
Pavlov could not have done better.
Take for instance the Nyayo philosophy. It was not that there used to be no love or peace
or unity in this country, but when the president made those three the rallying point of
Moism, it started looking as if he was the one that had invented the words. In the advent
of multiparty democracy, he warned that there would be chaos, ostensibly because the
country was not ready for multipartyism. And indeed there was violence. The ethnic
violence that rocked the country in 1992 and 1997 (significantly around election time)
lend credence to his word. And he was re-elected on both cases to take charge of a ship
that could have sunk were it not for him.
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 3 ©kawive, wambua
Pressure from the international community and human rights watchdogs led to the
repealing of the Chief’s Act in 1991 and the subsequent adoption of multiparty politics in
Kenya. This paper does not intent to cover the political rigmarole of the period preceding
and after. But for two five year terms, it was a multiparty of a single party, otherwise
called “Multiparty ya Moi”. This image was very important in that it captured the irony
of democracy in which one individual/party dictated the trends. This was occasioned by
the question of resource mobilisation and the use/misuse of state machinery and resource
in politicking. And thus the jinx had to be shaken off and the land cleansed.
This was the thought in the heads of civil society leaders and politicians who had been
locked out of power. They each had tried to go it alone and failed or made insufficient
impact and now they had learned their lessons. This led to the formation of four main
bodies in the civil society: CRE-CO, ECEP, CEDMAC, and the Gender Consortium
Out of these it is CRE-CO that adopted theatre as the foremost tool for implementing
civic and community education. The others also had theatre components but not as
significant as in CRE-CO. The mandate was to work towards sensitisation of the people
away from the characteristic lassitude. It took advantage of the expanded political space
to make it a reality for the people to achieve what they had yearned for and had not been
able to actualise.
(b)Something About the Civil Society Movement.
The civil society movement in Kenya had been bogged down by intellectualism and
extremism. The former gave birth to the later. The players in these societies saw the entry
point as the rampant abuse of human rights by the government and its organs. And so,
like the arrogant intellectuals that they were, they focussed on the extremist conceptions:
reviving the call for a second liberation, resurrecting the freedom fighters creed of
“Uhuru na Mashamba”.
They missed the point that the people’s apparent complacency had been brought about by
the continual betrayal by their leaders. Again, the most immediate need for the people
was reclaiming their lost space in terms of identity, that is, redefining their environment.
It is only after this necessary step that the impact of the environment on the person can be
addressed. Therefore, it was difficult for this crusade to be successful for it is only when
the affected people see the need to change their status (not when they are shown or told
about this need) that viable and sustainable change can be realised.
Many workshops and plays on educating the people on their rights have remained just
that: “supplantations” of information. Not that this was useless. No. It was a useful stage
/process in the conscietization of a disenfranchised people. But change is not external.
You cannot change people. People have to see the need to change.
Human rights activists, either went far too back in history or far too ahead of the people
into the present social dialectic (in regard to universalism and the locus of world trends)
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 4 ©kawive, wambua
and hence were not in tandem with the target groups. Illiteracy has nothing to do with
this. Kenyan’s are a very resilient people. The question was whether the people had
enough will to act. The mundane issues of earning bread and the business of having sex,
giving birth, bringing up children and burying the dead were greater concerns than human
rights. An abstraction cannot beat the simple/usual things of life. Indeed it bores people.
The prevailing need was that the link between these mundane issues and their causality
relationship with human rights and the socio-political and economic situation had to be
made. And by the people. This was the entry point of IPCET.
Theatre in the four organisations named above, and especially CRECO, was a key
element. Its mandate was to adopt a language, mode and image whose metaphor would
be that of a people disenfranchised and which would then incite the people towards
taking control of the political aspect of their lives. It had to be simple enough yet
sufficiently complex to evade the still simmering heat of KANU’s tyranny.
The Power of Theatre.
(a)Cultural Expression and Identity
Kenya, on emerging from the dark ages of colonialism has never been able to find its
identity. The almost blanket adoption of westernisation has received more support than a
cultural renaissance. But for the postcolonial country, the reality of cultural hybridity in
the country’s expression is as inevitable as the presence of other artefacts of the
previously dominant culture. The artist is thus charged with finding the locus of culture
without necessarily antagonising the society. One of the things that the artists delicately
did was the choice of the forms of expression. C J Odhiambo’s observation in a paper
“New Wine In Old Wineskins: Exploiting Indigenous Folk Art Form In Our
Contemporary Pedagogical Practices In Kenya” that
the (con)temporary pedagogical practices must indeed, with all intent and
purpose, take cognizance the import of approaches of the “past”. For without the
past, the present and the future will be bereft of any meaning and significance
(118)
seems most significant in the CRE-CO play design, for it was an integration of forms that
the community had in their lore. In the nationwide campaign, the drama kept on remaking
itself. A skit that was ideally an offshoot of the original play was permanently called the
“Matrix” and could not get a Kiswahili replacement. This is what Ashcroft et al call the
use of code switching and transcriptions: a “most common method of inscribing alterity
by the process of appropriation” (72). Though in their book they talk of vernacular
transcriptions, it is clear that here the vernacular (strictly used here to mean local
language) appropriates and transcribes the English (foreign language). The skit was
performed in Kiswahili but the word was constantly repeated and never translated. It is an
uncommon word even among the elite. For non-academic set-ups like a village in
Mavindini where the people who are learned are teachers and the chief (and mostly the
word is not in their active vocabulary) this word worked wonders. Toothless old women
would see a drunk man talking nasally deflected English to his wife and would
immediately and unreservedly laugh at the stupidity of men, soon recoup themselves and
either give him a name or declare for all and sundry that such a man is wont to do ill to
the family.
The image of the learned individual as a leader and a community development mentor is
then interrogated vis a vis his quality as a person on the ground (not a heavy-vehicledriving-
grinning-son-of-so-and-so-who-wants-us-to-follow-him). In this case it was a
celebration of cultural bastardisation and or interrogation of cultural identity and the
acceptance of hybridity. Thus the learned and the “other” felt at ease in the interactive
space.
Larry O’Farrel in a landmark paper, “Building a Better World Through Drama
Education: Educational Drama as a Catalyst for Cultural Identity and Community
Development” explores the use of ritual drama in community development. The school
model he uses is in tandem with idealist development agenda: the reinvention of the
society. He argues that:
the renewal of community is central to postmodern epistemology. The individual
exists, not in splendid isolation, but as an interactive member of a diverse
community, embedded in a matrix of traditional values and practices. In such a
complex the structural imperatives inherent in humanist thinking – the cult of the
creative genius, the judgemental bias of education, the strict separation of high art
from popular culture – all prove hopelessly inadequate as means to achieve even
their own central goal of liberating the individual. (5)
And thus the role of theatre as a cultural tool of reinventing the individual and of
reconstructing identity becomes imperative. The culture of hero worship and of fixity to
channels of communication that are ideally external, i.e. not in the interest of the person
to whom the communication is directed, had to be eliminated so that the community
could get a new lease of life.
Dan Isiko Kisense in his paper “A Theatrical Approach Towards Attaining a Barrier Free
World” argues: “theatre obliterates boundaries, cultural norms and offers the most
desired and most effective communication not only (to) the masses but also policy
makers” (77)
The cultural situation in Kenya was (and is) no different from the one that Mzo Sirayi in
a paper “The Impact of a Cultural Bomb in South Africa” saw in South Africa. He says
that cultural groups were mobilised on short notice to perform on official functions, to
give them a face of inclusiveness whereas these people had not even been sufficiently
facilitated. And then when they performed, they played to the political axis and are not
essentially aware of the fact that that “delicacy” they give to state players can be their
own weapon of cultural reorientation. He says “South Africans have to be challenged
and conscientised about the importance of decolonising the mind and the indigenous
cultures and link them with development.”(42)
And this can only be done in educational drama. The reason is simply that drama
provides a situation in which the protagonist and antagonist share a space in which they
conflict and reconcile. Decolonising the mind, though it has often been used in the West
versus Orient dialectic by such scholars as Homi Bhabha, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and
Edward Said, in this case it applies to the challenge to the organs of discourse
“origination”. Mumma, in his thesis, observes that
Above all, in educational drama, the language of drama is accessible to the
participants themselves so that there is a certain understanding (on) how
they are progressing. Within the educational/theatrical/context (this)
provides for a vehicle of participation and a forum and focus for raising
and analysing problem; decision-making and collective action. (433).
Change is the product of the latter. Positive transformation of society is indeed
occasioned by the simplification of the points of conflict and the fragmentation of the
areas of difficult. The society therefore is able to view each vis a vis the social will power
and ability to handle them. Since it provides the opportunity to challenge dominant and
accepted values, drama thus is important in the creation of a counter culture.
(b) Theatre: Some Theoretical Precepts and its Practice in Kenya
Bill Ashcroft et al, in their book The Empire Writes Back, see the multiplicity of
linguistic and cultural forms of literary expression as the onset of a system of
conscietisation, a way towards the reclaiming of the empire from the self-imposed
emperor, a way of creating space for self-identity. Referring to new writings from
countries of the third world, they argue that, “Their literatures could be considered in
relation to the social and political history of each country, and could be read as important
images of national identities” (17)
This is important in the discussion of the artists as the managers of the transition. In the
first place, community theatre as has been explicated in the Boalian ideal is the negation
of the tetrarchial, and Aristotelian inundation of theatre as a whole, the removing it from
the monarchical and ruler orientation to its original place in the hands of the people:
Aristotle formulated a very powerful purgative system, the objective of which is
to eliminate all that is not commonly accepted, including the revolution, before it
takes place. His system appears in disguised form on television, in the movies, in
the circus, in the theatres. It appears in many and varied shapes and media. But its
essence does not change: it is designed to bridle the individual, to adjust him to
what pre-exists. If this is what we want, the Aristotelian system serves the
purpose better than any other; if, on the contrary, we want to stimulate the
spectator to transform his society, to engage in revolutionary action, in that case
we will have to seek another poetics! (Boal, 1979: 47)
These poetics are those of Community Educational theatre. Community theatre has its
inception in the postulates of epic theatre as envisaged by Bertolt Bretcht. Epic theatre
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 7 ©kawive, wambua
entailed the defamiliarisation of the theatrical space, a reorientation of the theatrical
conception of the Aristotelian time in which the role of catharsis was a hallmark of the
tragic to the translation of theatrical images to the reality of the audience member who
becomes an active participant.
Community theatre as envisaged by Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal constitutes a devising
and or creation of theatrical scenarios by members of the community that are used to
launch inter and intra-personal dialogue on issues that affect the community with an aim
of correcting an anomaly or initiating a process of action and thus change.
Ngugi’s experiment at the Kamiriithu centre in Kenya has been oft quoted as a leading
example. Opiyo Mumma in his paper “Drama and Theatre as Modes of Creative
Learning” notes that
education for transformation will help people to become critically creative, free,
active and responsible members of society. In participatory education, participants
are recognized as thinking, creative people with capacity for action and hence it
poses problems in its dialogue and communication. (30)
He explores the Kenyan theatre scene from the 70’s upto 90’s. He notes the kind of
reception that Ngaahika Ndeenda and Maitu Njugira by the Kamiriithu Community
Drama (KCECC) got from the government forces who saw these texts as an affront to the
rule of (unjust!!!) law.
He further explores Aminata and the frustrations that the writer and artists went through
in the 90s when the democratic space was seemingly wider. This goes to show the plan
by the government, like all oppressive governments the world over, to thrive on the
ignorance of the people.
Mumma observes that, Francis Imbuga’s play Aminata “took a leading role in getting
artists together for debates on ‘the role of the artist in time of political change’”. The
Free Travelling Theatre (FTT) and Kenya Drama in Education Association (KDEA)
“formed Aminata as an argument to mobilise artists and cultural workers in the quest for
political change. In this set up, Aminata became a launching pad for futuristic action.”
(Mwangi et al 39)
This “futuristic action” that Opiyo Muma talks about is interpreted as the effort the
actor/teacher/learner and audience/teacher/learner, as participants in the process of
performance and creation of the theatrical piece, take to remedy the issues affecting their
lives (for this matter the political anomaly) that they find themselves in. Perhaps
deserving a special mention is a performance by Theatre Workshop Productions;
“Drumbeats on Mt. Kirinyaga”, a monumental play that used the symbol of the Gikuyu
and Mumbi story as a call for unity to the diverse ethnic communities of Kenya, a call for
reevaluation of our values as a people and to eat fruits together.
Other plays that were significant in the 1990’s were such as Kivutha Kibwana’s Kanzala,
Wakanyote Njuguna’s Kabla ya Dhoruba, Kithaka wa Mberia’s Kifo Kisimani, Wahome
Mutahi’s Mugaathe Mubogothi, Makaririra Kioro, and Mugathe Ndotono among others.
Though these plays lack specific merit as PET or even IPCET texts, they were
unconventional (some even compromising style for messagism) and they interrogated
difference and diffidence in community leadership. These writers as well were prominent
figures in the intellectual and human rights movements and hence had a lot of influence
in the course of action on the educational theatre scene. Their plays, among others, were
the precursors of the underground NGO movement that came up with the IPCET play.
The individual and really forceful activities of civil society organisations like Citizens
Coalition for Constitutional Change (4Cs), Centre for Governance and Democracy
(CGD), and Legal Resources Foundation (LRF) and a plethora of other organisations
suffered the same fate of being but information points for the community. Information,
we should note at this point, empowers, but it is only communication that liberates. And
this key issue was never sufficiently addressed. Art was severally massacred at the behest
of militant advocacy. The exploration of whether or not these interventions led to the
development of a unique form of art necessitated by the milieu of the time is beyond the
scope of this paper.
I would like to isolate the 4Cs and say the following. The organisation started off as a
loosely structured lobby group for constitutional reform. But for three years, its single
programme was theatre. The theatre group used the rich history of oppression in the
country to create a play “Five Centuries” later to become the name of the group. The play
was an interrogation of the suffering and pain the people of Kenya have gone through in
the hands of selfish leaders, the fact of an independence that never was, and the need for
this century to be a century of nation reconstruction and a new constitutional order. This
trend has survived across the years, at times faltering at the intersection of artistic
expressionism and political advocacy.
Towards behaviour change, the clarion call of Kenya Drama in Education Association
(KDEA) was either not well understood or treated as suspect. But on organising a
congress of world artists in the country, a new wave of change was envisaged.
Commenting on the activities of IDEA Congress in 1998, the then Kenyan Minister for
Education Kalonzo Musyoka in a Paper “Powers of Performance: What Theatre has in
Store for Educationists” said:
What I witnessed is testimony that drama is being used as a powerful
medium of communication to expose pertinent and sometimes disturbing
experiences in our society. For instance issues such as corruption, bribery,
immorality, jealousy, misguided ambition, treachery and so on, which
have featured in this congress, educate and challenge the society to
seriously review their attitudes and values. The aim of the student artists is
noble. (Mwangi et al 1999, 12)
Kalonzo also observed that Educational theatre had demonstrated “clearly that forging
unity and a sense of nationhood can easily be achieved”(12). It is in my opinion that the
artist educators were well aware of this and took the opportunity to actualise it.
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 9 ©kawive, wambua
J B Okong’o, in a paper, “Fictional Constructs, The Theatrical Process and African
Communities in Development” observes that the “ participatory aspect between
facilitator and community enables for a fictional process that builds an understanding
through the cooperative construction of an imaginative world…in the process, the
creation becomes an inbuilt feedback system that tests whether communication is
effective.” (286). The artists therefore in the adoption of the IPCET model discussed
here, were sure that the message of change, the element of education had been shared by
both the actor educators and the audience teachers.
Theatre as a Tool in Kenya’s Transformation.
And thus the work of seeking to orientate the Kenyan people towards behaviour change
(from complacency/inactivity to active and effective decision making and
implementation). For this, the following theatrical modes were adopted and duplicated
across the country:
· Story telling
The story of the Lion and the Sungura and their conspiracy in the digging of a well.
In this story, the gullible animals are duped to dig a well and later the lion with the
help of Sungura as a think tank, repossess the well as a private property. The
dilemma is whether the animals should be silent and die in the drought or fight for
their right to access the well. This story was in over 90% cases cited by the audience
teachers as a case of the government fleecing the citizens. Every four out of five
people saw the lion as Moi. In a performance in Machakos, a team of artists was
arrested and spend a long time in the District Commissioner’s office pleading
innocence by asking the officers whether they had never heard the story before. They
had of course, for it is a common story. But they insisted to the chagrin of the artists
that it was mockery to the government. And then one lady artist asked whether her
great, great grandmother, who had told the story to their mother, had lived during
Moi’s era. They were released. Hurrah to the power of the story! In lauding the story
as a future form of Educational theatre, Opiyo Mumma said that:
The storyteller links incidents and events into a narrative construct that
echoes with similarities and a certain meaning. It allows the participants to
at once become the story, the constructors of the story, and the people
living through the story. (412)
· Simple Scenario Skits
1. Based on simple domestic violence against workers.
In this skit, the lady owner of the home gives just too much work to the house
help, including bathing between sessions) so much so that it looks
kola2005/Paper/Kawive/docu 10 ©kawive, wambua
melodramatic. When she goes out, her son makes sexual advances at the girl
and when rebuffed offloads his own share of work on her.
2. Marriage of a beautiful girl: “Mschina Mzuri”
Here a learned and beautiful girl who can’t apparently get a husband decides
to marry the village buffoon without consulting anyone. It was based on the
story told in a popular old song. This skit was useful in appropriating both the
old people’s political space and tradition and/or cultural interrogation.
· Song /dance — eliciting the joy and pain for the people who went down memory
lane, interrogated why we fought in MAU MAU, and catapulted them to the pain
of the present. As well it captured the positivism and negativism of the present
socio-political ethos.
These theatrical pieces were strung together with the use of the Joker- a common
phenomenon in Forum Theatre and the Facilitator commonly used in TIE and TFD. The
multiplicity of form was to ensure maximum output. And indeed there was a great
impact. Theatre was voted the main (best) tool for education by the implementing
partners. Steven E. Finkel, et al in a paper “The Impact of The Kenya National Civic
Education Programme on Democratic Attitudes, Knowledge, Values, and Behavior”
observe:
“NCEP activities were effective in changing many important democratic
orientations, values, and behaviors; coupled with the findings from previous
assessments, there can now be little doubt that civic education can be an important
instrument for democratic change” (vi).
Educational Theatre was a major component of these activities and although the
programme was initially designed after a workshop orientation, the observation is that:
NCEP activities such as drama presentations, puppet shows, and public lectures,
also contributed significantly to changes in engagement and
competence…roughly equal, and in the case of efficacy and intentions to
participate, larger for the other NCEP activities than for NCEP workshops” (34)
This kind of deduction, coming from an assessment of a workshop oriented evaluation
matrix, is indeed a testimony of the fact that the people of Kenya remembered more the
theatrical symbols and images than the rhetoric of the
read enitre document?
Monday, April 21, 2008
A Moment
A MOMENT!
By Mwashi Litonde Peter.
Think, Think for a Moment,
Of the abilities within you to change,
To change not a moment,
But the world we are at the moment!
A Moment is here for us to create,
And to contribute, at least for a moment,
That which is needed for precious moments in future,
Even if it’s a comment in moment!
At least you and I share one thing, This Moment!
A moment that gives us hope for the next,
Shall we set this moment for positive?
Can we dedicate this moment for change?
This moment comes with a story,
A story of shared- past moments,
Those which are deep within us, for us!
Moments that has made who we are today,
A moment like this can only be special,
It’s new but lives with us forever,
It awakens us to rise up to the occasion!
In a moment, this one will be over!
But imagine how it would turn in a moment,
To utilize the potential within you,
In sharing your wisdom and creativity,
So to have this moment marked and treasured!
Of the Billions of people in the world,
How many moments are those?
At this moment, we can decide to overcome!
And finally at one moment we shall say,
“It’s a moment worth remembering”
By Mwashi Litonde Peter.
Think, Think for a Moment,
Of the abilities within you to change,
To change not a moment,
But the world we are at the moment!
A Moment is here for us to create,
And to contribute, at least for a moment,
That which is needed for precious moments in future,
Even if it’s a comment in moment!
At least you and I share one thing, This Moment!
A moment that gives us hope for the next,
Shall we set this moment for positive?
Can we dedicate this moment for change?
This moment comes with a story,
A story of shared- past moments,
Those which are deep within us, for us!
Moments that has made who we are today,
A moment like this can only be special,
It’s new but lives with us forever,
It awakens us to rise up to the occasion!
In a moment, this one will be over!
But imagine how it would turn in a moment,
To utilize the potential within you,
In sharing your wisdom and creativity,
So to have this moment marked and treasured!
Of the Billions of people in the world,
How many moments are those?
At this moment, we can decide to overcome!
And finally at one moment we shall say,
“It’s a moment worth remembering”
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