As we mark Mashujaa Day, we may have to pause and give thought to dreams deferred. The reality is that instead of recognising the really deserving men and women who crafted the story of this great nation, we all too often honour thieves and scoundrels.
One of our most important public holidays started out as Kenyatta Day, named after founding President Jomo Kenyatta. It commemorated that fateful day on October 20, 1952, when the occupying forces declared a State of Emergency, launching Operation Jock Scott and rounding up leaders of the independence struggle.
The most famous of those arrested were, of course, the Kapenguria Six—Kenyatta and his compatriots Paul Ngei, Bildad Kaggia, Kungu Karumba, Achieng Oneko and Fred Kubai. But there were hundreds of thousands of others locked up in concentration camps, exiled to remote locations or confined to “emergency” villages, and subjected to killings, torture and ill-treatment that today would qualify as crimes against humanity.
The public holiday was renamed Mashujaa, or Heroes Day by the 2010 Constitution to extend it from lionisation of one individual to recognition of all those who sacrificed in the struggle for independence, and beyond to the unending struggles for democracy and human rights.
However, it remains sad that nothing much has changed in the way we recognise our heroes. Every time we see a list of those awarded national honours, we can be sure that the majority will not remotely qualify as heroes or as persons who have otherwise made great contributions to the Kenyan nation. The list will be dominated by government flunkies, with the top awards going to Cabinet secretaries and other senior personalities, while those who have made much more impact from various fields—sports, culture and arts, business, military service, science and technology, community service, social justice activism, etc.— will be largely ignored or confined to lesser honours.
We can also be sure that at the national celebrations presided over by President William Ruto in Eldoret City today, the dais will be heavily dominated by the sweaty denizens of the governing power structure showing off their expensive designer outfits. Festivities will also reduce what should be a national celebration to a Ruto campaign platform, with praise singers on full display.
Yet, Mashujaa Day should remind us that we should be celebrating heroes rather than power, sycophancy and displays of ill-gotten wealth. It is a day that should also remind us of the redeeming values of rebellion and resistance. If the founding fathers had not taken up armed struggle against colonial occupation, we might still be a British colony. If another generation of freedom fighters had not led the fight against one-party dictatorship, we would still be suffering under the yoke of a police state.
President Ruto and all the others on the podium at Eldoret are there specifically because there were heroes before them who sacrificed greatly to win the freedoms we enjoy today. It is therefore deeply disturbing that this government seems determined to roll back those freedoms, to erase the gains of multi-partyism, democracy, and the constitutional regime that mandates respect for human rights.
The Kenya Kwanza regime, following on the sorry record set by its predecessor, the Jubilee Party government of President Uhuru Kenyatta , is guilty of human rights abuses on an industrial scale. Extrajudicial executions, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal confinement and torture have become the norm. Dissent has been criminalised and punished in a manner often reminiscent of the darkest days of the murderous Kenya Police Special Branch inherited from the colonial occupiers.
When President Ruto recently declared that human rights and associated freedoms—speech, assembly, expression, association, thought, and so on, presumably including even the right to vote for leaders of your choice—cannot take precedence over “development”, he betrayed a dangerous mindset that can only be compared to what is propagated by the worst dictators who ever lived.
The inalienable rights and freedoms guaranteed by every modern constitution are the very basis of development.
As we mark Mashujaa Day, we can look abroad to France, one of the most highly-developed economies in the world, which today is gripped by a student-led revolt that has shaken the government of President Emmanuel Macron. The youth are protesting a crumbling public education system, the rising cost of living, and an arrogant, out-of-touch political elite.
Echoes of our own Gen Z protests of 2024? Instead of listening to the cry of our youth, our children, we slaughtered them. Those are the mashujaa we should be celebrating today, not the toadies singing songs of praise in Eldoret.
Mr Gaitho, an independent journalist, is former NMG Managing Editor for Special Projects. [email protected]
