"Hamjambo wananchi wote pamoja na wageni wetu. Mimi ni Kisoi Munyao ninaozungumza nanyi kutoka kileleni cha Mlima Kenya. Kenya, Kenyatta, bendera imepepea. Kenya popote mwangaza umeenea." (Hello to all citizens and our visitors. I am Kisoi Munyao, speaking to you from the peak of Mt Kenya. Kenya, Kenyatta, the flag is flying. All over Kenya, the light is shining).
On that day, in December 1963, Kisoi Munyao stood at the highest point of the new nation. He hoisted a brand new flag, at the dawn of independence; the birth of a nation called Kenya. A flag with red, for the blood that was shed that Kenya could be forever free; green for the land, that would forever be bountiful; black for the people, an African race that had finally won self-determination and dominion over their motherland; white for the peace that, after the war of liberation's proud yet painful legacy, would prevail within Kenya's borders. A flag that would forever symbolise national unity in this independent and sovereign state.
On the morning of December 12th 1963, Independence Day, Kisoi Munyao stood at the dais shaking hands with the fresh, new, and black African Prime Minister of Kenya - Mzee Jommo Kenyatta - and waved at an ecstatic crowd of Kenyans yelling, Uhuru! Uhuru! Then, as swiftly as the helicopter that had brought him to Nairobi for the Independence Day ceremony, Kisoi Munyao slipped into oblivion.
Kenya, Kenyatta and the flag flew own; Kenyatta more than Kenya. In the years since Kenyatta walked out of detention, a national hero, Kenyans had taken to spontaneous and ecstatic outbursts of Uhuru na kazi! By 1960, everyone in Kenya knew that the war of liberation had been won, that it was only a matter of time before 'kaburu arudi kwao.' Then 1963 and independence came and with it a swift realisation that only Kenyatta and his cronies had work; real mzungu jobs. The likes of Kenyatta had won Independence, the rest of the people had won dependence on a black master rather than a white one.
Having come out victorious, the winners of Kenya's 'Independence' had the task of (re)writing our history thrust upon them. They rose to the occasion. And that is how my History textbook ended up with one chapter on Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and one paragraph on Dedan Kimathi. In my History textbook, Kenyatta wore a monkey skin hat and gracefully wielded a fly whisk; flashed all the symbols of power. Dedan Kimathi lay on the ground, handcuffed and rugged. Even after Independence, Kimathi was still shackled - he and his children would never be free.
I am not saying that Kenyatta was no hero; he was the founding father of the nation after all. For that, we had to immortalise him, his wife, his cousins. On every road, and potholed alley, Kenyatta's name was hoisted on a pedestal, he took over our lives; imposed himself on our currency, schools and village playgrounds. Kenyatta was hero number one and none other could be worshipped but by his decree. So Kenyatta set out to invent Kenya's hero pantheon: Mau Mau was a disease that has been eradicated and should never be remembered, said Kenyatta, and with that anyone (from any official tribe or else, in Kenya) who had taken a home-made gun, machete, oath, or showed a sign of valour against the British Empire, was declared a criminal. Criminals do not make good heroes, remember, so those 'diseased elements' we soon forgot and the people who had taken up British arms, savage aggression and the rape of their own sisters and daughters for Empire flew high. Higher. Higher than Kenya and Kenyans. And they took with them all the land.
The Kenyattas of this country had inherited the monkey skin - control over the means of production - while the Kimathis had inherited the shackles - cursed to forever feed from the foot of Dives' table, to live as slaves in their own land, which was shared out even as they fought for it. Kenya, Kenyatta, the flag seemed to fly on, but its symbolism had long changed: the green in the Kenyan flag had no meaning any more, the red could never be celebrated as the dead were left to bury their dead and, as they were sobbing and crying and gnashing their teeth, the killers took a surfeit of matunda ya Uhuru.
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Njoroge Matathia is a Kenyan writer.
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Not quite true; he got a state funeral attended by the great and not-so-good: