What’s your political hat?

Photo|FILE|NATION
From left: Eldoret North MP William Ruto dons his ‘Karuto’, Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the Workers’ Cap and Mobutu Sese Seko in an Africanised version of the Karakul.

Like hounds with a hare’s scent squeezing their nostrils, politicians have engaged their high gears in preparation for the forthcoming elections, with political rallies and pompous party launches becoming the norm rather than the odd.

But amid the storms and festivities of party-hopping, alliances and the usual name-calling, one item has remained the icon of allegiance in all the political camps; and that item is the hat.

In an apparent bid to win the peoples’ hearts and votes, incumbent and aspiring leaders have been donning and dumping hats with the ease and rate at which infants change diapers.

And being the trendiest symbol of political statement and intent in town during this electioneering season, hats are coming in different sizes, shapes, colours and types.

Given the rate at which sombreros, karakuls, caps and other headgears are being flashed all over the place, the country is headed for a titanic contest of political hats.

But, as former Subukia legislator and hat lover Koigi Wamwere notes, politicising hats is not a new phenomenon or an exclusive Kenyan trend.

“You can easily tell the character, ideology and political convictions of a leader through his heart,” says the former political prisoner.

“For instance, Lenin’s Workers’ Cap that I and other politicians like Raila Odinga adopted in the ’70s was a symbol of our socialist leanings. Hats became symbols of the ideological boundaries between socialists and capitalists.”

The veteran politician says that his love for caps and their political significance goes back to the post-independence political era, when Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga gifted the country’s founding father Jomo Kenyatta with the now popular “Luo Cap”.

“I loved the cap because it was a strong symbol of Africanism and nationalism,” Koigi recalls. “The cap gave leaders like Kenyatta, Jaramogi and Mboya an identity that set them apart from the rest of the post-independence political crowd.”

However, Kenyatta never wore the cap again after their fallout with the doyen of Kenyan opposition politics soon after independence.

The hat that Koigi refers to as the “Luo Cap” is an Africanised version of the popular Asian headgear called the karakul, made popular by Pakistan founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the 1940s.

Today, one of the most prominent ambassadors of the karakul is Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who dons it wherever he goes.

The proliferation of guerilla movements in Africa and Latin America in the ’70s saw the rise in popularity of wide-brimmed sombreros and military berets among populations of these two continents.

These hats were made popular in the 18th and 19th centuries by legendary South American revolutionary icons like Simon Bolivar, Augusto Sandino, Miguel Hidalgo and Che Guevara.

“African leaders of Marxist convictions and those who came to power through rebel movements tend to favour these wide-brimmed hats,” Koigi notes.

“Examples of such people are President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Salvar Kiir Mayardit of South Sudan.”

The black stetson that’s forever spreading its wide brims over the bushy beard that’s the trademark of South Sudan President Salva Kiir is rumoured to have been a gift from former US president George W Bush in 2006, when he hosted Sudanese leaders in the White House. The former American commander-in-chief was known for his love of Texas cowboy hats.

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda may sport a smooth, oily face as opposed to the bushy stuff that is the trademark of the likes of Salva Kiir, the late John Garang and Namibian leader Sam Nujoma (all of whom, like him, ascended to power through the gun), but, as the Global Policy Journal, an American current affairs publication, analyses, his now popular wide-brimmed hat compensates for the beardy, tough look he lacks.

“Museveni wears a hat associated with farming (most Ugandans are farmers), with the old village organisation of the Ugandan society (many Ugandans see the imposition of new subregion/subcounty divisions as overly political and without historical legitimacy), with the peasant (most Ugandans are poor), and with rural trading centers (which were slow to warm up to Museveni),” the journal claims.

“For illiterate voters or those who do not follow politics, he runs radio advertisements asking them to simply ‘vote for the old man with a hat’ and gives away T-shirts showing him wearing the hat in areas where he, or his party, has historically been unpopular.”

Apart from the wide-brimmed sombreros, the fedora, locally known as the “Godfather” because of its earlier portrayal by Hollywood as the preferred headgear by Mafia bosses, is another favourite for politicians across Africa.

In Kenya, it is common among members of the political and business class from the central region, where it is more often than not associated with affluence and celebrity status.

“When I first visited Nigeria, I noticed that the Godfather was very popular among governors and prominent Yoruba politicians and personalities, except Wole Soyinka,” Koigi says.

“Personally, I not only find leaders wearing a Godfather uninspiring, but they also give me the impression of untrustworthiness, rogue capitalism... a Mafioso kind of background.”

One cold morning last year, residents of the now famous Dutch city of The Hague woke up to the scene of a multitude of singing African politicians lining the entrance of the International Criminal Court (ICC) headquarters along Maanweg Street.

Thanks to Eldoret North Member of Parliament and one of the accused William Ruto, each individual in this gathering of mostly potbellied fellows was donning a cap with the green, black, white and red of the Kenyan flag.

The “Ruto Cap” is the trademark of the former Cabinet minister, and those in his political bandwagon don it in public gatherings as a sign of loyalty to him.

But, while Ruto might have been a recent convert of the brotherhood of hat-donning politicians, his former ally-turned-foe Prime Minister Raila Odinga is a veteran of this rapidly expanding club.

“The Prime Minister wears the hat as a sign of elderhood and leadership,” explains Barack Muluka, a political strategist and public communication expert.

“In the traditional African context, the hat was not worn by anybody, but by people who had the destiny of multitudes in their hands as a constant reminder that they should always remain level-headed and mindful of others, even when their personal welfare was at stake.”

Although politicians sometimes give hats new meaning by wearing them in different forums, traditional hats and headgears were a valued indicator of rank and hierarchy in the African culture, explains former Nacada chief Joeph Kaguthi, who now dons an African karakul on a regular basis.

“I started wearing a hat because of health reasons since it protects my scalp from carcinogenic gamma rays, and for cultural reasons since my father and grandfather wore hats.” The former civil servant is not a stranger to hats since he donned the provincial administration helmet for many years as a provincial commissioner.

In Western Kenya, newcomer Eugene Wamalwa is also representing the movement well with his cowboy hat. “It was a special gift from my brother Majani Wamalwa when he came for Kijana’s burial in 2003 from Texas, where he had lived for 20 years,” explains the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

“It was a symbolic statement that it was time for me to take over the mantle of leadership from my late brother (Kijana Wamalwa was the Vice-President of Kenya at the time of his death).”

But besides being a valued gift, Wamalwa says, the hat serves other purposes too. “You know we politicians sometimes lead a miserable life, especially during campaigns, despite the stereotyped perception that we are rich men and women who swim in creature comforts. Therefore when I have rallies and meet-the-people-tours to conduct, the hat becomes handy in protecting my scalp from the sun and dust.”

The New Ford Kenya leader says that even if he wins the race to State House in the coming General Elections, the precious cowboy hat will be in the bags he will pack for the relocation to the House on the Hill.