Chelagat and the changing face of the struggle for justice

Those who came to celebrate and mourn Chelagat Mutai at the Holy Family Basilica on Thursday were startled to see Charles Njonjo alight from a car to join them. Mr Njonjo, the once all-powerful Attorney-General, was the architect of the State that tormented champions of change such as Chelagat.

“Yes,” he told the gathering, “I fought Chelagat very hard those days. But I have come today to honour an uncontestably brilliant and fearless woman who was capable of mobilising people and leaders for causes which were then considered controversial — the landless in particular. There were not many like her, men or women, and even some of the ‘Seven Sisters’ were mere rabble rousers.”

Father George Cheboryot, who presided over the Mass, had already warmly spoken of the reconciliation that Mr Njonjo’s presence symbolised.

Everyone who spoke highlighted the extraordinary qualities the young Chelagat possessed. But an even better measure of the timeless legacy Chelagat leaves behind was the scores of senators, current and former MPs and political comrades who attended the quickly-organised and not very well publicised Mass. Such a turnout was an extraordinary tribute considering that Chelagat disappeared from public view after she went into exile in Dar.

Sharp mind

But let me dispel the notion that Chelagat’s physical infirmity extended to the mental. I saw her a number of times, including twice in the week in which she died, after she resurfaced when Raila Odinga got her into hospital in 2011. Her mind was as sharp as ever and she had numerous ideas on how Cord could do better. She also declined my offer to seek for her additional financial support from Kalenjin leaders who had fought her in the Moi regime.

Because I knew Chelagat well — she even worked at Viva magazine as a writer for a while — I want to highlight elements of her astonishing accomplishments that are not commonly recognised.

While we have had many women MPs who fought for change, Chelagat was easily the most determined and courageous of them, publicly taking on a totally anti-democratic system to champion democratic space and the common persons’ interests.

And when you factor in the extra courage needed in Kenya when the president is from your own community, then one can say that Chelagat was the greatest woman champion that independent Kenya has ever produced. Wangari Maathai and Chebii Kilimo, who emerged as important forces in the second liberation, are the other women leaders who come closest to Chelagat in that regard.

In assessing legacies it is vital to showcase them as a mirror to current realities. So it’s important to highlight some distinctions between the heroic Chelagat era and the still ongoing second liberation struggles. The struggles of the 1970s and early 1980s were essentially struggles for justice and protection for vulnerable Kenyans, and freedom of expression.

Faced with an all-powerful State, the young “radicals” (they were not, that was just the tag used to isolate them) did not have as a goal ascending to State power. There was no prospect at that time that the all-powerful State could be undermined and made to fall. Freed from the “power” constraint, there was little need to compromise on core beliefs and interact with those in charge of a repressive State. People fought openly for what they believed, and risked imprisonment, torture and death.

The second liberation, on the other hand, was very much built on the goal of ascending to State power, through a multi-party democracy. That power was, of course, to be used to bring real change for the masses. But inherent in any such struggle in a country with a powerful elite controlling the state is the need to make some serious compromises about the nature of change that is sought. You need partners from within the more enlightened sections of the elite if you want to seek power, so they will support moderate rather than structural change.

Parallel struggles

But there were plenty of overlaps in these two parallel struggles; indeed the one is indispensable without the other, as witnessed in the attempt to formally challenge Kanu through registering a second party, the Kenya African Socialist Alliance, in June 1982. Kasa was to be led by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Bildad Kaggia and brought together representatives of all regions.

One of my most vivid memories of the period concerns a long meeting to finalise the party constitution at our house on May 29, 1982. It was a jubilant day for us, even though we knew the hurdles ahead. George Anyona, the driving force behind the proposed party, Raila, Wachira Kamoji and the late Atieno Odhiambo were among those present.

Later that evening, Chelagat called from Dar to discuss how things were going. It turned out to be our last chat for 30 years, so it was the one I remember the most. Anyona, who was spending the night, talked to her also and I felt he told her too much. In the morning, he left for the Inter-Continental Hotel, where he was arrested. Four days later, Parliament made ours a single-party dictatorship.

The struggle for justice aside, the other fundamental distinction between the two struggles was the absence of an ethnic agenda. There was not a whiff of it in the platform for change espoused by Chelagat and her political cohorts — most notably Anyona, James Orengo, Mashengu Mwachofi, Koigi wa Wamwere, Abuya Abuya, and Raila, joined later by Anyang’ Nyong’o and Willy Mutunga.

Guarded media

I was editor of the Sunday Post and then Viva magazine and in providing a platform for their views at a time the major media had to play a guarded role, I became part of this loose, growing group which was finally crushed and scattered by making opposition unlawful in June 1982. While it lasted, this group never discussed how to use the tribe to promote political interests and no one ever linked what was being espoused to that person’s ethnic origin. What a disastrous distance we have travelled.

From within this loose group, it was particularly gratifying to behold those from the Gema communities who spoke out against Jomo Kenyatta’s policies. They included Koigi wa Wamwere, the late Mirugi Kariuki, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Micere Mugo, Mark Mwithaga, Wambui Otieno, Maina wa Kinyatti, and Wachira Kamoji, to name only those I knew well.

JM Kariuki, who also championed pro-poor change, was different from these “dissidents” in that he fought from within the mainstream and was able to mobilise soaring political support, for which he paid the ultimate price in 1975.

One of the great and depressing ironies is that all these people in 1970s and 1980s fought fearlessly for justice at a time of dictatorship and when the impact of corrupt government policies had not fully had its impact on landlessness and impoverishment of the majority. It is a truly sad commentary on our more democratic era that there has only been a small and indeed diminishing group fighting for justice in their manner.

Salim Lone, a spokesman for Raila Odinga between 2005 and 2013, is writing a history of the extraordinary transformations and setbacks Kenya has gone through in the first post-Moi decade.