‘Kenyaphilia’: I feel it so intensely, especially now

Where is Roger Whittaker? His song My Land Is Kenya has been reverberating in my memory recently, especially since Tuesday, when “Nane-Nane” came and went. Whittaker’s soulful ballad is one of the most “Kenyaphiliac” poems I know.

One of my dedicated readers and disciples, Alexander Khamala Opicho, suggested some time ago that I coined the term “Kenyaphilia”. The beloved disciple faulted the compilers of the Oxford English dictionaries for failing to include my “brilliant” coinages, like “deshenzinisation, “wordaholic” and others, in their lexes. Now, is that not flattering?

But “Kenyaphilia”, which, as you know, means total, unconditional, irresistible, irrevocable and even fanatical love for Kenya, is not entirely my coinage. Indeed, we can trace it down a genealogy. My nearest adaptation is from my teacher, Ali Mazrui, who published a characteristically controversial article on “Tanzaphilia” back in the 1960s, in the prestigious journal Transition.

But Mazrui himself derived the term from common English usages like “Anglophile”, “Francophile”, denoting people who particularly liked those nationalities. That “phile” part of it is not always complimentary, and it can, indeed, carry negative implications. This may be seen in the unsavoury label “paedophile”, meaning not child lover, but child molester!

But the root of the word, from Greek, is an innocuous reference to one of the four categories under which the classical thinkers viewed love. There is philia, eros, storge and agapé.  Agapé, the biggest of the loves, is the overarching type that transcends all limits, like God’s love for us.

Storge is the way parents and grandparents love their offspring and, presumably, the reciprocation. I say “presumably” because I know how difficult our descendants find it to spare reasonable quality time and care for their parents and other ageing relatives. But the truth is that all of us old dodderers could do with a wee bit more pampering and spoiling from our children.

Eros, represented in mythology by the naughty, blindfolded little imp indiscriminately shooting out his arrows in all directions, is the concept of romantic, sentimental and sexual attraction. This is what many people understand by “love”, especially when they say they are in love or falling in love. Do you remember the little girl, in my Mermaid of Msambweni, who asks her (supposed) father if it is a good thing to fall in love?

Philia, however, the simple, sensible liking or attachment to one’s deserving acquaintances, is our focus today. It is what gives us “Kenyaphilia”. You could call this kind of love “friendship”, and I think all the other three kinds of love could benefit from a dose of philia. A romance between two friends, for example, people who would like each other regardless of the physical attraction, is likely to work out better than one rooted in sheer sexual excitement.

KENYAPHILIA BUBBLING IN ME

Anyway, I set out to say that my Kenyaphilia, my liking or friendship with Kenya, has been bubbling in me as I followed the momentous events of this week. My affair may have started as an “eros”, an instinctive excitement from the moment I landed here 52 years ago. But, while the “erotic” excitement admittedly still remains, I now realise that my attachment is grounded in a simple, sensible friendship or fellowship based on a host of common interests.

If I start enumerating all the things I like about Kenya and my Kenyan neighbours, I risk both going on forever and also falling into dubious condescension. Suffice it to quote my departed colleague, Francis Imbuga, who, on return from a few miserable days’ visit to another African country, confided to me: “You never realise how lucky we are until you travel out there.”

Well, I have travelled “out there”. I have lived, studied, worked, loved (and lost), quarrelled and fought, laughed and cried, in many countries and climes. But I cannot help wondering why, of all places, I can never quite go away from Kenya, and it is not for lack of trying, or of alternatives, as you know.

Maybe I could answer simply with a question. “What has Kenya not given me?” I may not have property here or businesses, but I have “homes”, from Kisumu through Nairobi and Machakos to Kilifi, as I keep boasting. I may not have honours or decorations, but what can beat the warmth of thousands of Kenyans of several generations who call me their “Mwalimu”?

Above all, Kenya has given me a family, or shall I say fantastic families, in which I feel as cherished as I ever will be in any community. I should not wax too personal, but I am fascinated by the fact that the “second-in-line” in the Bukenya succession is as much Giriama and Luo as he is Ugandan! That is an “agapé” that stretches from the Ruwenzori through Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria) over Kirinyaga to the Indian Ocean.

It has not all been plain sailing. There have been tough times, too, at the hands of Kenyans. My friend Prof Henry Indangasi, for example, remembers an episode where he believes he saw my romantic heart being almost literally shattered in a northern Kenyan town. In 1998 at a matatu stand in Nairobi, I was strangled and left for dead in a rain puddle on Tom Mboya Street. I resurrected, still loving Kenya.

But the most important point I would like to make to my beloved Kenyans is that I am not alone or unique in the Kenya Lovers Club. There are thousands, possibly millions, of others like me, who, regardless of their origins or citizenship, passionately hold Kenya dear in their hearts. As we enter this post-election period, let us think of what a stable and peaceful Kenya means not only to Kenyans but also to the multitude of us to whom Kenya has been unreservedly good and generous.

Speaking for myself, I realise that my “Kenyaphilia” probably originates from Kenya’s own “Bukenyaphilia”. Why, Kenyans keep inviting me to talk to them, or even at them, as I am doing now!

Prof Bukenya is one of the leading scholars of English and Literature in East Africa. [email protected]