Of poverty, riches and happiness

Jonathan Power wrote a very interesting article on happiness in the Third World — Nation, October 14 — which left me wondering: Are we in Kenya happier today than we were 60, 40, 20 or 10 years back? Are we happier than our more developed friends in the US, UK, Germany or Japan?

Today almost every employed group wants to go on strike for higher pay, but does making more money improve happiness even a bit? The author, whom I have enjoyed reading for many years, never meaningfully defined happiness. Nor did he tell us what a person feels at the point of unadulterated exuberance. Can happiness be continuous? Is it a blip sensation?

It is difficult to generalise on our common happiness as Kenyans, over the years, given our variegated cultures. What a Maasai might find exciting could be stiffly boring to a Meru; what a Luo enjoys, a Kikuyu might frown upon. But we should define happiness first.

Happiness brings to mind cheerfulness, pleasure and satisfaction, and the absence of sullenness, dolefulness and insecurity. What contributes to happiness? Perhaps good health, supportive family and friends, a promising future and lack of threats, ill-fortunes or enemies.

I was born one and a half decades before independence. In my village in Nyanza, only one major issue was uppermost on our minds — getting rid of the British and their colonial policies. True, we had famines or deaths in our village, but these were natural issues that we overrode. Despite what people would argue today, the last few decades before independence were the happiest.

We had a lot of dances and food in our village. We had not been exposed to the worrying issues we live with today. We had a few rich families, but the idea of class difference was foreign to us. We had no tribalism nor corruption. In short, our happiness and contentedness were enhanced by our ignorance and isolation from national and international forces.

RIGHT FROM INDEPENDENCE OUR world began to change rapidly and radically. The gates to high schools and universities were opened to us. Colonial racism and segregation began to recede, and those with higher education began to handle national responsibilities.

Gates to foreign countries were also opened for us. We began to meet and compete with Kenyans from different ethnic communities, regions and provinces. We were also exposed to international benefits and intrigues. We began to realise that compared to the developed world, we were shockingly poor.

Indeed, this exposure began to generate in us needs for new and better things — like better education, better infrastructure, new and better ways of organising our societies and government, luxury items and better homes to live in.

Happiness and sadness, thus, are really attitudes of the mind. It depends on what people feel, need, have, lack or know. During my travels internationally, I have seen some very poor but happy people, and some very rich but unhappy people. Some people in the rich countries imagine that we in the Third World are innocent and happy. That is simply hallucination. But at the end of the day we all want to be happy.

To be happy is more exciting than to be either rich or highly educated. A lot of my bright and wealthy friends have died prematurely due to unhappiness or alienation. Humans are fickle creatures. I have met some beautiful but sad girls, and some ugly but extremely jolly girls. In his wisdom God created us so.

Prof Ochieng’ teaches history at Maseno University