Books Uhuru should read to prepare legacy

President Uhuru Kenyatta. PHOTO| PSCU

What you need to know:

  • The fierce world in The Iliad is in many ways like our modern-day world.
  • No matter how modest we are, Shakespeare implies that we shouldn’t shy away from greatness.

Homer. Shakespeare. Dante. Achebe. Ngugi. Makeba. That’s the way to salute great people – by only one name; one that everyone instantly recognises.

What is it that immortalises some people, while others are never known or are quickly forgotten? In the movie, Troy, Brad Pitt, the famous American movie star famed for his mythic intensity, seems to be after immortality when, bristling with wistful gaiety, he picks up a glistening sword in sardonic fury and rage in the role of the Greek warrior Achilles in the movie that is a dramatic retelling of the famous book, The Iliad.

Written around 762 BC or thereabouts, The Iliad is itself a lesson in a legacy that stays for thousands of years. In the ancient book, the writer, Homer, depicts ordinary men seeking immortality in the clash of spears and double-edged swords, in the violent charge of chariots and smell of blood.

The fierce world in The Iliad is in many ways like our modern-day world. We have our own battles, though not necessarily physical. And some of us get hurt. We have deep scars to show for it, even though many of those scars are invisible. And one thing nags us without end: Will our lives count?

VANITY

We are concerned about whether we’ll matter in life and then if we’ll have a legacy to be remembered for when we are gone. Will we be soon forgotten? Is it all vanity, like chasing after the wind?

In the movie, the opening lines address this issue directly: "Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves, will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we're gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

What if we are here and when we depart no one remembers us?

This question has vexed writers, musicians, painters, politicians and men and women of all walks of life. Our president, Uhuru Kenyatta, probably haunted by “the vastness of eternity” is now vexed by this question.

On the final leg of his second term, he is running out of time. He seems to hear the question that vexed the biblical prophet, Isaiah, when he wrote, “Someone calls to me from Seir, ‘Watchman, what is left of the night? What is left of the night?’” (Isaiah 21:11)

 The President seems to be hearing the question over and over: What is left of the night? And the answer is not encouraging: It’s less than two years. What is left of the night requires haste. He seems focused, resolute and like a man in a hurry.

AFRAID OF GREATNESS

As he wrestles with questions about his legacy, we are also doing the same in our own small ways. In the Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare addresses this issue when he writes, “Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”

No matter how modest we are, Shakespeare implies that we shouldn’t shy away from greatness. Everyone should aspire to be great in their areas of work and influence.

Martin Luther King Jr, concurred with this when he said that, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’.” The step of achieving greatness in everything we do in an excellent and diligent way will then lead us to another quest – for legacy.

Some people get remembered through names of roads (think of the revered lawyer Argwings Kodhek), others like Tom Mboya and Dedan Kimathi are even luckier to additionally have statutes in their honour. Others have airports, schools or universities named after them.

However, no greater honour outlives that of being remembered in literature – whether it is autobiographies, biographies or works of literature one writes and bequeaths the world and for which they leave an indelible mark.

Greatness, legacy and literature are interrelated and the latter seals the former two: the securest way to enduring greatness and keeping a legacy that can last thousands of years is through literature. Of course, the President should continue building the nation; the economy, the roads and everything else, as that will be the foundation of his legacy. Nothing can whitewash that.

However, he should not forget to embrace literature to write down what he did and how he did it for future generations. We hope he is already working on his autobiography on his life as president; to give us a front-row seat to the joys, the intrigues and what happens behind the scenes of Kenya’s seat of power.