READERS' CORNER: Marjorie Oludhe, your literary lamp shines on

Kenyan novelist and poet Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye on the October 16, 2012. PHOTO | FILE

Marjorie Oludhe, your literary lamp shines on

by Stephen Mutie

 

It is one year now since the passing on of a literary giant. That Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye’s novels and poetry focused on the country’s post-colonial transformation and social development is without doubt. In her works, she interrogated the failure of the post-colonial African state to live up to the aspirations that energised the African struggle for justice and equity.

It is within this framework that this article looks at one aspect of Marjorie’s novels — her social consciousness. Macgoye’s works follow an uneven terrain of political betrayal and the erosion of ideals that heroes of the past had stood for. She appeals for a re-examination of the people’s conscience.

Macgoye recounts the evolution of the Kenyan nation through her many painful experiences and the characteristic power struggle and political violence that has gripped the nation at specific stages of its growth. She demonstrates the significance of a creative writer in the context of Kenya’s transition from a colony to a neo-colony and shows how an appreciation of her social consciousness may lead to a better understanding of the critical role of the writer in nation-building.

Situating her novels in the context of current debates about the relationship between literature and the nation, I argue that Macgoye’s social consciousness has provided an incisive critique of the developmentalist rhetoric espoused by the political class.

In their 1998 incisive article on writers, Eisenberg, Bonnie and Mary Ruthsdotte, quoting Margaret Mead, observed: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” This statement is in tandem with a new belief in scholarship that women’s writings play a significant role in the process of nation-building. Macgoye, as a pioneer woman writer in Kenya, carries the burden of the Kenyan nation on her shoulders, and this burden is not dimmed by the travails that African intellectuals endured during the dictatorial years.

Her social activism constructs a consciousness that has produced nationalism within which the Kenyan nation can be imagined. This assertion puts intellectualism at the centre of the nation and Macgoye’s novels show that for real development to take place writers should be critical and not subservien, or as Thandika Mkandawire puts it, “(they should) not allow themselves to be yoked to power and accept an injunction ‘silence we are developing.”

One of the issues that Macgoye deals with is corruption in leadership. In her 1997 novel, Chira, Macgoye compares the corrupt leaders to healthy carriers of HIV because they spread poverty to the masses. Secondly, she faults the contemporary Kenyan feminist studies whose concern is to compare men and women and portraying the woman as the inessential Other, but her thinking seems to point to the other way: that women and men should not fight one another but should work together to get a balanced society.

In her novels, a man is not an absolute subject and women should not work towards being such an absolute subject. This kind of consciousness is what makes Macgoye’s works stand out. Her feminism, thus, does not understand patriarchy in terms of power relations but the one that usurps the male phallocentricism without necessarily championing matriarchy.

This is to argue that, in Kenya, the kind of feminism that writers have envisioned oftentimes aims not only to overthrow patriarchy but to create a matriarchal society. A critical examination of Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source will confirm this assertion. The fact that Aoro Sigu is incapable of proposing to his long time girlfriend, Wandia, and waits until she (Wandia) pities him and proposes, is the height of male emasculation. Consequently, Rabecca Njau’s The Sacred Seed treats lesbianism sympathetically. Selina, Njau’s heroine in the novel is used to critique the oppressive nature of heterosexuality to women and to recommend lesbianism as potentially liberating.

Surely, Macgoye, your literary lamp will always shine in the hearts of those who see the bright future of our great nation. Fare thee well.

 

Stephen Mutie is a PhD candidate at Laikipia University

 

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Let’s divorce emotions from tuition debate

by Nobert Oluoch Ndisio

 

Solutions to the problems bedevilling the education sector do not solely lie in the hands of policy makers. For the realisation of meaningful success in the sector, players have to work together. This is why the insistence by Mr Kiarie Ranji, an educationist from Nairobi, that there is nothing wrong with holiday tuition sounds ironical. In his opinion article (Saturday Nation, December 3, 2016), he challenges the sages in Education ministry to explain to him what exactly is wrong with holiday tuition that teachers should be hounded like dangerous criminals just because they are teaching during the holidays. He points out how the rich will keep their children engaged during this long vacation while the children of the poor will be idling at home.

I find it impossible to buy his reasoning. Given that he signs off his opinions as an educationist, I expect him to have a better understanding of how detrimental excessive teacher-learner contact is. The question is why children need to be kept in schools from dawn to dusk during week days and even weekends. This is what informs the holiday tuition ban.

Bearing in mind that parents have had to contend with accusations of abdication of roles, we should be united in support of the ban. The long holidays present a bonding season for children and parents. Teachers should comply and save themselves the embarrassment of being treated like criminals.

The influence of a teacher goes beyond the precincts of a school. It is therefore up to them to advise parents on how best to constructively engage their children during school holidays. The question of socio-economic stratification should not arise at all. It’s fallacious to try and use the activities that children from affluent families are engaged in to validate holiday tuition. Mr Ranji should indeed appreciate that team building, mountain climbing, playing the piano and excursions are purely leisure activities. His reasons for feeling that holiday tuition is the best complement for these activities are wrong.

There is need to divorce emotions from this debate. Trying to portray teachers as victims of an insensitive education system is unfair. One of the national goals of our education is the enhancement of self–reliance which, among other things, includes intellectual self reliance. Children must be given time to be children, of course with the guidance of parents, guardians and teachers.

The government should go further and enforce school arrival and departure time rule. This is the best way to change education from the current near-oppressive experience to a friendly and exciting one. This will rid our education system of learners who are robotic.

 

The writer is a primary school teacher and budding author, Migori County. [email protected]

 

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Bill on varsity expansion is quite timely

By Joseph Muthama

 

The proposed Bill seeking to tame the hurried expansion of Kenyan universities outside the country is laudable. In the recent past, Kenyans have witnessed an unfettered proliferation of auxiliary and satellite colleges in some major towns in the neighbouring countries.

While there is nothing wrong with setting up constituent colleges, the inalienable truth is that most of those constituent colleges lack fundamental resources like qualified staff and infrastructure, hence compromising the quality of university education.

Notably, over the years, the employers have lamented on the quality of graduates being churned out of the universities. Empirical research has shown that most of  university graduates are bereft of marketable and employable skills, thus the current mass unemployment in the region. In other words, universities no longer deliver workplace-ready people due to lack of profundity of the subjects the students studied in universities.

In order for the government to bridge the gap between industry and academia, it must address the issue of quality education in all universities. Uncontrollable expansion of higher education and the subsequent lack of quality education are great bulwark to Kenya’s Vision 2030 development blueprints. Therefore, the proposal to change the Universities Act should be supported by all and sundry.

The writer lives in Thika

 

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Public varsities should learn from Matiang’i

by Edward Lokidor

 

Our public universities should emulate the work of Education Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i. He has done all that he can to curb cheating in this year’s national examinations. In public universities, however, there remain many cases of academic dishonesty, which include outright cheating and plagiarism of assignments and projects. This has led to some students getting grades that they don’t deserve. Universities do not need to emphasise ethical responsibility like honesty in examination. However, there is need for all examinations to be protected. Students take advantage of the absence of a lecturer in an exam room to exchange answers and to retrieve mwakenya. Lecturers should never leave the examination room. Let a level playing field in the examination prevail for students to get their honest grades.

 

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In praise of editors and columnists

by Oginga Orowe

 

It is Clyde H Box who once said: “If with pleasure you are viewing any work a man is doing; If you like him or you love him, tell him now. Don’t withhold your approbation till the preacher makes oration and he lies with snowy lilies o’er his brow…. For he cannot read his tombstone when he is dead.”

As Francis Odipo once opined, “When great lettermen and women like Francis Imbuga, Grace Ogot, Chinua Achebe, Prof Ali Mazrui, Marjorie Oludhe-Macgoye and, recently, Elechi Amadi die, so much is said about them. Acres of space in the dailies is dedicated to them. I really do not know how this helps the departed.” (Saturday Nation, September 3, 2016).

It is with this in mind that I have to appreciate the contribution of our editors and writers. Somebody once put it quite aptly that whenever you view any monument, you are actually looking at the sacrifices that others have made in the past. Our daily newspapers basically inform and educate.

Praveen Karthik says the newspaper editor is called upon to use his discretion, discrimination and imagination in reading the public mind and select stories that have real news value.

Every Saturday, I look forward to my copy of the Saturday Nation. I particularly like going through the pages of ‘The Weekend Magazine.’ In it, I meet literary greats like Austin Bukenya. From his weekly column, one is able to interact with scholarly input that will inform and edify.

Every week, I sample the works of Zukiswa Wanner, which enable us to learn that there are many life lessons from travelling.

From the opinion pages, I normally savour the wisdom of Godwin Siundu. I learn a lot from the insight into language and grammar from Philip Ochieng. I move on to Maina Kiai on topical issues and Kwamchetsi Makokha. I enjoy reading Njoki Chege.

I also honour the ladies and gentleman who regularly contribute in the ‘Readers Corner.’ I salute Nancy Macharia, Oumah Otienoh, Kennedy Buhere, Norbert Ndisio, Gloria Mwaniga, Collins Odhiambo, Francis Odipo, Vivere Nandiemo and Enock Matundura, among others.

I appreciate these men and women for their labour.

 

The writer teaches at Ng’iya Girls High School in Siaya County and is the author of Managing the 24 Hours of your Day. [email protected]