Remembering Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki in a season of resurrection

It is Eastertide and believers should be rejoicing and celebrating the resurrection of their Lord, his triumph over darkness and death.

This year’s Easter, however, will probably be quite different from all the Easters we have previously observed.

In our lockdowns and social distances, our observance is likely to be particularly contemplative, dwelling on the inner significance of the passion (suffering) and resurrection story.

My own contemplation latched on to one eminent Kenyan, now tragically departed, but permanently raised in our love, gratitude and admiration.

Kenya Airways (KQ) pilot, Captain Daudi Kimuyu Kibati, fell fatal victim to Covid-19 after evacuating a planeload of Kenyans from the virus-plagued New York City on March 23 this year.

This is essential martyrdom and it epitomises the episode of the Easter story where one person dies for the saving of many.

The outpourings of love, sympathy, respect and gratitude for Kibati have certainly raised him to immortality.

POSITIVE STRANDS

Kibati’s story also shows that amidst the doom and gloom of the coronavirus pandemic, there are quite a few beautiful and uplifting stories that deserve more highlighting than the sensationalist media tend to give them.

I, for example, was deeply touched to hear that Cuba sent medical teams to Italy to help out with the crisis, despite the objections of some “big powers” who did not want them there, on ideological grounds.

Even more moving was Somalia’s sending of their own team of doctors, too, to help out in Italy! Can you beat that?

The moral of the tale is that we should not over-concentrate on the terrors and horrors of the pandemic.

There are many positive strands in the struggle, and dwelling more on them will help us in our fight to survive and win.

I, for example, would like to hear more stories and statistics of genuine Covid-19 patients who are treated and properly certified as healed, instead of dwelling sensationally on the death figures.

ARCHBISHOP NDINGI

Before Kibati’s story broke, however, I had been thinking of the fallen patriarch of Kenyan Catholicism, and I thought I should share with you some of my impressions of him.

“Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki” would sound musical in any language, I suppose. But I never met face to face with the owner of this sonorous name, who was laid to rest last Tuesday. That is why I call my comments mere impressions.

I know, however, that Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki was a representative of his generation, not only in Christianity but also in the whole of society in previously colonised countries in Africa.

In Christianity, Ndingi’s generation of clerics subscribed to three main approaches: ecumenism, indigenisation and grassroots empowerment.

I told you about ecumenism last year, when we were remembering my own Makerere teacher, the Reverend Professor John S. Mbiti, an Anglican clergyman.

AFRICAN CULTURE

The ecumenical approach that he and the emerging churchmen of his generation espoused sought to challenge and dismantle the narrow antagonistic denominational divisions that the foreign missionaries had insinuated into African societies.

The ecumenists, like Mbiti and Ndingi, sought to identify, share and practise what united their African flocks rather than dwell on what divided them.

Indigenisation, in which Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki appears to have been prominent, advocated the assumption that, if Christianity or any other faith from outside our continent were to take root, it had to be firmly grounded in African society and culture.

An African did not have to be Europeanised in order to become a Christian. Rather, Christianity can adopt, adapt and accommodate all the positive values of African culture, and that is the best way it can operate on the continent.

This may sound obvious today. It was, however, fiercely opposed by many of the Eurocentric missionaries and some of their African allies who held sway when Ndingi, Mbiti and their confreres entered church service back in the 1950s and 60s.

Indeed, the arrogant and ignorant assumption that everything African was “primitive, backward and pagan” permeated the whole of colonial society. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere called it “kasumba ya ukoloni” (the opium of colonialism).

SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT

The name Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki resonates with other famous East African names, like Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Jomo Kenyatta and Okot p’Bitek.

These people had been given “Christian” (Judeo-European) names, Ndingi’s being Raphael. But their preference to use their indigenous African names was an assertion that there was nothing unchristian or savage about anyone’s time-hallowed home name.

Equally difficult for the early post-independence men of cloth was the choice between concentrating exclusively on spiritual matters or also getting actively involved in social and political developments.

This involvement is what I called grassroots empowerment. There were many, especially among the increasingly wayward politicians of that era, who wanted the priests and prelates to remain confined to their altars and pulpits.

To many clerics of Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki’s generation, however, this latter position was untenable.

To them, it made no sense preaching sermons of heavenly banquets and God’s kingdom to starving stomachs and heads bowed down with the yokes of misrule and oppression that followed close on the heels of independence.

Believers had to be liberated and empowered socially, economically and politically, as well as spiritually.

ACTIVIST

Broadly, the clergymen of this school of thought called it giving “a voice to the voiceless”.

Their approach was inspired by Liberation Theology, a system of evangelisation developed, particularly, in Latin America in response to the economic and political deprivations prevalent there.

Conservative churchmen were cautious of it, mainly because of its reference to socialist thought, and politicians hated it because of what they called its subversive nature.

I have heard references to Ndingi Mwana a’Nzeki as a “thorn in the flesh” of the regimes of his times because of his outspokenness on issues of human rights and political reform.

Do you think that is a fair assessment of the departed patriarch and patriot’s legacy?

Have a blessed and tranquil Easter, full of that human and divine spirit that always rises above all the trials and tests of this earthly life.

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and literature; [email protected]