Why identifying heroes is a slippery enterprise

President Uhuru Kenyatta inspects a guard of honour during Mashujaa Day celebrations at Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi on October 20, 2014. PHOTO | BILLY MUTAI |

What you need to know:

  • Kenyans are always puzzled when they see some fairly ordinary individuals being decorated on public days by the Head of State.
  • The problem is that nobody becomes a hero without the recognition of others.

On Monday, October 20, Article 9 (3) of the Constitution gave us a much cherished day of rest and celebration in the name of ‘Mashujaa Day’.

For what is manifestly an act of national pride, all the three national days named in the Constitution have Kiswahili labels (Madaraka, Mashujaa and Jamhuri) adjacent to the English word, ‘Day’.

An interesting aspect of Article 9(3) is that it does not define any of those Kiswahili words, suggesting that their meanings are supposed to be adequately clear to Kenyans.

From our public discourse, it is evident that Kenyans regard ‘Mashujaa Day’ as a ‘Heroes Day’.

Unfortunately, the English translation does not make it clearer than its Kiswahili version. The question still remains: Who are heroes and how do we identify them in an uncontroversial manner?

That must be the question the proposed Mashujaa Council, when fully constituted, will always have to contend with.

One of the story books I enjoyed reading in my early primary school days was a collection of Dholuo stories whose cover-page title was ‘Thuond Luo’ (Luo Heroes).

Most of the personalities whose stories were narrated in that book were battlefield heroes, which perhaps explains why none of them was a woman.

The names of three of these traditional heroes have become a recurrent aspect of Luo folklore. They were Luanda Magere, Okore K’Ogonda, and Gor Mahia.

Of the three, Luanda and Gor have enjoyed special prominence in Luo imagination.

Playwrights and theatre groups continue to be fascinated by Luanda’s rock-like body that made enemies unable to spear him until he was betrayed by Nyalang’o (a daughter of the Kalenjin), who married him and revealed to her people that Luanda’s blood was in his shadow, giving them an idea as to where to spear him.

Publicly, Gor Mahia is perhaps the most fancied of the traditional Luo heroes.

His association with a well-known football club that goes by his name has hoisted him to a near demi-god status.

He is famed for having superhuman abilities that made him overcome adversaries in mysterious ways, hence the name Mahia (the mysterious one).

In contrast to Luanda and Gor, Okore had no mythical characteristics.

He was just a very strong man with unmatched battlefield capabilities, summed up in his praise name ‘chieng’ walala’, a poetic expression that compared him to the hot mid-day sun that subdues everyone.

In the 70s, his name was revived in the then popular Lolwe fleet of buses, one of which was jokingly named after him.

What we see in all such people is that something about them surpassed other people’s intuitive estimation of the norm in human capabilities.

NO MORE HEROES

Later on, towards the end of the 1970s, George Ramogi, a Luo master of what was known as ‘benga’ music, in a mourning song in honour of Tom Mboya, claimed that there were no more heroes in Luoland after the deaths of Argwings K’Odhek and Tom Mboya.

Such remarks raise the question: Can there be a time in the life of a community when there are no more heroes?

The answer depends on the slippery issue of how we define heroes.

As reported in some of the local dailies on Sunday, October 19, the Mashujaa Council will be required to identify “Kenyans of outstanding performance in different fields.” (Sunday Nation, p6).

This idea is laudable but intriguing. Laudable because such an arrangement is long overdue.

Kenyans are always puzzled when they see some fairly ordinary individuals being decorated on public days by the Head of State.

Such people are usually declared Elders or Morans of some special status.

Some merely get official commendation by the President. Common sense dictates that people of outstanding achievements should be noticed long before they get decorated in public functions, effectively making them heroes of one kind or another.

The idea is intriguing because “outstanding performance” is relative.

Is outstanding performance at the family level, where a mother may pitifully sacrifice her own needs in order to feed her children, or a father may courageously risk his life to save his children from a burning house, comparable to that of a military officer who risks his life to save the borders of his country from occupation by an invading army?

The revised edition of Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines a hero as (1) a man of distinguished bravery and strength; (2) any illustrious person; (3) a person who is venerated and idealised.

More or less the same characteristics are used to define a heroine in the same dictionary.

The problem, however, is that nobody becomes a hero without the recognition of others.

WHAT OTHERS THINK

The adjectives used in the quoted dictionary definitions are particularly instructive.

The words ‘distinguished’, ‘illustrious’, and ‘venerated’ or even ‘idealised’ are all based on what others think, feel, or believe about the performance of the candidate for heroism.

For example, Field Marshal Muthoni, whom we regard as one of the heroes of the Mau Mau uprising, did not become a heroine merely because of her deeds, which included leading a group of forest fighters to crawl under an elephant after a successful gun-snatching mission.

In itself, that was a heroic deed. However, had it not been for her recognition (and promotion to Field Marshal status) by Dedan Kimathi, she would today not be counted among Kenya’s national heroes.

This is the puzzle of heroism. Whatever one does, no matter how heroic the performance itself may be, one only becomes a hero upon recognition by others.

Moreover, the performance in question must be consistent with the values of those who recognise a hero. In other words, the same deed may make one a hero in one group and a villain in another.

This is the dilemma of the freedom fighter: a hero in some eyes and a villain in others.

Thus, identifying heroes is like being a judge of a beauty contest: what you see is your own eyes. But the considerations are infinitely more.

You have to consider a wide range of different human attributes: Patriotism and courage, for the likes of Dedan Kimathi; visionary leadership, for likes of Tom Mboya; commitment to cherished ideals, for the likes of Wangari Maathai; spiritual beauty, for the likes of Cardinal Otunga; intellectual acuity, for the likes of Ali Mazrui; physical intelligence, for the likes of Joe Kadenge; and, above all, selflessness, for the likes of the gentleman who saved a baby from terrorists in the Westgate debacle. The list is endless.

What such people do are deeds that have the potential of making the doer a hero. But the doer’s actual heroism must wait for his/her recognition by others.

This is unfortunate because those who perform genuine heroic acts do not canvas for recognition. Indeed, they act without seeking heroism.

Prof Okombo teaches at the University of Nairobi.