PEV Ghosts
January 22nd, 2012 § 6 Comments
We must put the ghosts of 2007/8 behind us.
–Uhuru Kenyatta
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
–T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”
A skeletal hand scrabbles though the muck of forgetting. This year the maize tastes richer. Grazers seem more intelligent. They make terrified noises at night. The wind wails. We have yet to complete funeral rites. The ghosts are waiting.
I am seeking ghosts.
This is risky.
Ghosts lack clear memories, are outlets of emotion, repositories of bad affect. They do not know where to direct their anger. To the ghost, I am as culpable of murder as the hand that lifted the machete, set fire to the church, stood aside and watched.
It’s dangerous to face the anger of ghosts.
It’s even more dangerous to face the truths ghosts tell, “tongued with fire.”
Burning Kenya again.
Kenya.
Burning.
Raising the temperature on our perpetual simmer. Creating hot spots that cannot and will not be governed by police forces who were silent and absent and complicit in 2007/8. The sizzle of then.
From the right angle, a whiff of rotting flesh.
*
Tomorrow the ICC judges rule on something that is by now irrelevant: whether the so-called Ocampo Six will face trial. It is irrelevant because two of the six are running for president—they have supporters and machinery—and have said, boldly, that the ICC’s ruling will not affect their presidential aspirations. It is irrelevant because Kenya, in its treatment of Bashir and its actions during the ICC process, has signaled its willingness to shield the six on the grounds that the ICC is racist and anti-African. It is irrelevant because at least four of the six are so intimately connected with Kenyan power that their downfall threatens root structures we can only imagine. It is irrelevant because the creation of the six as six erased the dead and displaced. We started talking about the six and, as our leaders implored, we forgot about the rest. We forgot the Kenya of rotting flesh and focused on the Kenya of gleaming cars. We were dazzled. Distracted. Forgot why the ICC mattered. Ignored the haunting ghosts.
I am seeking haunting ghosts.
They frighten me.
I am not brave.
This must be done.
*
After Samuel’s death, King Saul consulted the Witch of Endor and asked her to raise Samuel’s ghost. On rising, Samuel asked, “Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?”
The ghosts I seek come in waves of anger and rage—angry they have been forgotten, angry they died too young, angry that I refuse to let them rest. And still I seek them. Need to seek them. Listen for them in winter winds. Taste them in Kenyan food.
I am seeking ghost raisers—mediums who will risk their sanity, witches who will risk their lives, artists who will face the darkness. Kenyans who will face the darkness.
Not with the certainty of “never again.” Not with the bravado of “next time we will be prepared.” Not with the anxiety of plane tickets in hand to escape. Not with the comfort of faith or family. Not with the habits of living through troubled times.
Open.
Open to the madness of ghosts.
Open to memories that should never be owned.
Open to the lingering cries of the dying.
Of those we once called ours.
From today’s EAS and as reflected in all opinion polls since the process started.
Prof Sammy Kubasu, chairman of University Academic Staff Union, noted any verdict by ICC will result in voters rallying behind Uhuru and Ruto.
“As a matter of fact, since the ICC process started, the rating of Uhuru and Ruto has been rising while that of their competitors have registered a decline. It is indicative of things to come in the future,” Kubasu said.
We have now crossed that bridge……………….and the changes we are about to see are unknown. We are now in very unknown waters………we know where we are coming from, pev and all, but what lies ahead of is hard to comprehend, to describe, to try and understand.
Hope, that is what we need. HOPE, that tomorrow shall be a better day…………..
Forgive me if I disagree.
We are not even close. Kibaki wants to defend the 4 and “resettle” IDPs. After multiple years of being deemed lazy and thuggish, IDPs are a priority again? That seems too convenient.
Images never released in public need to be released. Stories never told in public need to be told. We need to account for the scabs and scars that snake across our bodies and our land.
This is not about the guilt or innocence of the O4; it’s about the hard labor of re-encountering our histories and our actions. Finding a way to deal with histories and memories we’d prefer to forget. Of seeking haunting ghosts who do not and cannot love us. Not knowing what such seeking might bring. Knowing that we cannot do without it.
[...] So, what has changed? For starters, we submitted our conversation to an ongoing compilation of perspectives by activists and academics on the life of David Kato to be published by the Makerere University, hopefully. There has also been set up a David Kato Vision & Voice Award which seeks to award “an individual who demonstrates courage and outstanding leadership in advocating for the sexual rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people, particularly in environments where these individuals face continued rejection, marginalization, isolation and persecution.” While I am inclined to see this as another way in which NGOs reward themselves, pat their back and hustle for more grants, one also has to deal with the structured ways in which commemoration and remembrance and hagiography take place within modern societies. This is to say that, to some, this a perfectly good way of mourning and reflecting on the life of the individual, in formalized ways where money flows and leadership and courage are conflated together. To many others, remembering Kato on a specific day in a specific way (though the award website doesn’t seem to have anything up about the importance of this day) provides an access point that is less taxing, possibly less taxing than a reflection on his life and work and death (here, I invoke a recent post by Keguro on ghosts). [...]
[...] So, what has changed? For starters, we submitted our conversation to an ongoing compilation of perspectives by activists and academics on the life of David Kato to be published by the Makerere University, hopefully. There has also been set up a David Kato Vision & Voice Award which seeks to award “an individual who demonstrates courage and outstanding leadership in advocating for the sexual rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people, particularly in environments where these individuals face continued rejection, marginalization, isolation and persecution.” While I am inclined to see this as another way in which NGOs reward themselves, pat their back and hustle for more grants, one also has to deal with the structured ways in which commemoration and remembrance and hagiography take place within modern societies. This is to say that, to some, this a perfectly good way of mourning and reflecting on the life of the individual, in formalized ways where money flows and leadership and courage are conflated together. To many others, remembering Kato on a specific day in a specific way (though the award website doesn’t seem to have anything up about the importance of this day) provides an access point that is less taxing, possibly less taxing than a reflection on his life and work and death (here, I invoke a recent post by Keguro on ghosts). [...]