Dreams in a Time of War

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  In no time need once again compels me to join the seasonal labor force to pick pyrethrum flowers. We are many, adults and children, from different corners of the village. Some kids, hungry and thirsty, jump over the fence into the Kahahus’ orchard and pick some plums. I am not one of them. My mother would kill me for stealing, and her definition of theft is very wide. Lillian discovers the theft and in the evening, when we take our pick for weighing, she asks the culprits to give themselves up or for the innocents to tell on them. It is Friday evening. Our wages for the week are due. She repeats her demand. The guilty do not give themselves up; the innocent do not tell on them. Then comes the judgment. We are all going to lose our wages unless we hand over the culprits.

  I cannot believe my ears. Does she know how desperately we need this money at home? No, she cannot be serious. But she is. No one, not even the adults among us, protests. The unfairness of it all cuts deeply into me. I step forward. I raise my voice. All eyes turn to me! You cannot do this: It is not right, I find myself telling her. She recovers from the shock. Yes, I shall, unless the culprits give themselves up, she says coolly. And you call yourself a Christian? I ask. All mouths fall open. Lillian, the wife of Lord Reverend Stanley Kahahu, the manager of the estate, has never been challenged by any of her workers. She hires and fires at will. But I know that everyone present knows that I am right. Still no other voice joins in expressing discontent. Your Christianity is without meaning, I say and leave the scene, tears of anger and frustration streaming down my face.

  This episode becomes the talk of the village. Ngũgĩ, Wanjikũ’s quiet son known for his polite demeanor and deference to age, has said words that no child should speak to an adult, some would say. But others would say that Lillian had gone too far—punishing the guilty and the innocent for a few plums? And pocketing a whole week of wages as vengeance? Parents protest. Lillian gives in, but pays reduced wages. She does not pay me. My loss is the gain of others. Here was my second lesson in resistance. She goes to see my mother to protest. My mother does not respond. I know she does not condone a younger person’s rudeness to an adult. She does not scold me. I am not working for the Kahahus anymore, I tell my mother, and she agrees. I had lost my hard-won wages but I felt free.

  These thoughts are swirling in my head after Kenneth’s mother tells me she is going to take us by the hand to Reverend Kahahu. Despite Lillian’s unfairness, I still appreciate Reverend Kahahu’s role in the recovery of my eyesight. I make a distinction between the Reverend Kahahu, the preacher, and his wife, Lillian, the manager. Besides, Kenneth’s mother is not taking us to his house, only to the church.

  I yielded and registered with Reverend Kahahu for baptism. Thus began my religious classes at Kamandũra. There was the catechism to memorize, then a test, and after passing it one had to choose Christian names. I was weighing James Paul. Both were the baptismal names of Kahahu’s children. Reverend Kahahu said one name was sufficient. And so, by the Christian rite of baptism by water, I became James Ngũgĩ, the name under which years later I would publish my early journalism and fiction until 1969, when I reverted to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.

  I have always been conscious of the irony of my situation. After narrowly escaping becoming a Roman Catholic, I had joined a Church of Scotland Mission congregation while attending a government school, formerly a Karĩng’a that had been linked to the African Orthodox Church, now also banned. By this time the CSM had changed its name to the Presbyterian Church of East Africa.

  I extended the irony: On Sundays I went to Kamandũra for worship and spiritual communion; on weekdays to Manguo for a life of the mind.

  In the new Manguo school, English was still emphasized as the key to modernity, but, whereas in the Karĩng’a Manguo, English and Gĩkũyũ coexisted, now Gĩkũyũ was frowned upon. The witch hunt for those speaking African languages in the school compound began, the consequence rising to bodily punishment in some cases. A teacher would give a piece of metal to the first student he caught speaking an African language. The culprit would pass it to the next person who repeated the infraction. This would go on the whole day, and whoever was the last to have the metal in his possession would be beaten. Sometimes the metal was inscribed with demeaning words or phrases like “Call me stupid.” I saw teachers draw blood from students. Despite this we were proud of our English proficiency and eager to practice the new language outside the school compound.

  An opportunity came, unexpectedly. As part of its efforts to win minds and hearts, the Department of Information had started a magazine, Pamoja, to teach civics and spread good words about government services. Kenneth was the first among us to write a letter to the Department of Information, Nairobi, to ask for the magazine. He got a formal reply in an envelope with an official-looking stamp on it. It was a few lines only, thanking him for his inquiry and telling him that they would be sending him a copy. It was amazing. He had written a letter in English by hand and got a typed reply that actually thanked him? And also signed “your faithful servant”? A couple of days later he received the magazine. I asked Kenneth to show me how he had done it, the letter he had written, the address, everything. I wrote a similar letter, almost word for word, sent it under my name, and got the same reply addressing me as “Dear Sir” and signed “your faithful servant.” Soon I too was the proud recipient of the magazine, on which was typed: James Ngugi, c/o Manguo School, PO Box 66, Limuru.

  Though identical to what Kenneth and other students had received, the reply and my name on the magazine thrilled me. I kept on gazing at it. I took it home to my mother, proudly announcing that the government had written me a letter. Previously, my grandfather had been the only family member I had seen with letters from the government. And why would the government be writing to you? she asked rather suspiciously. I explained that I had initiated the correspondence. In English, I added, to impress her.

  The wonder of “my” English words eliciting a written response took me back to the times when my younger brother and I used to try out our knowledge of a few words of another language on native speakers. It was at my father’s house. When she had a good harvest or whenever her granary had corn, potatoes, beans, or peas, my mother was generous with food. She always cooked enough to feed those present as well as unexpected guests. I remember times when itinerant Kamba women traders, complete strangers, would stop by and she would let them stay the night and feed them to the best of her ability. My older brothers and sisters never announced who they would bring home. If a visitor came and left without being treated to a cup of porridge at least, my mother felt bad, as if she had failed in some way. Some of the more regular callers, visiting with Good Wallace mostly, were workers at the Limuru Bata Shoe factory. They were from different Kenyan communities and from them we learned a few simple words and phrases, for greetings mostly. From Luo, we learned to ask: Idhi nade? From Kamba: Nata? Wĩ mũseo? From Luhya, Mrembe? But how could we be sure that we really knew the words? Or that, from our own lips, they could elicit a response from a native speaker other than those who had taught us the phrases?

  One of my mother’s parcels of land was near the road that led from the Bata shoe workers’ resident camp, through the African marketplace, opposite Karabu’s place, to the Indian shops. We used to work that parcel, helping my mother with weeding and mulching. There was always human traffic between the Indian shopping center and the African shops. We decided that it was time to test our knowledge of the languages we had learned. But we had trouble in telling who was Kamba, Luhya, or Luo among the passersby. Waiting near the road and hidden by the cornstalks, we watched and listened for non-Gĩkũyũ speakers. We were lucky with our first attempt. We guessed correctly that they were a group of Luo workers. We suddenly emerged from the cornfield. Idhi nade? The startled group answered something like: Adhi ma ber. We did not have enough words to continue. Ero kamano, I said, and my brother, Ahero, as we dashed back into the cornfields, excited that we had been understood, but not wanting our knowledge to be tested fur
ther. We did the same for Kikamba and Kiluhya. Sometimes we failed to connect, but whenever we did we felt the same excitement as we went back to the cover of the cornstalks.

  That was oral communication. Now I was writing English and undergoing a similar sensation, knowing that I had been understood by an unknown reader who had written a response to my English words even though I had copied them from Kenneth. Years later I would feel a similar thrill at the acceptance of my first pieces of writing in a school magazine or at a publisher’s positive response to my book manuscript.

  There were unforeseen consequences to that letter signed by “your faithful servant.” Having given my name and address, I would continue to get not only the particular information bulletin but several other government publications, in English. Without the Mũmenyereri and other African-language publications, the only alternative to government radio and English-language newspaper was oral media.

  The oral news in Gĩkũyũ and the accounts written in English often gave conflicting views of the same events, which I found confusing at times. At first the contradiction did not matter. Being able to read an English publication was more important than the information gleaned. The medium trumped the message. Then one day I received a broadsheet titled “Lari Massacre,” and I could no longer ignore the message.

  The Lari region neighbored Limuru, about twelve miles away. In March 1953 the colonial chief of Lari, Luka wa Kahangara, and some of his family were killed. The publication carried gruesome pictures of human bodies and carcasses of cows rotting in the open fields. It also carried pictures of Governor Baring and the British colonial secretary, Oliver Lyttelton, visiting the scene. The pictures spoke louder than the words accompanying them: They disturbed me extremely, more so because of the seeming senselessness. The images, arranged as they were, suggested irrational behavior, acts without rhyme or reason.

  I showed the publication to Mzee Ngandi when later he came to visit with my elder brother. This is bad, very bad, I said. He looked at it, read a little bit. He was his usual pensive self. But this time he did not whistle to himself as he often did. He took out a copy of the East African Standard. With the banning of Mũmenyereri, the English-language East African Standard had taken its place in the outer pockets of his jacket. He said, You find the same in this settler newspaper, the headlines, the pictures, the story. Every event has more than one side to it. What you are seeing and reading is the colonial view. The freedom fighters have no newspaper or radio in which to voice their own side. So don’t believe everything that you read in these documents. It is propaganda.

  That word was a new one to me. But look at these, I said, pointing at the pictures of the dead, as if to say there were no two sides to what I saw before me.

  By this time there was a group of listeners around him, the kind of atmosphere in which he thrived. It was true that there had been killings at Lari. But remember this: The guerrillas are under strict orders from Marshall Dedan Kĩmathi not to kill at random. The guerrillas could not survive without support from the people. So why would they kill indiscriminately? The roots of the tragedy, he explained, went back to the European occupation of our land, which they then baptized White Highlands. But look for Lari in the First World War. I recalled the story of how my father had avoided the war. What had the Lari killings in 1953 to do with the English and the Germans fighting in 1914–1918?

  You see (he said), after the First World War, what remained of the African-owned lands in Tigoni, or Kanyawa, were taken over to settle more English people, under the soldier settlement scheme. Do you see the unfairness? English soldiers go to war and are rewarded with land taken from Africans. Africans go to the same war as fighters and Carrier Corps and are rewarded with having their lands stolen. It was the same with the Second World War. Jobs for the returning European soldier; joblessness for the African fighter. Now about Kanyawa. The African families affected refused alternative settlements. You see, after the 1923 Devonshire declaration, Kenya was a black man’s country; in a conflict between Africans and other races over land, African rights were paramount. The families knew that the rights of inheritance, law, and justice were on their side. They swore to stand together or fall together. In 1927 Luka Kahangara, a spokesperson, broke ranks. He agreed to move to alternative lands in Lari. He gave the British legal cover for the theft. Those who held out were moved by force, their houses torched. They lost their land and houses. Some moved to Ndeiya and other places. The Lari killings, even though they look bad, are not crazy acts. Chief Luka’s house and the houses of his followers were torched in the same way that the houses of the rightful Tigoni dwellers had been torched by the colonial police. I don’t like tooth-for-tooth justice. But look at it this way: While the Mau Mau fighters targeted the chief, his family, and their followers, the colonial forces acted as if every other person alive must be guilty of the killings. They executed people, their bodies left out in the open or in the forests to rot.

  Ngandi told the story of a man from Lari, one of several who were tied together with a rope and made to stand in a line. A British officer asked his African askaris to open fire. When they hesitated, he opened fire himself, with a machine gun. The captives fell in a heap. To make sure that they were all dead, the officer shot another round of machine-gun fire on those who had already fallen. He and his men went away. But one man, he did not die. Not a bullet touched him. When in the morning villagers came to look at the bodies, the man raised his head. At first they retreated a distance, thinking that he was a ghost. But they hearkened to his feeble cry for help. The man comes to Limuru market shops. I will point him out to you, he assured me and continued. Unfortunately, he has lost his power of speech, Ngandi added. He was the lucky one. There were hundreds of others who did not survive, butchered by the colonial forces that night and the following days. Then they blame all the killings on the Mau Mau guerrillas. Why? They want the fighters to look bad. They also want the eyes of the world to look away from what really fueled their anger. On the night of the attacks on Luka’s compound at Lari, the Naivasha police station also fell to the freedom fighters. The guerrillas released the prisoners, broke open the armory, and took away many guns and ammunition. Do you find the story in the press? Do you find it in the publication they send to you? You remember Mbũrũ Matemo the radio announcer? You will never hear his voice again. He has been dismissed because he mentioned that Naivasha had fallen to the guerrilla fighters. Now he is in a concentration camp like thousands of others. The Lari massacre is a massacre, all right, but it is also a British massacre in retaliation for the death of a loyal chief and the fall of the Naivasha police station, Ngandi asserted conclusively.

  The Lari killings and the fall of the Naivasha police station were followed by other government actions that brought the effects of the state of emergency to ordinary lives outside the main cities. The colonial state had already formed a new force drawn from loyalist elements in the population called Home Guards. Now more and more were recruited into the force. Increasingly this force became one of the most brutal instruments of colonial terror. Their local center of visible power in our area was a Home Guard post built atop the highest ridge at Kamĩrĩthũ. The most prominent feature of the post, really a fort, was a tall watchtower, guarded day and night by armed gunmen. Surrounding the fort was a dry moat into which wooden spikes were planted so that if anyone fell on them, he would be pierced fatally. The moat was reinforced by thick barbed wire. The only way in and out of the fort was via a drawbridge, which was raised at night and lowered in the daytime. Home Guards slept inside the camp. Functioning as a military command center, a police precinct, and a prison, the Home Guard post was a chamber of horrors.

  Older chiefs like Njiriri wa Mũkoma and local headmen like his brother Kĩmunya, deemed to be friendly to the people, were replaced by others more fiercely loyal to the colonial state and aggressively hostile to nationalist fighters and the population. One of the most notorious was headman Ragae, who outdid others in cruelty, particula
rly against those who had been internally displaced from the Rift Valley. What was it that could make a person turn so brutal toward his own people? I used to wonder about this man who always walked with a rifle slung on his shoulder and with an armed bodyguard. One day some guerrillas stalked him as he ambled from Limuru marketplace to the Home Guard post and shot him, on the roadside. They left him for dead, but he survived. Later, disguised as doctors, they entered the hospital where he had been admitted and finished him off. Ragae was not mourned by anybody. Instead, people rejoiced openly.

  One of the tasks of the chief, the village headman, and the Home Guards was enforcing communal labor assignments and compulsory attendance at barazas, government meetings on certain days of the week. During a chief’s baraza and communal labor—cutting grass, digging terraces, sweeping streets, anything that met the whims of the chief—all shops had to close. No one was allowed to work on their parcels of land. Even schoolkids were sometimes swept into the meetings. Those who were absent from communal labor and government meetings were arrested and held in the Home Guard post for days. Both of these forced exercises seriously disrupted production and contributed to mass hunger and weakening of the population.

  I was once forced to attend the chief’s barazas, where he spent the time preaching the virtues of obedience to the state and taunting his listeners with “your Kenyatta will not walk from the Kapenguria Court, free. He will hang at Gĩthũngũri.”