Renowned scholar exiled for speaking her mind

By KIUNDU WAWERU

The University of Nairobi’s 8-4-4 Building fell into a respectful hush as one of Kenya’s celebrated and distinguished daughters arose to give a public lecture.

She told the hall full of students and dignitaries to always have an independent mind and that they should never let anyone shape them. “Protect your space,” she asserted.

This was April last year, and exactly thirty years ago, the speaker, Professor Micere Mugo had gotten into trouble for having an independent mind. She fled into exile in the US with her two young daughters when her ideas, delivered via pen and paper did not auger well with the government of the day.

By that time, Micere, an author, playwright, activist and poet was already an eminent scholar of African repute. She was the Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Nairobi, a historical position seeing as no other woman at any East African universitiy had made that cut. By 1982, she had authored several books, including The Trial of Dedan Kimathi written with Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Mau Mau Freedom Fighters with Wanjiku Kabira.

She would return to Kenya in 2003, after the NARC government took office and asked all the exiles to come back home. In an interview with the East African Standard, Micere said she escaped a week before the 1982 attempted coup.

Before then, Special Branch and CID officers had been covertly spying on her, both at her home and at the University. She had been accused of conspiring against the government and disseminating subversive content “calculated to cause disaffection among the masses.”

Prof Micere escaped to the United States and got a job as visiting Professor at the St Lawrence University, New York. After two years, in 1984, she moved to Zimbabwe where she lectured at the University of Zimbabwe.

Returning to the UON last year, the professor was launching her memoirs: From the Heart of my Mind-The Story of our Journey, detailing her tumultuous life after the exile, when she was faced with culture shock in a foreign country. At the launch, Martha Karua was the discussant. In attendance were other dignitaries including Prof Githu Muigai and former UON Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic Affairs, Prof. Jacob Kaimenyi, who is today the cabinet secretary for Education. They all expressed their respect for the Don, with Martha Karua saying Micere was one of the women who have inspired her over t he years.

During the lecture, Professor Micere recounted her life growing in Central Kenya, where she was given a lifeline by her parents both of whom were liberal teachers. Born in 1942 she attended Kangaru Girls Intermediate and Limuru Girls. She then joined Makerere University for a Bachelor of Arts, then went on to the University of New Brunswick for her Masters where she would also study for her PhD.

Today, with more democratic space, the challenges faced by the African child and especially the girl child, who Micere is especially passionate about creating a better future. She asked women to create their “own space” and to believe in themselves by creating opportunities and facing the world with confidence, like she has done.

 Since her exile, Professor Micere’s intellectual career has seen an upward trajectory. Her curriculum vitae, available online, runs for 32 pages. After her stint at the University of Zimbabwe as an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies from1984 to 1986, she joined the English Literature department where she remained until 1992, after which she moved to the Africana Studies and Research Centre at Cornell University as a visiting professor. In 1993, she would move to Syracuse University where she rose to be full professor of African and African American Studies, where she remains to date.

A lecturer of African and African-America studies, African Orature, Drama and Theatre, and Creative Writing among others, the distinguished scholar told the UON attentive audience that she has always wanted to come back and impact Kenya with her knowledge. However, she said, she wrote three letters in the 1990s to the University of Nairobi asking for a job but they told her they were not hiring dons.

But keeping true to her independent mind and fiery nature, Micere, who shunned by the Kenyan government in 1982 would accompany President Mwai Kibaki as a personal guest during a state visit to the US in October 2003. In a Standard interview in 2003, she said that she is more than a lecturer. “In America, I am not just a lecturer. I am an activist against injustices perpetrated against black Africans. I fight against what I call the ‘Blacks Prison Industry’. Why should black Americans fill up prisons for minor crimes yet whites go scot- free?”

In America, she founded the Pan African Movement, which brings together like minded African women in the Diaspora who want change. She also volunteers in women’s prisons where she says the justice system is oppressive to black and Latino women.

Professor Micere is also a poet and playwright and she is credited with authoring and editing over ten books. She has published literary academic papers, sat on many committees and foundations and received countless awards and honours including being voted on of the top 100 writers who influenced Kenya. After the successful UON lecture in April last year, Micere returned in October on a sad note. One of her daughters had succumbed to ovarian cancer.