Micere Mugo legacy in creative thinking and freedom of mind

Micere Mugo in her office. [File, Standard]

Micere Mugo, teacher and author, died last week, aged 83. We celebrate her life. We celebrate the legacy she has handed on to us.

Micere Mugo stated by her life's choices that Kenya - and Africa - be free of external imperialism and of internal repression. She was a long-time teacher passing to her thousands of students in Kenya, Zimbabwe and the US, a love of beauty of writing and a duty to put both oneself and one's talent at the service of one's country.

She was a teacher in the Literature Department at the University of Nairobi at a critical time. At independence, change in power structures and in the new expected path that the country had promised to take, were a constant part of our daily public debates and events.

The politics of the new order and those debates ignited similar questions in the politics of the English Literature Department. The question was whether in teaching English Literature as the offered course, this Kenyan university was to teach the literature of England to its students in Kenya, or literature of the world in the English language or the literature of Kenya and Africa in the English language or the literature of Kenya in any language or material form including oral literature.

These issues were still in intense debate when FESTAC 1977 came around. This was the Pan-African Festival of African Culture at Lagos, the great post-Independence Pan African Conference transformed into a Pan-African Festival.

The centre-piece to be presented by Kenya was a theatrical performance. But the chosen play was wholly unrepresentative of the then continent.

Micere Mugo and Ngugi wa Thiong'o considered that they would themselves write a new play to take to Lagos. This was how The Trial of Dedan Kimathi by them came to be written. Their play acknowledged the freedom fighters, exposed the brutality, deceit and illegitimacy of colonialism; and emphasized that what Africa was also celebrating at FESTAC was the resistance to colonialism the continent had continuously manifested.

Micere Mugo spoke out also on the internal distortion of the freedom struggle's moral hope that Kenya's own leadership was by now choosing. By 1982, her safety became the prime consideration, and Micere Mugo was forced into exile.

The malevolence of the Kanu regime must not be forgotten. What we remember is Micere Mugo's resistance to the injustice and oppression of Kanu years.

Not satisfied with her removal in this fashion, they then denied her the alternative employment she had found in other countries. Her appointment at the University of Zambia was withdrawn. Then when her passport period expired, and she applied for its extension, the government never responded. This both kept her out of the country and made her stateless. These are not 'deprivations', these are family-destroying attacks.

Her example would in fact ensure others too would not keep silent. But Kenya had lost her. We did not only lose a teacher. We lost Micere to Zimbabwe. When we failed to care for her, she was welcomed and protected by Zimbabwe and was granted Zimbabwean citizenship.

As FESTAC had demonstrated earlier, the Pan-African outlook had always been an integral part of her thinking.

To present students and professors Micere Mugo's call is, therefore, to move away from being mute and instead move to a creative speaking of thoughtful but also independent thinking.

Apart from the content of their subjects, our teachers (in addition to themselves creating more), have to pass on much more towards the ambitions of creativity and the strengthening of the self-belief that students come with and are carrying into their future.

This is why Article 11 of our Constitution is immediately relevant to our present and the years ahead. It sets out why our creative powers and aspirations, Micere Mugo's fields of work, are central to our country.

It says: "11. (1) This Constitution recognises culture as the foundation of the nation and as the cumulative civilisation of the Kenyan people and nation."

And that is why the Constitution is the manifesto of the People.

The writer is a senior counsel