By Peter Kimani
Bantu Mwaura, who has died at the young age of 40, was a leading light in the Kenyan arts whose star dimmed when the skies were starting to brighten.
I recall the bleakness that engulfed the land at our first meeting 15 years ago. Artistic freedoms were very limited, and those who had dared speak out were either in detention or exiled.
Bantu Mwaura, who has died at the young age of 40, was a leading light in the Kenyan arts. |
His face beamed as he elaborated on the freedom struggle that was embodied in his locks as the war of liberation had gone largely unrecognised, and what would be a constant reference point mirrored in his own name and those of his children.
Steve biko
Bantu, after all, is not just definitive of a large ethnic group; it was also the first name of South African freedom icon Steve Biko, whose Black Consciousness Movement, and its push for equality in that country, captured the imagination of youths growing up in Nairobi’s Eastlands and elsewhere.
Bantu’s daughters’ names, Makeba and Mekatilili, would honour the South African diva, Miriam Makeba, whose songs were rooted in her people’s struggle, while Mekatilili memorialised the Kenyan heroine who led the Giriama in resisting the British invasion at the turn of the 20th century.
Bantu would face his own struggles with courage, studying privately to enter university when his parents’ dwindling resources threatened to end his schooling abruptly after Form Four.
String of degrees
That he would ultimately bag a string of degrees – a bachelor’s degree from Kenyatta University, two master’s degrees from Leeds and Ohio State universities, crowned with a doctorate in performance studies from New York University – was testament to his industry and abiding hope in the future.
But more importantly, Bantu was a graduate from the school of life, identifying at a very early age that the proscenium stage at Our Lady of Visitation Catholic Church on Jogoo Road as the forum that he would use to articulate the issues about his environment, and ultimately lift him and others from their bleak circumstances and shine.
And shine he did, since his triumphant entry to theatre in 1985 when his script was performed at the International Eucharistic Congress at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, and attended by the Pope.
For the next two decades, Bantu’s name would become synonymous with the arts, writing, directing and performing in plays, narratives and poetry.
Final act
That his final act was rendered in the dark of night with no audience at all, conveys the anguish and humiliation of his ending, which shall be mourned by those who knew his work, and even longer by those who knew him.
His body was found by the roadside at Nairobi’s Lang’ata View Estate on Sunday night after he had gone missing since Friday night.
Police said Bantu’s body lay next to a bottle of poison, and a suicide note was recovered in his house, which, according to those who had seen it, read in part that he "was gone forever".
Lang’ata OCPD Patrick Mangoli said detectives were working on the issue in an effort to unravel the cause of death.
"The body did not have any physical mark and it seems he was either killed or he committed suicide by swallowing poison," said Mangoli.
A post-mortem will be done today to establish the cause of death, according to his brother, Mr Dauti Kahura, a former ‘Standard’ journalist.
Bantu had his footprints in virtually all creative forms although he devoted his last years to teaching, while editing a cultural journal, ‘Jahazi’.
His thespian friend Ndungi Githuku said of his death: "It’s very sad. It was a beautiful struggle." He taught poetry, storytelling and playwriting in universities in Kenya and the US. His plays have been performed in Kenya, Zimbabwe, the US and UK.
His poetry focused on social and political issues, examining how society is ordered or disordered, and its social implications.
Desire to help
"Theatre is all about culture and it is my desire to use it to help people understand themselves better," Bantu told ‘The Standard’ in a September 2000 interview. "I use art to improve myself and make life worthwhile for everybody."
The last time I saw Bantu, we rode in a matatu from Buru Buru estate in Nairobi when he conveyed his pain of watching a clique dominate and distort the cultural scene for profit, usually through irregular access to grants from foreign organisations.
The best tribute Kenyans can give to Bantu is to remain vigilant and guard against cultural expropriation that he stood up to, and push for artistic freedom that he lived for.
Bantu is survived by his widow, Susan, who is also an actress, and daughters Makeba and Mekatilili.
Additional reporting by Cyrus Ombati
