Not even more religious teachings will redeem Kenyans

LAIKIPIA: I belong to the school of thought that all religions should be taken with a pinch of salt. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said that when the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

In Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s ‘The River Between’ and Chinua Achebe’s ‘Arrow of God’ Chege and Chief Ezeulu sent their sons to mission schools to learn the ways of the white man. To learn and bring back knowledge and skills that would be beneficial to the community and disregard the rest. We have failed remarkably in that. We took in everything and allowed the white man to walk through our minds with his dirty feet.