On freedom fighter Kaggia, his socialist views and missed opportunities

    Harry Ebale (right) as Bildad Kaggia and Lydiah Gitachu (Left as) wambui, Kaggia's wife in a new play Kaggia by John Sibi Okumu at the Phoenix Players Theatre last Friday. The play opened to a full house and depicts the political struggle and post independence public affairs of Kenya . PHOTO: COURTESY  

My recent birthday coincided with two events: The holiday closure of my Machakos workplace and the final performance of the play Kaggia at the Phoenix Theatre, Nairobi.

Being a literate and teacherly type, and someone who can take or leave birthday parties, I decided my small, young family should spend the afternoon watching the Matinee performance of Kaggia.

Consequently, we jumped into the car to catch the 3pm showing of this drama penned by accomplished playwright and teacher, John Sibi-Okumu.

Unfortunately, we never got there, but you will forgive me for writing on something I know nothing about!

We encountered a traffic jam comprising almost entirely of backed-up lorries at the Mlolongo weighbridge.

Clearly, nothing was getting through, and the road was chaotic, with drivers towards Nairobi deciding to cross onto the lane of oncoming traffic and head illegally to the capital in that manner.

We found ourselves at the next turning and took a U-turn, aware from previous experience how terrible a jam at Mlolongo can be.

Because I had been keen on watching the play, I slipped into a slightly sulky silence for a while, and began to take in the world around me, and came to realise how much better off we might have been as a country if we had listened to socialist consciences like Bildad Kaggia, a hero of the Independence struggle whose life moved from poverty at birth to poverty in death.

A poverty in death that might have been avoided for him and many others if his (Christian) socialist principles had been followed.

Famous critic

So, what crossed my mind? Firstly, that jam, which might have been caused by neglect and privatisation of our existing national railway system, which is perfectly capable of carrying more in the way of heavy goods than it does from Mombasa to Nairobi.

Perhaps it was also caused by the power of private haulage companies, or the inaction of those officials who work at the weighbridge entrance; or perhaps it was another truckers’ strike, I wondered, occasioned by either excessive official fees or corruption at the weighbridge, or even truckers’ pay? Or an accident? I had no idea, but the usual suspects crossed my mind.

And I wondered: Would a Kaggia-led government have allowed private ownership get so disproportionately out of hand; would Kaggia have allowed a government-owned service like the railway become so dilapidated that it needed ‘rescuing’ by foreign capital; would Kaggia, a famous critic of corruption in earlier regimes, have allowed ‘little bribes’ to escalate and entrench, as so clearly we believe they have? Would Kaggia the trades union leader have allowed truckers to become so disunited as a workforce, unable to negotiate even the most basic of pay?

As I did the U-turn, the entrance to the Nairobi Game Park moved from my left to my right, and I found myself wondering about our natural and other resources, about the historical sale of government land to private individuals, or about the present spate of poaching, which sees us kill our own assets for the thrill of short-term monetary gain.

I drove through the Kitengela junction, further into Machakos County. If I had looked right towards Kitengela, I would have been looking in the direction of Kenya’s largest region of rampant capitalist land subdivision, a subdivision that has seen a few shoot into wealth while so many more are economically disenfranchised; a region where certain groups, such as the younger Maasai, have seen their grazing land wither as ‘developers’’ fences rise up.

And I thought to myself: ‘Was it not Kaggia who reminded us how, under the more irresponsible forms of capitalism, a cruel circularity is engendered, whereby those who already possess wealth find it simple to accrue ever more at the expense of those who had none to begin with, whose wealth will always decrease?

Ethically distributed

Is this not what is happening in our present land bubble, where those with land and paper wealth can purchase without taking exorbitant loans, and then sell at more exorbitant rates, while those with nothing farm a subsistence living on road reserves?

Was it not Kaggia who warned us that this nonsense had begun with the colonialist and was not being dismantled as an injustice following ‘Independence’?

Was it not Kaggia and a few others he worked with across ethnic divides like Oginga Odinga – who stated that having a different skin colour while committing the same injustice, is to change nothing for the better for the many?

Was it not Kaggia who declined to own or accept vast landholdings because he believed that land should be more ethically distributed or co-owned rather than possessed by a few individuals?

Indeed, was it not Kaggia’s conscience that might have seen so many of our resource-occasioned feuds and unfairnesses avoided, back then, in those early days, and Kaggia whose general politics, if effected in some updated way, might see us slow and stop our present descent into those countries that boast the world’s very worst rich/poor divides?

I did not even reach the Phoenix Theatre, but thinking about what I might have learnt there- because I hear on the grapevine that Kaggia is an accessibly educational play rather than a tiresomely didactic piece – led me to be grateful that somebody has written a play on Kaggia the man and politician.

I am especially grateful that that person is the very talented John Sibi-Okumu, who I believe would have humanised his subject’s ideology by presenting Kaggia as a real person possessed of flaws and strengths, passions and problems.

If I have personally learnt so much by not seeing Kaggia, imagine how much more we might all learn by actually viewing it on the stage. You can still do this as it travels the country, hopefully avoiding jams. Consider what we can be if we choose to act for the good, not gain.