Death can never rob us of our tender memories
Nov 01, 2006
I have been writing obituaries too frequently in the past one year that I was beginning to feel there were no more adjectives left to appreciate the lives of fallen comrades.
I have been writing obituaries too frequently in the past one year that I was beginning to feel there were no more adjectives left to appreciate the lives of fallen comrades.
But somehow one has to find the words both as part of grieving and also in defiance of death reminding that thief
of all thieves that it may rob us of loved ones but we will not allow it to rob us of their memories too. Saturday October 26, a very dear comrade and friend, Dr Wanjiru Kihoro, was buried.
Unfortunately I could not be at the funeral but did
attend two public testimonials (one an evening of political tributes and the other a funeral service on Heroes’ day, both in Nairobi) as part of the farewell to Wanjiru. She was buried in the land of her ancestors
in the picturesque Kikuyu District of Nyeri, Kenya.
Wanjiru had been in a coma for over three years and nine months since she suffered severe injuries in a plane crash in early 2003. A number of prominent politicians, including MPs, in the newly triumphant NARC-Kenya
government died in the accident.
For all these years, friends and relatives but especially her incredibly optimistic husband and comrade, Wanyiri Kihoro and her father who took
turns by her side at the National Hospital in Nairobi all the time till the final hour, all hoped against hope and prayed for her recovery.
Any small sign of attentiveness no matter how dim was interpreted as a sign of her ‘coming back to us’. Friends and relatives were encouraged to visit her and talk to her normally with the hope that one voice or a cacophony of recognisable voices might jolt her sensory nerves back to life. I was one of those fearful friends who dreaded going to see Wanjiru while she lay in bed. A few times I had synchronised my contact with Wanyiri to coincide with the closing hours for hospital visits so that I
could be disallowed but could wait for Wanyiri to get out so we could sit and chat. One night I did that on my way from Kampala and we ended up
sitting up till after 2:00am. Instead of me giving him words of encouragement it was Wanyiri who was cheering me up, insisting that I
must go and see Wanjiru, talk to her, even syndicate our political arguments, jokes, maybe it would help.
About eight weeks ago, a mutual friend and comrade, Micheline, who had
worked with Wanjiru at the Africa Centre, Akina Mama Wa Africa and Abantu who is now Africa Director of UNFIFEM in New York came to
Nairobi. She dragged me and her husband, James Oparo, who was as squeamish as me, to go and see Wanjiru instead of meeting up with
Wanyiri after the closing hours.
And I am now glad I went again.
We spent quite a long time with her, Mzee and Wanyiri chatting, being nostalgic and generally doing the usual exchange of hot political gossips that political activists are known for.
Of course the Wanjiru on the bed was not the Wanjiru we had known, much smaller but the machines monitoring her heartbeat became very agitated and Wanyiri explained to us that it meant she could hear us and was trying to respond. After looking after a terminally ill person for a long time carers tend to become both medical doctors and believers in
miracles.
Wanyiri’s father-in-law and Wanyiri were virtually part of the hospital establishment. It was an act of spousal and parental devotion that is rarely seen these days. Any African who was in the UK from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s who did not know Wanjiru would have heard about her. She was very active in the Kenyan and Pan-African struggles of those years. She was a pioneer African feminist working both for the liberation of Africa and the emancipation of African women.
At a time when many progressive groups paper over the gender dimension of struggles by declaring the revolution, the only target she and her fellow pioneering sisters with whom they formed AMWA were insistent that the liberation of the African Woman should not and cannot be delayed until victory came.
She was also an early mobiliser and organiser for what we call disdainfully in those days, ‘bourgeois democracy’. She believed in and worked for a democratic Kenya at a time when many of us thought we could use AK47s to shoot our way to State Lodges and rain down Socialism from
above!
Most of the Kenyan politicians I know today have predominantly been through Wanjiru. Their little flat in Union Street, in Clapham north, before they moved became a haven and
transit lounge for Kenyan activists running away from the authoritarian killer government of Moi/ KANU.
She would organise for them to meet other Kenyans and other Africans, members of the British establishment conservative or Labour, human rights groups and diaspora lobbies. She was capable of remaining in solidarity with comrades who have fallen out and even those fighting against governments like Jerry Rawlings’ Ghana or the NRM in Uganda with whom she had close personal and political associates.
When her husband, Wanyiri, was arrested in Kenya and detained without
trial in the infamous Nyayo detention centre (a place built in the basement of a huge shopping complex without people suspecting for a long
time that human beings were being tortured under their feet as they did their shopping!) Wanjiru did not become a grieving exile widow but used
his incarceration and torture to focus attention on the deplorable human
rights situation in Kenya internationally.
At that time Kenya was the darling of the West. So close was the relationship with the British that throughout the 1980s the Thatcher government and later Major’s never allowed any big peaceful demonstration in front of the Kenyan High Commission.
They used to allow only 12 demonstrators at a time. The Kenyan regulars were usually Wanjiru and her comrades in the UKENYA and UMOJA external groupings for the Kenyan pro Democracy
Movement including Mwakenya.
As Wanjiru is laid to rest I salute her courage in staying the course of the struggle and living to see a Kenya free of Moi and KANU rule but regret that she did not live long to enjoy the benefits of democracy for which she fought and sacrificed so much and ultimately her life.
And even sadder still that many of the political leaders in Kenya today have forgotten so soon the pains and groans of the masses that brought them to power and are behaving in a way that may make KANU electable again!
Sleep well Wanjiru, you did your best and your best was more than enough
in one life time. Adieux Mama Pambana!
Ends
But somehow one has to find the words both as part of grieving and also in defiance of death reminding that thief
of all thieves that it may rob us of loved ones but we will not allow it to rob us of their memories too. Saturday October 26, a very dear comrade and friend, Dr Wanjiru Kihoro, was buried.
Unfortunately I could not be at the funeral but did
attend two public testimonials (one an evening of political tributes and the other a funeral service on Heroes’ day, both in Nairobi) as part of the farewell to Wanjiru. She was buried in the land of her ancestors
in the picturesque Kikuyu District of Nyeri, Kenya.
Wanjiru had been in a coma for over three years and nine months since she suffered severe injuries in a plane crash in early 2003. A number of prominent politicians, including MPs, in the newly triumphant NARC-Kenya
government died in the accident.
For all these years, friends and relatives but especially her incredibly optimistic husband and comrade, Wanyiri Kihoro and her father who took
turns by her side at the National Hospital in Nairobi all the time till the final hour, all hoped against hope and prayed for her recovery.
Any small sign of attentiveness no matter how dim was interpreted as a sign of her ‘coming back to us’. Friends and relatives were encouraged to visit her and talk to her normally with the hope that one voice or a cacophony of recognisable voices might jolt her sensory nerves back to life. I was one of those fearful friends who dreaded going to see Wanjiru while she lay in bed. A few times I had synchronised my contact with Wanyiri to coincide with the closing hours for hospital visits so that I
could be disallowed but could wait for Wanyiri to get out so we could sit and chat. One night I did that on my way from Kampala and we ended up
sitting up till after 2:00am. Instead of me giving him words of encouragement it was Wanyiri who was cheering me up, insisting that I
must go and see Wanjiru, talk to her, even syndicate our political arguments, jokes, maybe it would help.
About eight weeks ago, a mutual friend and comrade, Micheline, who had
worked with Wanjiru at the Africa Centre, Akina Mama Wa Africa and Abantu who is now Africa Director of UNFIFEM in New York came to
Nairobi. She dragged me and her husband, James Oparo, who was as squeamish as me, to go and see Wanjiru instead of meeting up with
Wanyiri after the closing hours.
And I am now glad I went again.
We spent quite a long time with her, Mzee and Wanyiri chatting, being nostalgic and generally doing the usual exchange of hot political gossips that political activists are known for.
Of course the Wanjiru on the bed was not the Wanjiru we had known, much smaller but the machines monitoring her heartbeat became very agitated and Wanyiri explained to us that it meant she could hear us and was trying to respond. After looking after a terminally ill person for a long time carers tend to become both medical doctors and believers in
miracles.
Wanyiri’s father-in-law and Wanyiri were virtually part of the hospital establishment. It was an act of spousal and parental devotion that is rarely seen these days. Any African who was in the UK from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s who did not know Wanjiru would have heard about her. She was very active in the Kenyan and Pan-African struggles of those years. She was a pioneer African feminist working both for the liberation of Africa and the emancipation of African women.
At a time when many progressive groups paper over the gender dimension of struggles by declaring the revolution, the only target she and her fellow pioneering sisters with whom they formed AMWA were insistent that the liberation of the African Woman should not and cannot be delayed until victory came.
She was also an early mobiliser and organiser for what we call disdainfully in those days, ‘bourgeois democracy’. She believed in and worked for a democratic Kenya at a time when many of us thought we could use AK47s to shoot our way to State Lodges and rain down Socialism from
above!
Most of the Kenyan politicians I know today have predominantly been through Wanjiru. Their little flat in Union Street, in Clapham north, before they moved became a haven and
transit lounge for Kenyan activists running away from the authoritarian killer government of Moi/ KANU.
She would organise for them to meet other Kenyans and other Africans, members of the British establishment conservative or Labour, human rights groups and diaspora lobbies. She was capable of remaining in solidarity with comrades who have fallen out and even those fighting against governments like Jerry Rawlings’ Ghana or the NRM in Uganda with whom she had close personal and political associates.
When her husband, Wanyiri, was arrested in Kenya and detained without
trial in the infamous Nyayo detention centre (a place built in the basement of a huge shopping complex without people suspecting for a long
time that human beings were being tortured under their feet as they did their shopping!) Wanjiru did not become a grieving exile widow but used
his incarceration and torture to focus attention on the deplorable human
rights situation in Kenya internationally.
At that time Kenya was the darling of the West. So close was the relationship with the British that throughout the 1980s the Thatcher government and later Major’s never allowed any big peaceful demonstration in front of the Kenyan High Commission.
They used to allow only 12 demonstrators at a time. The Kenyan regulars were usually Wanjiru and her comrades in the UKENYA and UMOJA external groupings for the Kenyan pro Democracy
Movement including Mwakenya.
As Wanjiru is laid to rest I salute her courage in staying the course of the struggle and living to see a Kenya free of Moi and KANU rule but regret that she did not live long to enjoy the benefits of democracy for which she fought and sacrificed so much and ultimately her life.
And even sadder still that many of the political leaders in Kenya today have forgotten so soon the pains and groans of the masses that brought them to power and are behaving in a way that may make KANU electable again!
Sleep well Wanjiru, you did your best and your best was more than enough
in one life time. Adieux Mama Pambana!
Ends