The Incarcerated Self: Narratives of Political Confinement in Kenya
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The Incarcerated Self: Narratives of Political Confinement in Kenya Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Kennedy Athanasias Waliaula Graduate Program in Comparative Studies The Ohio State University 2009 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Nina Berman, Co-Advisor Dr. Adeleke Adeeko, Co-Advisor Dr. Maurice Stevens Copyright by Kennedy Athanasias Waliaula 2009 ABSTRACT My dissertation explores the narratives of incarceration that have emerged in the pre- colonial, colonial, and postcolonial eras in Kenya. Rather than embark on the almost impossible task of examining all forms of prison narratives, this study concentrates mainly on the fiction and non-fiction writing of prisoners of conscience or political prisoners. Political repression has been a recurrent motif in Kenya since pre-colonial but particularly in the colonial and postcolonial times. Victims of state terror have consistently added to the long list of the literature of prison that invites scholarly investigation. Focusing on memory, truth telling, the I-pronoun, and trauma, the study analyzes the relationship between self-exploration and narration of confinement. I show that oral narratives inaugurated the narrativization of incarceration in Kenya during the pre-colonial era and continued to serve as the oxygen ventilating written prison narratives in succeeding periods. In this regard I argue that there are Kenyan oral texts that exemplify what may be termed oral prison narratives. The study identifies the connection between written and oral tales of incarceration by unearthing the extent to which oral tales are variously appropriated to capture incarceration as individual or collective lived experience whether in a literal or symbolic sense. The study is based on the assumption that there is a relationship between narrating one’s prison experience and the process of self-exploration or self-discovery. Also, the ii study assumes that there is a relationship between the prison context and the text; and that the prisoner’s individual experience may embody the collective experience of those in same or similar circumstances and may go beyond the prison walls, encompassing the lived experience of those outside prison as well, especially in times of pervasive political intolerance and repression. Although my method is fundamentally literary-critical, the study spans across a wide array of disciplines. Yet it bears clarifying that I adopt an eclectic approach, letting texts themselves determine what theoretical framework is most appropriate. The study extrapolates upon the relationship between self-exploration and narration of confinement and between the compulsion to give an account of one’s experience and to count. It unmasks the motives of political prisoners’ narration of their experiences; the connection between the prison texts and prison contexts; as well as unraveling issues related to the narrative styles and genres used. One of the major findings of this study is the understanding of prison literature of prisoners of consciences as constituting an alternative and unathorized national narrative that runs counter to the national official or authorized national narrative. Both these metanarratives claim legitimacy and fiercely vie for public space and attention, thereby perfoming what I term the paradox of patriotism. This investigation of prison narratives is significant because it includes oral tales, constituting a fresh point of departure in understanding the phenomenon of narrating iii imprisonment, and also because it brings to the fore critical issues related to human rights, governance, and politics in Kenya, that would interest scholars in a range of disciplines in the Humanities and beyond. iv Dedicated to my parents who defied all skeptics to believe in my ability to reach this point but never lived to see their dreams about their son turn into reality. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to all the giants upon whose shoulders I have stood in the process of writing this dissertation. First and and foremost I am grateful to my dissertation co- directors, Professor Nina Berman of the Department of Comparative Studies and Professor Adeleke Adeeko of the Department of English for their passion, patience, commitment, selflessness, erudition, and invaluable intellectual support without which I would have carried out this project like a rudderless ship or a sheep without a shepherd. Their timely comments on the various drafts were extremely candid, encouraging, and illuminating, providing what I needed when I needed it in order to navigate what would have been to me the unfamiliar and treacherous dissertation writing waters. I am indebted to Professor Maurice Stevens whose insightful suggestions and encouragement as a member of the dissertation committee made such a huge difference. I am also grateful to a number of individuals whose timely intervention directly or indirectly contributed towards the successful completion of this project. These include the late Professor John Conteh Morgan who, despite his failing health, compassionly spurred me on and wanted me to “complete in record time” to use his own words. Others include Professor Simon Gikandi of Princeton University, Professor Alamin Mazrui of Rutgers University, and Professor Said A. Mohamed of Bayreuth University, who together with my committee wrote letters of recommendation that went a long way in enabling me to clinch the vi prestigious Presidential Fellowship that facilitated the carrying out of much of this project. I am certainly grateful to The Ohio State University for awarding me the Presidential Fellowship. Professor Mazrui and Professor Kimani Njogu deserve particular mention because they are the ones who triggered in me the epiphany of prison writing as a researchable topos, helping crystallize an idea that had initially only assumed a nebulous, formless, and shapeless form and shape. I have also received tremendous moral and material support from ProfessorValerie Lee, Chair Department of English, Professor Lindsay Jones, Professor Margaret Lynd, Professor Eugene Holland, Prof. Kwaku Larbi Korang, Professor Kenneth Goings, all of The Ohio State University; Professor Evan Mwangi of Northwestern University, Professor Robert Wafula of Columbus State University, and Prof. Shadrack Nasong’o of Rhodes College. My fellow graduate students were also quite supportive, notably Joseph Chikowero of Wisconsin Madison (for lending me his copy of Yvonne Vera’s dissertation), and Rita Trimble of The Ohio State University (who never tired of reading some of my messy drafts). I thank my brothers Wanambuko and Wanambisi and sisters Nambuye, Mukhaye, Manja and Paulina for their unceasing support. Lastly, I am indeed grateful to my beloved wife Anne, for her commitment to being my fellow traveler in the riveting academic journey, and also our daughters Tila and Shi for undertaking this project vicariously. vii VITA January 6, 1965………………………Born-Trans-Nzoia, Kenya 2006………………………………….Dual MA in African American Studies and Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University 2004…………………………………..B.A. Literature and Swahili Studies, University of Nairobi 2004…………………………………..Fellow/Graduate Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University 2008…………………………………..Presidential Fellow, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS Research Publication 1. Waliaula, K.W. “Reading Ngugi’s Detained as a manifesto.” Du negre Bambara au Negropolitain: Littérature des mondes contemporains. Metsz: University of Metsz Press, 2009. 247-62. 2. Waliaula, K.W.“Reflections on Knowing as a Problem in Alamin Mazrui’s Shadows of the Moon.” Cultural Production and Social Change: Building Bridges ed. by Kimani Njogu and G.Oluoch-Olunya. 2008. 217-44. 3. Waliaula, K.W. Rev. of Women in Taarab by Mohamed El-Mohamed Mohammady Rizk. Research in African Literatures 39.2 (2008): 164-65. 3.Waliaula. K.W. “Alamin Mazrui’s Swahili Beyond Boundaries.”Canadian Journal of African Studies 4.1 (2008): 23-30. 4. Waliaula, K.W. “In Service of Kiswahili of with Pen, Microphone and Screen.” JALTA (2007): 81-94. viii 5. Walibora, K. “Matatizo ya Tafsiri katika Vyombo vya Habari.” Kiswahili 4 (2001): 23-30. FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Comparative Studies ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………..ii Dedication……………………………………………………………………..v Acknowledgment……………………………………………………………vi Vita…………………………………………………………………………..viii Chapters: 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………1 2. Oral Literature and Confinement…………………………………………..34 I. Introduction: The Oral-Literate Equation……………………………34 II. Oral Prison Narratives: Two Case Studies…………..……………...46 IIa.The Sela and Mwambu Tale and Incarceration…………………….52 IIb. The Liyongo Epic as Prison Narrative... ………………………….65 III. Memory, I-pronoun, Truth, and Trauma… ………………………..80 3. Narratives of Incarceration in the Colonial Period….…….. ……………...93 I. Introduction…………………………………………….….…………93 II.The Writing Hand and the Body in Pain: Josiah Mwangi Kariuki’s Mau Mau Detainee………………………….…...……………...…..101 III. Private Diary as Public Record: Gakaara wa Wanjau’s Mau Mau Author in Detention. ……………….…….……….……..136 IV. Swimming against the Current: Wambui Waiyaki Otieno’s Mau Mau’s Daughter…………………………..…………………………….161 V. Conclusion………..…………………………………… . ………….194 4. Narratives of Incarceration of the Postcolonial Period..…………………. 198 I. Introduction……………………………………...……… ……...…..198 II. Multiple Voices of the “I” in Abdilatif Abdalla’s Sauti