On March 12, Mukoma wa Ngugi, the Kenyan American poet and writer, who’s the son of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the famed author broadly seen as a large of African literature, took to X, previously Twitter, to allege that his father was an abusive husband.
“My father Ngugi wa Thiong’o bodily abused my late mom. He would beat her up. A few of my earliest reminiscences are of me going to go to her at my grandmother’s the place she would search refuge.”
Mukoma’s tweet went viral and solicited tons of of responses that uncovered the lengthy, darkish shadow patriarchy continues to solid over many African societies.
Certain, many commentators thanked Mukoma for sharing his account of a person who isn’t solely his father, however an African cultural icon.
Others, nonetheless, had been much less complimentary and seemed to be gravely offended by his openness. They accused him of embarrassing his father and searching for validation from Westerners.
Mukoma’s assertions, some claimed, was a “consequence of Western schooling”. It’s, they advised, “un-African” to talk out towards one’s father, extra so to hundreds and probably thousands and thousands of strangers.
Ten days after his preliminary assertion, on March 23, Mukoma responded to the criticism he obtained for talking up for his mom.
“We can not use African tradition to cover atrocities,” he wrote on X. “My father beat up my mom. What’s African about that?”
In one other submit, he described the tradition of violence towards girls that underpins Kenyan society as a “patriarchal most cancers”.
Ngugi is a literary genius, a storyteller par excellence and a revered revolutionary.
Earlier than there was the web, video on-demand platforms, TV and even radio in most households, two African giants dominated African literature: Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer, and, in fact, Ngugi.
From the Sixties, Achebe and Ngugi articulated African identification and consciousness amid the anti-colonial battle.
They stood up for the human rights of Africans with their phrases.
By means of novels like Issues Fall Aside and Arrow of God, to call a couple of, Achebe chronicled the impression of colonialism on Igbo tradition, faith and sociopolitical techniques. And in a Man of the Individuals, he explored the failings of postcolonial management and states.
Ngugi, who glided by the title James early in his profession, additionally centered on African opposition to colonial rule. Weep not Little one, as an example, offers with the so-called Mau Mau Rebellion, whereas Grain of Wheat seems on the state of emergency in Kenya’s battle for independence (1952–60).
By means of these and different novels, Ngugi advocated for resistance towards colonial oppression and repression within the independence period.
In 1978, he was arrested and detained for a 12 months with out trial by the administration of former Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta over a play titled Ngahlika Ndenda (I’ll marry once I need).
Over time, Ngugi was recurrently harassed and victimised by authorities in Kenya for voicing his opposition to corruption, misrule and the abuse of energy.
He has stayed the course and at present, on the age of 86, continues to advocate for freedom from neocolonialism and political oppression.
With 13 honorary levels from establishments world wide, in addition to numerous awards, together with the 2022: PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in Worldwide Literature, Ngugi is a licensed literary genius.
However, for all of his achievements within the final 60 years, the famed writer seems to have failed the place it counted most: defending African girls.
He produced many timeless literary classics, and have become a number one voice within the battle towards colonialism and post-colonial repression, however based on his personal son, couldn’t liberate his expensive spouse, little kids from the acute ravages of poisonous masculinity and home violence.
In fact, within the wake of Mukoma’s public disclosures, Africans may select to label Ngugi a flawed genius. He’s, in any case, human.
They may – as many tried to do in lashing out at Mukomo – brush his alleged abuse of his spouse underneath the carpet within the title of defending his literary and revolutionary legacy.
This may be a simple and handy place to take.
But it surely wouldn’t be proper.
Ngugi’s alleged private failings, sadly, will not be solely his personal. The hurt he’s stated to have inflicted on his spouse isn’t the distinctive failing of a genius. It is vitally a lot consultant of a societal in poor health pervasive in most African populations. It’s proof that even probably the most revered and principled revolutionaries, who’ve been constant and relentless of their defence of human rights and dignity on the floor, will not be resistant to the in poor health results of patriarchy.
Ngugi, it appears, needed girls to expertise liberty from colonialism and post-colonial subjugation, however stay bonded to the steely constraints of Kikuyu tradition.
Though he repeatedly expressed how he abhorred systemic violence, he apparently believed he had the “proper” to persistently make use of violence towards his partner and, by extension, his kids.
To his thoughts, it appears, there have been limits to girls’s human rights.
For a very long time, underneath the guise of custom, African males have been allowed and even inspired to self-discipline “their girls” and kids with violence.
Thus, many argue Ngugi is only a product of his instances and what he’s stated to have completed to his late spouse shouldn’t be judged by way of a Twenty first-century progressive lens.
The reality, nonetheless, is that gender-based violence isn’t a apply of previous. It is vitally a lot a contemporary and on a regular basis menace in African societies. And it will probably by no means be tackled if we proceed to excuse the actions of abusers, particularly these with excessive public profiles, by pointing to their age, their skilled success, or certainly, seemingly impeccable anti-colonial and revolutionary credentials.
The spirit of intolerance and violence that “allowed” Ngugi to bodily assault his spouse within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies has not dissipated.
In truth, gender-based violence is on the rise in Kenya.
On January 27, hundreds of protesters, female and male, took to the streets of Nairobi calling for an finish to femicide and violence towards girls.
About 500 girls and women have been murdered in Kenya since 2016.
In accordance with a report from the United Nations Workplace on Medication and Crime and UN Ladies, “Such homicides are often the deadly endpoint of a sample of bodily or sexual violence, fuelled by social norms implementing male management or energy over girls.”
Ngugi’s alleged violence is, sadly, a window to a continental (and, frankly world) drawback.
Therefore, his son’s revelations shouldn’t change into some extent of competition.
This could as an alternative be a instructing second.
How do our cultural practices and norms intersect with fashionable or constitutional rights and liberties?
Is tradition past the purview of transformative change?
The battle from oppression, I have to say, is way from over.
A lot good can nonetheless come out of this undeniably unhappy episode in Ngugi’s life.
As somebody who remains to be lively in public life, the famed writer can end telling the story his son began, acknowledge his shortcomings, and publicly apologise for the ache he allegedly inflicted on his spouse, Nyambura, and his complete household.
I perceive that this gained’t be a simple feat, however it’s maybe the one method for the writer to shield his revolutionary legacy, and take his lifelong battle towards oppression and injustice to a different degree in his sundown years.
As an agent of change who instructions widespread respect, he ought to come clean with his failings and unfold higher consciousness about the necessity to free girls from the bonds of wicked cultural norms.
It’s time to assess how sure traditions pose a menace to girls’s wellbeing and certainly their very lives.
Our understanding of the behaviours that make an African man should change.
For too lengthy, violence and intolerance towards feminine company have been used as markers of masculine satisfaction and authority in Africa.
It’s time to say sufficient is sufficient.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
