Let’s talk about Saba Saba, to know our future

By NERIMA WAKO-OJIWA

The way history is passed down through generations has often been part of culture. Through song, dance, or stories. Africans enjoy the gift of a good story. We spend hours on end with family and friends just sharing stories.

I still have memories of stories that my grandmothers would tell every evening, some not so sure now if they were true, but which to date, keep me up at night when in the village, even though I know they were myths and folkore. Perhaps, it was our eager reactions as children that made our grandmothers keep telling us the stories, as our eyes bulged, or we perked up at the intensity of the storyline. Storytelling is an old age oral tradition used to pass on information and lessons from one generation to another.

It’s unfortunate that it is no longer as common. This past week on July 7, many Kenyans were baffled by a group of street protesters marking Saba Saba, a day made famous by political agitation in the 1990s dubbed the Second Liberation, that ushered in multipartism. But for many youngsters today, the day is not only alien, but it is also ancient history. But if they don’t know that past, what future do they expect to have?

Recently I was watching a documentary on the Holocaust, and researchers were thinking of ways to save records of events of that period. It’s not that there are not enough books on it or medical records that were retrieved, to historical buildings which are still in existence, but more of the survivors, whom with each passing year get fewer as they die of old age.

What will be left will be images and text, and on some occasions old film that can be utilised. Historians were thinking of ways to make these stories fresh and first hand from survivors of that period.

There is one way to get to people, more specifically young people in a way that doesn’t appear condescending, or in the form of a lecture which many will mute, and that is through stories.

But somehow, we have forgotten to share important stories of our country’s history continuously. Forget what happens in school, because we are well aware how the rote learning is only geared towards passing examinations and learn nothing.

We will get to a point when Saba Saba will be a faint memory, passing on with the aged. Those who lived through and remember the events of that day are not sharing those stories with children growing up today.

There is an essence of spirit that story-telling brings to the fore, which can be in the form of music and art. What a shame that we do not support it enough, in a sense we are slowly losing a part of ourselves and collective history.

Nerima Wako-Ojiwa, executive director, Siasa Place @NerimaW