[ad_1]
TRIUMPHANT: UNBROKEN BY BRITISH COLONIALISTS IN KENYA
JOACHIM F. MACHARIA- A BIOGRAPHY
Reviewed by Khakhudu Agunda
Mention of the word biography evokes in many people’s minds great personalities, who have achieved a lot in various spheres of life. However, the dictionary definition of biography is simply an account of someone’s life written by someone else.
Interestingly, this book, Triumphant: Unbroken by British Colonialists in Kenya – Joachim F. Macharia – A Biography, is a man and daughter affair. Media personality Terry Micheni uses this story of her father, Joachim Macharia, to look at socio-economic and political developments in Trans Nzoia region and Kenya, at large, from the colonial period to independence in the early 1960s, and up to the present day.
There are a number of other Kenyan biographies, but Joachim’s joins the list of notable ones such as, Tom Mboya by historian Edwin Gimode, in the Makers of Kenya’s History Series by East African Educational Publishers, and Masinde Muliro (also a native of Trans Nzoia) by Simiyu Wandibba, in the same series.
But perhaps the most talked about in recent years is Raila Odinga. An Enigma in Kenyan Politics by Nigerian author Babafemi Badero.
In this slim volume by Terry Micheni running to only 66 pages is an intriguing dedication by the writer and publisher to the British colonialists, whose tenure had some good things and terrible ones, including the eviction of people from their ancestral lands.
Terry writes: “To the British colonialists, who founded Trans Nzoia and shaped the history of the district. To our forefathers and leaders, who contributed to making Trans Nzoia District what it is today…”
Mzee Joachim’s experiences enrich the history of this region and the country. He was detained by the British colonialists, suffered discrimination like many other Africans, and was subjected to the infamous, ‘Kipande (identification) System’.
Terry writes: “With the dawn of independence, my father enjoyed the goodies that came with the expulsion of the colonialists from the White Highlands. He was among the first occupants of settlement schemes under the newly formed Kenyan government.”
Joachim would become a politician, serving as a councillor during the reign of founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta under the independence Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party until his death in August 1978.
Under the second President, Daniel arap Moi, things began to change, with the cosmopolitan Trans Nzoia coming under severe threat from tribal bigots. Now 85, Joachim saw it all – from the last days of British Governor Malcolm MacDonald to Mzee Kenyatta, Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, and Uhuru Kenyatta becoming the fourth President in 2013.
An amazing man, Joachim is gifted in languages, effortlessly shifting from Kikuyu to English, Kiswahili, Luhya and Kalenjin. This has always come in handy, since the days he ran errands for Mau Mau freedom fighters from detention camps as a young lad.
The book chronicles different historical epochs: The pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods.
Terry spent two years interviewing her father on his farm in the Kipsaina Settlement Scheme between 2014 and 2016, to come up with this book. Joachim was born in 1937, at Bayete near Kipkabus in Uasin Gishu District, during the colonial reign of British King George VI,
Joachim was thrown into detention in 1954, two years into the declaration of the State of Emergency. His attempt to get released in an amnesty was thwarted when he was found out to be a Kikuyu, then targeted as a dangerous group.
Lady luck would finally smile on him in 1956, when he was moved to Kangema in central Kenya. Here, he met and became friends with John Michuki, the son of Chief Michuki, who was a District Officer in the colonial government. Michuki later became a no-nonsense Cabinet minister, who is remembered for reining in matatu madness and cleaning up the polluted Nairobi River, when he held the Environment portfolio.
Joachim’s deep Catholicism has its roots in this period, taking the name of the father of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. He was released and given a pass to return to the Rift Valley and resume his education. He passed the Kenya African Preliminary Examination (KAPE) in 1958. The following year, he joined St Peter’s Seminary in Kakamega and later transferred to Matunda.
His schoolmates included Zacheus Okoth, who later became the Catholic Bishop of Kisumu Diocese, and Peter Kairu, later the Bishop of Murang’a, Nakuru and Nyeri dioceses. At the age of 25, in 1962, his formal education ended after he had passed his Form Four exam. By the time he completed his Form Four at Matunda, he was already married.
Thanks to his employment on European-owned farms at Endebess, a corruption of the English phrase end of base, he was fully prepared for the role he would later play as a top African large-scale farmer.
There are two major low points in Joachim’s story. One is the death of his wife and the second, the ethnic fallout in Trans Nzoia and at the national level following the hotly disputed 2007 General Election. President Mwai Kibaki controversially retained the top seat following a vicious challenge from Raila Odinga, the son of the country’s first Vice-President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
In between are fascinating stories of life in the family. Anecdotes such as God revealing to him while in detention in the mid-1950s that his wife would be called Anna and one of his daughters, Mary, interestingly came to pass. The couple would later have 12 children, six sons and six daughters.
There were role models such as independence struggle hero Masinde Muliro, Senator William Wamalwa and his son, Michael Kijana Wamalwa, who became Kibaki’s Vice-President, Maendeleo ya Wanawake chair Zipporah Kittony, politician Dr Noah Wekesa and first woman rally driver and farmer Orie Rogo Manduli that Joachim hoped his children would emulate.
There were also top journalists such as former Nation Editor-in-Chief Tom Mshindi and Ken Walibora, who was also a famous Kiswahili author, known for his popular novel, Siku Njema.
In the 1974 General Election, Joachim was elected councillor of the Kapomboi/Zea Ward in Kwanza Constituency. Then, nobody cared about his ethnic community. That would only change after the 2007 General Election when his family would be taunted as not indigenous to Trans Nzoia.
Things began to fall apart after President Moi came to power and the 1982 coup attempt fuelled ethnic divisions. Whereas the Kenyatta era had created an enabling environment for work and prosperity, Moi’s would later polarise the nation along ethnic lines.
In 1979, Joachim lost his Kapomboi/Zea Ward seat, with his supporters being told to their faces that Kikuyus were no longer welcome in the area. He then concentrated on farming. Thanks to his business prowess, a new trading centre sprouted that is referred to by locals as Kwa Joachim, or Joachim’s Centre.
His wife of 49 years, succumbed to illness arising from her fears over the ethnic flare-ups in Trans Nzoia and the country during the 2007-8 mayhem in which 1,500 innocent people were slaughtered and several hundred thousand driven from their homes and farms.
Encouraged by his close family and other relatives, he would remarry and break up with his new spouse over irreconcilable differences. She kept travelling to central Kenya, to visit her married children, sometimes staying away for nearly a month. But all is well that ends well. His second attempt that yielded a single young woman with two sons, a teenager and a young brother, restoring the number of his children to 12, following two deaths, has brought bliss to the family.
In this is a study of how to look after ageing parents, especially widowers, as widows often cope much better with the loss of their spouses.
First titled, Fathers of Trans Nzoia, the book is available on Amazon.com kindle store ebooks. Search words- British colonialists Kenya, Mau Mau Uprising Kenya.
[email protected]
The post Tale of Shrewd Farmer, Entrepreneur And Icon of Ethnic Diversity And Harmony appeared first on LitKenya.
[ad_2]
Source link
