Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa

1. Religious Versification: from Depoliticisation to Repoliticisation

1 1 Religious Versification: from Depoliticisation to Repoliticisation Kimani NJOGU Africa Health and Development International – AHADI, Nairobi The missionary language of derision is basically a cultural position, the impression of an ethnocentric outlook. The aspects of refutation and demonstration rationalize the initial ethnocentric moment and are aimed explicitly towards an intellectual reduction that would complement the rules of orthodoxy and conformity V.Y. Mudimbe 1988: 52 Is politicisation through Christian songs one of the unexpected consequences of evangelization? Has Christianity, even without invoking liberation theology contributed in shaping politics through the interpretation and performance of songs? Right from the onset, modern Christianity received multiple interpretations in Kenya. Although Johann Ludwig Krapf of the Church Missionary Society had established himself in Mombasa in 1844, his was not the first Christian encounter with Kenyan people. Roman Catholic missionaries had been to the Coast in the 16th and 17th centuries. They aimed at opening up commercialopportunitiesforPortugalinPortugueseEastIndiaEmpire. However, their evangelical work on the Kenyan coast was subverted by Yusuf Hassan, a Muslim they had sent to Goa to be inducted into Christianity. Hassan was baptised and named Don Jerome Chingulia. On returning from Goa, Chingulia was made ruler of Mombasa, Malindi and Pate both as atonement for the murder of his father, the Sultan of Mombasa, and in recognition of his conversion. Nevertheless, the question was, had Chingulia really converted? He found solace in Islam instead of Christianity. In 1631, he organised an attack on Fort Jesus and all Portuguese who 2 refused to convert to Islam were killed. Although Yusuf Bin Hassan did not succeed in convincing the Bajuni and the Wazanzibari to rise against the Portuguese, his revolt set in motion a range of rebellions against foreign domination. Indeed, this attack led to the final overthrow of the Portuguese along the whole of the East Coast in 1689 by a combination of local forces and forces of Oman. Religious pursuits could not be divorced from political engagement. Kenya is currently a convergence of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, andtraditionalbeliefsystems.Acloserlookatthesereligiouspersuasions shows, however, that they are deliberately contextualised in practice so that they are more responsive to culture and local events. Organised religion is a strong force in contemporary Kenya and until the 1980s the main “Christian denominations served as effective agents of social control and acceptable political expression” (Miller and Yeager, 1994: 92). Since then, and especially during the Moi era which ended in 2002, suppression of dissent and the institutionalisation of corruption led to a reconsideration of the role of religious groups in politics. Although the Islamic Party of Kenya was not registered by the Kenya government, it had a strong following on the Kenyan Coast in the run-up to multiparty politics. Religion had, in fact, been always linked to politics, especially through an intertextualisation of hymns and sacred books. Religion in Africa has tended to be double-voiced and to signify multiple readings (Bakhtin, 1981; Njogu, 2004). Indeed, the colonial experience brought with it a range of creative activities that are worth serious consideration. For instance, Christianity was reformulated and made indigenous in order to be more responsive to the political, economic, social and cultural lives of the colonised. The Bible and Christian hymns were creatively translated and subverted in order to engage and negotiate with the West on the relationship that would prevail between the colonisers and the colonised. The development of new words and an alternative vocabulary was a purposeful, popular and continuous strategy of doing political and social work. The inversion of an earlier religious discourse—articulated by Missionaries—was an attempt at developing a novel, innovative and syncretic language for political engagement. As we shall see presently, the translation and linguistic inversions were acts of inscription; they were statements of a new vision 3 and purpose embedded in the new vocabulary because, following Rorty (1989: 13), redefining or inventing words makes new intellectual work possible. New words and statements make possible the inscriptions and solidification of new community aims and objectives within the context of colonial exploitation and repression. With regard to religious texts, especially during the colonial period in Central Kenya, the original aim of mental pacification of populations, on the promise of a better afterlife, was to be later grounded and given substance through political re-textualising. This paper examines the extent to which this has taken place in Central Kenya, with specific reference to the colonial period. In doing so, I draw...