Kimondo, Satire, and Political Dialogue: Electioneering through Versification

There is strong evidence that Kiswahili dialogue poetry is modeled on ordinary conversation. In this poetry, poets take turns making moves (see Sacks et al.) and in alternating their roles of active production and reception. Furthermore, they use each move to maximize on any local and global goals they hope to attain in the course of the interaction. This article examines a type of poetry that exists in Lamu, on the northern coast of Kenya, in which political electioneering is conducted through poetry.

Election campaigning is a period of power contestation and public social challenge. It is a time when individuals who represent different social, economic, and political programs come into the public sphere and advance their policies. It is also an arena in which political candidates provide a public critique of their opponents. Thus, the election period is inherently replete with tension and competing points of view, occasionally expressed satirically. In Lamu, campaigns are at times conducted through poetry. That is, parliamentary hopefuls may hire the services of popular poets who then sing their praises while simultaneously ridiculing their opponents. The ridiculed opponents may also hire their own poets to respond to the accusations leveled at them, seemingly the poetic counterpart of the United States television ad campaign. These competing poems are either sung in public or electronically transmitted through cassettes. This satirical poetry in Lamu has come to be known as kimondo (pl., vimondo).

As Assibi Amidu has correctly noted, during the 1975 single-party parliamentary by-election in the Lamu East constituency, electioneering was conducted through versification. These verses represented competing and opposing viewpoints. The viewpoints were consequently open to public scrutiny and debate. On the one hand, Mahmoud Ahmed Abdul Kadir, the composer of the utenzi poem in praise of Mzamil Omar Mzamil, endorses Mzamil's candidacy. He depicts Mzamil as a positive and ideal representative of the people of Lamu East. On the other hand, he emits harsh and virulent attacks on the incumbent member of parliament, Abubakar Madhubuti. This form of electioneering through poetry was also evident in the 1997 multiparty political campaigns in Lamu.

But what really is kimondo? According to Charles Sacleux's Dictionnaire français-swahili, kimondo is synonymous with kinga cha shetani ("devil's firebrand"): "D'après la légende musulmane, les étoiles filantes sont des traits de feu lancés par des anges ou de génies" 'According to Muslim legend, shooting stars are bolts of fire shot by angels or genies' (382). This position is echoed by Jan Knappert in his exposition of stars that are known to the Waswahili: "Other stars and constellations known to the Swahili were: kimwondo, kinga la shetani (satan's firebrand), falling star" (97). Ludwig Krapf has stated in his dictionary that "kimuondo (sic) is a missile; a shooting star because they (sic) are said to be thrown by the angels at the jinns." In a sense, then, kimondo refers to a shooting star or the devil's torch.

According to an Islamic belief, angels and jinns target these torches at each other across the skies. But to what end? Specifically, the torches are aimed at blinding and neutralizing others and keeping them from heaven. The kimondo in the skies as reconceptualized here herald the continuing battle between the representatives of good and evil. When used in reference to political satire, the kimondo is aimed at neutralizing opponents and rendering them powerless. According to Athman Lali Omar of Lamu, "kimondo ni radi na ni pigo" 'kimondo is lightning and it is an attack.' It is an artistic fierce attack on an opponent, which, according to Omar (pers. comm.), can only be "cooled by the ocean where it lands after conducting its attack." Its power is immediate and effective.

In kimondo, a political opponent is attacked artistically through the use of satire (see Amidu). To this end, poets utilize satirical references, allusions, and a questioning of the opponent's public and...