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Prelude
“At times it is folly to hasten, at other times, to delay. The wise do everything in its proper time.”—Ovid
“All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all bugs in amber.” —Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“The mind of man, moreover, works with equal strangeness upon the body of time.”—Virginia Woolf.
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This essay starts in a moment of silence at the Nairobi Litfest 2025. It is 29th June, the last day of the festival. The festival has been running since the 26th of the same month. The silence is not absolute since it is a festival and, like any other, there are sounds in the background. I can hear the wheezing of microphones, the whirring of speakers, the crackling of camera flashes. A cold wind soughs through the shade I am seated under, its effect nibbles at my body.
The festival’s emcee, Aleya Kassam, walks onto the stage after a session titled Balm for a World on Fire whose panellists included the celebrated poets Michelle Angwenyi, Willy Oeba, and Momtaza Mehri. To my right is a garden – the McMillan Memorial Library garden. Three people stand in the garden: Kenyan writer Billy Kahora, Book Bunk cofounder Angela Wachuka, and Hayes Festival Global representative, Izara García Rodríguez. Both Book Bunk and Hayes Festival Global are partners in this festival. The three of them are there to plant trees. Billy’s tree is in memory of our recent ancestors. The recent ancestors, as mentioned by Aleya, are Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the late Congolese writer and philosopher, Valentin-Yves Mudimbe. Angela Wachuka’s tree is in memory of those who have been brutally murdered by the Kenyan government, whose names we know. The Hayes Festival Global representative is to plant a tree to commemorate the lives of the “unknown”; those murdered and whose names we do not know.
Days before this Litfest, I had been working on an essay in memory of last year’s protests. I had been thinking of an angle that would animate that essay. All my effort was proving futile. I tried writing it as an elegy, but a voice in my head kept stopping me; a brash whisper kept reprimanding me: an elegy requires a poetic bandwidth, which craft you don’t have. I gave in. Truth is that this voice was not lying. I am bad at poetry. I cannot conjure lines like Clifton Gachagua or Michelle Angwenyi or Ngwatilo or Ngartia – all poets I admire. I put aside the elegy. Still, I kept searching for ways of writing to remember those we had lost during last year’s protests. In my notebook with the broken spine, I filled page after page, beginning and then crossing out opening after opening. The sentences I was writing felt disjointed and incoherent. I wanted sharp and precise sentences. Sentences that would carry my bitterness and expose the immensity of last year’s protest. Coming to me during the festival, this essay is perhaps concurrent with the Litfest’s tagline: a festival of ideas.
The 29th is a Sunday. On the previous day, Saturday, a session happens. On the panel is Keith Angana who does many things but on this day sits as the founder of Bunge La Mayut – parliament of/for the youth. Angana is on stage with Christine Mungai, an editor for The Continent, and Faith Odhiambo, president of the Law Society of Kenya. I am excited. For no other reason than that it is the first time I am seeing Christine whose storytelling and articulation I have long admired, possibly even envied. Their session is titled “Imagined Freedom: Where Do We Go From Here?” and is moderated by the festival’s curator, Wanjeri Gakuru. They recount where they were on 25th June last year. They talk, talk, talk, explaining their witness of the events of that day. Keith cites the routes he and his friends took as they tried to reach the central business district; Kenyatta Avenue, Cardinal Otunga Street. And others.
The lady seated in front of me in a blue denim jacket, beautiful dreads under a black beanie, nods in agreement. Is it to show that she is keen? Or was she part of Keith’s team? I wonder. I wonder because whenever I am at a literary festival my antennae are always up; I’m always trying to imagine the stories of the attendants. Faith Odhiambo sighs, exhales audibly through the microphone she is holding in her left hand. “I get exhausted whenever this conversation comes up. I probably will have to log off social media for about a week after today,” she says. I look at her, briefly lost in thought at what these protests have done to her. To me. To us. Haven’t these protests exhausted us? When it gets to the Q&A time, I raise my hand. My question is to Christine. In my head it sounds like a question that would rather be left alone, but since I am here, and I’ve always admired Christine’s thinking and observation, I ask anyway. I ask about history; about the possible manipulations that might happen in the recording of the Gen Z revolution(s). I ask about who is going to be remembered as the hero, as the victim, as the enabler of this revolution(s). “Which life will we go to in the future to understand the immensity and intensity of the Gen Z revolution?”
“We will go, not to one life, but many. I cannot tell you which ones, but in the fullness of time, this history will give us the lives to go to.” Her response lingers, swirling in my head.
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Since Christine’s response, I have been thinking of how time ruptures history. How in its cyclical nature, time allows for cracks, loops and emptiness, speculations and exaggerations in narratives retained as history. I am puzzled by how time can be finite as well as eternal. Isn’t it a contradiction that time slows certain things while quickening others? The elasticity of time is not a new dilemma. Ben Okri and others have battled with it. “We don’t experience time as moving in a constant or smooth way. Rather, we experience it slowing down, speeding up, having dips and curves, sometimes getting stuck,” writes American poet Julie Carr.
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I cannot remember when I first heard the phrase “in the fullness of time”. I, however, do remember Zack Oloo, a writer friend, using it last year, right after Raila Odinga agreed to work with the government. I had been riled up and was ranting to him. Being a senior historian and great thinker, he sat and listened as I went on and on about how disheartening it was that a man who had always fashioned himself a champion for the people would agree to work with a rogue government. “Raila will either be vindicated or implicated in the fullness of time. We only have to watch and wait,” Zack said, a wry smile rippling on his face. I couldn’t argue. Zack is almost seventy. I am just twenty-eight. He has seen time solve more mysteries than I have.
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Time (noun); that part of existence which is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years.
In the fullness of time; after a due length of time has elapsed; eventually.
Arrow of time; the unidirectional flow of time from the past to the future.
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The twists in the aftermath of the June 2024 Gen Z revolutions are baffling, bizarre even. The irony in the stories that have followed is surprising – at least to someone like me who had no political acumen to predict such moves. In just a year, we have seen people who were assumed to be the faces of the Gen Z movement take positions that are more a betrayal than comradeship. Some, who had vowed to never work with the present government, have been seen in unstylish, sickly-coloured suits, meekly bowing to the leader of the very same government. Time has distilled the corruptible from the incorruptible. This distillation has hurt. Trust has been ruined and, with time, built. The magic of time has opened us to deeper truths.
There have been weeks when the entire country has smelt of fear. A case would be around last year’s festive season when the abductions intensified. We have seen how, in just a couple of days, a country could lose many lives. Time has been long and unwinding for those who are seeking justice. Imagine it has been less than five years since the Shakahola and Kware massacres, and the storming of parliament – all events that have left many dead. We, the people, have made attempts to heal, but the rogue…ness of this state has insisted on violence. We have lost Albert Ojwang and, as if not enough, Benard Kariuki has followed; the time between their deaths a mere week. All through, we have banked on hope hitched to time. A time when we, the people, shall send away this government.
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Back to the moment of silence. Kenyan singer Erick Wainaina takes to the stage. His song Daima is meant to punctuate the tree planting session.
What is said about songs and their effects on such moments?
I sing along.
Others in the audience also sing along.
Billy, Angela and the Hayes Festival representative plant the trees. The wind soughs, sorrowful, laden with a sullen mood. The loss of life does this. They place the tree seedlings in the holes dug in the ground and cover the roots with soil. The trees start their journey. In time, they will be fully grown. Time will be cardinal to their growth. Its cardinality will be central in our quest for justice and rebuilding. In the fullness of time, we will testify about our contests, our losses, our victories against this government.
