In 2004, I was invited by what is now Walter Sisulu University in South Africa to receive an honorary doctorate, along with Nelson Mandela and Ali Mazrui. The occasion also marked the transition of the University from its former name of Transkei, reminiscent of apartheid-era bantustanism, to become associated with its present memory of a nationalist hero.

Accompanied by my wife and two children, we arrived at the Campus to banners of Homecoming. It was touching: it was my first honorary degree from the African continent after several others from Universities in Europe and America. But the Homecoming banner, a reference to my book of the same title, had another significance. I was returning home to Kenya via South Africa after literally twenty-two years of forced exile. The homecoming via South Africa was to going to find its climax in Kenya; my two children born in exile had never touched Kenyan soil.

Well, what happened, eleven days into my triumphant return to my beloved country, with an honorary degree from the continent along the way, is now history. My homecoming turned into a nightmare at home with my wife and I barely escaping from four gunmen. So, no fault of South Africa, memories of my first honorary doctorate on the continent also carry memories of terror. This is the first honorary doctorate on the continent since that night of terror.

Mr. Vice-Chancellor: I am a writer, wordsmith really, but I don't have the words to describe what this honor that the University of Dar es Salaam has conferred upon me today means to me. It is not only because, hopefully, I will be able to celebrate a doctorate from Africa with undiluted joy; but also, quite frankly, because of the place of Dar in the African intellectual and political imagination.

Dar is definitely a child of political independence. It was thought up, planned and imagined by the first independent African state in East Africa. Soon Dar became the center of new thought; challenging, daring, path finding. In its heyday Dar became the Mecca of progressive thought attracting scholars from all over the world and Africa.