The History that Refuses to be Silenced

Yesterday the Korean composer Yun I Sang described his experiences in prison. I was very moved by his words especially when he told us how he gained the strength to compose opera even under those harsh conditions from his knowledge that he was speaking for the many gagged voices and even more for those who had been tortured to eternal silence. That to me is an example of the position which music and art, under conditions of oppression, should take: give voice to silence; speak out for the determination of the people in their quest for total liberation. I can recognize our situation in Kenya and Africa in his situation. I feel the same recognition of a common experience when I read the poetry of Kim Chi Ha. His satiric poem, ‘The Five Bandits’, could be talking about many countries in Asia, South America and Africa. The Bandits, a combination of business tycoons, top bureaucrats, national assembly men, the top military brass and cabinet ministers, all the elements that make up the comprador social stratum, are compared to the slavemasters of old who drove people to work harder and harder with the resulting wealth going into the lifestyle of the few and their foreign connections in the centres of world imperialism. These bandits are reproduced by imperialism in a neo-colonial system engulfing the peoples of Asia, Africa and South America. So when he talks about the alliance of the Five Bandits with Japanese and US imperialism as helping in the plunder and murder of our peoples, he is speaking all our histories.

Let me for a moment dwell on that history. It has two dialectically related aspects. One aspect is the story of exploitation and oppression by the West. When the Portuguese explorers landed in Southern Africa in the fifteenth century, they were on a mission to find a sea route to the wealth of Asia, the shortest route to plunder and murder, and in the process they discovered the wealth of Africa. The feudal classes and the mercantile bourgeoisie wanted gold, glittering gold, and in its pursuit, they now set about destroying many advanced cities and civilizations, particularly along the East Africa coast. With gun powder in one arm and the Bible in the other, they were able to conquer bodies and then confuse the souls of the defeated.