I noticed water trickling down the corridor, later realising that the discussion I was having with my family had made my sister forget that she was filling the kitchen sink with water. In this time of water rationing in Nairobi it was frustrating to see all that water going to waste. We spent the next one hour cleaning the mess that had been made.
That introduction has nothing to do with what I want to discuss today only to emphasise how the conversation was heated. My parents had just watched a video of Africans being tortured in Libya as they tried to find their way to Europe. I don’t know how the conversation led to me talking about how I think Kenyans/Africans don’t know much about their history and the effect it has on the present.
In 2017, I visited the holocaust memorial museum in Israel where you get to see the horrors that the Jews went through in Europe during the world war. You get a headset and a guide to explain the different displays and audio-visual short films. We entered one of the galleries and as the guide went on explaining I looked around the room, noticing the sad faces. Then I saw my friend Eli had removed his headset and looked uninterested. I thought maybe the trauma was too much for him so I asked what was wrong. He told me that the saddest thing is that most people in that room know more about the holocaust than what happened to us during colonisation. ‘Us’ here refers to the Kenyans who had filled that gallery, Eli and I included.
After that challenge I started reading about colonisation in Africa and found stories that were beyond sad. Targeted violence, rape, genocide, human experiments on Africans and concentration camps are all recurring events during colonisation. Is it really important that we understand our history? Why did donors see it fit to fund a holocaust memorial museum? Why do Rwandans still have memorial sites displaying clothes and skulls of the departed?
History gives context to the present. See how you understand all the family intrigues when you are old enough to be told the family secrets. Now you understand why uncle x doesn’t speak to aunt y. Some families choose to sweep issues under the rag, others try to get to the root cause and solve it. Rwanda went the way of solving its issues with reconciliation, hearings and convictions.
Kenya went the other way after the post-election violence, we swept issues under the rag and they keep springing up from time to time. We somehow forgot about the 1992 and 1997 clashes that left many dead and others displaced. And even if uncle x and aunt y came to an agreement but had poisoned the rest of the family making members take sides, the agreement may not trickled down to the rest. Reconciliation needs deliberate action to solve the issues not quick fixes that only reduce tension.
We are definitely not slaves to our history and I am not saying that we should not forgive and forget. It would be unfortunate though if events happen in our lives and we do not take time to learn from them. Knowing your history equips you with information to solve issues and approach different stages of life with confidence. We are not limited to learn from our stories, that’s why we read the holy book and embrace mentorship. As we move on to the next chapter of our story lets learn as much as we can as we close the previous chapter.
This is enlightening 💯