THE BIG CHIEFS

Rwanda: écrire par devoir de mémoire

by Meja Mwangi

Men would talk, as men always do, about love and money and power and politics and, acting learned, they would try to outdo one another with their knowledge and their understanding of the political realities and the absurd policies, that bred hate and poverty and genocides. They would ask themselves and one another questions that were often impossible to understand and even harder to answer. Did bad politics breed poverty or did poverty breed bad politics? Did the displacement of a mass of people and the murder of a few hundred fellow countrymen, in order to take their land and live-stock, count as a clash or as genocide? Was the deliberate starvation of a few thousand dissenting nomads and rebellious rebels politics or genocide? Opinions were many and varied. Friends discussed the issues with great passion and fervor and sometimes came to blows over their views.

“That’s not genocide at all,” a wise fool would declare with dire conviction. “That is a tribal clash, a mere saber rattling, a settling of old scores, a balancing of the books, as it were, ha-ha-ha-ha. Such things are normal here, you know. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

The old man loves the boy too much to tell him a lie. The girl loves the boy too much to tell him the truth. And the boy loves them both too much to heed their fears.

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Meja Mwangi began his writing career in the 1970s, a decade after his more well-known compatriots such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Grace Ogot had been publishing their works. When he burst onto the scene with the award-winning Kill Me Quick in 1973, Mwangi was hailed in various quarters as a rising star in the East African literary constellation who was helping to disprove Taban lo Liyong's oft-cited claim that East Africa was a literary desert (Taban 1965, Nazareth 1976). Since then, Meja Mwangi has gone on to establish himself as one of the most prolific of Kenyan writers, publishing eleven novels in seventeen years in addition to short stories, children's books and working with a variety of projects in film. Mwangi's works have received awards in Kenya and abroad, they have been translated into six languages, and there are film versions of two of his novels.

For many Kenyan writers, the armed resistance to British colonialism in Kenya, which came to be known as the Mau Mau revolt and reached its height in the 1950s, was a far-reaching experience. [Meja Mwangi' Mau Mau novel] Weapon of Hunger is perhaps [his] best book yet. The picture he paints of the relentless quest for modern Africa is grim. What is most depressing, is that there seem to be no solutions. Western philanthropists, such as Jack Rivers, are portrayed in a favourable light as sincere people. All their energies, however, are expended on trying to understand Africa's problems and once they understand them they realise that the problems are beyond them. As for the Africans themselves, they could have provided solutions, but since they are lined up in warring factions, that is impossible. While the two sides fight on to the finish, will million of ordinary people continue to starve to dead? That is the questions which Meja Mwangi asks himself and which he asks the readers of Weapon.
(Excerpt from: Lynn Mansure, Weekly Review)

Reviews

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Like the boy, she knew deep down that the things he said were true and that, though truth could be denied, ignored or forgotten, it could not be erased or altered by the mere silencing of it, no matter how brutally or how long silence was applied.'

This book is a masterpiece and should be a required read in all Kenyan high schools. It tells, so vividly, the harsh realities of some of the most romanticized parts of Kenyan history. I have learnt so much through Meja's beautiful prose and random poetic passages. Meja remains one of our finest, right up there with Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Grace Ogot et al.

[Anders Linde]

The darkness in man in all its cold and inhuman and horrid shape and form. Frightening and commonly understood as how lives are lived in many places in this world of ours. Exquisitely portrayed by Maja Mwenga in all its horrendous clarity. An effective work by a true craftsman in words