{"id":18031,"date":"2020-11-29T04:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T04:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barazalab.com\/?p=18031"},"modified":"2023-09-04T05:38:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T05:38:34","slug":"mau-mau-detention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tuwele.com\/baraza_update\/mau-mau-detention\/","title":{"rendered":"Mau Mau Detention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings, friends:<\/span><\/p>\n

This past week I had the immense privilege of moderating Nanjala Nyabola\u2019s launch for her second book, <\/span>Travelling While Black<\/span><\/i>. I know books are always described as \u2018poignant\u2019, \u2018moving\u2019 or even \u2018spectacular\u2019, but <\/span>Travelling While Black<\/span><\/i> is all this, and more. Describing how much Nanjala\u2019s writing shook me to the core feels like peddling clich\u00e9s – and yet. What moved me most was her reflection, through an essay about Botswanan author Bessie Head, that there is futility in genius in the absence of privilege or structural systems to support it. \u201cFame in writing almost never translates into material wealth, and your favourite writer is often one tragedy or one mishap away from dying penniless and getting lost in the annals of time,\u201d she writes, \u201c…writing as a career is about networks and privilege, and the rare story of the person who makes it despite it all is rare for a reason – because it just doesn\u2019t happen that often.\u201d This was true about Bessie Head\u2019s life, and struck me so deeply because I know it is true about so many of us writing, investigating, creating, publishing. The task in itself is arduous, but more than that it is lonely and isolating, one has to grapple nearly all the time with a sense of internal exile, to paraphrase Edward Said.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about this more in the context of the current climate of information warfare and historical revisionism that we are living in. Few things are as deadly to the artist as not being able to trust one\u2019s own sense of reality, and this is the situation we find ourselves in, as Charles Onyango-Obbo wrote back in January: \u201cIn Kenya today, most critics of the political establishment are not beaten, jailed or bribed with money and jobs. They are, instead, driven out of their minds, forcing them to careen into frustrated unhinged rants, thus discrediting themselves.\u201d Is there anything more heartbreaking?<\/span><\/p>\n

I lay out this bleak picture to underscore how proud I am of what we\u2019ve been able to achieve in Baraza Media Lab\u2019s first year. We\u2019ll have more of this in the next newsletter (the last one of 2020), but I\u2019m especially uplifted that despite a global pandemic, ongoing structural violence and political dysfunction, those within and adjacent to the Baraza community have been able to do so much – write books, launch podcasts, host masterclasses, grow subscribers, and more. This gives me life – actual, literal life, in a world that is trying to snatch away our life at every turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

More on this in a fortnight, but in the meantime here\u2019s:<\/span><\/p>\n