In praise of brotherhood – and sisterhood too

After reading Godwin Murunga's response to my tirade on Kenyan masculinity, I could not help but remark that I find it uninteresting that Murunga's arguments depend on the exception to the rule rather than the sequence of reasoning that he seeks to refute. He used the same strategy in responding to Keguro Macharia's assessment of Kenyan academic culture by simply providing exceptions to Macharia's concerns without discussing the issues that Macharia raises (see my analysis African Universities should aim to be ivory towers, and proud of it).

I expected Murunga to exercise some good faith by trusting my intellectual capacity to know that of course, there are exceptions to the men I describe. In fact I do mention them in the longer entry on this site which was a revised version of what was posted at Pambazuka News. But even then, the exceptions do not refute the fundamental flaws and values of Kenya that I deplore.

In addition, suggesting that I based my argument on a handful of callers suggests that prior and exterior to the radio show all Kenyan men – without exception – are gentlemen, if not angels. Again, he should have exercised some good faith in assuming that I would not be so careless as to make an assessment based on an isolated radio show. I simply used the male callers as icons of values I know to be still entrenched in Kenyan society after a century of colonialist, traditionalist and racist patriarchy.

If Murunga is criticising my apparent lack of patriotism and airing Kenyan men's dirty linen on the international stage, I am willing to concede that I may have been inappropriate. I am even willing to accept that with the reputation of Kenyan and African men distorted by global racism, my outburst was careless and, as he says, smacked of intellectual laziness.

If such is the case, the tone and argument of his article reflect the typical expectation of African and black women to hold on to their questions about gender equity and support the men first until the ‘larger’ issues of liberation, or in this case democracy, are obtained.

Finally, as I mentioned in the revised edition of my comment on Kenyan masculinity, I believe in some form of collective responsibility. I referred to the 20 or so men (the number was not that high) as a sample, or even as a symbol, of dominant patriarchal values in Kenya. The response I expect from men who believe they treat women responsibly and humanely is to tell their brothers and teach their sons to do the same, as groups of men for gender equality do. That was what the Million Man March was all about – assuming collective responsibility for what some do in the name of an identity that includes many. It is not enough for men to plead that they are not as bad as some of their brothers. That is a trite – if not bourgeois – concern with personal righteousness that is largely irrelevant when we are talking about structuralised oppression. In any case, surely I was not expected to wait until the ten or so million Kenyan men are interviewed before I could voice an opinion!

As Murunga insinuates, I am an elite – just as much as he is, by the way – and I may not have suffered what the majority of Kenyan women suffer. But that does not make me so inhuman as not to empathise with the sufferings of fellow women, no matter their nationality. More than that, I am the product of struggle of many women and men before me, and so I bear that legacy with pride and I am not ashamed. Many women, including my grandmother, would have loved to go to school like I did. It would be a disservice to them if I just shut up; they did not work hard just for me to keep quiet. In any case, must I suffer gender oppression to identify it as such? And what will other women leaders before me have struggled for if I have to go through the same thing? I am simply picking the baton from them – I am not starting the race they started. To do so would negate their history and the brilliant work they have already done. Expecting me to go through the same oppression they triumphantly struggled against in order to justify myself as an ‘authentic’ African non-feminist woman would be like saying that doctors can only treat malaria if they suffered from the disease, because by doing so they qualify by knowing what it feels like to have malaria.

And isn't it interesting that the question of elitism often crops up when addressing educated African women, but rarely is it used to distinguish the different backgrounds of African men? Raila Odinga is seen as a man of the people despite riding on the waves of family history. He is not considered the elitist, born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-the-mouth German-trained engineer that he is. But come Wangari Maathai – she has to explain the fact that she is not representative of most Kenyan women.

Long story short, Murunga's analysis was a defence based on a critique of what I did not say, rather than an actual engagement of what I actually said.

All the same, I acknowledge Murunga's rebuke and praise all those Kenyan brothers who know there is no joy in oppressing a fellow human being just because she is a woman. From my father and brother whom I boast about in another article Quiet Days and Loving Nights, to my male colleagues with whom I enjoy conversations and whose ideas were actually incorporated in the article, I say: may God bless you. Incidentally, my article was not inspired by feminists as Murunga suggests. As I said, I did not even think much of the sex boycott by the women leaders, who might also not be open to the feminist label as he suggests. I was, in fact, inspired by Professor Amuka's brilliant article Fundamentalism and the search for human(e) order, in which he examines tolerance across the gender divide, among others. It is he who said: ‘It should also be noted that Kenya is a male-dominated and unashamedly male-ruled country. The struggle for power at the political level is thus largely a male affair replete with phallic symbolism...Other phallic symbols than the gun include arrows, spears, knives and pangas. But perhaps the most potent one is the male organ. Many Kenyans circumcise men in childhood, a few do not. Quite a few male politicians are known to use such differences to rally their ethnic subjects against other communities.’

Now, that incisiveness is well spoken from the depths of true brotherhood. I would like to spread it throughout Kenya to the ends of the earth.

* This article first appeared in The Zeleza Post.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.