Monday 25 July 2016

#JusticeForWillie (Poems)

On 23rd June 2016, Willie Kimani (advocate), Josephat Mwenda (a boda boda rider) and Joseph Muiruri ( a taxi cab driver) disappeared and a week later, on 1st July 2016, their bodies were found at Odonyo Sabuk River.

The members of the legal profession in Kenya condemned the killings and staged a one week protest.

These poems were written during that week from July 2nd to 8th July. On 9th July, advocate Willie Kimani was laid to rest.

I wrote the following on 1st July 2016 upon learning of the cruel death of my colleague in the profession, his client and a taxi driver:

Ninalaani mauaji ya wakili Willie Kimani, dereva wa teksi Joseph Muiruri na Josphat Mwenda. Ni sikitiko kubwa kupata taarifa kuwa miili yao imepatikana katika mto wa Oldonyo-Sabuk. Kifo chake wakili Willie Kimani na wenzake kinatuhumiwa kuhusiana na kesi aliyokuwa akiendesha kortini. Tukio hili linazua maswali mengi kuhusiana na huduma za mawakili kortini haswa maisha yao yakiwa hatarini na maadui wa haki. Taifa ambalo linaongozwa na mtutu wa bunduki, vitisho na majangili ni taifa litakalosalia nyuma. Alimradi taifa lenyewe lisipowapa raia wake usalama, ibara za katiba ni kelele mnadani. 

Wakili Kimani hayupo tena.

Ndugu Joseph Muiruri hayupo tena.

Ndugu Josphat Mwenda hayupo tena.

Inaniuma, tena sana.

Makiwa familia, marafiki na mawakili wenzangu.

On 6th July, I participated in my professional body's LSK Protest March to dramatise the shame and righteous indignation of the heinous and callous torture, strangulation and dumping and/or drowning in a river of my fallen colleague Willie Kimani, his client Mwenda and taxi driver Muiruri. The photo below captures the sombre mood.


On that day, I wrote the following:

A day like today, in 1944, Georges Mandel, French patriot, was executed. And a day like this in 1935, Dalai Lama was born. On this day in 1775, the U.S Congress issues a “Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms”.

And today more than 10,000 advocates of the High Court of Kenya will hold a protest march to dramatise the shame and righteous indignation of the heinous and callous torture, strangulation and dumping and/or drowning in a river of Advocate Willie Kimani, a client Mwenda and taxi driver Muiruri.

Today, we demonstrate that what we have are “nice sharp quillets of law” à la Warwick to Lords in Shakespeare’s Play Henry VI. We will march to the temple of justice and solemnly ask the State why Willie's body is lying lifeless in eternal repose in the morgue when he should be donned in a wig and a bib and seeking justice for the others. At the temple of justice, we will ask, what imagery and metaphor should be construed for the blood strewn on the wall at the very temple of justice.
Iustitia!

‪#‎JusticeForWillie‬
‪#‎JusticeForMwendwa‬
‪#‎JusticeForMuiruri‬

#Poem 1- A blotch on our statute book




#Poem 2- here is an empty gown and band


 #Poem 3- I sit here wondering


#Poem 4- The phoenix song


#Poem 5- Thoughts expressed in Kiswahili

the beauty of dancing flames


when leaps of flames lick a school
the cackling sounds of fervour

raising arms in rebellion. when billows of
smoke trumpet fragrance

of education gone awry. isn't it a beautiful
sight to see the ashes of the pretentious edifice

blown by the mocking wind? isn't there magic,
something of hallowed curiosity

in the soot, the ashes of burnt books,
the half-burnt book-shelves

testily saying, 'here, grab this wood'.
that is what happens when education

loses meaning. i used to think incendiary thoughts,
the sparkling flames

of revolutionary ideas or just the pursuit of
knowledge, telling the professor

"i need not useless qualifications but a mind
that can pursue a thought

as a hunter would a deer." but I was wrong.
for when I see these flames

i smile wryly at the astonished look around
and a nation dousing the flames

of a burning academic pretence. but unwittingly
fanning the flames

of testosterone-filled, rogue, 'utado'
generation of students, the mirror images

of a nation that once burnt itself but
whose God's grace doused the flames

at exactly 3 a.m, the Godly hour
when the Divine Will triumphed over

a state that was to-be-no-more. when a coward
runs to you, saying, "look, I will burn

myself!" do you quizzically look at her and say,
" please do it during the day, so that we see

the magic of a walking inferno" or do you
tearfully hug her and say,

"here is a piece of me, if you want to burn yourself
get the petrol and let us both burn

in a pyre." but when twenty cowards
congregate at your doorstep

saying, " we assemble here to burn ourselves
as a protest to the

uselessness of this life." do you get a bakora
and chase them down through the

village square, past the butcher, past
the bookshop, past

the crematorium, where incidentally
they should torch themselves

to let the wind of death blow
their ashes, perhaps in solidarity

to their earthly protest? but what happens
when curious minds, once a tabernacle

of ideas, walk around dazed, seeing beauty
in book-ashes, book-shelf-ashes,

lecture-hall-ashes. anyway, burnt schools
never scare me. What scares me

is that for a long time, our education
has burnt our child-like curiosity

and what we carry in our heads
are ashes: cindered dreams, powdered

cogitations, embers of passivity, charcoals
of dulled yes-yes, relics of shame

that accept untruths, bigotry. isn't it
curious that

the thoughts of flames and ashes
evoke within us

passionate intensity
like a town crier's announcement

in the noon-day of our heightened ignorance.
See those flames? they are

a harbinger of hope. see those ashes? they are
the urn's contents, a reminder of the
hollowness of our education.

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