Muthoni Thangwa

Author: muthonithangwa

  • The Evolution of Global Beauty Standards: Privilege, Power, Pageants and clarity of thought.

    The Miss Universe competition! In an era where women have made significant strides across science, politics, business, and culture, it remains surprising that a global pageant continues to frame female achievement through physical display.

    The contestants are asked to articulate their views and demonstrate intellect; however, the underlying structure still relies on spectacle, and women are primarily presented, judged, and ranked through their appearance.

    While global perceptions of beauty have undeniably broadened, moving beyond the narrow, porcelain-doll ideal to embrace deeply melaninated and diverse forms of beauty, long-standing stereotypes continue to exert a powerful gravitational pull. They draw women back into a pageant format still rooted in historical notions of worth, visibility, and external validation.

    In 2025, the controversy deepened when reports emerged of an incident involving the pageant’s organiser and Miss Mexico, during which he allegedly directed verbal abuse at the contestant. According to multiple accounts, the exchange prompted Miss Mexico to withdraw from the competition, a decision that drew widespread public attention and raised serious questions about the culture within the pageant’s leadership.

    The incident also revived long-standing allegations and rumours surrounding the organiser, including claims related to trafficking that have circulated in the media and public discourse over the years. Complicating the narrative further were public interpretations that Miss Mexico’s stance reflected a certain advantage: the mental acuity, access to information, and the courage required to speak the truth.

    While such readings remain interpretive rather than verifiable, they raise an important point: a woman’s capacity to dissent within highly regulated global platforms is shaped less by status and more by clarity of thought, awareness, and moral resolve.

    Seen in context, the incident involving Miss Mexico is not an isolated failure of individual conduct, but a reflection of the deeper architecture of beauty pageants themselves. The Miss Universe competition was founded in 1952, a time when business and media profited by exploiting women as visual entertainment. Femininity was marketed, packaged and sold in advertising and for male approval.

    At its inception, the pageant positioned women as representatives of national pride while subjecting them psychologically to private systems of control, contractual obedience, and hierarchical judgment.

    The system reminds me of the unmistakable imprint of inherited bigotry. Groups that were once subjected to discrimination and forced labour as commoners in Europe carried those same hierarchical logics into other continents, recreating serf-like systems in Africa, Australia, and the Americas. In this context, invoking white privilege as a conscious justification for bigotry reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the term itself, which was intended to describe unconscious, structural advantage, very similar to the setting up of pageants.

    Though the competition has since incorporated the language of empowerment, advocacy, and intellect, its foundational logic remains largely intact; women are still curated, disciplined, and evaluated within a framework that privileges appearance and compliance. Like colonisation and slavery, a great deal has changed in words, but the fundamental systems remain the same.

    Many contestants enter with clear intentions: visibility, scholarships, career access, or a platform for causes they care deeply about. In a world that continues to reward women’s bodies more readily than their labour, pageants can appear as pragmatic, if imperfect, avenues to opportunity. Yet individual agency operates within structural limits. When advancement is tethered to appearance, obedience, and silence in the face of misconduct, choice becomes constrained.

    Controversy did not end there. During one of the live segments, another contestant; Ms. Jamaica, Dr. Gabrielle Henry, suffered a visible fall while walking on stage. The moment, captured and circulated widely online, raised concerns about stage safety, production standards, and the pressures placed on contestants to perform flawlessly under physically demanding conditions. This served as a stark reminder of the risks embedded in a spectacle that prioritises visual perfection and pace over the well-being of the women participating in it.

    The question, then, is not simply why women still participate in pageants, but under what conditions that participation occurs. Agency and coercion are not opposites; they often coexist. Many contestants enter willingly, fully aware of the compromises involved, because the alternatives offered to women, particularly those from less-resourced backgrounds, are limited. Visibility, mobility, and access remain unevenly distributed, and pageants continue to promise a shortcut through those barriers. When a system rewards compliance, aesthetic conformity, and silence while penalising dissent, participation can no longer be read as pure choice. It is a negotiation shaped by power, scarcity, and the enduring expectation that women must adapt themselves to flawed institutions to be seen.

    The question, then, facing pageants like Miss Universe is no longer how they can be restructured, but whether they remain relevant at all. A world that has learned to value women’s leadership, creativity, labour, and intellect does not need a staged hierarchy of bodies to validate female worth.

    Platforms for visibility now exist, which do not require women to submit to spectacle or silence in exchange for opportunity. When an institution must repeatedly rebrand itself to mask its original logic, perhaps the most honest response is to acknowledge that beauty pageants, as they are currently structured, have reached the end of their cultural usefulness.

  • The Museum Scandal Nobody Wants to Talk About!

    How Museums Launder Looted Heritage and Get Away With It

    The New York Times recently carried the headline: “Met Returns Buddhist Painting Taken During the Korean War.” It sounds noble at first glance. It isn’t. The painting, stolen from a South Korean temple, was only returned after quietly sitting in the Met’s collection since 2007. That temple, at the time the piece “went missing,” was under the control of the United States Army.

    This isn’t restitution; it’s housekeeping. A museum caught with an object it should never have touched in the first place, now performing moral theatre because the evidence is finally too loud to ignore.

    The framing of the headline is twisted on multiple levels. The language alone reveals the rot. Met might be anybody, except one of the world’s finest art museums. It quietly normalizes a neo-colonial worldview where Western museums remain the unquestioned custodians of other people’s heritage. Institutions in Europe and America are still practicing colonialism, unapologetic and ongoing, where the institution is protected at all costs, even when the objects inside were acquired through violence, coercion, or outright theft.

    The media, instead of interrogating this, often reinforces it. When looted objects appear in Western museums, headlines say they were “taken” or “went missing”: passive, harmless verbs that wash the blood off the story. But when those same museums lose objects, as the Louvre did recently, the wording changes instantly. Suddenly the objects are “stolen.” Theft is only theft when it inconveniences the powerful.

    The Korean War ended in 1953. That is not ancient history. By then, Interpol had already existed for nearly thirty years, loudly pledging to protect cultural institutions from theft. What it never pledged, then or now, was to hold museums accountable when they were the ones benefiting from those thefts.

    This is how museums continue to enjoy a strange low vibration kind of ethical exceptionalism. They insist on operating under “high ethical standards,” yet quietly exempt themselves from those same standards when it comes to acquiring or keeping looted objects. And for decades, they have fueled the illicit trade directly. Every time a museum pays a staggering sum for a questionable piece, it rewards the thieves, incentivizes fresh looting, and strengthens the criminal networks behind it. These transactions aren’t neutral; they are the financial engine and the immoral agency that keeps stolen heritage circulating through the global market with the veneer of legitimacy.

    Museums rarely “discover” that an object is stolen through their own provenance research. That is a myth they like to tell. In reality, they are usually caught. It happens when scholars, curators, or experts walk through an exhibition and immediately recognize a piece that should never have left its homeland. Only then do museums suddenly “offer” to return it; framing the act as generosity rather than compliance. By that point, the damage is done. The looter has already been paid, the illicit network has already profited, and the museum has already enjoyed years of prestige from displaying the object under its protective institutional umbrella. Restitution becomes a PR exercise, not an ethical stance.

    In the debate on repatriation, one of the fiercest forms of resistance has always been around reparations. Not the philosophical kind; the practical kind. Communities whose heritage was stolen are expected to receive their objects back quietly and gratefully, even though the theft deprived them of generations of cultural, spiritual, and economic value. And when museums finally return these objects, they rarely come with restoration budgets, conservation funds, or even basic support. Nothing to repair the harm. Nothing to acknowledge the decades, sometimes centuries, of damage. The institution that was caught handling stolen goods simply hands back the item, untouched, unfunded, and unaccounted for.

    They fail or refuse, to disclose where it was bought, from whom, or through what chain of transactions. Every step in the chain of thieves is trackable, yet the museum treats it as irrelevant, as if a simple handback absolves them of all responsibility. And all the while, the authorities remain silent, letting the system operate unchecked.

    The most disturbing part is that these are not isolated incidents. They are routine. Museums like the Metropolitan are repeatedly caught with looted objects, and each time it is framed as an unfortunate oversight rather than a systemic failure. But let’s be honest: once should be enough. A single proven case of handling stolen heritage should trigger a complete audit, accountability measures, and structural reform. Instead, the pattern continues; quiet acquisitions, louder scandals, and no meaningful consequences. The repetition isn’t accidental; it’s the system working exactly as it was designed.

    What we are dealing with is not a series of unfortunate mistakes. It is an ecosystem built on entitlement, denial, and the steady laundering of other people’s histories. Western museums have spent decades positioning themselves as guardians of the world’s culture while quietly benefiting from the very violence, chaos, and colonial extraction they claim to condemn. Returning a few objects under pressure does not absolve them. Offering apologies without accountability does not repair the harm. And repatriation without restitution is simply another way of maintaining control.

    If museums are sincere about ethics, then the standard is simple: full transparency, full audits, full cooperation, and full compensation. Anything less is performance. The world is no longer fooled by polished statements and symbolic gestures. Communities know what was taken, how it was taken, and what that loss has cost them. The question now is whether these institutions are finally willing to confront their own history, or whether they will continue to hide behind the same tired narratives while the truth keeps surfacing, object by object; scandal by scandal.

    The era of unchallenged ethical exceptionalism is ending. It is time for museums to decide whether they will evolve, or be exposed, repeatedly, by the very history they tried to bury.

  • The National Theatre as a stage for selling amnesia forward!

    Mashujaa in Tutu Skirts!

    Over the weekend, I attended Tales of Mashujaa at the National Theatre. Before the show began, a pre-event unfolded outside the venue, an unexpected yet captivating blend of opera and celebration. It was a refreshing reminder that the National Theatre can be more than a performance space; it can serve as a cultural crossroads, bringing together different expressions of our society.

    I was joined by a colleague from the Republic of Tatarstan, whose fascination with the performance enhanced my own experience. He had not expected to enjoy an opera performance, yet found himself completely drawn in. Moments like these remind us that art transcends language and culture, speaking directly to our shared humanity.

    Then we went in to watch Mashujaa and the fusion quickly turned into confusion. First, a mzungu delivered an unusually long introduction. Mashujaa wa Kenya introduced by a mzungu is, frankly, a mockery of the colonial question and of our ongoing struggle to define who or what a hero in Kenya truly is. Any enactment of our heroes or heroism in this land or any country that has been colonized, cannot and should never include any representation of the colonial memory, not even in skin colour.

    To make matters worse, the lady was dressed in a short, white skirt. I often wonder if performers realise that, on a theatre stage, the audience is quite literally seated beneath them. Eeeh, nitachia hapo!

    This particular skit was staged by Dance Centre Kenya, and I would give it a four out of ten. Three of those points go purely to the children, because, honestly, kids perform what they’re told, and they did so with commendable earnestness. The remaining one point? That’s for simply making it to the National Theatre, where, I imagine, some well-meaning bureaucrat stamped approval on the confusion.

    The so-called fusion of music was another story altogether, a tangle of instrumentals with drum sounds that refused to commit to any rhythm. I hesitate to call them beats, because African drumbeats, real ones, make your body move before your mind even agrees. These, however, were limp. If such a thing as a limp drumbeat exists, this was it.

    The children danced with ballerina steps throughout the entire play. Mashujaa drawn from our community mythologies gliding delicately across the stage, as if our heroes had traded spears to audition for a European stage. It was painful to watch. The play was said to have been produced by Kenyans educated in the West, which made me once again question what truly constitutes a “good” education.

    The entire production was filtered through a colonial lens and it didn’t even attempt to hide it. How else does one explain a white child standing with her foot over the body of a black child, spear in hand? It was a shameless display, perpetuating the same old stories that have long diminished us. To stage that in the name of Mashujaa was not just tone-deaf; it was tragicomic.

    It was also curious to note that this narrated, ballerina-mime; whatever that hybrid was, had mostly mzungu children carrying spears, while the African kids clutched sticks. I couldn’t tell whether this was a safety precaution (using again the mzungu lens) or a deeper metaphor for how power is still assumed to be distributed, even in play. Perhaps it was simpler than that; maybe African parents refused to buy spears for a theatre production. I know I wouldn’t have. My mother wouldn’t have either. And my grandmother? She’d have slapped anyone who dared ask for her spear to go on stage. As for the men, my father, my grandfather; let’s just say, for everyone’s peace, we’ll keep violence out of this conversation.

    Now, let me get to the worst part of the play. If it hadn’t been performed by children, I would have given it a negative one and that’s only because it was staged at the National Theatre. Which raises a serious question: how exactly do we vet who can or should host events in this national space?

    The narrators read the script like ten-year-olds cramming for an exam they didn’t understand. There was no passion, no lift of the eyes from the paper, not even for a heartbeat. It baffled me beyond belief. They sounded as though they were encountering the script for the very first time, right there on stage.

    But the deal breaker was the pronunciation of African names, twisted through the English alphabet until meaning and music were both lost. Mugo wa Kibiru was read literally, and Kimnyole arap Turukat nearly escaped my comprehension altogether until I checked the programme. The only African name pronounced understandable was Gor Mahia. I do not think it is because they respected the name, but because of the football team, we have all heard the name so many times it left no room error. I am sure those who watched the performance narrated by John Sibi Okumu had a much better experience here.

    The realization that art, in some sectors of our society, has become a mirror of the very power structures we claim to resist is unsettling. The National Theatre, once meant to be a space for imagination and truth-telling, now reflects our collective amnesia. When our children cannot re-enact our stories without borrowed footsteps or foreign-approved rhythms, we begin to erase the memory of our heroes. Perhaps it is time to stop clapping and start remembering. If neo-colonialism ever sneaks upon us, let it come through politics or trade, not through the quiet vessel of our children.

    We are selling amnesia forward, neatly packed as arts and progress.

  • Beyond coloured paper: African Leaders are Breaking Old Chains

    A new chapter in post-colonial history – Africa is challenging colonial economies

    Africa continues to navigate a contradictory and often very conflicted post-colonial landscape. Decades after independence, the continent still finds itself entangled in structures and systems that echo colonial control.

    There is a need to decolonise most of our inherited systems, from our economies to heritage institutions, our belief systems to our ways of worship. Africa’s economies are shaped by external interests, our heritage institutions curated through borrowed lenses, and even our belief systems and ways of worship reconfigured to mirror worlds not our own.

    The result is a profound disorientation. So many distortions of history exist that many Africans can no longer tell what the true African story is. Our past has been fragmented, rewritten, and often silenced, leaving us with borrowed narratives that fail to capture who we are.

    I was first introduced to the uncomfortable but necessary idea that charities in Africa often perpetuate poverty rhetoric and reinforce dependency on the West through the powerful words of Mallence Bart-Williams. She reminded us that the story of Africa is not simply one of need and lack, but of abundance, resilience, and agency. Yet, for as long as we accept externally imposed definitions of who we are, we risk being trapped in cycles of dependency, distortion and extortion.

    The first time I listened to a TED Talk by Mallence Bart-Williams, I was overwhelmed by conflicting emotions—anger, frustration, even a trace of ridicule. It was difficult to tell which feeling outweighed the others.

    On that podcast, Mallence begins by proudly declaring that she comes from the most beautiful continent in the world, and on this point, I agree with her, fully and without hesitation. She is from Sierra Leone, a country endowed with fertile lands that produce coffee, cocoa, fruits, and vegetables, alongside exquisite timber such as mahogany and teak.

    Sierra Leone, like many other African countries, is also rich in natural resources: gold, diamonds, petroleum reserves, and over 20 other precious minerals. It holds the largest iron ore deposits in Africa, and the third-largest in the world. These resources are not just statistics; they are the very backbone of global industry and modern living. The West depends on Africa’s wealth to power aeroplanes, manufacture cell phones and computers, and adorn itself with the symbols of status and power – gold and diamonds.

    She asks the multi-million-dollar question: Why is it that African currencies are worth only a fraction of Western currencies, when it is Africa that holds the gold reserves?

    The dependency is not what we have been told. Africa does not depend on the West: the West depends on Africa. This imbalance is maintained by destabilizing Africa’s richest nations and masking the truth through massive PR campaigns. These campaigns, often fronted by so-called charitable organisations, push the narrative that Africans are starving and dying, at war with each other and helplessly in need of saving.

    Meanwhile, Africa continues to exchange her vast resources, gold, diamonds, and more, for coloured paper. But what if Africa sold her resources at true world market prices, in a market where the producer sets the rules, as is customary in world markets? What would happen to Western economies that have been built on a post-colonial system that is deeply anchored in ne0-colonialism?

    To reclaim Africa’s story, the continent must be intentional about unlearning what it has been fed and relearning our histories from within. This means amplifying African voices, interrogating the ways our institutions are structured, and critically re-examining the frameworks: economic, cultural, and spiritual, that govern our daily lives.

    A new brand of leadership in West African countries has started re-writing the African narrative. In 2023, Burkina Faso, under President Ibrahim Traoré, terminated its military agreement with France and demanded the withdrawal of French troops, asserting sovereignty in both defense and monetary affairs. Shortly after, Niger’s military government ordered French forces to leave, including those guarding strategic uranium mines that have long fueled France’s nuclear energy industry while contributing little to Niger’s own development. Chad, too, announced in 2024 that it would not renew defense accords that kept French troops stationed on its soil.

    Many other West African nations have begun taking strong stands against lingering colonial economic ties to France. Under the CFA Franc system, 14 countries have been required to deposit a large share of their foreign reserves into French-controlled accounts, in colonial debt repayment systems that defy all logic, effectively subsidising French economic stability.

    There are those who will argue that these events: the withdrawal of French troops, the rejection of colonial debt arrangements, and the pushback against the CFA franc, are not directly related to France’s current economic woes. But the fact remains: time is re-writing the African narrative. A new generation of leaders is emerging, unafraid to confront the old order and determined to reclaim sovereignty over their nations’ resources, economies, and identities. Their interventions mark not just a political shift, but a historical turning point for Africa. This is starting to look like decolonization.

  • Who Owns the City Centre?: Restoring Safety in the Heart of Nairobi

    Reclaiming security for the city

    There was a time when I recall Nairobi’s city centre feeling truly safe. Kenyans went about their business with the usual wariness that comes with any big city. The public operated relatively freely, accepting minor risks as part of the urban vibe and drill of life.

    That uneasy balance has now been dramatically altered by reports of gangs of youth and street families taking over the streets, even in broad daylight. In just the past week, several Kenyans have shared disturbing accounts of robberies in the Nairobi Central Business District, some brazenly carried out in broad daylight, particularly over the weekends. Knife-wielding goons and teenage gangs carrying human waste are now threatening the peace of commuters, shoppers, and visitors alike.

    What was once background noise in the city’s rhythm has become a loud warning alarm. A secure city is measured by how well it protects its people. Nairobi is rapidly losing its standard, and it is doing so quickly. Building security and freedom for city users takes a long time, but that confidence can be eroded in a few incidents.

    One of the biggest disadvantages of insecurity in the city for me is the constant fear it creates every time one has an errand to run. Walking around clutching your bag, often having to empty it to a bare minimum, is a stress-filled experience. A standard woman’s bag has many things that may never be used, but on the day one leaves them behind is the day we need them.

    The consequences are wide-reaching. Residents live with constant anxiety and they restrict their movement. Businesses lose customers as people avoid certain streets or those businesses close early for safety. Tourists and investors, already cautious, will start to see Nairobi as high-risk, damaging both the economy and the city’s reputation and image.

    One of the hallmarks of a great city is its ability to protect people; when that is lost, everything else, commerce, culture, and community, begins to crumble. Sadly, Nairobi is sliding down this path, losing ground on safety faster than many had expected. Fear is once again shaping how people use the city.

    The big question now is, does urban safety always have to be a balance between human protection and public order? In the last few years, Nairobi’s streets have been overflowing with hawkers and their merchandise, leaving pedestrians with little space to navigate their activities including walking. The streets were markets for fruits and vegetables, cloths and even electronics, that often blocked entrances to city building or made their access quite troublesome.

    These street markets made movement difficult and inconvenienced motorists as pedestrians traffic spill into city roads as shoppers tried to negotiate their way on the busy pavements. Thought the subtle danger of pickpockets lingered, the human population formed a protective shield against any real danger.

    City authorities have eventually pushed the hawkers back into designated city back streets, restoring order and flow of human traffic and motorists in the central business district. But now, in the absence of hawkers, criminal gangs are moving in to fill the vacuum. The question is stark: must Nairobi choose between disorderly but relatively harmless hawkers or gangs that openly threaten the safety of everyone who passes through the city center?

    Nairobi cannot afford to gamble with the safety of its people. A city that fails to protect its residents and visitors loses more than its reputation; it risks losing the very things that make it a living, functioning city: its people, its businesses, its culture, and its energy.

    The warning signs are already clear on our streets. Unless decisive action is taken to reclaim the city centre, insecurity will continue to spread, eroding public trust and driving both business and visitors away. The choice is simple: restore security now, or watch Nairobi’s heart collapse under the weight of fear.

    Reclaiming Nairobi’s security will require more than public outcry, it demands action. The city must increase visible policing, dismantle criminal gangs, and invest in better lighting and surveillance. At the same time, authorities need to work with each other, the policy and the county government, businesses and even hawkers to restore order while pushing the criminals into the shadows where crime thrives. Unless Nairobi confronts both the criminals on its streets and the weaknesses within its policing, the city centre will remain a place of fear rather than a hub of commerce and community.

  • She Spoke German without History

    She thought there are Africans who look upon colonisation with nostalgia!

    I thought I had heard it all—until, in 2024! We were in Germany as part of the MuseumLab programme, a curated platform that brings together African and European heritage practitioners for dialogue, collaboration, and critique on museums and the heritage sector in both continents. 

    During one session, a young African woman spoke proudly of her German heritage. That made me physically wince. However, what followed cut even deeper: she stated that some people in Cameroon recall the German colonial period with nostalgia. The room stiffened with various reactions. Some looked at the floor; others started searching in their bags, as if for lost treasure, while a number stood and headed for the coffee table. The discomfort was palpable. Her words bruised my spirit, as if I had lived through that colonial experience myself. I looked at her for the first time – looked at her.

    Many wild thoughts were running through my mind, scrambling around like restless feet on a tin roof. But one kept rising above the noise: I wanted to lock this African somewhere, to isolate her, but to give her light, sunshine, until she could think again. It wasn’t disdain. It was heartbreak. Because what she had just said was not an opinion, it was evidence of brainwashing. Evidence of historical amnesia, of how colonisation not only stole land and bodies but rewrote memory itself.

    It was a painful reminder of how deeply manufactured memoryhas burrowed into our consciousness, convincing some among us that the oppressor brought order, when in fact he brought rupture. Romanticizing colonization is not just a travesty, a betrayal of historyandancestors, it is also forgetting oneself, in the quest to be like ‘those others’. It speaks to the danger of a people who no longer recognise the chains that still shackle Africa culturally, economically and socially. Such people have trained their minds to call the chains bracelets.

    The speaker came to Germany as a child. It was clear that the country doesn’t teach any African history. Fair enough – until recently, the history that was taught in Kenyan schools was often stripped of its messiness and violence. Children were told of explorers who ‘discovered’ mountains and rivers that Kenyan communities had interacted with for millennia.  But here, the silence felt heavier.

    I wondered what takes root in a historical vacuum? How do people, like that speaker, Africans raised in Europe, without the tools to interrogate or process historical facts presented through the lens of someone else?. People who speak with certainty, but from a place of omission. Her nostalgia for German colonization didn’t seem rooted in malice. It sounded almost pitiful, like it came from an emptiness, an absence where something vital should have been.

    As she spoke, I watched the room. No one said a word. Not the Germans, not the Africans. There was no applause, no challenge, only a silence so heavy it felt complicit. This was the saddest part. Because silence, in moments like this, is not neutrality – it is endorsement. The presenter, who had spoken of cassettes as if they were some prehistoric discovery, may have walked away thinking she had delivered a successful talk. She may have believed she had represented the African voice with clarity. But the truth was quieter, and more haunting: the Africans in the room decided not to engage. She had gone too far, too far from truth, too far from self, for any meaningful recourse. And we, out of weariness or protection, chose not to waste precious hours trying to bring her back.

    We were visiting African heritage practitioners; she was going to remain in Germany. We could not save her, and we knew it. Her mind had already been claimed by another story, one we could not rewrite in a single afternoon. So we chose to save ourselves. The irony is that even the Germans remained silent. The organisers had probably anticipated a spirited resistance, at least some reaction. As for the Germans, I’m still not sure what was expected of them. And I’ve always wondered what, if anything, was said among them once the event ended. If silence held any discomfort. Or if it, too, was just routine.

    Colonialism does not simply vanish over time – it mutates, hides in school curricula, reappears in street names, and sometimes, finds voice in those it once oppressed. What happened in that room was not a debate about historical nuance; it was the echo of a violent erasure. And when we fail to teach African children their own histories, whether in Europe or in Africa, we raise generations fluent in the language of their colonisers, but illiterate in the truths of their nations and people.

  • The Day the Road Forgot My Name

    The Day My Father Forgot—Caregiving and Memory Loss in an African Family

    Prof. Bwisa was afraid. Not in the immediate, frantic way one fears fire or falling, but in the quiet, creeping manner of something unnamed—something the mind touches, then recoils from. He could not quite say what unsettled him. Perhaps it was the sudden stillness that accompanied retirement. Or the unnerving way days now folded into each other without the familiar structure of lectures, student consultations, and senate meetings.

    Back in 1982, when he first joined Kenyatta University as a young lecturer, the notion of retirement at seventy had sounded almost comedic. A distant line on the horizon. He had watched colleagues peel away—some to chase business ventures, others to write books they never finished, or tend to farms they had long neglected. To Prof. Bwisa, their departure had seemed premature, even indulgent. “I have found my calling,” he would say, with the characteristic certainty of a man for whom work was identity. “What could be nobler than moulding young minds at the summit of intellectual pursuit?”

    But now, seated in a small, unfamiliar restaurant with sunlight streaming in through grimy windows, that certainty felt as brittle as the rim of his teacup.

    Five months earlier, he had paid a courtesy visit to Dr. Wanguyu, his old colleague and long-time friend, on the eve of his retirement. “I’m leaving the university next week,” he had said with a casual smile. “Thought I’d get a full medical check-up before they cut off the staff insurance.” He had chuckled at his own foresight.

    Dr. Wanguyu had obliged. The tests had been routine—until they weren’t. At the tail end of the consultation, the good doctor had taken off his spectacles and looked at him with that unsettling mixture of compassion and caution reserved for delivering news that changes the axis of a life.

    “Prof,” he’d said gently, “I believe you may be experiencing the onset of dementia.”

    “Me?” Bwisa had laughed, incredulous.

    “Yes, you,” Wanguyu had replied, not unkindly.

    What the professor hadn’t realised was that during their conversation, he had repeated the same questions—word for word—several times. He would ask about his blood pressure, be answered, and then a few minutes later ask again. And again.

    Wanguyu had remained jovial, careful not to injure his pride. “I’m not putting you on anything heavy just yet,” he’d said. “But here’s a dietary recommendation that may help slow the process. Omega-3s, memory-friendly greens, hydration. Keep the mind stimulated, you know the drill.”

    The professor had folded the list without a glance and never spoke of it again—not to his wife, not to his children, not even to the trusted house help who had known him since the children were in primary school.

    Now here he was, five months on, staring into a half-empty cup of tea in a town he did not recognise.

    He had no idea how he had arrived here. The name of the place escaped him. He remembered leaving the house early that morning, briefcase in hand, intending to visit the post office. But somewhere along the way, his sense of direction, usually reliable to the point of arrogance, had betrayed him.

    Still, not wanting to look confused, he had walked confidently into the small café, taken a seat by the window, and ordered chapati and tea. The waitress had asked him something he hadn’t quite caught, and rather than admit it, he had simply smiled and nodded. It was only when she left that the cold panic set in.

    He did not know the name of this restaurant.
    He did not know the street outside.

    He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, placed it on the table like an offering. Maybe it would ring. Maybe a familiar voice would reset his mind, remind him who he was, why he was here.

    But the phone stayed silent.

    What arrived instead was tea and two chapatis.

    “I didn’t ask for two,” he muttered.

    He forgot he was lost and bit into one chapati. It was excellent. Flaky, warm. He finished it and ordered another helping. But when it came, a strange heaviness anchored itself in his stomach. He couldn’t eat. He stared at the food, unsettled.

    The waitress eventually came over with the bill. He looked at her sharply.

    “I didn’t eat your chapati. My wife, Eva, feeds me well. I don’t need chapati from strangers.”

    Two young men, seated nearby, had been watching. One of them, curious and a little concerned, came over. After listening quietly, he took out his wallet and paid the bill without fuss.

    Then he turned to the older man, gently:
    “Is there someone I can call for you, sir?”

    Professor Bwisa’s face twitched.

    “I don’t know, James. I have to get home before your mother starts worrying.”

    The young man paused, a lump forming in his throat. He looked down at the phone left on the table and pressed redial.

    “Dad, where are you?” a voice answered, on the first ring, urgent. I have been trying to reach you.

    “Dad, where are you?”
    A voice picked up on the first ring—urgent, breathless.
    “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
    “I’m not your father,” the young man said gently. “There’s an elderly gentleman here. He says his name is Professor Bwisa. He seems… confused.”
    “And where is here?”
    “A restaurant in Nanyuki.”
    There was a pause, then:
    “Do me a favour, please. My name is James Bwisa—his son. My father left home this morning to visit the post office in Lower Kabete. I have no idea how he ended up in Nanyuki. Would you stay with him? I’m driving up from Nairobi now to fetch him.”
    “Of course. My grandfather had the same problem before he passed last year,” said the young man. “I’m happy to help.”

    He turned back to the professor, pulled out a chair, and smiled.
    “My name is Oluoch—but everyone calls me Simba.”
    Something about that amused the professor.
    “Simba, as in lion?” he chuckled, suddenly at ease, as if Simba were an old friend.

    Simba called over his companion, and the three sat together.
    “So, Professor—what do you do?”
    That lit the match. The professor launched into stories—hilarious, winding tales about students who butchered grammar in exams, half-baked PhD theses, missing punctuation that had caused academic catastrophes. The boys roared with laughter.

    One and a half hours later, James arrived—having driven at record speed from Nairobi.
    His father looked up, eyes bright, face alive with animation.
    “James! Meet my students—the clever ones.”

    James watched them laughing — his father, animated, his arms slicing through the air as he recounted the tale of a student who once defined “epistemology” as a stomach condition. The two strangers were in stitches, encouraging him, prompting more. There was something heartbreakingly dignified about it all — a once-brilliant man slipping into confusion, yet still masterful in the realm he knew best. The world had shifted beneath his father’s feet, but his voice still carried authority, still lit up a room.

    He thanked Oluoch—Simba—and his friend. The handshake was firm, their eyes warm. “It’s nothing,” Simba said. “It’s what we do.”

    What we do.

    As he helped his father into the car, James felt the weight of inheritance—not land or wealth, but responsibility. And tenderness. On the drive back to Nairobi, the old man dozed off mid-sentence, his head tilting towards the window. James gripped the steering wheel tighter, unsure whether to cry or laugh.

    How strange, he thought, that forgetting could reveal a man so clearly. That in the unraveling, you see the threads that held him together all along.

    He reached for the volume knob, turned the music low, and whispered, “ I’ll remember for the both of us, baba.

  • No Pets Allowed: But What About People Who Need Them?

    Caregivers, Quiet Discrimination, and the Illusion of peace!

    I live in a community that has rules. Reasonable, right? Except these rules revealed themselves slowly—quietly—like a trapdoor under a welcome mat. It started with a photo of a kitten posted in the residents’ WhatsApp group. The kitten was adorable. But the mood turned quickly. “Against the rules,” someone said. My civic-minded self asked, “What rules?” A representative from the management company dutifully posted a list. I didn’t read most of it—but one line jumped out like a slap: “No pets allowed.”

    And just like that, I had a dose of outrage bloom in me.

    I had two immediate questions:
    Do I live in a community that is designed to exclude the vulnerable?
    Would a visually impaired resident with a guide dog be told they don’t belong?
    Would a child who needs an emotional support animal be deemed a policy violation?

    The response from the group? Swift and surgical.
    “This is exactly why I moved here—I don’t like pets.”
    And that, right there, is the problem. Not the dislike of animals. But the weaponized apathy.

    The mighty, indifferent to vulnerability, came out guns blazing to defend their comfort. No reflection. No nuance. No pause to ask—what does this mean for someone other than me?

    I couldn’t help but wonder:
    What level of ignorance allows a community to design itself around convenience while actively shutting out anyone who lives differently?What kind of person is so threatened by say a Gold fish in a sealed jar in someone else’s house?

    We talk about inclusion as if it’s a poster, a slogan, or a campaign. But this—this is where it starts. In the fine print. In the silence of rules. In the hearts of people who have convinced themselves that they cannot imagine another person’s life.

    One of my neighbors messaged me, half-joking: “Do you even have a pet?”
    “No,” I replied, “but I have a brain that can imagine someone who needs one—out of necessity.”

    It was shortly after that exchange that I began to really see my surroundings.
    There was a child on my block who, every evening at nearly the same time, banged on a window restrainer. The sound was jarring, repetitive, impossible to ignore. At first, I was simply irritated. But then, I noticed the pattern—intentional, rhythmic, it became familiar.

    It dawned on me that this might be a child with needs that differ from what society calls “normal.” And in that moment, I changed the way I heard that banging.

    I decided it would become music to me. A part of the sonic texture of this place, no different from the soft, occasional sound of a neighbour’s musical instrument—I think it’s an organ. When they play, it’s like heaven. I often wish they would play it more. Daily, in fact. It soothes deeply.

    And it struck me: what if we trained ourselves to hear difference not as disruption, but as part of the human chorus? What if instead of designing communities that shut out the inconvenient, we softened our hearing—so that empathy could find a small space in our minds?

    It didn’t take long before I met the child—the beautiful interrupter of my ‘normal.’ I suspect he’s the one behind the music of window restrainer -bangs. I say suspect, because I don’t really know. And here, I am as guilty as anyone else—drawing conclusions based on sound and timing. It might be him. It might not.

    I was out in the yard, hanging laundry, when a skinny boy came splashing through puddles left by the rain. He was utterly absorbed in the water, joyful in a way that felt ancient and grounding. I greeted him. He didn’t respond. He just looked at me—his eyes wide with something between curiosity and watchfulness. But also… something else.

    There was a certain purity in his gaze. A soulfulness that said without words: I am not like the others—and I don’t need to be.

    A few steps behind him was his father. Distant enough to give the boy space, but close enough to watch over him. A gentle tether. The father nodded a greeting, and I—carefully, respectfully—asked if the child had a condition.

    “Autism,” he said, simply.
    His eyes asked a quiet question: How did you know?

    In that moment, I wanted To say, I hear him. I hear this little window banger – music maker. And I see you – the way you walk far enough to give him freedom and close enough for ensure safety. I wanted to hand him flowers – for being present – for showing up for his son every day. But instead, I turned back to my laundry—folding cotton and holding reverence in silence.

    I moved to this community for the quiet. For the river nearby. For the stillness I thought would cradle my writing. And in many ways, it does. But stillness, I’ve come to learn, is not the same as wholeness. Behind the trimmed hedges and tidy rules, I’ve discovered another kind of noise here—the low, persistent hum of systems that overlook, exclude, and deny. An indifference to vulnerability that yanks at my being. The illusion of privilege politely dressed as “community rules.”

    What is policy without humanity?
    What is order, if it protects convenience but sacrifices care?

    Caregivers walk among us—tired, brave, unseen. Children with different needs live here too, as whole and radiant as any of us, even if the rules deny them pets as companions.

    The real question isn’t whether a community is quiet.
    It’s whether it’s kind. Whether it is designed with enough imagination to embrace those who experience the world differently and honour ways of being that do not follow the usual script. I, want to live in a place where difference doesn’t need permission to belong.

  • Brilliant Girls – Broken Systems.

    The Alliance Girls case is not isolated—it exposes a culture of grooming that stretches from high school dormitories to PhD scholarships.

    We have read with horror about the sexual grooming of students at Alliance Girls’ High School. For many, the news is shocking. For others—especially women who passed through similar institutions—it is tragically familiar.

    What few are willing to admit is this: this is not an isolated incident. It is the inevitable outcome of a system that has, for decades, neglected to protect the very girls it claims to empower. Behind the polished school gates and gleaming academic trophies lies a darker truth—predators have not just infiltrated the education system; they have been enabled by it.

    In schools like Alliance—elite, high-performing, tightly controlled—the grooming isn’t just of girls. The institution grooms the public too: to trust, to praise, to deny. Reputations are managed. Whispers are silenced. Victims are disbelieved or blamed. And so the cycle continues.

    The Anatomy of Grooming: Power, Silence, Betrayal

    Sexual grooming is not about sex. It’s about power—slowly applied, carefully masked. A teacher begins with kindness. Offers mentorship. Shows concern. Sends late-night messages. Touches too long. Tests the boundaries. And by the time the girl realises what’s happening, she’s isolated, ashamed, and afraid to speak.

    Worse still, in many cases, she doesn’t even realise it was abuse—until years later.

    This is the horror: abusers hide in plain sight. They are not strangers. They are the ones given staff housing. They lead chapel. They coach debate. And in the name of discipline, of tradition, of “moulding future leaders,” they are left unchallenged.

    The System Protects Itself

    Why does this happen in top schools like Alliance Girls? Because reputation is currency. And girls—no matter how brilliant, how ambitious, how hurt—are expendable when that currency is threatened.

    The school will call it “an unfortunate incident.” The ministry will promise “a full investigation.” A sacrificial lamb might even be offered—a teacher quietly transferred. But the truth is that the system is designed to forget, not to protect.

    There are no safe reporting structures. There is no trauma support. There is no accountability for silence. There is only a message: Don’t embarrass the school.

    Let’s Tell the Truth

    This is not just about Alliance Girls. This is about how deeply broken our societal response to sexual abuse is—how quickly we turn away, how instinctively we defend the institution over the individual.

    It’s about how we, the public, collude in the cover-up every time we shrug and say,

    “At least they passed their exams.”
    “Why are they remembering now?”
    “Isn’t that an isolated case?”
    “So many girls went through that school and turned out fine.”

    But what is the perfect time to remember a trauma you were never allowed to name?
    What is the perfect age to unearth the shame that was handed to you as a teenager and has sat like a stone on your chest ever since?

    We do not ask the same questions of survivors of war, or accident, or illness. Only girls who were groomed, silenced, and violated are told to remember on schedule—or not at all.

    This culture of disbelief is what keeps predators safe and victims invisible. It’s what trains a generation of girls to quietly fold their pain under their uniforms and smile for prize-giving day.

    Grooming Doesn’t Stop in High School

    This idea of grooming—the slow corrosion of boundaries under the guise of opportunity—does not end at the dormitory gates of girls’ schools. It has crept, fully clothed in academic prestige, all the way up to PhD scholarships, fellowships, and international research programs.

    At that level, it is more subtle but just as lethal.
    A white professor, as old as Methuselah, shares a hotel room with a bright, young African female student—because, without his “help,” she can’t afford to attend the conference. Or a powerful male academic dangles access, authorship, or visas in front of a female student with a knowing smile.

    It is never a male student sharing a room with Methuselah.
    It is rarely a female academic hosting a young man under similar terms.

    Because grooming, at its core, is not just about sex. It is about the manipulation of need, ambition, and silence. And in academia, where hierarchies are steep and opportunities rare, the predator’s power is often wrapped in letters of recommendation.

    What makes it more insidious is that the victims are adults—or so we assume. But age does not immunize one from imbalance. When your academic future depends on one signature, consent becomes currency, and silence becomes survival.

    The Gatekeepers Are Not Innocent

    Universities and funding bodies are not bystanders in this. They are often active enablers—turning a blind eye to inappropriate mentorships, brushing off complaints as “misunderstandings,” or quietly sidelining victims who speak up. Conferences are sponsored, research is published, fellowships awarded, and yet no one asks how certain students got access, or why the same professors are named in hushed tones year after year.

    There are no clear reporting mechanisms, no meaningful protection for whistleblowers, and certainly no appetite for scandal. The institution protects its own, not its students. And the result? A silent, global network of abuse dressed up as academic excellence.

    The Silence Ends Here

    We must stop pretending that grooming is rare, or isolated, or “handled.” It is embedded in our education systems, from the first prize-giving ceremony to the final thesis defense. We need to listen differently, act quicker, and stop sacrificing young lives at the altar of institutional prestige.

    Because if our brightest girls and women cannot find safety in the places meant to shape their futures, then what exactly are we building?

    I hope the case of Alliance Girls does not become just another moment of hashtags and fleeting reflection. I hope it becomes a reckoning. A line in the sand. Because we must now find the courage to ask: What would justice look like for the girls and women who endured grooming—silently, fearfully, and alone? What can we do, as a society, about this collective hypocrisy of forgetting?

    Because when girls or women excel academically, they should be safe—not sacrificed at the altar of prestige.

  • Larry—This Is Not Your Battle Alone: Language, Power, and the African Voice!

    Mocking an African Presidents fluency in English is not a joke

    I came across a clip on social media of Kenyan journalist Larry Madowo, visibly puzzled that Donald Trump seemed surprised by President Joseph Boakai of Liberia speaking fluent English. Larry’s tone was dismissive—as if the real problem was Trump’s ignorance. But no, Trump doesn’t have a problem, in this linguistic instance. We all should be surprised when an African speaks good English—and nothing more. That surprise is not stupidity. It is a symptom of a world still held together by the logic of empire and linguistic imperialism.

    Let’s talk about Liberia for context. A country on the West African coast, often ranked among the poorest in the world by UN metrics. But these rankings—like speaking English, or writing in English, or being praised for fluency in the languages of any of the former colonisers—are scaffolds of neo-colonialism. They uphold a global order that rewards proximity to whiteness while erasing the trauma and knowledge systems of those whose ancestors lie at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

    Ironically, Liberia is often described as one of the two African countries that was never colonised. But that’s a half-truth dressed as liberation. Liberia was founded by freed African-American slaves—yes—but their freedom came at the cost of indigenous African land. The settlers, supported by the American Colonization Society, arrived with a mandate that mirrored every colonial project before and after: claim, govern, dominate.

    The result was a deeply fractured society—one where the Americo-Liberians attempted to rule over the indigenous people with the same racialised hierarchies they had escaped in the United States. Years of civil war followed, as if history itself refused to remain buried. The juxtaposition is uncomfortable but necessary: a people returned “home” only to recreate a system of exclusion. It is not unlike the founding of Israel—where memory, displacement, and land ownership collided violently. The cost of this “return” was paid, once again, by those who never left – those who were ‘lucky’ enough not to be captured by the slaver traders.

    The deeper question, perhaps, is this: Was Larry surprised that President Trump was surprised that an African American descendant could still speak English? or that they couldn’t speak anything else? If the enslaved lost their ancestral languages in the hold of slave ships, isn’t it remarkable that their descendants—those who returned to rule Liberia— did not lose their English prowess on the returned ship and instead continue to excel in the language of the captor? That surprises me too! Is English then, the language of eternity?

    And here Liberia’s identity crisis deepens, much like the linguistic and cultural trauma many colonized nations inherited and have refused to address. You cannot build a lasting peace on cultural vessels that are fundamentally in conflict. A nation that speaks the language of its trauma but has forgotten the language of its healing cannot be whole. The wounds are not just political or economic—they are linguistic, spiritual, and ancestral. Liberia’s unrest may not only be about war, poverty, or corruption. It may also be about what happens when a people cannot remember who they were before the world renamed them.

    President Boakai may feel offended and trampled on. But Presidents Trump’s condescension is not new—it’s a signature trait. He has routinely belittled leaders from countries he deems weak or chaotic. His treatment of Liberia’s President is not unlike his earlier treatment of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. The difference lies in what he chooses to attack. With Zelensky, it was his clothing—Trump mocked his lack of a suit, reducing a wartime leader to a fashion critique. But with Boakai, the target was far more insidious: language.

    Mocking an African president’s fluency in English is not a joke—it’s cultural assault. It reinforces the idea that African legitimacy must be earned through mimicry of the coloniser’s tongue. It’s a form of violence wrapped in surprise. It says: “You can only be taken seriously if you speak our language.” That is not just ignorance—it is the empire rearing its ugly head.

    So let me take a step back and speak directly to Larry. I understand the impulse—to defend, to correct, to be outraged on behalf of a fellow African leader. But we must be careful where we place our grief. I try, in my work and in my life, to draw an unsentimental line between language, memory, and identity—and the deep dissonance that arises when those threads are severed or replaced. Because weeh! this is a trigger for many Africans, especially those of us who have moved through international cultural spaces and felt the quiet violence of exclusion.

    I am associated with the International Council of Museums (ICOM), an organisation that claims to be global. Yet its official languages are English, French, and Spanish—European, all of them. Every attempt to introduce a language from outside that small colonial circle is met with the same excuse: budgets. The subtext is clearer than they admit—African and Asian linguistic blocs don’t pay enough in membership fees to matter. Never mind that French-speaking countries don’t have the numbers to contribute much either; the organisation is hosted in France, and so the language remains sacred.

    Meanwhile, the United Nations is hosted in Nairobi, yet Swahili is not required—or even respected—as a working language. The irony burns. Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and yes, Swahili are among the most widely spoken languages in the world today. But it is only Africans who must show up dressed in borrowed tongues, with accents to match. Other cultures speak boldly in their own languages—what you understand is your business. Africans have made little attempt to use their own languages – with few exceptions – thank you Ngugi  – linguistic interference is frowned upon, often ridiculed, as if our native tongues are a threat to international decorum. Now it turns out even fluency is ridiculed. And with that, the final nail is driven into the coffin of cultural liberty.

    Larry, I feel your frustration. But I wonder if your grief is really about that single awkward moment between two presidents—men you do not know, and who have little bearing on your life. Or is it something deeper, shaped by your own long dance with linguistic performance in elite Western spaces like CNN?

    Maybe what we are witnessing is a mirror! A mirror of the uncomfortable truth many of us carry in global spaces. The weight of exclusion, the nuances of discrimination that do not scream, but which persists. And the impossible decision—to step away entirely, or remain in the room, bruised, limping, but still showing up! It’s tough Larry – but then again so is survival!