STORYMOJA

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend that revolved around the artists’ responsibility as defenders of human rights. For very many years, art was not considered a respectable profession. Once, when I told my aunt that I wanted to be a writer, she told me that I had the brains to be a doctor. When I insisted on the writing, she told me, ‘There are no lazy dreamers in our family, and you will not be the first.’

I knew from the very beginning that if I wanted to be a writer, I would have to have another ‘respectable’ profession. For a long time I dreamt about Engineering, or Law or perhaps, Medicine. I became ashamed of the gift of playing with words. I would write, and destroy what I wrote before anyone could see my work and accuse me of being a lazy dreamer.

That is until my head teacher at the Aga Khan High School, Mombasa, Ms. Lavingia asked me to represent the school in the Commonwealth Write Around the World Annual Competition. I remember talking to girls in my hometown Mtwapa, to get the information I needed to write a piece about the life and hardships of girls in coastal rural towns. I remember reading material from the school library, newspapers, books, studies. I remember typing late into the evening at the school’s computer lab. I remember handing in the essay. I remember forgetting about it because I needed to work really hard on my chemistry if I was going to make it into Medical School.

Some months later, I received two pieces of mail. The one telling me I had earned a First Class recommendation and the other from a young woman who had read my essay and wanted to publish it in her town’s local news rag. That is perhaps when I started to realize that the responsibility I had. On the one hand, I had the power to expose issues and circumstances that could then be addressed. On the other hand by bringing these issues to the fore, I could help people in similar circumstances see that they were not alone and that there were ways out of their miseries.

With time, I found that I could best do my job by addressing issues that I came across in my own life. Not only have I been able to talk about issues of identity, abuse in the family as well as social and economic issues that face the communities I live in.

So back to the issue of ‘the artist as a human rights activist’. Whether you like it or not, your writing will at one time or the other reflects your stance with regards to issues that are rife in the community you live in. It is up to you to decide whether you want your writing voice to be a force that betters your society or one that destroys it.

Anyway, the same Ms. Lavingia sent me to the kindergarten during Career week. I loved working with kids. My aunt above does not think that being a kindergarten teacher is a respectable job for her relatives either. But she tells people when I visit, that I’m her niece, the writer.

On a very similar note, Neema Yienya leads us into a discovery about her job when she was a newbie journalist in Newbie Hopes.

That is followed by Dennis Duncan Mossiere’s poem Dalston Street. Dennis known more popularly as the Grandmaster Masese with the Obokano is a member of the Cut off my Tongue Cast on tour in the UK.

Grace Kinakai writes about a Lonely Little Lady.

Isaac Anyanga Okang’o takes us to London with My Broken Drum in London. Isaac is a member of the Cut off my Tongue Cast on tour in the UK.

The guy who made the crazy random shorts that you loved early this year is back with The Ledge: Stephen Mwangi Ichungwa.

We close this week with a bizarre case of revenge in The Pain of Silence by Chrispus Githae Kimaru.

Here’s to great reading and the responsibility of writing!