Donald Trump as the President of the USA even by his appointments so far is going to sink America to the bottom of the earth. They need to get there to wake up. I told my workmate Lynda about this and she just laughed about it.
I told her this was a big argument I was having with my son Karimi, a political activist in his own rights. I never thought Trump would win but the boy told me he would win. Now I tell the young man that this is very good for America because Trump is going to take them to a big hole.
This Karimi guy tells me I always change my mind after I lose big fights. He says that now I am saying it is okay for Trump to be the President of USA so he can kill them and make them wake up but I was against Trump before the elections. I tell the boy that is life. He says it is me, not life. What the heck am I going to do with this dude?
Here is the mother of our comrade he is named after. Karimi Nduthu. He visited her when he was home in 2018. Very nice and they just ate food and talked.
The mothers’ hunger strike that captivated a nation and bequeathed us freedom
The newspaper clippings are now yellowed with age. It’s been more than 30 years since they captured the hunger strike by mothers of political prisoners, and especially the unforgettable incident on 3rd March 1992.
I only mention the clippings as a nod to how the years have passed, also because that is how we did it in those days. Google Drive and other cloud storage to digitally store documents and memorabilia were still 20 years away.
The newspaper cuttings have nonetheless aged well, and the incident they record since regarded among the most politically impactful in Kenya when defiant and deeply angered mothers shed their clothes to national and international shock.
Many young people, like the youngsters in my extended family, born around 1992 and after may probably do not know much about the incident, or how it contributed to multiparty democracy and the political freedoms we enjoy today.
The young people, who constitute 75 percent of the national population under 35 years old, may therefore not fully appreciate how the incident contributed to the subsequent defeat of the authoritarian regime of President Daniel Arap Moi ten years later.
This therefore is a rehash of what transpired that day in March 1992. Reading from the newspaper clippings, the recollection will be in the vein of the description once attributed to journalism “as the first rough draft of history.”
For five days, beginning 28th February 1992, the mothers had been camped at a spot in Uhuru Park where they commenced a hunger strike in their campaign to release political prisoners. The vicinity of that spot in the park would come to be known as Freedom Corner.
Leading the mothers’ campaign was the late Co-ordinator of the Green Belt Movement, Prof Wangari Maathai, after having presented a Petition to the then-Attorney General, Amos Wako, demanding the release.
The Petition listed 52 political prisoners, among them students, journalists, lawyers, and human rights advocates incarcerated for perceived anti-government statements, ideas, and actions.
Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada
