By G Oguda via Facebook
I swore an oath never to listen to wannabe Christians lecture us on godliness. This homosexuality debate must be put where it rightfully belongs.
I am currently reading a very informative book; “Histories Of The Hanged; Britain’s Dirty War In Kenya And The End Of Empire.†If you are looking for something that captures the history of the MAU MAU Rebellion in Kenya, this 397-paged ethnographic account will blow your mind away. David Anderson couldn’t have written a more informative literature, however much he tried.
This debate about using religion to castigate homosexuals reminds me of the battle by christian missionaries in Central Kenya to criminalise Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) among their adherents. The Kikuyu, for those not aware, were one of the strongest supporters of cutting the clitoris of their women for, among other things; reducing their sexual libido to discourage promiscuity.
When the missionaries came with the gospel in Kikuyuland, Anderson writes, they found girls dying under the razor, and collectively embarked on a mission to stop the madness under the banner of Christianity. The churches demanded that local Christians, attending their services, publicly sign a pledge against FGM.
They poked the wrong beehive. The locals went on a rampage, there were massive defections from the Church of Scotland Mission in Kiambu and Nyeri, and from the African Inland Mission and the Methodists. Reading the mood, the Catholics stayed out of the conflict, while the Anglicans and the Church Missionary Society took a softer stance. As the crisis deepened, the Kikuyu refused to send their children to Mission Schools, expelling the teachers and seizing back the land and property. On January 03, 1930, when an elderly woman missionary was admitted at the Mission Hospital in KIjabe after forcefully being circumcized and murdered when she resisted, the Churches backed off and let the Kikuyu do their thing. Senior Chief Koinange, Waruhiu, Josiah Njonjo, and Philip James Karanja led the anti-missionaries war cry and even donated land to build African independent schools to hell with the missionaries and their foreign ideology.
The anti-FGM crusade dealt a huge blow to the advancement of Christianity in Central Kenya. The church chose to stay away from the FGM debate because they didn’t want to upset their client base despite the fact that they were convinced FGM was un ungodly act. FGM, as you will later discover, was not the only impediment that led to christian missionaries backing off from meddling in traditional African practices. The other was polygamy, which I shall not talk about today.
The church, for you information, has never been interested in anything other than religious conquest. The religious scramble and partition of Kenya is one subject many would rather not be taught. The Catholic Church has One Billion followers across the world, they wouldn’t want to lose that lynchpin status to any other religious arm. Before they came to Kenya, we would face Mount Kenya and offer sacrifices under the Mugumo tree. That did not make us less godly. Religion is about a belief in a supernatural being. Whether that unseen being is hiding under my mattress or is right on top of the Aberdare Ranges isn’t any of our business. All we know is he (cant be a she) punishes evil and rewards good. When we die, because we will die, he (cant be a she) will usher us into a mansion that his son (cant be his daughter) went to prepare for us high up in heaven.
Religion exists to pacify the masses and bring order into a chaotic society. A society is the aggregate of people living together in an ordered community. Every society have what they call normative behaviour. Anybody deviating from the norm is regarded as a societal misfit. And we hate misfits. Galileo Galilei was murdered by the Catholic Church for proving that the Pope was wrong and that the Earth was round, and not flat. David Munyakei was fired from the Central Bank of Kenya, and died a very miserable man, for alerting the nation that senior government officials were looting our money in a mega scandal that would later be infamously known as The Goldenberg Scandal. When you witness big-shots sinking their claws into public funds, the Kenyan norm is to join in the feasting. Anybody who raises alarm is considered a misfit and is sent to hell.
When you use a mass-pacifier like religion to justify your prejudices, always bear in mind that the great-grandfathers of this country had to take the role of a misfit, launch a freedom struggle in the forest, against superior weapons, in order to liberate you from your religious bigotry.
If all of us were to subscribe to what you call normative, or sanctioned behaviour, the Luhyas would still be waiting for Jehovah Wanyonyi to bring back Mumias Sugar Company from the dea
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