By TEE NGUGI

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Gradually, there is a growing recognition of the historical significance of Saba Saba Day. On this day in 1990, thousands of Kenyans demonstrated in the streets demanding an end to the vicious and rapacious Kanu ethno-fascist state, first under Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and then under Daniel arap Moi.

Hundreds of unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by police, dozens arrested and tortured and others “disappeared.” We may never know the exact number of people who were killed, tortured or disappeared on that day.

But on that historic day, Kenya was liberated from the clutches of a truly evil regime. Daniel arap Moi repealed the section in the constitution that had restricted Kenyans to a one-party state, and one mode of expression – grovelling sycophancy. In the years that followed, statutes that had legalised dictatorship and outlawed independent thought were repealed.

Kenyans born in the 1990s or later find it hard to believe that, in those days, having a view that slightly deviated from the one sanctioned by the state was a grave criminal offence.

Those deemed to have committed this offence were liable to being hijacked in the dead of the night by secret police, taken to Nyayo House torture chambers where a “confession” would be extracted and submitted as evidence in a court sitting at night!

For political prisoners, life outside prison was just another, bigger jail. No one would employ them. Friends and even relatives deserted them. Their business licences were withdrawn. Secret police trailed them everywhere, waiting to pounce at the slightest hint of a relapse into independent thinking. The only options for these poor souls were exile or to “sing like a parrot” as Moi demanded.

In the 1990s, subsequent demonstrations would gradually expand the democratic space. Naturally, the Kanu regime, now a shadow of its former Stalinist self, ignored Saba Saba Day anniversaries.

The regime of Mwai Kibaki, a beneficiary of the sacrifices made by people on Saba Saba Day, would continue to ignore the anniversaries. To his credit, Uhuru Kenyatta would mention the heroes of Saba Saba Day – people like Martin Shikuku, Timothy Njoya and James Orengo – in a Mashujaa Day speech.

At this year’s anniversary of Saba Saba Day, both Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga attended separate events held to commemorate the day.

Which day should a people commemorate as a national day – the day they gained their Independence or the day they gained their freedom? The ideology of nationalism that took root in 19th century Europe elevated the state with its myth-creating symbols and fictions – flag, national anthem, and national narrative – to a religious entity.

Deference to these symbols and narratives was considered the greatest virtue. The capitalist oligarchies that ruled, and continue to rule, the world had achieved a foolproof psychological coup.

The masses would be so immersed in singing stupid martial music-styled national anthems, saluting multicoloured pieces of cloth styled national flags, and repeating myths about divinely ordained ethnic and national identities. The masses thus engaged, the oligarchies could continue minting millions and going through the motions of formal democracy in peace.

Africans, like everyone else, inherited this nationalist lie along with other constructs and myths of the Age of Enlightenment. Thus after Independence, African countries began a thoroughgoing process of myth creation.

We were told that the Kenyan nation-state was divinely ordained. We were schooled that Kenyan-ness was a finished, eternal quality. We were told to worship this new idol called the Kenyan nation-state. So we sang the national anthem, even as we were milked dry by a parasitic and neo-fascist oligarchy.

We draped ourselves in national colours, even as the regime erected torture chambers. We repeated myths underpinning our Independence, even as we buried victims of massacres in northeastern Kenya and elsewhere. We still do.

Rwanda has seen through the lie of nationalism. It has realised that nationalism blinds people to reality, making them incapable of crafting policies and strategies to improve their condition.

Rwanda does not celebrate its Independence Day. Instead, it commemorates the day in July 1994 when the country was freed from a genocidal ethno-fascist oligarchy that had ruled the country since Independence. There is a link, as Rwanda as shown, between freeing ourselves from nationalist fictions and social-economic progress.

Kenya should elevate Saba Saba Day and August 10, 2010, when we promulgated a new Constitution, to national days. The first brought our freedom; the second anchored that freedom in a Constitution. The other so-called national days are distracting nationalist fictions crafted by the oligarchy.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political and social commentator. E-mail: [email protected]