Oral Literature and Peace

I attended Peter Wasamba's lecture tonight, which focused mostly on the political and ethnic conflicts in the history of Kenya, and it was really interesting. He described some of the problems that developed out of colonialism when land was divided up unfairly between the different Kenyan tribes. It developed an insider/outsider way of thinking based on what tribes received greater advantages than others, and this resulted in many ethnic clashes among the people. The recent political unrest that has taken place in Kenya developed out of the ethnic tensions that tend to arise to a greater extent at the time of elections because the politicians take advantage of their ethnic identity and try to gain support from their ethnic groups to achieve their own political motives. He also said that if a president doesn't come from your ethnic community, then you will end up being a marginalized group.

Although Wasamba didn't focus on his literary role during this discussion, he briefly described his work with oral literature in Kenya in the context of the country's historical background. He undertook the task of visiting Kenyan communities in order to collect their songs, proverbs, stories, and testimonies. He said that he never failed to travel to any place and listen to oral literature of a specific ethnic group despite the fact that ethnic divides existed between them. From this work, Wasamba was able to see very clearly how the different ethnic groups could learn from each other's differences rather than allow them to result in ethnic conflicts. He said that their ancestors had been able to move peacefully from one community to another despite their ethnic differences because they knew that when isolated, no community can survive. He finds these ideas within his oral literature.

It was interesting hearing Wasamba describe his work with literature knowing the ethnic tensions that exist in his country. It sounds like the role of literature in this situation is to bring people together. It can be a peacemaker of sorts. The oral literature of the different communities reflects snippets of their humanity, and the fact that they all have values for certain proverbs and songs shows their similarities. Literature humanizes people in a way that ethnic classifications simply don't. It kind of reminds me of a quote from Stalin that goes something like "The death of an individual is a tragedy, the death of millions, a statistic." Literature can bring attention to the person as an individual where they would otherwise get lost in the classification that blends them into with the group.