SIGNIFICANCE OF MEMORIALS, MONUMENTS AND BURIAL GROUNDS

We all have persons and places so close to our hearts. Some of the places that are memorable to Ziwani and Starehe Estates as well as both Old and New Pumwani residents, are the Kariokor cemeteries. This is why we care to write about them. These final resting places do matter unto us; not only has places where we have our dear-departed souls resting but too as our botanical garden, bird-watching and hunting paradise.  They have always been a serene, green space, hide-out.

To preserve these treasures, we have launched our own This Place Matters campaign—an initiative to identify Kariokor War Cemetery grabbers, to protect the remaining half as we endeavour to repossess the sliced-off chunk. We wish to be joined by those who matter, as you are, to drive this preservation initiative.

In England, the Communities Secretary Greg Clark launched 'The Living Memory Project', designed to remind people of the 300,000 war graves and memorials in the UK. Many of these memorials, they say, lie in forgotten corners of graveyards. This Living Memory initiative is designed thus to aid their rediscovery.

Such is why we too do have a HEROS’ CORNER at Uhuru Gardens, to commemorate our nation’s great achievers! One wonders why then we never began with Benson Wanjau alias “Mzee Ojwang’ Hatari’ in the stead of laying him to 'waste' at the neglected Lang’ata Public Cemetery?!

During the First World War no African was accorded a decent burial, of these though, we have war memorials and monuments, to remind us of. This mistake was corrected during World War (II) in the name of Kariokor War Cemetery, with two Muslim war-dead at the adjacent Kariokor W.W. II Muslim Cemetery. It remains a recollection of the reality of human loss in conflict, as recently happened in Somalia to our K.D.F. troops. Ironically those buried here, either died preparing for battle or in the battle grounds in the Northern Frontier – Kenya-Somalia-Abyssinia borders.

As a public cemetery that has Commonwealth War Graves, as elsewhere, it means it was a burial ground for both civilians and the dead soldiers. Sadly, the half that had civilians has now been disrespectfully dished out to JUA-KALI auto-mobile mechanics for garages and partition too to a religious out-fit – CHRIST COVENANT CHURCH (GUREC). This was courtesy of Starehe/Kariokor Ward former councillor Peter Ngugi alias Wa Shiki, one of the mechanics, easy then, for those at City Hall, since the burial grounds were still squarely under Local Government hence the city/municipal councils' jurisdiction. Document, under-signed by a City Hall surveyor, Philip Mbithi shows the demarcated plots within the cemetery.

As it was with the British authority in the segregated colonial Kenya, European soldiers were laid to rest at the well-guarded and manicured Nairobi’s Ngong’ Road Commonwealth War Graves, and others amongst Asians at both Nairobi South War Cemetery and Forest Road War Cemetery.

A request by Carrier Corps Commonwealth Cemetery Conservation (C.C.C.C.C.) to have this historical burial ground preserved for present and future generations’ heritage was answered by The Kenya Gazette Vol. CXVII. - No. 7 (23rd January 2015) edition’s declaration that it’s considered of historical interest thus worth of protection. Did he mean the all cemetery or only the war graves potion? If latter, then why so? Were these native soldiers who perished fighting for the British Crown not family men? If ‘Yes, they were!’ are their beloved not entitled to rest in peace by their side?

Personally my grandfather was a veteran of that war, having travelled to the war grounds of near and Far East. He told us war stories and their voyage to and fro via the then Ceylon and Burma. Having buried a daughter here, then this cemetery is still relevant to both his kith and kin as it is to a many. Clearly this is a tangible and symbolic reminder to Eastland community, the city and the entire continent. Keeping this burial ground intact is an honour to all the East, west and South Africa and laid to rest here.

The ravaging of Kariokor War Cemetery is not unique, both Nyayo Stadium-by Nairobi South and City Park’s Forest Road Cemeteries have suffered such destruction in the past. This seems a prerequisite to grabbing of these respectful places by the so-called developers. Nairobi South War Cemetery was fought for preservation long ago by the Goan community. The Jew community too does a wonderful job of tending their section. What a shame that it is the Africans who are destroying these places for selfish reasons?!

National Museums of Kenya who are now the ones mandated to take care of the now gazette property are overwhelmed by the so many responsibilities under their docket. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission ((C.W.G.C.) on its part is tied to its jurisdiction. If at all they (C.W.G.C.) cannot be allowed the care-taking responsibility of the whole cemetery then the local community ought to be given a chance to lend a hand in this, as it is currently done in the U.K. with the ADOPT A WAR GRAVE project.

The experience from Azania is, South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) has a Burial Site Unit which amongst its duties are to; locate, mark and maintain the graves of all soldiers, combatants and civilians who died in wars, conflict or on peace time military service until the mid-1990s and provide assistance with the erection and maintenance of memorials to the dead and to those whose graves are unknown.

Isandlwana battle-field depicting the out-running of the British force by the mighty Zulus and their assegais, Simon’s Town show of the strategic sea route that South Africa is, Women’s Memorial at Bloemfontein a sorrowful reminder of Anglo-Boer War Concentration Camps  atrocities to the war-times vulnerable lot that are women and children. All these and the gone-so-early Hector Peterson Memorial are stark reminders of Azania’s turbulent past, vivid lessons to generations to come.

Such wealth of experience is much relevant and needed here. With the unknown or un-marked grave of Marshall Dedan Kimathi and other fallen freedom fighters, the 2007 post-election violence victims and the continued deaths of our soldiers in foreign land… We should pick a leaf from down-south for our own good.

But how can we talk of Kariokor War Cemetery without making mention of Kariokor Market? The market is historically rich! It will be meaningful as a Military History Research Centre, affording public access to the de-classified documents archives, image gallery, and a general collection of war literature.

Focus is made on Kariokor Market since it was the Pioneer Corps (Panyako) and Carrier Corps (Kariokor) war-time recruitment-cum-pay Centre as well as the warriors’ sanatorium. This ideal site for Out-door weapon museum to show case the the-then air and ground forces war-fare ware as is with Ohio based U.S. Air Force Museum, Washington D.C.’s National Museum of the U.S. Navy, St. Louis Soldiers Memorial Military Museum, Texas Military Forces Museum, Armoured Weapon Museum in Poland among a many world-wide.

This Kariokor War Museum’s Military History Research Centre may house, in one convenient location, the Bildad Kaggia Archival Collection and the General Mulinge Library. We honour Bildad Kaggia – an ex-soldier who was vocal against colonial rule of awarding British soldiers with land and money awhile he and others who had battled alongside the whites in the same war, were given neither land nor money. These extensive national collections of primary and secondary research material are to document Africa’s military history from the colonial period to the present.

Last November 14 Second World War Veterans left for Britain to join the rest of the Commonwealth Nations to commemorate the Commonwealth Remembrance Day. The 10-day visit is also meant to mark 70 years after the end of the Second World War.

The fourteen include Bugi Mwita Chacha, Joshua Osamba Okelo, Abdikadir Noor Madar, Parmenas Kiana Gikuhi, Magige Nyambara Murimi, Joseph Ngari Murathe and Simon Mathuba Mukeba. Others are Gathegi Njoroge, Joseph Inima, Dickson Swagenyi, John Mathenge, David Wachira Karume, Joseph Mathenge and Gregory Nchama.

While in Britain, the team will tour the British museum, Lancaster House, Houses of Parliament and listen to a presentation on the role of Africans and those from the Caribbean during the First and Second World Wars.

 

Rudyard Kipling, the poet, writer of the classic JUNGLE BOOK and father to a ‘lost in Action’ W.W. (I) soldier, was tasked, as literary advisor, with advising on inscriptions with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Of the Carrier Corps, he said ’The carriers were the feet and hands of the army’. Even though non-combatants, both the nyanga riika and the forcefully conscripted, bore the heavy burden of carrying weaponry and other supplies essential for survival in the wilderness.

The Hyaenas

AFTER the burial-parties leave
And the baffled kites have fled;
The wise hyænas come out at eve
To take account of our dead.

How he died and why he died
Troubles them not a whit.
They snout the bushes and stones aside
And dig till they come to it.

They are only resolute they shall eat
That they and their mates may thrive,
And they know that the dead are safer meat
Than the weakest thing alive.

(For a goat may butt, and a worm may sting,
And a child will sometimes stand;
But a poor dead soldier of the King
Can never lift a hand.)

They whoop and halloo and scatter the dirt
Until their tushes white
Take good hold in the army shirt,
And tug the corpse to light,

And the pitiful face is shewn again
For an instant ere they close;
But it is not discovered to living men—
Only to God and to those

Who, being soulless, are free from shame,
Whatever meat they may find.
Nor do they defile the dead man’s name—
That is reserved for his kind.

By Rudyard Kipling