Archivist's death symbolises the tragedy of fading mobile archives

Among the tragedies of modern times is the disappearance of living archives through human attrition, either in death, senility, or contrived stupidity. Death gives those left behind time to reflect on the meaning of life. Where do people come from before reporting for earthly assignment through mothers, as assisted by fathers? Given that the travel time from one pre-earth station to a designated place takes roughly nine months, the metaphysical distance from the previous world to the earth is very big. The claim that people pass through the earth on the way either to heaven or hell reinforces the belief that people might have been elsewhere before birth.

When Kenya’s renowned archivist Dr Maina David Kagombe died on April 13, for instance, people assembled at Gitweku in Kiharu, Murang’a, to remember a local boy who became ‘somebody’ because he had knowledge of the past and on preserving African heritage. Not even Kagombe, however, could answer the metaphysical question of where he was before conception and birth.

Most people die with their knowledge. One of Kagombe’s benefactors, Julius Gikonyo Kiano, died still thinking of putting together a book about Kenya, In Quest of Liberty, but he disappointed PLO Lumumba. Duncan Ndegwa, a key player in Kenya’s transition from colonialism to independence, continues to produce assorted books on his past.

Monopoly of information

As National Archives director, Kagombe was like Ndegwa, lucky to be present in post-colonial Kenya’s early decades that accommodated initiative and creativity. In his 85 years on earth, which started at Gitweku in December 1940, Kagombe had three attributes. He was intellectually daring, an institutional builder, and a public figure.

His intellectual daring was driven mainly by a mind that bubbled with ideas, some of which were wacky. Knowing his limitations, he had no problems seeking intellectual help or engaging other intellectuals. He showed this as a doctoral student at New York University and as a retired public servant. The late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States were a period of intense student power and the black empowerment movement in many universities and New York University graduate student Kagombe played his part.

In 1968, he was involved in founding and editing the Pan African Journal and in challenging the management of the African Studies Association (ASA) over the issue of black involvement in decision making. In the October 1968 ASA conference at Los Angeles, California, Kagombe wrote, the Black Caucus demanded that ASA “broaden black participation in all phases of the Association’s operations.”

Among the Caucus objectives, he wrote, was the need for blacks “to control one’s own” and to identify black experts and create a black resource centre to “correct the present white monopoly of information concerning Black people.” In 1970, Kagombe published “The Impact of Foreign Governments on Kenya’s Domestic Policies.” He reportedly briefly served in Foreign Affairs before becoming the first African to be Director of the Kenya National Archives in 1974.

Kagombe’s other attribute was institution-building. He showed it at the Archives and was the founder of the Kenya Year Book. He changed the image of the National Archives and built a reputation as an institution builder in four ways. First, in line with his thoughts of controlling one’s history and creating an information resource centre, he started the project of collecting Kenya’s oral traditions and oral history.

He did it by recruiting a workforce of graduate students whose number increased from 22 in 1974 to roughly 140 in 1980 when he was eased out of office. Second, believing that the Archives should have its own sufficient permanent home, he procured a piece of land near the National Library and funds to start constructing. The construction never took place because powerful land grabbers grabbed the land meant for the Archives. Third, he started the project of microfilming archival documents in Kenya as a way of preserving the documents.

Most importantly, Kagombe fought hard to ensure that as many Kenyan documents stayed in Kenya. Whether documents and artefacts are in public or private hands, he insisted, they should not leave Kenya because they are part of Kenya’s heritage. In 1976, he gazetted Joseph Murumbi’s collections and thereby stopped Murumbi from selling them to foreign interests. In retirement, Kagombe came up with the idea of a Kenyan almanac, called it the Kenya Year Book, and persuaded the Mwai Kibaki government to adopt it. The book became, Kibaki’s ambassador to Brussels, Kembi Gitura, remarked, a must-have for all diplomats because of its wealth as a source of almost everything on Kenya. After a few issues, however, what was essentially the Kagombe Almanac fizzled out into memory of what it had been. The fizzling was partly because the vision carrier was ultimately not in charge of the institution that he created.

The third Kagombe attribute was that he was a public figure mainly because he confronted the powerful on matters of principle. He had started that behaviour as a doctoral student with his involvement in creating the Black Caucus at the 1968 ASA Conference. He continued public engagements as Chief Activist, sending youthful workers to rural areas to harvest oral documents for the Archives.

Politics of Kenyatta’s death

Having an African heritage consciousness, he was not amused that Syracuse University had reportedly bought lots of Kenyan archival material and that the money had reportedly ended in individual pockets. While Syracuse microfilmed and kept the material in its possession, Kagombe stopped any more selling of documents and intensified local document microfilming. In blocking Murumbi from selling his vast collections because they were part of the national heritage, Kagombe looked very influential and he acquired powerful ‘enemies’.

In August 1978, the country changed dramatically when President Jomo Kenyatta’s death brought closure to the politics of Kenyatta’s death that had started in the late 1950s. Vice President Daniel Arap Moi inherited the presidency supposedly with Attorney General Charles Njonjo’s help, which made Njonjo appear like a co-president in establishing a new order. That new Moi/Njonjo order weeded out such anti-colonial political prima donnas as Mbiyu Koinange and Kiano, who lost the 1979 General Election and never recovered. Njonjo reportedly wanted to benefit from the new order, but since the constitution required one to be an elected MP in order to become either president or vice-president, he arranged to become MP for Kikuyu and thereafter, Moi appointed him Minister for Home and Constitutional Affairs in June 1980. It was also in 1980 that Kagombe lost his job at the Archives. Among the intriguing developments in the new order was that the piece of land that Kagombe had bought for the National Archives reportedly became private property.

Though out of office, Kagombe was still a man of the people, bubbling with such ideas as the Kenya Year Book, and was partly responsible for the rise of Ridgeways as a residential area. Being among the early African residents in the zone when homes were far apart, Kagombe made half-acre plots available to willing buyers and then surrounded himself with self-respecting neighbours. He was accessible to the youth, referring to one Julius Kibathi as Kimwana Giakwa, who often received Mama Nyota’s samosa and mandazi snack treatment. His home became a research centre for engaging scholars and digging up information on the Gikuyu cultural past, which included paying special attention to Wangu wa Makeri, a distant relative.

Wangu’s importance, however, just like that of her benefactor Karuri wa Gakure, was in being symbols of the newly imposed colonial rule, which dislocated Gikuyu ways that Kagombe wanted to preserve.

Kagombe’s death symbolises the tragedy of Kenya’s disappearing mobile archives. It challenges officials like Culture PS Ummi Bashir to redouble the effort to tap into mobile archives before they disappear, never to return. She can take up where Kagombe left off in his crusade to preserve African heritage. He was intellectually alert, an institutional builder, and a public figure. Having described Kenyatta as the Doyen of Freedom, Kagombe was the Doyen of preserving African heritage.