Book review of a biography by Mark Seal,Random House, NY, 2009.
The sub-title pretty well says it all; another vibrant, activist, female conservationist murdered by parties unknown - presumably because she thwarted their economic/political interests. Film maker and conservationist Joan Root’s story is a sad one from beginning to end and the maudlin aspects of it are drawn out by author Seal. Her life story has soap operatic aspects which Seal milked for all they’re worth.
Without doubt Ms. Root’s untimely demise – she was murdered in her bedroom by contract killers in early 2006 – provides the premise and the denouement for the biography that Seal assembled. Recounted in detail, Seal described Joan as a gentle shy soul who searched for meaning and mission in life. Initially she found both in marriage to Alan Root. An indispensable partner she collaborated with him in the production of a long list of wildlife films that patiently and conscientiously detailed animals and events. Films included studies of lions, hippos, termites, gorillas, hornbills in a baobab tree, a balloon over Kilimanjaro and a dry season. The list goes on, but Joan was the producer, the organizer and the muse that kindled Alan’s filmmaking genius. The two won worldwide renown.
Despite their professional collaboration, after some years, Alan’s wandering eye led him to another woman. Abandonment – which was never total as the two continued to work together for a time and communicated for years afterwards - sent Joan into a downward spiral. She only rallied when she found a new mission: saving Lake Naivasha from the scourge of fish and animal poaching and pollution from Kenya’s burgeoning flower industry. Joan’s 88 acre estate on the lake was threatened by interlopers and fish poachers in the 1990s and 2000s as the population of the area exploded on account of the rapid expansion of the flower industry. Although the hot houses and intensely cultivated fields flushed chemical runoff into the lake, it was really the quintupled human population that pressured the lake. Excrement from pit latrines found its way into the water table, but non-employed young men (women were preferred by the flower growers for their more delicate fingers) found outlets in seining illegally for the smallest fish, poaching wild animals that traditionally visited the lake and in crime. The European estates that ringed the lake were trespassed upon and targeted.
Joan’s efforts to halt these threats to “her” lake (and property) drew her into a whirlpool of conspiracy and quasi-legal violence designed to reduce illegal activities. Clearly (in retrospect) Joan was in over her head. Instead of managing the process she became swept up in it. Ultimately as it all rotted around her, she became its victim. Should that have happened? Of course not, author Seal and Joan’s friends all offer testimony to that effect. The nobleness of her cause notwithstanding, left unanswered and unaddressed is whether mzungus like Joan should try to save Kenya from itself?
The book is an entertaining read, even though the outcome is known before the first chapter. No one has anything bad to say about Joan, but her letters and diaries reveal a bit more of her inner thoughts. I found lots of repetition about her character, but little insight into how she really functioned. She obviously did not handle men very well. Alan first and then vigilante chief David Chege walked all over her.
Author Mark Seal is a journalist and the book is, in fact, an expansion of an article written for Vanity Fair. It reads like that. It is laudatory, uncritical and designed to elicit maximum sympathy. Despite accolades to a fact checker in the acknowledgements, the reputable checker missed the evolution of Tanganyika. The book says that it is now divided into Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi…tsk, tsk.
Showing posts with label murder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label murder. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2009
Monday, April 9, 2007
Kenya - Who killed Robert Ouku?
On the morning of February 16, 1990 the Voice of Kenya radio announced that the mutilated and partially burned body of Robert Ouko, Kenya’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, had been found near his home in Koru. The minister had been reported as missing a day earlier.
Ouku’s death ushered in a long series of inquiries, investigations and speculations, but since the trail led into the highest reaches of Kenyan politics, further pursuit of culprits was stonewalled. No one has ever been charged with the crime.
Professors David William Cohen and E.S. Atieno Odhihambo wrote a book entitled The Risks of Knowledge: Investigations into the Death of the Hon. Minister John Robert Ouko in Kenya, 1990, Athens, Ohio University Press, 2004. The authors recount what is known and unknown about the minister’s death.
Risks of Knowledge is a difficult book to describe and an awkward one to read. It is an erudite mélange of scholarship, sensationalist reporting and stilted legalese. The authors have multiple goals that they spell out in the introduction. Foremost is to assess how the investigations into Foreign Minister Ouko’s murder transformed Kenyan society. The authors assert that the knowledge revealed both wittingly and unwittingly, shed light on ambition, corruption and the practice of politics by Kenya’s most powerful people. Among the consequences of the investigations was the exposure of various efforts to cover-up the high level involvement undertaken in order to confuse and keep the public in the dark. The authors stated that this objective failed as the brouhaha surrounding such blatant attempts to obfuscate led to expanded and ultimately successful efforts to reform and to democratize Kenya.
Like the investigations themselves, the book wanders around a bit jumping from the material at hand to ruminations on its meaning and impact. However, the book does provide a solid structure for revisiting the murder. In turn it highlights evidence of “the white car” seen by the housekeeper, the site of the death, the missing note that perhaps named the abductors, Ouko’s whereabouts in the days before the murder, the minister’s state of mind, corruption linked to the molasses factory, Ouko’s falling out with President Moi, theories of family problems, and special branch abuses. At times the book reads like a murder mystery, yet as the authors point out early, there are no conclusions as to who did it? or why? only mounting evidence that permits readers to draw their own conclusions. Nonetheless, the mounting evidence and the authors’ analysis of it provide fascinating insights into Kenyan political society.
I kept waiting for the authors to deliver a promised discussion of how the investigation elevated the status of servants (such persons including housekeeper Selina and herdsman Shikuku provided the bulk of the damning testimony), granting them credibility in a society that tended to ignore the thoughts and observations of the lower classes, but other than the statement to that effect there was little analysis of this facet.
My disclaimer: Since I lived briefly in Koru as a PCV (1968) and worked in that area for nearly two years, I easily recalled the physical geography relevant to the murder. Although I did not know the minister, I knew other “big men” who owned farms in the sugar zone. Additionally, I gleaned some understanding of the dynamics of Luo politics, at least from the perspective of the common man. Finally, from a later diplomatic posting in next door Uganda, I assisted Ouku’s brother Barrack Mbajah to join his son in the U.S. in 1991.
Those who served in Kenya during the early nineties undoubtedly recall the ongoing soap opera of the investigations, especially the commission’s months long hearings that were reported verbatim in the Daily Nation. All that verbiage will jump back out at you as you read this book. For others who knew Kenya before or after this event, this book serves as a good divider. Earlier observers of the political scene, recalling Mboya’s and Kariuki’s deaths, would perhaps not be terribly surprised, albeit disappointed, that assassination would occur again. Later observers will more realistically appreciate the political currents unleashed by Ouko’s death and the changes subsequently wrought. In any case, Risks of Knowledge is an interesting foray into a complex topic. If you have patience, it is an excellent read.
Ouku’s death ushered in a long series of inquiries, investigations and speculations, but since the trail led into the highest reaches of Kenyan politics, further pursuit of culprits was stonewalled. No one has ever been charged with the crime.
Professors David William Cohen and E.S. Atieno Odhihambo wrote a book entitled The Risks of Knowledge: Investigations into the Death of the Hon. Minister John Robert Ouko in Kenya, 1990, Athens, Ohio University Press, 2004. The authors recount what is known and unknown about the minister’s death.
Risks of Knowledge is a difficult book to describe and an awkward one to read. It is an erudite mélange of scholarship, sensationalist reporting and stilted legalese. The authors have multiple goals that they spell out in the introduction. Foremost is to assess how the investigations into Foreign Minister Ouko’s murder transformed Kenyan society. The authors assert that the knowledge revealed both wittingly and unwittingly, shed light on ambition, corruption and the practice of politics by Kenya’s most powerful people. Among the consequences of the investigations was the exposure of various efforts to cover-up the high level involvement undertaken in order to confuse and keep the public in the dark. The authors stated that this objective failed as the brouhaha surrounding such blatant attempts to obfuscate led to expanded and ultimately successful efforts to reform and to democratize Kenya.
Like the investigations themselves, the book wanders around a bit jumping from the material at hand to ruminations on its meaning and impact. However, the book does provide a solid structure for revisiting the murder. In turn it highlights evidence of “the white car” seen by the housekeeper, the site of the death, the missing note that perhaps named the abductors, Ouko’s whereabouts in the days before the murder, the minister’s state of mind, corruption linked to the molasses factory, Ouko’s falling out with President Moi, theories of family problems, and special branch abuses. At times the book reads like a murder mystery, yet as the authors point out early, there are no conclusions as to who did it? or why? only mounting evidence that permits readers to draw their own conclusions. Nonetheless, the mounting evidence and the authors’ analysis of it provide fascinating insights into Kenyan political society.
I kept waiting for the authors to deliver a promised discussion of how the investigation elevated the status of servants (such persons including housekeeper Selina and herdsman Shikuku provided the bulk of the damning testimony), granting them credibility in a society that tended to ignore the thoughts and observations of the lower classes, but other than the statement to that effect there was little analysis of this facet.
My disclaimer: Since I lived briefly in Koru as a PCV (1968) and worked in that area for nearly two years, I easily recalled the physical geography relevant to the murder. Although I did not know the minister, I knew other “big men” who owned farms in the sugar zone. Additionally, I gleaned some understanding of the dynamics of Luo politics, at least from the perspective of the common man. Finally, from a later diplomatic posting in next door Uganda, I assisted Ouku’s brother Barrack Mbajah to join his son in the U.S. in 1991.
Those who served in Kenya during the early nineties undoubtedly recall the ongoing soap opera of the investigations, especially the commission’s months long hearings that were reported verbatim in the Daily Nation. All that verbiage will jump back out at you as you read this book. For others who knew Kenya before or after this event, this book serves as a good divider. Earlier observers of the political scene, recalling Mboya’s and Kariuki’s deaths, would perhaps not be terribly surprised, albeit disappointed, that assassination would occur again. Later observers will more realistically appreciate the political currents unleashed by Ouko’s death and the changes subsequently wrought. In any case, Risks of Knowledge is an interesting foray into a complex topic. If you have patience, it is an excellent read.
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