‘A Path Not Taken’ tells Kenya’s story, immortalises Murumbi
What you need to know:
Murumbi’s story is a tale well told in his own words, augmented with essays and interviews by friends and colleagues as well as a foreword by Dr Willy Mutunga, the Supreme Court Chief Justice.
Joseph Murumbi served as Kenya’s vice president for less than a year; but without reading his life story in his own words, one cannot know the pivotal role he played over the decades to help bring about Independence.
A Path Not Taken: The story of Joseph Murumbi is a remarkable book, not just because it tells the story of one man whose integrity, honesty, intellect and selfless service to the Kenyan people was stellar and indisputable.
It’s also an important historical text which reflects Murumbi’s vision and foresight since he started work on it in the 70s, more than a decade after he had left public service and around the time he was selling his Muthaiga home and priceless collections of pan-African art, books and various other cultural accoutrement to the government.
The book itself consists of a treasure trove of transcribed interviews that Murumbi had with the American researcher Anne Thurston.
The interviews cover his early years, growing up the son of a Goan and Maasai marriage, his education in India and his critical decision to take Kenyan rather than Indian citizenship, choosing to cast his lot with his mother’s people.
But it also reveals his close relationship with Jomo Kenyatta and the extensive political work that he did prior to his life-changing decision to resign from government and focus on his love of pan-African art and culture.
A Path Not Taken would never have been published, however, if it hadn’t been for the tenacity of Murumbi’s business partner, Alan Donovan, who jointly set up the African Heritage Pan African Gallery in the early 70s and kept it running with Murumbi’s widow, Sheila, until she died in 2000, exactly one decade after Joe did.
If Donovan hadn’t struggled to retrieve the transcripts taken to the UK by Sheila’s British relations after her death, they would have been lost forever and all of Murumbi’s penetrating insight into everyone from Mzee Kenyatta to Mbiyu Koinange to Tom Mboya and Pio Pinto to even colonials like Grogan, Michael Blundell and Humphrey Slade would never be known.
What would also have perished are Murumbi’s frank remarks about the rampant cruelty and merciless brutality of the British soldiers and settlers towards the Kenyan populace, particularly the Kikuyu people, during the Emergency.
It’s all suggestive of what Kenya might have become if the former Foreign minister and VP had stayed in government and gotten the chance to take the country down a different “path” from the one that he saw coming and wanted no part of.
One other insight that would have remained a mystery if those transcribed tapes hadn’t been retrieved and Donovan hadn’t taken the trouble to register a non-profit Murumbi Trust (which owns the copyright of the book) is why the man actually dropped out of politics right at the moment when he might easily have become Kenya’s second president.
According to his own words, Murumbi never gave up his loyalty and affection for Kenyatta; however, he saw dark forces looming up around him, forces that unfortunately have played a role in government ever since.
Nonetheless, Murumbi’s story is a tale well told in his own words, augmented with essays and interviews by friends and colleagues as well as a foreword by Dr Willy Mutunga, the Supreme Court Chief Justice.
