The man who cares about your rights

Before anything else, before he was even the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (1996-2006) Justus was a teacher and still is at heart. His grandfather was a teacher. His father was a teacher. His two uncles were teachers.

He was a teacher at several schools (including Nyabondo High School and Buru Buru Girls) before he joined the pharmaceutical industry and then got sucked into the NGO vortex. He also likes theatre and acting.

He is a father and youth mentor, a husband, and a Country Director of Amnesty International where he wants the world to be fair and free and expunged of injustices.

A towering man with a white-peppered mane, we met in his boardroom a few weeks back where we mostly talked about life.
-----------------------

What is the most overrated human right, according to you?

(Pause) Uhm, that’s a difficult question, Biko, because rights, when I think of them, are God-given and should be respected as such. But rights also come with responsibility, a responsibility to respect others as you claim yours.

If you are demonstrating about your rights in the streets and banging someone’s car, you are infringing on that person’s right as well.

So that for me, I think is an aspect that needs to be corrected even now, and as Amnesty International, that’s what we are doing. We are asking people think about their rights yes, but also in a corridor of responsibility and how it affects the rights of others. We are now introducing membership, which we started last year.

Some people are now beginning to walk in and asking to be a member, or they go to our website and they join. But other people say, “I don’t want to be a member, I just want to support them with my funds, so I have Sh1000 here, which I will donate per month for one year or for two years.” That is the money that we are going to use this year.

Have you found success in your life, and if you have, if you were to quantify that, is there a specific beacon that you can say ‘this here is my success.’?

Yes, I have found success, and lots of that. The mistake that people make, is waiting to be happy: ‘when I get this, I will be happy” and they get it but don’t even recognise they’ve already achieved it. And they move on to the next pedestal, and say, ‘when I get a bicycle, I’ll be happy. When I get a scooter, I’ll be happy.’ And when they get a scooter they say “I want a Toyota station wagon, you know that nice one, the 1,200 cc, and when he gets that he does not stop to realise that he has achieved that and he keeps wanting more. It never ends. That isn’t happiness or even success.

Somebody once said, “stop and smell the flower” Sometimes top life is just a well-cooked ugali with sukuma wiki and some eggs and maziwa mala. Top life! I have arrived! That for me is very important, because I realise and appreciate that sometimes I have an extra.

So I have learnt to appreciate that I have my family, I have my child, that’s really beautiful. That’s success. I’m married, that’s success. I’ve got a job, that’s what success means to me.

Interesting…

My grandfather told me that he had four shirts. One was really tattered, because that’s the one he went to work in the shamba with. So that’s one shirt that’s important. Then there’s one he just used to walk around the village after his work and a bath in the river. Another one was for church, and another was the extra he had.

So my cousin bought him a shirt, a really nice one, and he said, “no no no, nyakwara. I don’t need another shirt. I already have four. For him that was success, those four shirts. When you stop and appreciate what you have and define it as a success, you are successful.

You have been with Amnesty for seven years, are there cases that have had a big impact in your personal life, cases that you took home with you?

Yes, it actually happened last year. We were preparing to launch a report. This was a really serious report on the work that we were dealing with on forced eviction where people were moved from places they’ve called home without observing safeguards.

This particular time it touched one of the arms of government and so we booked an appointment to go and see the director general of an organization that is part of the government that we wanted to take this report to. We went, just the two of us from Amnesty and the director general was there, but with six senior members of staff. Then he asked the general manager, “please, now that we are all here, can you respond to what Amnesty International had asked you to respond to?” and the first thing he said was, “we are very sorry.

We are very sorry that we did this thing badly.” You know, I looked at the director general, and I said, did I hear that wrong? And they went on to say that “we are going to do this thing better next time….” I’ve never heard governments speak like that in my life. I looked at this guy, and I looked at the general manager and I looked at all these people and I respected them. For me, there are several things that come out from there. One, is that deep down, most people care about other people.

How many kids do you have?

I have three beautiful daughters. The first one is working in the hospitality industry, she’s 30 now. . . I think she’s 29 . . . No, no. 30... wait…

I think you have to be very careful with that age thing, people will read this and you don’t want to say she is older than she is... so take your time, 30 or 29?

(Laughs) No, no. I think she’s 30. The next one is 29. She did design, industrial design and she’s also a pilot. The third one is doing international baccalaureate, which is Form five and six, and she’s a vet. She started being a vet when she was in primary school. She’s also an actress. She’s been featuring in the children’s play Junction Junior and Junction Teens.

You have done quite well with them. What would you do differently?

(Pause) I think what I’d do differently with my kids is to not be very prescriptive. I believe children need their own thinking and dreams but how do you fashion that dream? So I think I would allow them to think through, but I would also propose to them, can you take time and read about this? And lead them to where they can get information. But I think what I would do differently, Biko, is to tell my children when I have made a mistake, that I’m sorry. That is something that I have not been good at, because I rationalise and I say I’m the man of the house, you want me to apologise to a little girl like you? (Laughs). But because my daughters are very focused around rights as well, responsibility and respect, and integrity, the areas in which I have said I am sorry have been very few and far in between.

Do you sometimes wonder how it would be if you had a son?

I’d fail miserably. (Laughs). Biko, it’s a very stressful time now to have a son.

It is a stressful time to have a child, period. There is no “village” to raise them any more.

I think the community helps you bring up children. How many women have you seen walking around the street and smoking? Very few, but that does not say that they don’t smoke, they, in fact, smoke in the ladies’ – the bathrooms, because the society requires that they don’t smoke in public.

Boys do everything, but under the book. But nobody tells them because the society does not work with you to bring up a boy… they grow wild, they don’t grow up. You, who has no traditional gender roles defined in the house, but still hold them strong, want your son not to be seen in the kitchen, want your son not to play with a doll, want your son not to do this and that but you don’t tell them, you don’t show them the alternative. And so the society helps you to bring these boys up badly and they’re rude and uncultured, they are suffering from a feeling of inferiority… they are minus charm and they are very insecure.

What are you most fearful of?

I’m most fearful of . . . (long pause) . . . terminal sickness. That’s one. But I’m also very fearful of failing leadership. Not on me, but on a national level, where people are exposed to all manner of – I don’t want to talk about it in terms of rights, but where people’s lives and security are threatened.

What do you do to unwind from your schedule?
I listen to music.

What kind?

I listen to Christian music, that’s one but I also listen to country music. So in the evening when I drive home, if my radio is not cracking too I tune into Classic in the evening or Ramogi or KBC Sundowner. I also play scrabble and chess with my wife, a lot. That is where we talk, that is where we unwind. We don’t do it as much as we used to do, I don’t understand why. She has asked me that question twice, I don’t have an answer ( laughs), but maybe I need to come up with an answer.

Sometimes I do walks . . . in my village in Ongata Rongai. It looks rural, it’s very rural. I listen to birds, to dogs bark, occasionally a car passes. It’s a great time for reflection for me.