Revisiting ‘Murang’a Murals’ in honour of colonial era martyrs
Elimo Njau has been criticised over the years for being a so-called collaborator with the British colonizer since it was the Anglicans who commissioned the 24-year old Tanzanian — based on the recommendation of Njau’s art lecturer at Makerere University, Margaret Trowell — to paint murals depicting the life of Jesus Christ, but meant to commemorate the ‘martyrs’ who had died at the hand of the Mau Mau.
Yet it’s taken the recent launch of the long-awaited book, ‘The Murang’a Murals’, compiled and edited by the ecumenical human rights activist, Harold Miller, to set the record straight.
The anthology consists of nine illuminating essays about the murals, the historical and religious contexts in which they were conceived and about the artist himself.
It also includes a set of five poignant poems by one of the co-founders (with Njau) of Paa ya Paa Art Centre, the acclaimed human rights advocate, Pheroze Nowrojee.
And most pertinently, the book includes images of all five murals that Elimo created in 1959 on the interior north wall of the Saint James and All Martyrs Memorial Cathedral in Murang’a, which by then was still known at Fort Hall.
The murals were conceived thematically, according to the Nativity, Baptism, Last Supper, Agony in the Garden, and Crucifixion.
All are monumental works of art; each stands at 4.5 metres in width and 3.5 metres in height. But what makes Miller’s book much more than merely an anthology of art appreciation or art history, and instead serves as a clarifying force that reveals the revolutionary nature of Elimo’s art are the essays by the African American scholar William Jones, by Miller himself and the five painfully heart-felt poems of Pheroze Nowrojee, each one of which is a salient response to the corresponding mural.
In theory the murals were dedicated to all those who were martyred during the State of Emergency declared by the colonial regime in 1952. But as Miller observes, those who died were “killed either by the [British] colonial administration or by the Mau Mau fighters.”
In other words, to be a martyr during those days didn’t necessarily mean one was automatically the equivalent of a Home Guard.
On the contrary, Miller, quoting Kenya’s first Anglican Bishop Obadiah Kariuki, noted that “Kariuki and many African Christians were clearly antagonistic to colonial rule.”
Bearing that in mind, Njau’s murals contain many subtle — and not-so-subtle — references to the suffering of Africans under British colonialism.
For instance, in the Nativity mural, one can see an actual detention (or concentration) camp in the distance where Kikuyu men, women and children were brutally detained without trial throughout the Emergency and Operation Anvil.
Similar camps are visible in some of the other murals as well. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the ‘agony’ of the Christ is being witnessed (in the lower left hand corner) by a silent squadron of armed soldiers who one could swear were Mau Mau.
Somehow Njau got away with placing the life of Christ squarely in the context of African culture, climate, and complexion. It’s that reality that is celebrated in Miller’s ‘Murang’a Murals’.
