Muingiki Madness

Abstract

David Gitari and the generality of the mainstream Protestant churches in Kenya hold modernist assumptions and ideals. They see the future in terms of strengthening modern institutions, including of course the church that the missionaries had overwhelmingly presented to the Kenyans as a modern alternative, one associated with Western education, modern medicine, bureaucratic work practices, democratic citizenship, and generous roles in worldview and practice for contemporary science and technology. Combined with the conservative Gikuyu achievement-oriented and accumulative work ethic, it is easy for this position to become thoroughly middle-class. Indeed in the rural areas, though the bonds of sub-clan and extended family still persist, if atrophied, there is little provision in either society or church for those who do not fit in the social structure built around the central axis of kin and land, mbari and githaka. However densely populated the ridges are, there is no land, no property, no permanent home for those who do not have a place with their kin. All they can do, assuming they have not the capital to buy property from the minority who will sell, is to rent a concrete walled room in a town or move to Nairobi or the large commercial centers.