FITZ DE SOUZA BOOK
LAUNCH IN LONDON
IF NOTHING else in this world, Fitz De Souza,
has been perennially consistent. As a journalist, I don’t have the luxury of
liking someone per se; I must not be biased or prejudiced in any way shape or
form. However, that does not mean that I cannot make note of his or her good
points. FDS has always been consistent since I first came to know him in 1960.
We did not actually speak, he was a much older man than I even though the rest of the political
gathering consisted of all older men.
I cannot ever remember FDS making a splash of
any kind. Not in a newspaper, not on television, not on radio and certainly not
in Parliament as the Honourable Deputy Speaker or in his role as the Member for
Parklands, neither did he make any waves as a solicitor, except as the team
defending the Kapenguria Six (including Jomo Kenyatta, all of whom were accused
of Mau Mau activities). If memory serves me right, FDS was the only Asian officially
elected member of Parliament. But there was one occasion when he did do all the
talking: at one of the Lancaster House Independence Conferences where Kenyatta
appointed him the main spokesman for the Kenya African National Union
delegations. Otherwise, it was always "quietly does it", no waves, no headlines,
no controversies … always under the radar. Oh yes, there was one headline, a small write-up and a photograph of Fitz held shoulder-high by supporters on the day he won the Parklands seat.
 |
| Fitz de Souza (bottom of the picture) with friends and family at the launch of his eye-opening book |
That is until he published his brilliant account
of Kenyan politics and politicians from Day One. In Forward to Independence Fitz
de Souza My Memoir no one is spared his all-seeing eye and his ever alert
ears. He has certainly made is first real splash in Kenya’s Daily Nation which has honoured him with
a serialisation of sections of the book. According to friends in Kenya, the
response has been stunning. No one expected the whole truth and nothing but the
truth about Kenyatta, Mboya, Njonjo, McKenzie … and everyone else involved from
1960 to the first Cabinet in 1960. The book is indeed a revelation seldom seen
in Africa. It has come as a breath of fresh air, long-awaited, long , long,
awaited. I wonder if FDS has started a trend, at least in Kenya where no one
will ever fear the truth again? If it transpires so, it will be his greatest
legacy. No journalist could have achieved what FDS has. OK, he was brilliantly
positioned but it still takes some doing to bring journalese to one’s writing,
even if one is an exceptional politician.
I write the above because I have been itching
to do it. It is also a tribute to his wife Romola and children that they
achieved a minor miracle by getting the book self-published while FDS has been
alive to see it in print.
OK, I started by telling you how FDS always
flew under the radar so to speak. Well, he was flying under the radar of the
media and the public a couple of weeks ago in central London (London School of
Economics) where the family quietly launched
to family, friends and specially invited guests. Among the speakers was Dr
Judith Heyer who has known the de Souza family for a few decades and Victoria
Brittain, the former Guardian
correspondent in Nairobi.
Comments