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Monday, May 6, 2024

Zarina Patel: perhaps the greatest of her kind: R.I.E.P.

 


Truth's great warrior no more!

A lot of hearts in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania anyone all around the world are broken by the news that the greatest journalistic warrior passed away last week in Nairobi. She was the granddaughter of Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee, without doubt, the greatest fight for equal rights in colonial Kenya. Zarina fought for equal rights in Kenya every moment of her life. She was also the author of many brilliant books. She was the editor of Awaaz magazine. Its success will always remain a living tribute to Zarina.

She was small in stature but was blessed with a big heart, the courage of a giant and the will to help anyone in need. She dared to take on and challenge any foe, especially in the pursuit of human rights and equality. She was a warrior. She wielded a mighty pen and a mightier belief in her self.


Zarina Patel is a writer, artist, human rights and race relations activist, environmentalist and campaigner for social justice. She is a leading authority on Kenyan South Asian history, and editor of the journal Awaaz, which focuses on South Asian history and culture in the national context. The book chronicles Zarina's multi-dimensional life. Although she was born and raised in an upper-middle-class family, she rejected opulence and sought personal liberty and fullfillment by identifying with multi-ethnic and multi-racial groups that were struggling for human rights and freedom from exploitation and domination in Kenya. Additionally, her multi-dimensional life bears witness to the harsh realities that women in African and Asian communities face: the lack of independence in choosing whom to marry, whether to have children and adherence to a particular religion, to name a few. Her dissent liberated her from the shackles of patriarchal Asian society but also drew her to Kenyans of similar character and thinking. Zarina's biography echoes the lives of many women around the world playing a multitude of roles - as wives, mothers and professional women - who have struggled and have had to give up part of their dreams to succeed in each of these roles. (George Gona).

By Zarina Patel: 1 August 1982, the failed military coup staged by the Kenyan Air Force became the harbinger of a sharp downturn in the already rather smudged scenario of Kenya’s fledgling democracy. The Moi-KANU dictatorship instituted a de facto single-party rule and made it virtually impossible for any protest or demand to be voiced, written or alluded to.

I was a member of an underground cell whose goal was the return of multi-partyism and an ideological shift in the future. Art and culture were one of the avenues that comrades identified as a tool for politicising and mobilising Kenyans and progressive artists in Nairobi and elsewhere took up the challenge. Politically it was also a relatively ‘safe’ medium unlikely to draw the attention of the Special Branch.

I painted mainly in oils and my first painting had a feminist topic – The Oppression and Liberation of Women. I then moved on to ‘recording’ actual events in our country’s history which depicted the resistance against injustice mounted by patriotic Kenyans and visionary leaders. All these paintings capture the resistance of the people. This required reading and research and was a collective effort though the actual artwork was mine.

The paintings were matched with lengthy captions which explained the historical circumstances of the event and were exhibited in church halls and school premises in Mombasa where I resided.


Zarina Patel is a Kenyan South Asian woman, who not only struggled against the oppression faced by fellow women, but who was also involved in other movements, above and underground, which fought against injustice. She has worked with people from different walks of life; across cultures, gender, generation, religion and region, ethnicities and races.

Zarina’s artwork demonstrates the possibility of carrying out political work and speaking out even under difficult circumstances.

Zarina has not led the stereotypical life of a South Asian woman.  She has followed in the footsteps of Makhan Singh, the father of trade unionism in Kenya; Manilal Desai who worked closely with Harry Thuku in the anti-colonial struggles and her grandfather, Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee, who bestowed Jeevanjee Gardens to Nairobians. She has authored the biographies of all three personalities as well as the work of South Asian journalists in The In Between World of Kenya’s Media.

She is the Managing Editor of AwaaZ magazine which started with recording the lives of East African heroes of South Asian descent and now focuses on minority and diversity issues. AwaaZ is now in its eighteenth year of publication and has the SAMOSA Festival as its cultural arm.

Although she was born and raised in an upper middle class family, she rejected opulence and sought personal liberty and fulfillment by identifying with multi-ethnic and multi-racial groups that were struggling for human rights and freedom from exploitation and domination. She not only liberated herself from the shackles of patriarchal Asian society but also interacted with Kenyans of similar character and thinking.

Zarina’s fight for women, her struggles against a corrupt Bohra priesthood, fruitful efforts to save Jeevanjee Gardens from land grabbers to working with the organization Kikuyus for Change and the  Kenyan Constitution Review process and being one of the founder members of the Kenya Asian Forum – are a few illustrations of her diverse contributions to post-independence Kenya.

She understood the connection between freedom of creative expression and the struggles for democratic space and the concomitant benefits of conscientising the public of the prevailing social, political, cultural, global, and economic circumstances.


(Every time you think about Kenya journalism, video, TV, print media, you will think of Zarina Patel, freedom's true warrior).


By her very close friend and companion in the battle for human rights:

Pheroze Nowrojee


Last week we lost an invaluable Kenyan. Zarina Patel died. It is a major loss.

Zarina’s many-faceted achievements were a major neural network in the cultural body in our nation, with similar close connections with today’s progressive political figures and movements.

Zarina’s commitment to public discourse took her from advocacy to action for change. In the slough of the Moi years, Zarina was active in politics. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). And then an official.

She rejected the grotesque politics of the Moi years and worked for the alternative of institutional policies and public life built on social justice. She was present in the alliances of the opposition parties and speaking in public meetings.   

She was writing all the time, with particular interest in women’s rights and progressive figures in Kenya’s past. Apart from her continuous writing as Chief Editor of Awaaz magazine, Zarina is the author of three major books and biographies of the key Asian figures in modern Kenyan history. Her first was the biography of A.M. Jeevanjee, who broke the monopoly of the White settlers in respect of representation in the Legislative Council. In 1906, Jeevanjee was appointed a Member of the Legislative Council (LegCo). The book is titled Challenge to Colonialism.

Her next major book Unquiet was her biography of Makhan Singh, the founder with Fred Kubai of the trade union movement in Kenya, and an implacable opponent of settler colonialism and British imperialism. Makhan Singh pushed for freedom in 1950 calling for, and organising for, the immediate independence of all four East African colonies. For his pains, Makhan Singh was put in detention and not released till 11 years later in 1961. Our university students of our past have much to gain from this study of Kenyan history. Zarina’s deep research in international archives and the whole-hearted cooperation of the family of Makhan Singh make this an invaluable part of the literature of our history. That Zarina found Makhan Singh’s politics enjoyable was a bonus in the writing of the book.

This was followed by her major study on M.A. Desai, The Stormy Petrel. M.A. Desai, (who died in 1926), after whom Desai Road in Nairobi City is named, was one of all Kenya’s greatest politicians. Again, Zarina’s research led her to archives and collections in Kenya, India and Britain. Desai was a journalist, writer, politician, printer, and publisher, active with Harry Thuku, both politically and in the publishing of newspapers.

Zarina found herself once again reflected in her book on another person. Not for nothing has it been said, ‘Every biography is an autobiography.’

Zarina’s books covered major periods of our past: the years 1906 onwards during the shaping of the early politics in the colonial period; the period 1918 to 1923 when the Kenya Indians blocked the surge for self-rule by the White settlers on the model of South Africa, and the Devonshire Declaration of 1923 established the paramountcy of African interests; and the period 1950 and the advent of Uhuru. Zarina was at home working in all of these periods. No understanding of those periods of Kenyan history is complete without reference to her studies.

It was not only the past that she reveled in. The SAMOSA Cultural Festival which she and Zahid Rajan established and held annually, celebrated music, dance, theatre and all the performance arts. 

A most important achievement has been Awaaz magazine. This has been, and is, a journal of events, achievements, reflections and records. The editors’ intent has never been communal glorification but is an admirable addition to the history of Kenya and its international spillovers.

The magazine’s achievement is not only the fascinating coverage, with the audience offering to the unknown while gathering more thought on the known. Its greater importance is the constancy of its aims and its intellectual stamina. In that it reflects the same qualities in Zarina and Zahid.

Zarina did not let illness halt her many work goals or her participation outside. Nor even to slow her down. Her determination was unflagging.  She would be present at events put up by Awaaz or at the regular lunches with old friends, engaging fully in the planning of new events, and of course in the disagreements on political stands.


Tribute by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Zarina you have left us
To be with us always
You were there when workers marched for adequate wages
You were there when peasants marched to defend their lands
You marched with all who march to demand adequate shelters
You marched with students rejecting education for sale and profit
Who demanded education for self-confidence and pride in us Kenyan people
You, sister Zarina Patel
You always marched step by step with all seekers of justice.
Zarina you remind me of Gama Pinto
Assassinated because he warned us against neo-colonialism
Zarina you remind me of
Makhan Singh
The founding genius of Trade
Unionism in Kenya
The first Kenyan to be “deported” to
Kapenguria
Because in 1948 he said Kenyan
people could govern themselves
Zarina you remind me of Desai who in 1920 worked with Harry Thuku
Who became the link between
Gadhi’s Indian Congress and Marcus Garvey’s movement
And that was why the British Killed Nyanjirũ Mũthoni and 150 Workers
And deported Harry Thuku
to Kismayu
And then brainwashed him…
Thus breaking the link between Asia, Africa and Black
America resistance…
Zarina let me stop there because
I don’t want tears to flood my face
Because I know you would want us Not to Cry for your body departed
But to cry with all those fighting for justice
Marching with all the workers and peasants of Kenya, Africa, Asia and the world.
Zarina Patel your body has returned to the elements
Fire, light, Ra
You will always be the sun shining in all our struggles for Justice
Zarina you have left us
To be with us always
See the fire
See the light

Diaspora Times

Zarina’s passing is a major loss to Kenya and East Africa. RIP.


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