New freedoms awaken Kenyan culture

When Koigi Wamwere went to work recently here in the Kenyan capital, his supervisor kicked him out of the office.

Mr. Wanwere's misstep: wearing clothes that weren't deemed proper.

It's not that his pants were too ragged or his shirt too casual - quite the opposite, in fact. Wamwere was wearing a beautiful West African robe. But for a politician in Kenya's National Assembly, it was tantamount to a violation of parliamentary procedure.

Under rules dating back to colonial days, clothes worn by Kenyan parliamentarians must meet a "decency" standard. For men, that means suits and ties. So Speaker Francis ole Kaparo ordered Wamwere to leave.

In times past, during 40 years of single-party rule, Wamwere might have had to accept his fate quietly.

Now, a small storm is brewing over Kenya's dress code - just one example of a flowering of indigenous cultural expression that's been given fresh impetus by the new government.

From clothes to art to literature, areas where other African countries have been making significant contributions for years, Kenya is just beginning to define what it means to be Kenyan.

"It's getting to the top of a wave that's been building," says Joy Mboya, an entertainer and coordinator of the newly built Godown Arts Center in Nairobi. "This opportunity for a change in government has only increased that confidence. The business in Parliament [over the dress code] is just a part of it."

Four decades of control by one political party stifled much of the creativity that flourished in Kenya's immediate postcolonial period. The country's literary promise stagnated throughout the 1980s, with writers fearful of getting on the wrong side of the government and ending up in exile like novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o. But even he has said he will return because of the changing government.

While leaders in other African nations actively promoted cultural expression as an important part of their heritage, Kenyan politicians voiced platitudes about identity, while suppressing art that questioned the status quo.

"There was a perception with previous governments in Kenya that people in African dress were communists," says writer Binyavanga Wainaina. He says past governments were made up of people tightly linked to the colonial machinery, for whom credibility was defined as looking and sounding British.

As a result, Kenya was not producing anything near the indigenous cinema of countries like Burkina Faso and Mali, the music of Congo or South Africa, the fashion of Nigeria, or the literature of Senegal.

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