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Grappling On Stage With the Issue of Land Rights

Mwangi Githahu
Nairobi

29 August 2004 - Whether in Kenya or in Australia, the issue of land continues to be a political, social and economic hot potato. This was made perfectly clear during the staged readings, from August 20 to August 24, in Nairobi, of the play, Yanagai! Yanagai! by Australian playwright Andrea James.

Coming at a time when the issue of land ownership is at the top of the news agenda, the readings could not have been more topical had they tried.

The performances were staged at the Italian Institute of Culture on the 6th Floor of Agip House, Westlands, Nairobi.

TheYanagai Yanagai (which is an Aborigine war cry) is set in Victoria Province in south east Australia, and deals with the failure (in December 2002) of the Yorta Yorta people's bid for a land title.

In what could very easily have been described as a largely family effort, veteran actress Mumbi Kaigwa, co-directed with her husband, Keith Pearson, a cast that included two of her own brothers, and herself - all of whom are members of the Theatre Company.

Other than Mumbi, two other members of the cast, Richie Mwendwa and Ken Waudo, gave very powerful performances. Mwendwa was particularly impressive in the dual roles of the First Wild Dog, known in Australia as a Dingo, and of the earnest young aboriginal, Lyall, who tries to get the old man known as Uncle (Ken Waudo) to come and testify in the court case.

Also outstanding was John Budds, as the avuncular but dogmatic Queen's Counsel.

Before the dramatised readings began, Mumbi explained to the audience that the play was set in a mythical landscape on the banks of a mighty river, Dhungula to the Aborigines, and the Murray to the white Australians.

Mumbi first saw the play being read last year at the Women Playwright's International Conference in Manila. At the conference, she took over the chairmanship of the organisation and will relinquish the post in Jakarta in 2006.

I found Yanagai Yanagai an extremely resonant and relevant piece of theatre, throwing up , as it did, the question, "Whose land is it, anyway?"

This point was discussed at length by the audience in a session after the reading.

The tale of Australia's Yorta Yorta Aboriginal people is not unlike that of Kenya's Maasai. However, the Yorta Yorta decided to test their claim in the Australian legal system and took their case for the return of their native rights to traditional lands and waters to the Australian High Court.

In the courts, the Yorta Yorta people found that the burden of proof of ownership of the land lay squarely on their shoulders and it was their word against that of various missionaries and colonial administrators from nearly two centuries before. In the play, they found that they had to prove that they had lived on the contentious land in an unbroken timeline.

This was impossible with the historical fact of what the Australian Aborigines call the children of the "stolen generation" , that is, children who were forcefully taken away from their parents and families and brought up in missionary stations. In the end, it has been found that there are few who can prove an unbroken connection to the land that is theirs.

Although the play deals with land title claims among the Yorta Yorta aboriginal people of south east Australia, it is a powerful piece of drama, dealing with the issue of their appeal in court in December 2002, against the decision not to reverse the "theft" of their land during colonial times.

As a curtain-raiser, the audiences were treated to a reading of the youthful Kenyan award-winning writer of fictional prose and drama, Andia Kisia's, work in progress, Miles and Miles of Empty Space. It is a short piece whose aim is to bring a Kenyan dimension to the question of indigenous land rights.

Andia has also won two BBC playwrighting awards, with the plays K-Street and Homecoming. And in 2002, she wrote a film, The Aftermath, for M-Net's New Directions project. The film was shot by Judy Kibinge.

At the end of each of last week's readings, there was a discussion amongst members of the audience on the issues raised by the play and their relation to current events in Kenya. The discussion was moderated by playwright, actor and activist Bantu Mwaura. Incidentally, in the backdrop to the staging of the readings were the protests by the Maasai to mark the hundredth anniversary of the first Anglo-Maasai Agreement of 1904.

According to Prof Lotte Hughes, an Englishwoman who has written extensively about the Maasai and their land claims, the Maasai "have their wires crossed re-whether the agreement was a lease which expired this month."

Prof Hughes says that her research found that the deal was an out and out sale and not a lease.

Lands Minister Amos Kimunya told a well-attended news conference in Nairobi last week that "the agreements are not worth the paper they are written on because they have been overtaken by other laws enacted since 1904."

He argued that even if the agreements were to be treated as valid, the are are hardly any 99-year leases on the land in question as most of the contentious leases are actually covered by an agreement for 999 years!

Source: The Nation (Kenya)

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