Revolutionary men can also have a dark side

The Herald

10-06-2025

On May 28, the world awoke to news of the death of Kenyan author and academic Ngugi wa Thiong'o, regarded as one of the leading African novelists and an important figure in modern African literature.
Wa Thiong'o, who survived a prostate cancer diagnosis decades before, had been struggling with kidney problems at the time of his death. He passed away in Georgia in the US.
Wa Thiong'o was an award-winning author of many books, including his debut novel, Weep Not Child , which was awarded the 1966 Unesco First Prize. Many other book prizes and accolades would follow, including the prestigious 2022 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, which is awarded biennially to writers, principally novelists, 'whose works evoke to some measure of brilliant versatility and commitment to literature as a search for the deepest truth and the highest pleasure'.
He was also the recipient of 13 honorary degrees from some of the most renowned higher learning institutions in the world.
In 2014, Walter Sisulu University awarded him a Doctor of Literature and Philosophy honorary degree, and in the same year, the University of Bayreuth in Germany, where I am currently pursuing my PhD in Geography, also awarded him an honorary doctorate.
There is no question that Wa Thiong'o was a giant of African literature.
But in March 2024, shocking allegations were made by his son, Kenyan-American writer Mukoma Ngugi, who stated on social media that his father, the great novelist and academic, had physically and psychologically abused his late wife Nyambura, Mukoma's mother.
Writing on X (formerly Twitter), the Associate Professor of Literature at Cornell University shared the pain of growing up witnessing the abuse and silencing of his late mother.
'My father @NgugiWaThiongo physically abused my late mother. He would beat her up,' he wrote.
'Some of my earliest memories are of me going to visit her at my grandmother's where she would seek refuge.
'But with that said, it is the silencing of who she was that gets me. Ok — I have said it.'
The revelations sent shock waves across the literary world and society in general, with many question how such a respected man could be guilty of such heinous actions.
While the story was widely reported, it did little to diminish the legacy of Wa Thiong'o, who continues to be revered and celebrated in death as he was in life.
But the allegations of Wa Thiong'o's abuse of his wife should not be swept under the carpet. They are as much a part of his legacy as his accolades and award-winning novels are.
The refusal to engage with this aspect of his life, to see him as a complex human being who was both a victim of colonial violence in Kenya and a perpetrator of domestic violence on the home front, is an injustice not only to the memory of Nyambura, but to all women in the world who have been erased and whose own legacies are overshadowed by those of the powerful men they are married to.
This perpetuates the privatisation of violence, where men are revolutionaries in public and abusers in private.
This is the case with many great revolutionaries. One of the greatest black revolutionaries, Black Panther Party cofounder Huey P Newton, was accused by close Panther associates of behaving erratically and in abusive ways towards comrades, particularly women.
In 2007, Ericka Higgins, one of the women leaders of the Panthers, disclosed that she was allegedly repeatedly raped by Newton and told that if she reported the rapes, her children would be harmed.
There are wounds that many women who are in relationships with men celebrated as revolutionaries have had to endure in silence. When they speak out, they are shamed for 'tarnishing' the men's images.
But if we are to reflect on the legacy of Wa Thiong'o and other great men, we must do so truthfully and remember them in their fullness.