Ni Sisi
Jenny Webb discusses a film shot in Kenya and its uplifting message
A man tears around the rickety stage in agony screaming: ‘Knifed! I’ve been knifed!’ Three brightly dressed, buxom ladies go to inspect his injuries. By now, he is prone on the floor and they turn him over and pronounce their verdict: ‘A bee sting!’
The crowd, standing in front of the stage under the blazing sun, breaks out in raucous laughter, only too pleased to see this man cut down to size.
This is a scene from Ni Sisi (‘It Is Us’), a play produced by SAFE (Sponsored Arts for Education) Kenya to tour Kenyan villages, and later made into a film. The film begins with the Kenyan national anthem, set in sunshine against lush fields and idyllic scenes of gently unfolding village life. Its message is uplifting:
Bless this our land and nation
Justice be our shield and our defender
May we dwell in unity
Peace and liberty.
However, as the film progresses, these lofty aspirations are forgotten. Bright skies give way to darkness, and the humour is overtaken by hatred and fear, as racial hatred pollutes relationships between people.
Suspicion is fomented by a callous election candidate, who calculates that he will be able to win a seat if he is successful in attracting the votes of the majority tribe in the village. He does this by spreading rumours about the minority group: ‘They stole your land! They bewitched your ancestors! They urinate in the water supply!’ And later: ‘They are training militias in the bush to come and attack you!’
From December 2007 to February 2008, following the general election, Kenya erupted into violence. It is reported that more than 1,000 people died and over 700,000 were displaced. In the wake of this disaster, SAFE Kenya produced Ni Sisi, with the aim of opening up a dialogue about the violence and helping people to realise that they had a voice and could work together to build a peaceful society.
I came across this film unexpectedly when, strangely enough, I found it offered by Ethiopian Airlines as in-flight entertainment en route to Zimbabwe. For me, it evoked the horrifying intertribal violence of Rwanda, but it also had a wider resonance.
On my way home from Zimbabwe, I found in the airport, on the front page of a Zanu-PF newspaper, a large picture of the Pope with blackened eyes. This introduced a long article with a specious historical account of the evils of the Catholic Church.
Then, when I returned to England, I faced once again the political machinations of those who seem intent on setting us against each other: the rhetoric of ‘control by Brussels’, the scare stories about immigration and the emphasis on ‘hard-working families’ – raising once again the Victorian spectre of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor.
We only have to open the newspapers, or pass the time of day with a neighbour, to hear negative and divisive narratives like this that serve to deny the humanity of others.
Ni Sisi lays bare the means by which people’s fears can be exploited by such stories to generate hatred and violence. The film also makes clear that each one of us has both the responsibility and the power to counter these narratives. No matter how difficult, in our everyday lives we need constantly to bear witness to the values of peace and compassion.
Ni Sisi is a fascinating, funny, uplifting and thought-provoking story.
