African Politics and the Struggle for the Artist's Freedom: viewpoints from Kenya
Abstract
Kenya is one of the three East African Countries (the others are Uganda and Tanzania).
It has a population of over 24 million people and has been independent, at least
nominally, from Britain, since 1963. (It is the home country of writer Ngugi wa
Thiongo, about whom a lot is fairly well known, especially regarding his 'tangos' with
the Kenya government).
In recent years, Kenya has gained international focus, particularly because of its 'one
man, one party politics' that has dominated the country for practically all the years of
its independence. The country's problems with artists are many and varied. This piece
is an attempt to highlight the vistas of political dominance that assail the artist in Kenya,
especially in the domain of the performing arts. It also makes appropriate references to
relevant parallels from other African countries.
URI
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1356978970020210http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/39121
Citation
George Odera Outa (1997): African Politics and the Struggle for the Artist's Freedom: viewpoints from Kenya, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2:2, 219-225Publisher
Department of Literature, Faculty of Arts, University of Nairobi