| Abstract | This article examines how, between 1983 (Kenya's 20th anniversary of independence) and 1992 (the year Kenya became a multi-party state), the Kenya African National Union (KANU) used Nairobi's monumental landscape in a concerted effort to create a Kenyan postcolonial identity. The monuments erected in the capital city during these years of Moi's presidency (the Nyayo era) illustrate how the memory of the moment of independence was drawn upon in an attempt to unite the country's heterogeneous population through a Kenyan national identity. This memory was additionally mobilised through the use of independence anniversaries as lieux de memoire in the inscription of these monuments into Nairobi's landscape. However, the memory was one chosen by the political elite, those who had the power to do so. While this group used its power to inscribe the landscape, it similarly used the inscription of the landscape to assert power. The political elite claimed the memory of independence to validate its authority and to associate itself with the independent country. The article examines how the abstract and metaphorical physical forms of Nairobi's Nyayo-era monuments form a postcolonial aesthetic in the city's monumental landscape and how this aesthetic was constructed to invite the wananchi (citizens) to participate in the celebration of the nation state.
|
