When the remains of Raila Amolo Odinga arrived from India yesterday, the city broke into hysterical mourning. Nairobi wailed like a bereaved mother. Thousands thronged the airport, eyes wet, throats raw, yearning for one last glimpse of the man who had held Kenya in thrall for decades. The last time we saw such spontenous outpouring of grief was when Jomo Kenyatta joined the ancestors.
Why did all these happen? Because Raila was no ordinary man,but a myth walking among mortals.
We often think myths belong to ancient times, far off climes and forgotten tongues. But nothing is further from the truth.Myths are alive. They are born when ordinary men and women believe extraordinary things.
From the 1920s to the 1980s, millions perished under the Communist myth in the USSR, Cuba, and China. Until the myth collapsed in the early 90s.
The West, too, had its myths. America was known as the land of the free, yet it’s the place where millions were enslaved. And once upon a time, the world was told that smoking made one handsome and healthy- like the Malboro man.Millions bought into this lie.Such is the power of belief. Truth bends before myth.
Even religion’s oldest tales are myths with staying power. One tells of a woman named Eve who disobeyed the heavens and bit into a forbidden fruit, unleashing all the evils of the world. Rings a bell? Whether true or not, that myth reshaped human destiny. Myths, once believed, are unstoppable.
Every myth begins with a hero stepping out from the ordinary into the realm of wonder-the mythological woods. There, they wrestle with the impossible, return transformed, bearing gifts for humankind. Through every ordeal, they die and are reborn, and their followers are reborn with them.
Such was Raila Odinga’s mythic journey. His first woods were the dark dungeons of detention after the attempted 1982 coup, from which he emerged alive when others were hanged. His consequent woods were the bitter elections of 1997, 2007, and 2017-defeats that would have broken lesser men. Yet each time, he rose, clasping hands with former foes- Presidents Moi, Kibaki, Uhuru-and walking on, still aflame.
His last test was in 2022 General Elections when he crossed once more into the shadows, only to emerge smiling beside President Ruto -a gesture both bewildering and godlike. Such is the rhythm of myth: descent, ordeal, rebirth.
And so the hysterical multitudes who cried “Baba!” and “Jowi!” yesterday were not addressing the departed man, but enthralled by what he represented:the myth.
When the news of Raila’s death began to trickle in, rumours followed like ghosts. He died days ago, some whispered. The body in that coffin isn’t his,others said.Whether true or not is beside the point. This too, is part of the myth-making for myths never end; they evolve.
So as we lower Raila Amolo Odinga into the earth in Bondo this Sunday, we do not bury him. We bury the man, not the myth, for myths do not rot. They linger, in songs, in stories, in whispers around smoky hearths and in chang’aa dens.
Just as Oedipus, Sundiata, Kimathi, Elvis Presley and even the ever-returning James Bond outlived their times, so too will he.For as long as Kenyans tells stories, someone will whisper, “Baba will rise again.”