Just for Today: The Life and Times of Jean-Marie Seroney

ISBN-10: 190920479X
ISBN-13: 9781909204799
Series: Just for Today
Pages: 628
Language: English
Published: 2015-11-02
Author: Godfrey K. Sang

Description

The book - "Just for Today - the Life and Times of Jean-Marie Seroney" by Godfrey Sang concerns a Kenyan politician, Jean-Marie Seroney, who played a significant role in the movement for Independence in Kenya, and in politics during the first Kenyatta and Moa eras. Seroney died in 1982, and is almost forgotten - or at least ignored - in present Kenya. He is not alone: a question still begging, despite the introduction of Mashujaa Day, is who are genuinely the great people of Kenya's last 50-odd years. To remember them is not to hero-worship them: all heroes have flaws. The point is simply to recognise objectively those who have contributed to Kenya's distinctive political, social and other traditions. It was that ignorance that led Godfrey Sang to turn his hand to this history. He had heard of this great figure, Seroney, from a very elderly neighbour. To find out more, he researched the life and times of Seroney. Mr Sang has placed him in an important historical context, as a great Nandi hero and as a member of that generation that argued for Independence and negotiated hard over its future Constitution. He explains the ups and downs of a volatile, unlucky and sometimes unwise politician. Through the whole story comes Seroney's attachment to scholarship, the law, the Rule of Law, due process and constitutionality. He was an uncomfortable pebble in the shoes of all Kenya's political leaders, a reminder of the promises they seemed to prefer to forget as they walked to power. He was a living demonstration of the lengths to which the powerful would go to suppress dissidents. In all this, the question the perceptive reader will want to decide is whether Seroney was a great local boy from Tinderet, to be celebrated as such; or whether he transcended his regional and ethnic origins and became a national figure, whose achievements and failures can be assessed and valued by all Kenyans."