Monday 3 April 2023

FATHERS OF NATIONS ESSAY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Fathers of Nations Essay Questions and Answers

© Wafula Wekati

FATHERS OF NATIONS KCSE ESSAY QUESTION

Seeking revenge results in more pain.

Using illustrations from Fathers of Nations, write an essay to support this statement.

Sometimes we suffer at the hands of others. Usually, we feel the urge to get even or to retaliate. However, seeking revenge leaves one with more pain or anguish as in the case of Professor Kimani and Engineer Tahir, in Paul B. Vitta’s Fathers of Nations.

First, when Professor Kimani's wife runs off with a randy member of parliament, he seeks revenge but ends up in more anguish. Initially, professor Kimani is a trailblazing tutor who joins the university of Nairobi as a high-flying senior lecturer in its Institute of Development Studies. He also marries a campus beauty, Asiya Omondi. This is before he becomes a professor. His woes begin when Walomu steals his wife. When Asiya tells him that she is leaving him for Walomu, he asks if it is for his money. Before, professors used to earn more than MPs. Now MPs earn a hundred times more and are also exempted from paying tax – a legal coup. Due to the recession, professor Kimani is strapped for cash. He eats in a low end restaurant and his car is down again. He will fix it when he gets the next salary. Asiya humiliates him when she asks him to quit teaching and join politics like Newborn Walomu, who now owns four cars unlike Kimani who only has a dying old Toyota. It is painful for professor to lose his wife to a rowdy fellow and former junior colleague. After Tuni's death, Asiya loathes him and her hatred and gloom culminate when she quits their thirty year marriage. She mocks him that Tuni would still be alive if he had a real car. He limply defends himself saying that Tuni did not die in their car. She is sixty when she leaves him. Kimani seeks revenge when he visits Walomu's office. He insolently refers to the MP as a fat baboon and even tries to physically assault him. The three blows miss and he even falls down. Instead of closure, Kimani suffers more pain. Walomu humiliates him by talking about statistics of “wife-stealing” in USA, Britain and Greek. He also boasts about his three beautiful wives making Kimani appear like a green-eyed sore loser. Apart from this humiliation, Kimani is locked up for six months for assaulting a member of parliament. He is also demoted from the position of professor to senior lecturer for disgracing the university. Tuni's death, desertion by Asiya and mistreatment by the university test him hard. These three losses harden into a grudge. After his jail term, he is weary due to lack of sleep. He even decides to walk out of the teaching job, a post he had initially purposed to do for life. Surely, seeking vengeance may cause more harm than good and pepper salt on a wound.

Apart from that, when Engineer Seif Tahir feels rejected by a junior female colleague, he is infuriated and decides to avenge. Does this vengeance buy him peace? No. He becomes even more restless. It causes him nothing but pain. Tahir falls in love with a kind woman aptly named Rahma - Arabic for very kind. She has a big smile and big eyes. She is beautiful. Rahma is Tahir’s junior by a million miles. This difference in rank is ironically a disadvantage to Tahir. This is because he cannot stand the indignity of rejection by a junior colleague. Tahir regrets obsequiously saying “Sabah Kher” and quickly invites Rahma for tomato soup assertively. It is Wednesday. He suggests a tomato soup date during the weekend giving the lady four days notice. She does not say anything but her big eyes shine like a light bulb. She also gives him a big smile revealing big white teeth and big purple gums. Tahir also notices that she has a dimple on her left cheek. Her head is covered in a head veil as per the Libyan customs. Tahir suggests that they meet on Saturday. She says no. A sweet no to conceal her eagerness to accept the tomato soup offer. Enthusiasm to say yes would be unseemly for a Libyan woman. Tahir mistakes the sweet deceptive no for a sour no. He cannot stand the ungracious rejection. He storms back to his office in a fit of fury vowing to pay back. And revenge he does. He slaps Rahma during the “Heritage week” when she removes her head veil, an impediment for her laboratory work. He does it ostensibly to punish a female colleague violating the culture but in truth he only does it as vengeance out of disappointment and humiliation of rejection. Without thinking, Rahma hits back. Tahir loses his left eye when she strikes back with a letter opener. He spends a month in hospital and when he is discharged he is bitter and vengeful. He wins the case and Rahma loses her eye according to the “an eye for an eye” Hammurabic verdict. This victory of revenge leaves Tahir with an air of unrelenting sorrow and self-hatred instead of joy. The agony is compounded by the artificial eye concealing the hole in his face. He sinks into deep gloom and leaves Tripoli for Benghazi for a retreat in solitude to escape nagging friends trying to talk him out of his anguish. Indeed, revenge only causes more pain rather than relief.

Thirdly, Comrade Melusi Ngobile tries to attack Zimbabwe’s president in a bid to avenge his wife Ziliza but ends up with an egg on his face when he is ignominiously seized and whisked away by security guards. Zimbabwe’s president commits many atrocities against Melusi and his Ndebele tribesmen but the biggest pain emanates from the death of his dear wife. First, the new ruler refuses to appoint comrade Melusi minister solely on ethnic grounds. He is Shona while Melusi is Ndebele - thus a perceived enemy. He also sacks the leader of Melusi's group for supposedly plotting to execute a coup. Anti-government protests that erupt following this dismissal result in a cruel response from the government. The 5th brigade “Gukurahundi” unleashes untold terror on the Ndebele insurgents killing many people including Ziliza, Melusi's wife. They strangled her and splayed her on the kitchen floor as if in a taunt, with her eyes popping out in a deathly stare. The bigotry with which the new ruler treats the Ndebele is a story of betrayal since both tribes fought as allies against Smith - the colonial master. Furthermore, the ruler uses “Murambatsvina” to expel the urban poor from the slums without warning or alternative settlement. They chew Comrade Melusi up and spit him out. He daydreams about his wife who has been dead for 20 years yet his bitterness lingers. In a photo, she mournfully pleads with him to avenge her death. While standing at attention, he executes a wobbly salute and swears that he will revenge her death. The next day when he attempts to execute the vengeance, his plan is nipped in the bud when the hawk-eyed security guards at the summit grab him by the collar before he could attack the offending president - his arch nemesis. He is then shamelessly whisked away. When the summit reconvenes, he does not resurface. Revenge can indeed be an effort in futility that aggravates rather than alleviates the victim's pain.

Rahma regrets when she strikes back after Tahir slaps her. Her instant revenge has far-reaching consequences that she finds out when the Hammurabic verdict goes against her. Rahma is Engineer Tahir’s junior colleague. When he approaches her offering to take her out on a date, she conceals her eagerness to say yes by burying her response under layers of coyness. She simply gives him a big smile while her big eyes shine like a bulb but says nothing. When he persists, she says no. But she means yes. He had to fill in the blanks. He misinterprets her sweet no for a sour no and vows to revenge. He slaps Rahma as she is removing her head veil for work. Rahma does not stop to think of her next step of action. She strikes back instead of restraining herself. She fails to reason logically in the heat of anger. She reacts on reflex after being hit first. She fails to consider future consequences. Turning the other cheek would have been a better response, wouldn’t it? She splits Engineer Tahir’s left eye open using a letter opener. He spends a month in hospital and comes back bitter and vengeful, taking her to court the same day. He avers that he slapped her to stop her from imitating Americans and disgracing Libya. In her defense, she cites temporary insanity caused by extreme provocation. She regrets her thoughtless act of vengeance when the court returns a Hammurabic verdict, “an eye for an eye”. She cries but the court is not moved. She loses her left eye through surgery. Rahma’s quest for revenge causes her more pain in the long run.

In conclusion, tit for tat is a fair game or so they say but clearly, reprisal may worsen a bad situation. Kimani, Tahir, Melusi and Rahma move from the frying pan into the fire while seeking vengeance.

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