Sycophants in a cannibal state: Kenya in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow

Abstract

While time and history heavily indict sycophants’ and court jesters’ legacies for their insincerity and hypocrisy that may have aided or abetted injustices, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow intricately links their vocation with atrocity. The contingent of sycophants in dictatorial states is not limited to the political class but also from vital institutions such as the media and women’s organizations that serve to camouflage regimented atrocities. This chapter not only establishes sycophants being instrumental in the perpetration of atrocities, but explores their tragic fate as they too end up victims of the cannibal states they serve. The praying mantis analogy where a female mantis eats its male counterpart immediately after copulation is appropriated here to demonstrate the precarious relationship between gifted sycophants and cannibal states such as Kenya. Indeed, Kenya’s turbulent political history provides a rich archive from which the chapter dissects encodings of sycophants’ annihilation of their souls and, by extension, the soul of the nation that they desecrate in their quest for tokens, for power embodied in autocrats, for their survival. Ultimately, the chapter asserts that Kenya’s assassination histories are interlinked with tragedies that assail sycophancy.