The Return of the Red Pen - Echoes of War

A quiet revolution took the stage at the Kenya National Drama and Film Festival this year—one that barely lasted before being dragged behind the curtain by a “heavy hand”.

Echoes of War, a high school play by Butere Girls, has stirred a national conversation that reaches far beyond theatre. Set in the fictional kingdom of the Royal Velvet Emirates, the play dares to do what so many forms of art in autocratic and quasi-democratic states have historically done: comment on the present by hiding behind the veil of the fictitious.

The title alone—Echoes of War—is prophetic. It suggests that what we are witnessing is not new. That this has happened before, and if we are not careful, will happen again.

At the heart of the play is a generational divide. “There exists a natural balance between RESPECT for the old and CARE for the young,” the play proclaims. “Those who are old bring experience, while those who are young bring enthusiasm and creative innovation.” But this balance has broken down in the Royal Velvet Emirates—as it arguably has in Kenya—where the old now rule with inflexible strictness, and the young simmer with agitation.

That a group of schoolgirls could perform a script that resonates so sharply with the current Kenyan political climate is a testament to the power of youth, of education, and of art. But that the government—through the Ministry of Education and its security apparatus—responded by banning the play and deploying security forces who used teargas to disperse crowds attempting to watch it, is a sobering reminder of just how intolerant we remain to critique. Even critique dressed in velvet robes and disguised as fiction.

Sultan in the Mirror

To the politically attuned ear, the figure of the Sultan in Echoes of War is anything but accidental. Though the play is set in the fictional Royal Velvet Emirates, the Sultan — a ruler portrayed as aloof, extractive, and obsessed with order — closely mirrors public frustrations with Kenya’s current leadership.

His character is not named, but the symbolism is deliberate. In a country where satire often survives through suggestion, the Sultan stands in for far more than just a fictional monarch.

This allegorical approach echoes a long tradition in Kenyan performance culture, where theatre and comedy have served as veiled critique. Shows like Redykulas and Vitimbi mastered this art during the Moi era — using metaphor and caricature to speak truths that could not be said plainly.

They were censored, leaned on, or quietly pushed off-air when they pushed too far. Echoes of War borrows from that same lineage, disguising real questions in fictional robes.

The play does not name power. But it mirrors it — and in doing so, it dares it to look back.

The Return of the Red Pen

To ban Echoes of War is to summon the ghost of a pen we thought we had buried — the red pen. It is more than an editorial tool; it is an instrument of fear, once wielded in the margins of manuscripts, drama scripts, and syllabi across this country.

The red pen censored what it could not comprehend. It silenced what it refused to confront. And in doing so, it defined an era — one where creativity bowed to conformity, and expression survived only through subversion.

We have seen this before. Plays vetted by internal security agents. Literature teachers summoned for classroom discussions deemed “subversive.” Musicians like Eric Wainaina placed on unofficial blacklists for daring to sing about patriotism without permission.

Entire films — like The Constant Gardener — branded national security threats for making global audiences look too closely at local rot. Even school compositions once bore the weight of surveillance.

This is not merely about a school play. It is about the creeping normalization of repression disguised as order. The return of the red pen signals the return of a state that cannot distinguish scrutiny from sabotage — one that punishes imagination as if it were insurrection.

It is the logic of regimes that believe the appearance of control matters more than the presence of justice. That leadership can be maintained by muzzle. That power can be preserved through paranoia.

And the intended lesson? That politics is the domain of grown men in suits and riot gear — not of teenage girls holding scripts under stage lights.

But in attempting to “kill a mosquito with a cannon,” the government has done more than overreact. It has revealed its fragility. For if a metaphor delivered by schoolgirls can provoke such fury, then perhaps the regime is not as confident as it pretends. The return of the red pen, in all its fury and absurdity, has only underlined what it sought to erase: that the truth is still being written — and not always by those in power.

The Court Speaks

Perhaps the most telling moment in this entire saga came not on the stage, but in the courtroom. The High Court, presided over by Justice Wilfrida Okwany, intervened and ordered Butere Girls High School to recall its drama students and allow them to perform Echoes of War at the National Drama Festival.

This directive was issued in the case Anifa Mango v Principal, Butere Girls High School & 3 Others, Petition No. E006 of 2025. In doing so, the judiciary affirmed the students’ right to artistic expression—a right that had been trampled by executive overreach.

Chief Justice Martha Koome condemned the events that unfolded during the festival, describing them as a serious affront to the rule of law. She emphasized that defying court orders threatens the foundation of Kenya’s constitutional democracy and expressed alarm at reports of force and violence against students during the incident.

The state’s use of force, even in the face of a lawful directive, now appears not only paranoid but openly defiant of constitutional order. That the state responded to a court-sanctioned play with teargas and arrests shows that this was never just about drama—it was about power and the lengths it will go to maintain silence.

The Ministry’s Denial

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba refuted claims that the government prevented Butere Girls from performing Echoes of War. He stated that the students were provided the opportunity to perform but declined to do so of their own volition. Ogamba added that the school’s management violated Teachers Service Commission regulations by inviting Cleophas Malalah, a non-teacher, to direct the play.

But this official account stands in tension with what transpired. The court order, the walkout, and the surrounding context paint a very different picture—one where intimidation, not indifference, shaped the students’ choice.

The Walkout

On the morning of April 10, 2025, Butere Girls took to the stage at the Kenya Schools and Colleges National Drama and Film Festival in Nakuru. At 8 a.m., they sang the national anthem—and walked off without performing.

Their silence was deafening. It was a deliberate act of protest. Their director had been arrested. Their equipment—microphones, props, and public address systems—had allegedly been withdrawn. Their artistic space had been sabotaged.

Students from other schools joined in protest outside the venue. Police responded with teargas to disperse the gathering, prompting panic and forcing students back onto buses. The state’s reaction to a silent walkout spoke volumes.

Oscar Sudi’s Reproach

Where the judiciary saw freedom of expression, others saw indoctrination. Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, a vocal ally of the president, criticized the play in a statement on his X (formerly Twitter) account:

“Parents and teachers should protect our innocent children from being used in political wars by selfish politicians. Our children need to be mentored to engage in plays and theatre that bring out cohesion, not divisions. Immersing children in dirty politics doesn’t augur well for our country.”

His remarks underscore the government’s official stance — that the play is not an act of artistic expression but a political landmine, planted by adults and weaponized through children.

But it’s a curious argument. If students are encouraged to write about corruption, poverty, and peace during other seasons, why is it only political when it hits too close to home? Why is the definition of ‘dirty politics’ reserved only for stories that question those currently in power?

Art as Subversion

Art, especially in its raw and performative form, has always carried the seeds of rebellion. In apartheid South Africa, theatre became a form of protest. In Uganda, playwrights such as Alex Mukulu were detained for satire. In Kenya, school drama festivals have long hosted thinly-veiled critiques of power — their stages doubling as civic classrooms for Kenya’s restless youth.

One notable example is I Will Marry When I Want, co-written by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Ngũgĩ wa Mirii. Banned shortly after its 1977 premiere for exposing class exploitation and political hypocrisy, it found new life decades later on high school stages, where its messages were revived and reframed for a new generation.

In that tradition, Echoes of War has ignited not just applause, but alarm — using allegory and performance to give voice to a generation increasingly unafraid to question authority.

The Author Behind the Curtain

The author of Echoes of War is Cleophas Malalah, the former Senator of Kakamega. A literature graduate and theatre practitioner, Malalah’s political life has never been far from the stage — or from controversy. His March 2025 arrest — tied directly to the performance of Echoes of War — intensified public scrutiny over the government’s suppression of critical art.

While Malalah is credited with the original script, drama teachers at Butere Girls reportedly adapted and reworked the material to suit the school festival format — blurring the line between adult authorship and student agency.

Malalah is no stranger to controversy in the arts. A decade earlier, he had penned Shackles of Doom, another allegorical critique of Kenya’s ethnic and economic inequalities. That play, too, was banned — and led to his brief arrest. The echoes, it seems, are both in the title and in history repeating itself.

His works are known to be allegorical, laced with political commentary, and reflective of the tensions within Kenya’s democratic experiment. His authorship reinforces the play’s underlying message — that politics is too important to be left to politicians alone.

Gachagua Weighs In

Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, now a vocal critic of the administration that sidelined him, also weighed in on the controversy. He defended Malalah and condemned the government’s crackdown.

Speaking after reports of arrests and police disruptions, Gachagua framed the reaction as overkill, reinforcing public sentiment that the regime has become overly intolerant of dissent — even when it comes from teenagers.

“This is not how governments should respond to artistic expression,” Gachagua said, adding that the state’s actions showed “paranoia and a fear of the very people they claim to serve.”

A Question of Timing

The government’s heavy-handed response to Echoes of War cannot be divorced from the political calendar. Coming so close to the June 2025 reading of the new Finance Bill, the play’s release may have set off alarm bells within a regime still reeling from the memory of last year’s Gen Z protests.

In 2024, those youth-led demonstrations — sparked by opposition to an earlier version of the Finance Bill — caught the government off guard and ultimately forced a retreat. The parallels drawn in the play between youthful discontent and autocratic governance may have felt too familiar, too soon.

In this light, the state’s hypersensitivity could be seen less as a reaction to school theatre and more as preemptive damage control, designed to avoid the risk of reawakening a demographic that has already proven its political might.

What Happens Next?

Banning the play has only amplified its message. The PDF of the full script is already circulating online, and the conversation about it has become part of the very national dialogue the authorities tried to prevent.

Ironically, the attempt to muzzle these voices only confirms their potency. Echoes of War will not be remembered as just another school play. It will be remembered as a line drawn in the sand — between those who believe the youth should be seen but not heard, and those who believe the youth might just be our only hope.

The Royal Velvet Emirates may be fiction. But in that fiction, truth finds its stage.

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