CHURCH AND STATE IN KENYA, 1986-1992: THE CHURCHES' INVOLVEMENT IN THE 'GAME OF CHANGE'1

This article examines the stages by which the Church in Kenyaoffered a primary challenge to the closed political system ofDaniel Arap Moi's regime, yet without establishing a politicalparty. More specifically, this article reviews the role of meChurch between 1986–1992 in generating and sustaininga public discourse on democracy and change in Kenya as wellas its organizational grass-root political activities priorto the holding of the first multi-party elections in 1992. Finally,it is argued that the debate between officialdom and the Church—mainlyits leading clergy—over the very definition of politics,not only sustained the national discourse on democracy but alsospawned demands for the democratization of Church structuresthemselves. This study is neither chronological nor purely narrative. Ratherit is structured around three central foci: first the Churches'critique of the structure of power in Kenya—a structurewhose core was the one-party system; second their involvementin local or sproadic controversies and upheavals; and thirdtheir active political involvement and information-disseminationcampaign prior to the 1992 elections.     

Challenging the Biological: The Fantasy of Male Birth as a Nineteenth-Century Narrative of Ethical Failure

In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë portrays a fully realized heroine who challenges society's and fiction's conventional roles for women. In order to broaden her heroine's role, Brontë had to go beyond the genres open to her — the novel of manners, the Gothic, and the governess novel — to establish a new genre: the feminist fairytale. In establishing this genre, Brontë pinpoints Jane's specifically female dilemma: how to achieve intimacy and still maintain independence.

At once beautiful and terrible, sustaining and destructive, fire is the perfect element to convey a sense of Jane's often conflicting desires. Brontë carefully establishes hearth fires as an index to how included and “at home” Jane feels. Similarly, Brontë uses metaphors of self‐sacrifice and immolation to indicate times when Jane feels her independence is being threatened.

The hearth fires and the metaphorical fires are overshadowed by the “big” fires in the novel, but their consistent, unobtrusive use allows Brontë to reinforce her theme in the simple details of the story and to maintain an attention to craft that is too often undervalued or ignored.