How the Quaker Church shaped Musalia Mudavadi’s character and career

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi is widely regarded as the most prominent public figure associated with the Quakers in Kenya, according to the article. The report notes that until the recent death and burial of former Cabinet Minister Burudi Nabwera, Nabwera was the other well-known member of the church with considerable political and social influence.

The Quakers, formally known as the Religious Society of Friends, are described as having left a wide footprint through reforms in politics, commerce, culture, academia, trade unionism, democracy and human rights. The article also states that the church is the only religious institution to hold a permanent seat on peace at the United Nations in Geneva. In Kenya, the church is largely drawn from western Kenya, where it was founded more than 150 years ago by three young American missionaries.

The article lists other Kenyans it identifies as Quakers, including the Prime Cabinet Secretary’s late father, Moses Substone Budamba Mudavadi, a minister in the government of former President Daniel arap Moi. It also names the late Cabinet ministers Joshua Mulanda Angatia, Elijah Mwangale and Soita Shitanda; former UNCTAD Secretary-General Dr Mukhisa Kituyi; Higher Education Principal Secretary Dr Beatrice Muganda Inyangala; Public Service Principal Secretary Prof. Jane Imbunya; scientist Prof. Miriam Were; and the late biochemist Prof. Norah Olembo.

Outside Kenya, the article says former US presidents Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover were members of the Friends Church, as was Dolley Payne Madison, wife of fourth US President James Madison. It adds that the French philosopher Voltaire was drawn to Quaker teachings, hiring a member of the church as his tutor during his three-year exile in Britain and devoting four chapters to the group in one of his books, although he did not convert.

Mudavadi was born and raised as a Quaker in rural Vihiga County, the article says. It describes him as widely considered calm, listening, reflective, humble, collected and hard-working, and as a team player, qualities the article attributes to his upbringing in the Friends Church. The article states that the church is built on six principles, summarised as SPICES: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality and Stewardship, which it says have greatly influenced his character in public and private life.

The article explains that Friends do not swear on the Bible but instead raise their right hands to affirm their testimony. Mudavadi has done so whenever he has taken up public office, it notes. The church’s members hold that speaking the truth is a constant obligation that must always be upheld, and that an oath is unnecessary, since it is in itself dishonest, shows a lack of trust in oneself, and tempts God. The article notes that this tradition has at times placed the church in the spotlight and, especially in Britain and America, has led to persecution and segregation of its followers (Ephesians 4:15).

The article closes with a historical note. On November 28, 1984, US President Ronald Reagan posthumously granted honorary citizenship to William Penn, a British Quaker who founded the State of Pennsylvania in the 17th century, and to his wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn.

Source: Read the original report