By Ogova Ondego
Published December 3, 2024
A monument dedicated to US President-Elect Donald J Trump is being completed in Kenya ahead of his inauguration on January 20, 2025.
David G Maillu, the creator of the monument that is named President Donald Trump Shithole, says his work is based on Trump’s labeling of African countries on February 12, 2018 as ‘Shithole Countries’. Trump was reported to have questioned why USA should accept more immigrants from Haiti and ‘shithole countries’ in reference to Africa.
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The monument is a giant sculpture housing two shithole chambers or toilets for males and females, respectively. The shitholes, Maillu says, shall be open to the public in memory of President Trump’s racial slur. Behind the Trump statue is a house to accommodate any visitor interested in spending a night or two at Mathemboni Arts and Culture Centre at which the President Donald Trump Shithole stands. The sculpture bears a crucifixion with the tag President Donald Trump Shithole with an arrow pointing at the image of Donald J Trump.
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Maillu says he started working on the giant structure that is made up of concrete during President Trump’s first term in office (2016-2020) but slowed down when he ran short of resources and stopped when Trump lost the Presidency in 2020.
“Now that he is back in power,” Maillu says, “I want to finish the project for its launch to coincide with President Trump’s inauguration.”
He says he has written a novella to be published for visitors on the spirit behind the monument.
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So why build a monument based on insult and racism?
Maillu says he is building the monument not to glorify Trump but to protest his racial remark and the studious silence ‘from the so-called shithole nations’.
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“No African President has protested as only Muamar Ghadaffi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Nelson Mandela of South Africa would have had they been alive. I thought I should use my gift in art on behalf of black people to tell President Trump and the worlds what African heads can’t tell him,” he says. “As a writer and artist, I thought that unbearable human-hate statement should be given a permanent international social landmark for the people from Trump’s shithole nations. I thought of marking that landmark by building a giant Donald Trump sculpture housing two real and practical shithole chambers.”
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Speaking at Mathemboni (shrines) that lies on the border of the Ukambani counties of Machakos and Makueni in eastern Kenya, Maillu says, “I am building this sculpture also in my capacity as the President of African Spirituality to symbolize my leadership to African noble elders and invite them to join me in sacrificing President Donald Trump to the powers of our ancestral spirits.”
