Middle Africa: Behind the Mau Mau Rebellion
Jr, Martin L. Kilson
When the Mau Mau rebellion broke out in Kenya in the fall of 1952, the American press was quick to interpret it as a "terroristic" uprising by a people barely a few generations away from...
...But it all depends on what you mean by free will...
...2) That more Africanseats should be provided immediately in the Kenya Legislative Council...
...The three major Kikuyu political movements that preceded it, all sought the advancement of African life through constitutional means, and it is only if one remembers that these moderate efforts were entirely frustrated by the resistance of both the Kenya government and the white settlers that the Mau Mau reliance upon armed force becomes understandable...
...it was outlawed by the colonial government in 1940, the official charges being that the KCA's activity was detrimental to the British war effort...
...I (1928)( p. 326...
...This, however, was not the case, and the Africans—especially the Kikuyu—were left to face the new world of modernity as best they could...
...To secure this labor, compulsory methods were employed...
...The KAU, however, did not exist long enough to execute its policy...
...the KAU was founded during this period and continued to advance African demands through constitutional forms...
...exceeds in some cases 500 to a square mile.Thus some of the districts in our own province break therecord of the density of the world population of any agricultural peopleand occupy perhaps third place in the record of the density of the world population...
...Significant European settlement in Kenya began in 1902-03, and today it contains some 30,000 Europeans who control a major part of its social, economic and political life...
...And in 1919 his successor, General Northey, issued the so-called Northey Circular which officially established a compulsory or "induced" labor system in Kenya...
...W. Fitzgerald, Africa (1952), pp...
...This group comprised many Kikuyu ex-soldiers who fought for Britain in Burma, as well as many young Kikuyu...
...ly, even in groups of three or four, or listen to their leaders...
...In 1932, the KCA noted in a memorandum to the Morris Carter Land Commission that: * P. K. Kaltahu, "A Kikuyu Speaks of Kenya and Mau Mau," The Anti-Slavery Reporter (Jan...
...What was particularly disturbing were the KAU's demands for greater African representation, with African self-government as the ultimate goal...
...came into existence in 1922, with the expressed intention of finding a way to recover the "lost lands" of the Kikuyu, it was an easy matter togather together a large following, drawn particularly from the many members of the landowning families who then had no land that they could call their own...
...Considering the fact that there are 30,000 Europeans in Kenya as compared to 5,000,000 Africans, the foregoing figures speak for themselves...
...When my very great friend, in whom I always have confidence, chief Koinange, was charged withmurder, it was arranged that Mr...
...Leakey, op...
...Like the rest of tropical Africa, Kenya has undergone significant social and economic change in the past 50 years...
...N. Leys, The Colour Bar in East Africa (1941), p. 65...
...it is carrying an agricultural population at a density which makes it very difficult for the people to grow enough food, even for subsistence...
...Linked with the color bar is the question of equal and adequate education for the African...
...7. Go to 'white' restaurants, 2. Go out at night without a night clubs, movies, and the like, pass...
...Pankhurst, Kenya, a History of Two Nations (1955) , p. 86...
...According to a Kikuyu informant of the author, the white settlers became increasingly fearful of the KAU—and particularly its leader, Jomo Kenyatta— as it grew in number and influence...
...Since the rise of Mau Mau, the colonial government has granted a few inadequate political concessions to the Africans...
...Once the African's land had been alienated, there followed legal and other barriers against his regaining it...
...As early as 1900, Major E. S. Grogan, a Colonial official in East Africa, argued in his book From the Cape to Cairo that: "A good sound system of compulsory labour would do more to raise the nigger in five years than all the millions that have been sunk in missionary efforts for the last fifty...
...In fact, "everyone who knows the Kikuyu country as it is today must admit that the land is very overcrowded, with exception of certain small areas in the Nyeri district...
...No primitivecommunal society could withstand the impact of modern economic forces...
...The YKA was subsequently outlawed by General Northey, Governor of Kenya, its members imprisoned, and its leader exiled from Kikuyu country...
...Stores, shops and restaurants, buses, schools and hospitals, all exist on a segregated basis...
...It was estimated in 1951 that accommodation in Nairobi alone was required immediately for 10,000 persons, and for a further 15,000 in the next ten years...
...The Prison Officer said he was glad to see them go, as they had disturbed his prison for a whole year...
...Yet, it should be stressed, the immediate post-war period was not characterized by armed rebellion...
...It is noteworthy that a recent attempt to form a new African political organization in Kenya was prohibited by the government...
...1955) pp...
...This frus tration had given rise to a bitterly nationalistic spirit among Africans— and Mau Mau was the outcome of this spirit in its most fanatical form of expression.* Indeed, any serious discussion of the causes of Mau Mau must start with the fact that it did not emerge out of nowhere...
...In 1936 the colonial government spent £48,814 on 1,839 European school children...
...If those who hold the Mau Mau armed rebellion to be the result of the "savagery" and witchcraft of Kikuyu society are correct, then they must answer the question as to why the KCA did not resort to armed rebellion, since, if anything, Kikuyu society in 1932 was perhaps more "savage" than in 1952...
...Foot's bag into the lobby of that hotel, he was immediately thrust out of the building, and Mr...
...Starting with the Thuku movement in 1921, African political organizations have demanded the cessation of the Kipande...
...1955) p. 7. 27...
...One reason for the Mau Mau's armed rebellion, as I have already noted, is the fact that the KCA and KAU were unable to redress African grievances through constitutional means...
...Ili Far from being an isolated political phenomenon among Kenya Africans, the Mau Mau movement is closely related to the political struggles of the earlier organizations...
...And since most of the land suitable for European settlement was originally under African occupation—as well as being the African's basic source of subsistence—it became necessary to alienate much of it...
...j- L. S. B. Leakey, Mau Mau and the Kikuyu (1953) p. 86...
...One need hardly approve of certain Mau Mau methods in order to see how deeply rooted the movement is in the desires and the desperation of an oppressed people...
...I have a more recent example of this...
...During the following weeks, Mau Mau took to the field of battle, and on Oct...
...Grow coffee or sisal, except ya], Africans could not: under certain restrictions...
...And let it be noted that colonial rule by definition implies force as an instrument of rule...
...Similarly, during the course of a debate on the Kenya land question in the British Parliament on July 9, 1936, Major Milner, speaking in opposition to a government proposal to add 6,455 square miles of land to the European occupied area, maintained that: In 1934 there were no less than 5,817 square miles of the European Highlands unused,, and yet the Government propose...
...3. Carry arms...
...This failure was due less to the ineffectiveness of the KCA and KAU as political organizations than to the strong social, economic and political barriers confronting them...
...A glance at the history of the Kikuyu's political response to the changes in his society may thereby place the Mau Mau in its proper historical perspective...
...a month, and 26 per cent less than 20s...
...The Kipande seeks to make sure the African appears on European plantations when he is scheduled to be there...
...8. Put on their own dances or ngomas, or give playlets tradition4...
...To express these a third African organization, the Kenya African Union (KAU) , was founded in 1944 under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, Secretary of the former KCA...
...the expenditure per child was over £26...
...In the latter, the rainfall is so scanty and uncertain that harvests are uncertain too.* Yet at the very time the Kikuyu were suffering from land hunger, a great part of the usable land in Kenya was neither effectively occupied nor under cultivation...
...When the Kenya government increased its police and legal action against African political activity in 1952, this group decided to meet force with force...
...1. Buy a drink of hard liquor...
...This situation proved useful to the white settlers...
...These estates, withthe rapidly growing rate of increase in the population, were yearly be coming more congested.t During the period between the two World Wars, the KCA emerged as the most influential indigenous political organization in all of East Africa...
...In the same year, the government spent £80,721 on 100,720 African school children...
...Those "Voluntary" Confessions MAO MAO detainees in the detention camps and prisons of Kenya are screened white, grey or black, according to the amount of their involvement in Mau Mau...
...Africa Digest (Jan.-Feb., 1956) p. 6. African Grievances and the Mau Mau When we were in Nairobi [Ken-6...
...Awori, an African Member of the Legislative Council...
...In 1932 something like 12.25 per cent was cultivated...
...20th, 1952, a State of Emergency was declared and British forces moved into Kenya...
...What is more, this labor was poorly paid and and treated with utmost indifference...
...It was said that Mau Mau was primarily anti-Christian and anti-European, and had as its basic aim the removal of all whites from Kenya...
...more, it was claimed that Mau Mau was nothing but a creature of the KAU doing the "dirty work" in its alleged effort to evict all whites from Kenya...
...The difficulty has arisen from the growth of industry and, employment in the towns...
...Whatever the intricacies of the actual formation of Mau Mau may be, and however interesting a * Cf...
...If a native left his Reserve he was obliged to carry his Kipande with him, with the result that the system came to have something of the same character as the 'pass' systems of the Union of South Africa or Southern Rhodesia...
...Eight years later Lord Delamere, the chief spokesman for the European settler population, urged the colonial government that "we have got to come to legalised methods and force the native to work...
...At the time of the European entry into Kenya, the Kikuyu inhabited much of the Highland area which comprises some of the most valuable land in the country...
...These acts evidently sounded the bell for open rebellion...
...particularly severe for the African population...
...V A Kikuyu student at the School of Oriental and African studies, University of London, has written: Its [Mau Mau'sl chief causes are the deeply frustrating conditions of life at all levels which the Kikuyu people are suffering now...
...A significant part of this land had belonged to the Kikuyu people, or had been frequently and freely used by them...
...Mau Mau is a popular rebellion and, as Burke saw, popular rebellion is the result of popular suffering and hardship...
...Particularly is this true of the Kikuyu people, the largest group in Kenya (approx...
...cit., p. 95...
...Yet one might expect that the consequences of the disintegration of the African's traditional social structure would have been planned for by the British colonial government...
...the expenditure per child was 16s...
...Yet Mau Mau, despite the continued military superiority of the British, has nonetheless used armed forces as its main weapon of attack...
...Amid these sensationalistic charges, almost no one troubled to investigate the possible social and political factors underlying the uprising...
...Force, they seem to have concluded, was the only answer.* In a profound sense, then, it is the whites who are responsible for the desperate methods employed by Mau Mau...
...15 per cent of the holdings of a larger size are either high up on themountain, or on the edge of the plain below...
...Kikuyu informants of the author maintain that what is called Mau Mau emerged as a dissident group within the KAU that wanted to push harder and faster for African advancement than did the KAU leadership...
...That proposalis ridiculous on the face of it...
...Tuberculosis is frequent throughout the country, and malnutrition, malaria, gastro-intestinal infections, and bronchopneumonia are frequently responsible for infantile deaths...
...in 1933, 11.41 and in 1934 10.82 per cent...
...281f...
...Unlike most of Africa south of the Sahara, Kenya is climatically suitable for European settlement...
...One reason for the African's poor health is the housing problem...
...He was no longer willing to live at the level of mere subsistence that prevailed during the pre-war period...
...256-257...
...The current density figures for the Kikuyu districts of Kiambu, Fort Hall, and Nyeri are 420, 411, and 272 per square mile respectively...
...Hence it is believed that the white settler press coined the name "Mau Mau" in order to give a sinister-like picture of the group responsible for the allegedcrimes...
...cit., p. 72...
...At present some 4,000 white farm families occupy 12,000 square miles of excellent land in the Highlands while more than 1,000,000 Kikuyu have about 2,000 square miles of cultivable land in their reserves...
...The new organization, called the Kenya African National Congress, was to organize along lines similar to those of the outlawed KAU...
...Slater, op...
...What is more, with the impact of World War II on East Africa generally, new problems emerged and with them new demands on the part of the Africans...
...5. Buy land in the White High-—from JOHN GUNTHER'S lands...
...It utilized certain indigenous tribal forms (or what some observers have called "savagery") as a means to spread its appeal among, and secure support from, the Kikuyu masses...
...Foot's reservation in thathotel was cancelled...
...Leakey, op...
...The first Kikuyu attempt at political organization as a means of expressing their needs was in 1921, when the Young Kikuyu Association (YKA) was founded by Harry Thuku, a Kikuyu telephone operator in the Treasury at Nairobi, in order to combat an effort by the Convention Association (a white settler organization founded in 1905) to reduce African wages by one-third...
...Fenner Brockway, M.P., has described his personal experiences with Kenya's color bar during a debate in the British House of Commons: In Nairobi I was with the African representative of the United Nations and the First Secretary from the Indian High Commissioner's Office, one a doctor of philosophy of Columbia University, and the other a Balliol degree man of Oxford, both much more cultured than I...
...Feeling itself much stronger than any political organization in the history of Kenya, the KAU broadened its demands and propagated them in a rather militant manner...
...G. Padmore, "Behind the Mau Mau," Phylon (4th Quarter, 1953) p. 365...
...R. L. Buell, The Native Problem in Africa, Vol...
...A room hadbeen booked for Mr...
...On the, contrary, it emerged only after some thirty years of political struggle among Kenya Africans...
...Both the International Labor Conference (29th Session, 1946) and the United Nations (ad hoc committee report, 1953) have reported the use of compulsory labor in Kenya...
...A recent Economic Survey of British Colonial Territories (1954) notes "a general shortage of housing in Kenya...
...Being the dominant group in the Kenya Legislative Council, the white settlers were successful in getting the government to declare curfews in four areas of the Kikuyu Reserve...
...In order to settle these Europeans, it was necessary for the Colonial government to provide them with both land and a labor force to work it...
...It is against this situation that Mau Mau has rebelled...
...or use a European public toilet...
...Dingle Foot should go to Nairobi todefend him...
...According to the Carpenter Report on African Wages, published in May 1954, 48 per cent of African agricultural workers earn less than 25s...
...This same government proposal (May, 1952) provided for 14 elected seats for 30,000 Europeans, 6 elected seats for 70,000 Indians, and 1 elected seat for 24,000 Arabs...
...2b7 As a result of the wholesale and devastating evictions of Kikuyu land andthe wholesale allotment of the same to the Europeans, the density ofpopulation in the Kikuyu country...
...Wesearched Nairobi for an hour in an endeavour to find a restaurant or an hotel where we could sit down to a meal together...
...IV If the most fundamental form of racial separation in Kenya is land separation, one of the earliest secondary forms was the establishment of the Kipande or registration (pass-law) system during the first quarter of the 20th century...
...1,500,000) and perhaps the most politically conscious, whose response took the form of political organization and agitation...
...tried on charges of organizing Mau Mau...
...The KAU strongly protested this arrangement, demanding a "common poll for all the peoples of Kenya to eliminate racial, religious and color discrimination...
...Related to both the color bar and education is the problem of African living standards...
...EILEEN FLETCHER, in Tribune (England) , June 1. study of these may prove, it can be said without doubt that if there were not fundamental and genuine grievances among the Kikuyu people such a movement could have never gained the support it has...
...This relative failure seems to have convinced certain politically conscious elements among the Kenya Africans that constitutional methods —i.e., working within the framework of the legal and political forms of a colonial system—would no longer suffice...
...The Kenya African has also sought solutions to problems relating to labor, the color bar, education, living standards, and African political representation...
...Such a labor policy, it goes without saying, has enormously contributed to the sense of grievance held by the Africans against colonial rule and the European settlers...
...9. Vote...
...Moreover, the average African is the host of numerous parasites which are responsible for such diseases as theniasis and schistosomaiasis...
...I (1950) P. 91...
...D. C. Holland, "Law and Order in Kenya" The Anti-Slavery Reporter (Jan...
...army) that has been seized upon by some observers to denounce Mau Mau as an illegitimate political movement...
...It is outrageous, and particularly so whenone sees that the area cultivated year by year in Kenya is declining progressively...
...In most cases, a family cannot hope to make enough money for these requirements from the sale of surplus produce from its small pieceof land, as well as grow the basic food-stuffs of Kikuyu diet.** * For this observation and several others specifically related to the rise of Mau Mau, the author is greatly indebted to two Kikuyu informants currently studyingin the U.S...
...Kenya (1953) p. 317...
...The outlawry of the KCA, however, did not remove the grievances that brought it into being...
...They want to buy decent clothes for themselvesand their families and the prices of these are very high...
...The curfew was soon extended to all travel in and out of Nairobi...
...Thus the alienation of Kikuyu land not only affected their basic means of subsistence, but also the very foundation of their society...
...I hope that we may rely on the Government to meet the case...
...6) That the deplorable wages, housing and other conditions of African laborers be substantially improved and that the principle of "equal pay for equal work" be recognised.* Although the influence and the militancy of the KAU were greater than that of its predecessors, it was no more successful than they in attaining a satisfactory solution to African needs...
...It was hardly even considered that Mau Mau, despite its "terroristic" manifestations, might be an authentic expression of African needs and demands...
...The very nature of the Kikuyu sociocultural system required an abundant supply of land, without which it could not exist...
...The Crown Land Ordinance of 1915, which declared all tribal lands to be "Crown Land"—i.e., subject to the control of the Crown—made all Africans "tenantsat-will of the Crown...
...In 1951, 6,341 European children were enrolled in schools, and 362,218 African children...
...The Kikuyu's response to his new agrarian-proletarian existence, and to the causes behind it, was primarily political...
...According to Kikuyu informants of the author, there is no such word as "Mau Mau" in the Kikuyulanguage and thus there could not have existed any Kikuyu society with such a name...
...Further...
...Thus relegated to the economic role of an agrarian proletariat, the Kikuyu became the most significant tribal group in Kenya...
...These confessions are always referred to by the Government as voluntary...
...Foot at a leading hotel in Nairobi...
...As might be expected, "many Africans have objected to the fact that the identity, card was...
...They want tobuy a variety of foods which they cannot grow for themselves...
...The same social and economic problems that gave rise to the YKA, the KCA and the KAU lay beneath the emergence of Mau Mau...
...By 1952 the government spent £512,581 on European education and £731,674 on African Education...
...Perhaps the most important single one is that of land hunger...
...In 1922—the year of the founding of the KCA—the total area occupied by Europeans was 3,804,158 acres, of which a mere 234,055 acres were under cultivation...
...They want their children to go to school and this means paying feesand providing uniforms...
...4) That compulsory and freeeducation for Africans, as is given to the children of other races, is overdue...
...The Kenya African is today reacting to those social and economic changes in all sorts of ways...
...Now I have nothing to rely on but light diet and a good trashing," he said...
...The Kikuyu are an agricultural folk, with the raising of sheep, goats and other livestock a basic part of their economy...
...They announced, through the East Africa Standard (the major European publication in Kenya) , the existence of a "crime wave" and connected it with an alleged secret Kikuyu society called "Mau Mau...
...to add a further 6,455 square miles, making a total of, 16,700 square miles in all...
...They were making a horrible noise, shouting and gesticulating and grimacing...
...As a result, the African became still more conscious of his oppressed status in his own country...
...He declared that its aims would be to promote political organizations among Kenya Africans, "to cultivate in them political and civil awakening and consciousness" and to "cultivate mutual relations with other political organization in Kenya...
...African wages are grossly inferior to European wages, as well as being inadequate for a satisfactory living standard...
...Like the Mau Mau some thirty-one years later, the YKA had relatively little trouble in securing mass support among the Kikuyu, and this was due primarily to the fact that British colonial policy affected not simply one or another person but the whole Kikuyu people...
...At its organizing meeting in Nairobi in December 1955, attended by approximately 1,000 Africans, its leader, Mr...
...Under such conditions, rebellion is inevitable...
...In 1947 the KAU was successful in getting the colonial * Lord Hailey, Native Administration..., Vol...
...The subsequent land congestion— due, as well, to a rapid population rise and insufficient agricultural production resulting from rudimentary farming methods—forced many Kikuyus to seek work on European plantations or in European owned mines...
...The YKA also expressed grievances against the colonial government: the use of child and female labor, maltreatment of Kikuyu elders and women, excessive hut-tax, restrictions on movement within Kenya due to a registration system, and fines for cutting fire wood in forests which were once theirs...
...The YKA, however, was not very successful in winning its demands...
...Others were scattered throughout the length and breadth of Kikuyu country, living as ahoi or tenants on other Kikuyu's estates...
...It is also noteworthy that about 85 per cent of [Kikuyu] family holdings are of from two to five acres...
...As a result, the emergence of a new political organization like the YKA was more than likely...
...Still another important aspect of the African's living standard concerns health, an extremely urgent problem...
...The only cheap and abundant source of labor power for work on the alienated land was the African...
...M. Slater, The Trial of Jomo Kenyatta (1955) . ** Ibid...
...C. M. Arguings-Kodhek, an African lawyer practicing in Nairobi, stated that the policy of the new party would be "slightly left of center...
...The continuance of the land policy in particular—and thus the Kikuyu grievances—made the organization of the KCA a rather easy task...
...Much of the pronounced differential between African and European incomes is due to the fact that most Africans are employed in agriculture or in unskilled jobs, while the overwhelming majority of employed Europeans work for the government or private industry...
...Secondly, after World War II the social, economic and political life in Kenya was significantly altered, and new African grievances and demands arose...
...Had our land been thus robbed by any other native tribes armed withsimilar weapons as ourselves, the Kikuyu would have certainly given theirlives for their property, but confronted by people with the latest andmost formidable weapons of precision and destruction such an idea wasand is unthinkable...
...In fact, at virtually no point during the history of Kenya under British rule have the Africans failed to respond, favorably or unfavorably, to these changes...
...The loss of land by the Africans and the removal of thousands from the traditional tribal society for work on European plantations, resulted in a steady breakdown of the tribal sociocultural complex...
...In fact, they were even capable of manufacturing their own arms from rudimentary household equipment, as evidenced by Mau Mau arms captured by the British forces...
...cit., p. 106...
...8-16...
...It is also noteworthy that education is compulsory for European children between the ages of 7 and 15, while not for African children...
...On the question of African political representation in the Kenya Legislative Council, for example, the best proposal the KAU could muster from the colonial government was a representation of 5 nominated members for 5,500,000 Africans...
...Assemble publicly or privateal to tribe Iife...
...Of the 16,173 square miles which comprise the Highlands, 9,872 square miles were alienated to Europeans...
...Everywhere theorder was "Europeans only...
...Inside Africa...
...Since then some form of compulsory labor has been continually practised in Kenya...
...under such conditions, rebellion, no matter how harshly suppressed, must again and again reappear...
...5) That the Kipande [i.e., the registration system] with all its humiliating rules and regulations be abolished immediately...
...When I was in Kenya, I visited a prison with a, Rehabilitation Officer and saw a truck containing about a dozen African lunatics, who were being sent to a mental hospital...
...Quite the contrary...
...In doing this he gives oneblow which cuts away the foundations from the whole of Kikuyu life, social, moral, and economic.* For these and similar reasons, virtually every Kikuyu felt himself to have a stake in the YKA...
...3) That more land be made available both in the Crown Lands and inthe Highlands for settlement of Africans...
...Thus the post-war African possessed some of the ideological and practical requirements necessary for moving an oppressed people along lines of armed rebellion...
...In October, 1952, the organization was outlawed and its leaders imprisoned, charged with organizing the Mau Mau rebellion...
...In view of the past and present situation in Kenya, further African rebellions are likely to take place before these problems are settled...
...Meanwhile (1949-1952) quite a few uprooted Africans were arrested for such criminal acts as stealing, vagrancy, burning European property, etc...
...Or, to put it another way, "whether or not further trouble with the natives [like the Thuku movement] arises will largely depend upon government policy in the future...
...In 1917 the Governor of Kenya, Sir H. Conway Belfield, stated the colonial government's willing• ness to play its part in effecting a compulsory labor policy...
...used for recording the terms of service of employed natives...
...government to amend the system (details of employment would no longer be recorded on the African's registration card) . Perhaps the most obvious aspect of the color bar in Kenya is in the area of social relationships...
...In this regard, the color bar (especially as its relates to land separation and to the social structure in Kenya) and the inadequacy of African education are in no small way responsible for the low wage incomes of Africans in Kenya...
...Shortly afterward, the KAU was outlawed and its leaders were • Cf...
...child and female labor were frequently utilized for many years...
...Furthermore, the type of education received by Africans is largely vocational, not merely to prepare them for agricultural work and semi-skilled labor, but also to help perpetuate their subordinate condition...
...Of the other problems, the question of the treatment of African labor has perhaps had the longest history...
...Its leader, Harry Thuku, was arrested on March 15, 1921, on grounds of sedition, whereupon a riot broke out the following day resulting in the death of some 21 persons...
...He was met at the airport by an English solicitory and byMr...
...The Kipande system stems logically from the land situation, whereby the two races live in separate areas and the flow of blacks is from the reserves to the European farms and back again to the reserves...
...It should be pointed out, however, that even the earlier organizations toyed with the idea of utilizing armed force to redress African grievances...
...The KCA, in fact, answered this question when it stated that such an armed rebellion was "unthinkable" in view of the armed superiority of their rulers...
...by 1925, 4,420,573 acres were occupied, of which 392,628 acres were under cultivation...
...As the Kikuyu social anthropologist and political leader, Jomo Kenyatta, has pointed out: When the European comes to the Kikuyu country and robs the peopleof their land, he is taking away not only their livelihood, but the materialsymbol that holds the family and tribe together...
...tea, coffee, butter, wheat, flour, etc., as well as commodities like soap, mirrors, razors, gardening tools, and all the many other things which they have learnedto use...
...The demand for self-government is still to be met, as well as the basic problem of African land hunger and such other closely related problems as the color bar, African education and living standards...
...This, of course, was to be expected, particularly with the introduction of an exchange or money economy and the rise of large-scale agricultural production for the market...
...The first stage in their rehabilitation is when they confess to the Rehabilitation Officer that they have been in the Movement, and give him information around their own or other people's crimes...
...At his trial Jomo Kenyatta pleaded not guilty as charged, and claimed that the colonial government and white settlers had seized upon the Mau Mau rebellion as a means to discredit the KAU and its struggle for African equality and independence.* If we accept Kenyatta's claim that the KAU neither organized nor sponsored the Mau Mau movement (and there is significant doubt that the government conclusively proved that it had) ,** one must search elsewhere for the origin of Mau Mau...
...This state of affairs has kept intact the land congestion among the Africans, as well as all the hardships resulting from it...
...In 1944, the almost incredible density figures of 1,100 and even 1,800 persons to the square mile were reported in some Kikuyu areas...
...When the Mau Mau rebellion broke out in Kenya in the fall of 1952, the American press was quick to interpret it as a "terroristic" uprising by a people barely a few generations away from "savagery...
...New ideas had taken hold among many Kenya Africans, due, on the one hand, to the anti-fascist propaganda disseminated by the British among the general population and, on the other, to the fact that many Africans fought in Burma against the Japanese...
...It is this particular aspect of the Mau Mau movement (somewhat misleadingly referred to as Mau Mau "violence and terror," though any use of armed force necessarily involves the use of violence and very frequently the use of terror, be it by Kenya Africans or the U.S...
...But the conditions that gave rise to the YKA remained and, in certain respects, became progressively worse—particularly the problem of land hunger...
...When the Kikuyu Central Association, or K.C.A., as it was known...
...That even so moderate an African organization was immediately suppressed tells us more about the causes of the Mau Mau rebellion than any number of sensational and ignorant journalistic reports...
...We have already noted the African's political demands, as well as the status of African political representation at the time of the outbreak of the Mau Mau rebellion, and the dissatisfaction with this state of affairs expressed by the Kenya African Union...
...Furthermore, many Africans now enjoyed the knowledge of modern warfare (particularly guerrilla warfare, learned in Burma) and the ability to master modern arms...
...Leakey, op...
...In 1947 the KAU described its purpose as follows: (1) That the political objective of the Africans in Kenya must be selfgovernment by Africans for Africans, and in that African State the rightsof all racial minorities would be safeguarded...
...When Mr...
...Because of its militant role as spokesman for Kikuyu demands, • J. Kenyatta, Facing Mt...
...Some of these people were living as squatters on land which hadformerly belonged to them, working for the new European estate owners...
...In a memorandum submitted to the Morris Carter Land Commission in 1932, the Kikuyu Central Association noted that: • G. Padmore, Africa, Britain's Third Empire (1949), pp...
...In the former, the groundis so steep, the cold so great, and the rain so excessive, that they produceonly root crops, firewood and grass for thatching...
...In addition, eight emergency bills were introduced in the Legislative Council, over the opposition of the African members, making compulsory the registration of all organizations having ten or more members, controlling all African newspapers, permitting the seizure of all African publications issued without legal permit, and granting the police power to detain and/or arrest Africans without warrant...
...U That the colonial government's policy towards such crucial questions as land and labor did not significantly change after the outlawry of the YKA is evidenced, in part, by the founding of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) in 1922...
...It is, at this point, worth examining these problems in some additional detail...
...The Kikuyu today are not content to live at a bare subsistence level...
...It evidently had no professed ideology, though its ultimate aims were essentially the same as those of the KAU...
...A more detailed analysis of the rise of Mau Mau would require far more data than are now available...
...Awori carried Mr...
...The Rehabilitation Officer said he was sorry they were going, as he had intended putting detainees who would not confess, in with them for a few days...
Vol. 3 • July 1956 • No. 3
