|
The continuing saga of the Mau
Mau revolt
Shahid Alam studies a new work on Kenya's history
15. Feb. 2008
Immanuel Wallerstein, in the process of discussing accelerating
decolonisation of much of Africa since the end of World War II,
talks about the intent of white settlers in colonial Kenya and
Southern Rhodesia: that whatever the devolution of powers by
constitutional means, power should go to them as a group rather
than to the black majority. “Indeed to ensure that this was so,”
he explains in a 1972 article, “white settlers sought to achieve
federations of the strong settler territory with its immediate
neighbors, among other reasons lest power be turned over to black
Africans in the neighbors and thus affect by example the settler
territories. In East Africa the federation was to bring together
settler-dominated Kenya with Uganda and Tanganyika.” However, the
federation idea faltered in East Africa because of spirited
resistance in Uganda and the outbreak of Mau Mau insurrection in
Kenya in 1952. Now a new book, Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial
Kenya, takes another look at the Mau Mau revolt, where the author
aims to explore two broad theses: that colonial power and
resistance to it are intertwined with each other, and that, as a
fallout from such entanglement, both are transformed in various
ways.
The author, S.M. Shamsul Alam, is a Bangladeshi by birth, and is
an Associate Professor of Sociology at Southern Oregon University,
Ashland, Oregon, USA. From 2000 to 2002, he was a Fulbright Senior
Fellow at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, which partly explains
the topical nature of the book under review, and he is currently
on a same fellowship at Independent University, Bangladesh. In a
nutshell, the Kikuyu ethnic group-led nationalist movement of the
1950s in Kenya resorted to violent resistance against British
colonial rule. In response, the British Kenya administration
proscribed the movement in 1950, and conducted a series of
military operations between 1952 and 1956, which resulted in the
death of several thousand Kikuyus, Europeans, and their African
loyalists. The Mau Mau insurrection spearheaded the independence
movement, and Jomo Kenyatta, jailed as a Mau Mau leader in 1953,
became prime minister of independent Kenya in 1963. This digest of
a significant revolt against British colonial rule is blandly
stated, but is difficult to expand in its various ramifications,
except as a matter of agreeing to disagree, or not even that,
among scholars. And this factor has provided an opportunity for
S.M. Shamsul Alam to have undertaken the project that has resulted
in Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial Kenya.
In his final chapter, entitled “Conclusion: A Presentist Approach
to Mau Mau”, the author poses the question, as much to himself as
to interested readers: “Why write a book on Mau Mau so many years
after the revolt?” He believes that “the need to write and rewrite
the history of Mau Mau has become even more urgent.” He offers, as
an example, the view of Michael Chege (2004) that scholars have
yet to decide on the precise nature of the revolt. Alam might have
presented his own instance in the book under review, where he
undertakes an exercise that draws rather heavily on post-modernist
writers for providing theoretical coverage to the Mau Mau
rebellion against English colonial rule, and beats the drum rather
heavily for Mau Mau exploits and that of the movement's supreme
military commander, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi. While bringing up
Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci, Ranajit Guha and Partha
Chatterjee to provide a theoretical cover might appear to some as
having been overdone, and, at times superfluous, his attempt at
presenting the Mau Mau and Kimathi in abashedly heroic, even
romantic, light might be hotly contested by other writers.
Before going to the beginning of the book, a particularly relevant
(in the context of the current post-election violence in that
country) conclusion of the author is worth quoting: “…the roots of
the present predicament of Kenya are located within its colonial
past.” He hastens to qualify that such crisis of governance “is
not unique to Kenya; it is, indeed, symptomatic of all
postcolonial societies.” In the context of Kenya, Alam pinpoints
the primary reasons for this state of dysfunction as “how the war
against colonialism was fought and how, after the departure of the
colonial forces, the nation-state was formed.”
Here is Alam with his opening salvo: “The present book…aims to
explain Mau Mau essentially as a revolt against colonial hegemony
and an attempt to construct a counterhegemony. Furthermore, though
the goal of the revolt was to end colonial rule in Kenya, it would
be wrong to frame it in terms of a nationalist project propagated
by Kenyatta, the nationalist leader who eventually became the
first president of independent Kenya. And finally, though armed
struggle was a part of the revolt, it was fought on myriad fronts
--- cultural, ideological and political; the Mau Mau rebels always
had a clear-cut idea of what kind of postcolonial Kenya they
wanted to establish.” Ah, but did they? Someone could carp, or be
at pains to find from the book, other than the usual rhetoric one
finds so often from revolutionary groups/organisations, or even
established political parties. Others would hotly contest the
author's relegation of Jomo Kenyatta to a secondary, even
opportunistic, position (a recurring theme in the book) in Kenya's
anticolonial struggle.
Alam briefly mentions that various forms of resistance, like the
Griamma uprising of 1913-14, the Nandi revolt of 1895-1905, and
the Kikuyu opposition between 1880-1900, preceded the Mau Mau (incidentally,
as the author expounds in note 2 to Chapter 1, a word that is
neither Kikuyu nor Swahili, but, curiously, an anagram of a
warning term --- uma uma --- devised by children, and popularised
by European newspapers!). But he concentrates on the Mau Mau,
which he purports to analyse from dialectically linked and
mutually reinforcing concerns of “the issue of autonomous
subaltern consciousness, the question of structure, and, finally,
resistance.” He dwells at length on various aspects of Mau Mau
consciousness but less so, though quite comprehensively, on
structure, and more perfunctorily, on resistance.
The author's perception of Kenyatta sometimes appears confusing
and self-contradictory. In Chapter 5, “Mau Mau and the Critique of
Nationalism”, Alam, in his own words, “argues that Mau Mau stands
outside of the mainstream nationalist movement led by the Kenya
Africa Union (KAU) and Kenyatta. Furthermore (he) attempts to show
that Kenyatta's relation as a nationalist leader with the Mau Mau
movement was one of ambivalence and suspicion, if not outright
hostility, and that Mau Mau should be viewed as revolt by itself
outside of the conventional nationalist movement.” Clearly, he
places the Mau Mau on a loftier pedestal in relation to Kenyatta.
On separate occasions he has mentioned that Kenyatta's
relationship with the Mau Mau was dubious and contradictory, later
reinforcing his contention with reference to Kenyatta's statements
at different times, both before and after he became Kenya's chief
executive, where he had denounced the Mau Mau as terrorists. Alam
has gone so far as to state that, “Although the colonial
authorities tried to portray him as the leader of (the) Mau Mau,
Kenyatta was reluctant to put his support behind it wholeheartedly
for various reasons, mainly because the leadership of the Mau Mau
came from a different class background than his….”
His assessment of Kenyatta also betrays his preference for armed
revolutionary strategy to get rid of colonialism: “Kenyatta was
inherently a conservative person whose overwhelming concern was
stability and order, whereas revolutionary violent decolonization
was the key strategy of Mau Mau.” And, yet, in an interview with
him, Anna Wamuryu Kabubi, alias Cinda Reri, a proud Mau Mau
veteran, recalled that at an important KAU meeting in 1952,
Kenyatta had publicly supported the Mau Mau. And, although Alam
characterises Kenyatta's position regarding the Mau Mau as “opportunistic”,
he also observes that, “For Mau Mau, Kenyatta was a powerful
symbol of resistance and a messiah.” The issue is fascinating; he
might have been both: an opportunist as well as a symbol and a
messiah, or he might have been neither, but something else
altogether. Such tantalising prospects of finding the ultimate
truth about the Mau Mau and Kenyatta's relationship with it should
keep scholars going for a while yet.
Alam includes a chapter (4), written with Margaret Gachihi,
entitled “Women and Mau Mau”, where he attempts to show that the
forest fighters were not exclusively male, and that the women in
the organisation were not merely passive participants engaged in
support activities, but were, in several cases, active in armed
combat. However, since the fighting arm had relatively fewer
female combatants, Alam's observation is important in the context
of the overall contribution of women: “Indeed, in the Mau Mau
struggle the activities of the “passive wing” were as vital as
those of the military wing for the survival of the revolt itself.”
And, in consonance with his admiration for Dedan Kimathi, he
devotes an entire chapter (3, “Rebel Yell: The Field Marshal's
Story”) to him. As proof of the supreme military leader's
perspicacity, Alam offers: “Though Kimathi was Kikuyu himself, he
consistently sought to provide Mau Mau with a broad perspective on
the anticolonialist struggle.” And yet, in providing a clear
indication of Kimathi's self-contradiction, as well as Alam's
going out on a limb to lionise him, the author refers to a letter
where the supreme military leader seems to hint broadly at a role
for white people in postcolonial Kenya.
Such intriguing information and interpretations make the book
interesting. However, for a well-known American publisher, it
contains more than its fair share of careless editing. Nonetheless,
Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial Kenya is worth reading to gain
an interesting perspective on a phenomenon that was militarily
defeated over half a century ago, but continues to have a major
impact on independent Kenya's politics and history.
Shahid Alam is Head, Media and Communication Department,
Independent University, Bangladesh.
|
