Campaigning for Mau Mau: Continuing resistance

CONTINUING MAU MAU RESISTANCE

The roots of the Mau Mau movement can be traced back to the arrival of British colonialism in the 1890s and its mission of conquering, subjugating and finally ruling over the disparate ethnic communities that happened to fall under the colonially-constructed political entity called Kenya. The Mau Mau movement played an important role in Kenya’s liberation struggle against British colonialism. It is worth noting that although the agitation for land and freedom came to a head in 1952, the Mau Mau movement was the culmination of many years of struggle for self-determination by various African communities against British colonial domination. Therefore, although most of the bloody struggle occurred in central Kenya, the Mau Mau movement was not merely a central Kenya or Kikuyu affair. The movement had a national character, and drew support even from outside Kenya. For example, India’s prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and his government supported the movement.

The Mau Mau movement was a direct response to Britain’s brutal colonial regime in Kenya. Conceived in 1950, the movement sought to reject the socio-economic and political order prevailing at that time where five million Kenyan Africans suffered colonial domination under 29,000 European settlers with no meaningful socio-economic or political representation. Although the Kenyans who rose in rebellion against British colonial rule rightfully did so under the internationally recognised principle of self-determination, Britain’s response to the Mau Mau uprising proved a classic case of killing a fly using a sledge hammer.

Armed with bomb-dropping warplanes and Her Majesty’s well-equipped soldiers, Britain’s response against the villainously-labelled ‘Mau Mau terrorists’ was nothing but a sickening show of imperial ruthlessness and brute force. The skewed nature of the war is clearly captured in the statistics which indicate that, at the end of the war, only 32 Britons had died compared to an estimated 15,000 Kenyan Africans. What is more, new evidence gathered by world-renowned scholars and researchers shows that Britain’s response to the Mau Mau movement was characterised by murder, systematic torture, mass rape, castration and general acts of violence and terror.

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE MAU MAU SERIES

The Mau Mau series is justified based on three important reasons. First, as a country, we need to accord proper national recognition to those who have played heroic roles in the socio-economic and political making of our country. There can be no denying the fact that despite the gallant role played by millions of Kenyan women and men (either directly or indirectly) in the Mau Mau movement in the fight against British colonialism, the contribution made by this important movement in Kenya’s struggle for independence has not been properly recognised by successive independent Kenyan governments.

What is more, the crimes committed against the Kenyan Africans who participated in the Mau Mau movement remain the great, un-remedied, injustices of Kenya’s history under British colonialism. The Kenyans who suffered Britain’s murder, systematic torture, mass rape, castration and general acts of violence and terror during the Mau Mau movement are still calling for justice. The call for the rightful recognition of the Mau Mau movement in Kenya has oftentimes met with resistance from both colonial and post-colonial forces who fear that such recognition is likely to expose the levels of atrocities visited upon the Mau Mau during the colonial era, or challenge the legitimacy of those holding the reigns of political power in the post-colonial era under the false credentials of having been freedom fighters. Be that as it may, we remain confident that the Mau Mau series will help keep alive KHRC’s sustained demand for justice for the Mau Mau heroes and heroines who suffered acts of criminal atrocity during Britain’s suppression of the Mau Mau movement.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has remained steadfast in its quest to have the Mau Mau movement’s rightful place in Kenya’s history and politics duly recognised. Since 1997, the KHRC has been at the forefront of the campaign in demanding that the government of Kenya accord the Mau Mau movement its rightful place in Kenya’s socio-economic and political consciousness. What is more, in this series, the KHRC will have the pleasure of partnering with Royal Media Services – through Citizen TV and Citizen Radio – to situate the issue of Mau Mau within a broader national context that examines both the historical and contemporary relevance of the Mau Mau movement within the Kenyan nation-state.

Second, this series plays an important role in reminding all Kenyans of our sacred duty to defend our hard-won freedom. The series cannot have come at a better time since, as a country, we recently witnessed the worst form of political – the so-called 2007 post-election violence – conflict, conflict which can be partly attributed to our collective failure to address the systemic socio-economic and political imbalances created in our body politic by years of colonial and post-colonial misrule. As we get ready to, nay, as we mark the first year of the political agreement dubbed the ‘Grand Coalition’, a shaky outfit which was formed as a compromise to end the mayhem witnessed after the 2007 general elections, the series will enable us to seriously probe the issues of democracy and governance and what we must do as a country if we are to move forward and attain our quest for a sustainable and inclusive nation.

Third and finally, as part of the efforts aimed at redressing Britain’s atrocities against the Mau Mau movement, plans are at an advanced stage within the Kenya Human Rights Commission to file a case against HRH Queen Elizabeth II’s government in London early this year. The case will seek compensation for the victims of Britain’s colonial atrocities committed in the period 1952 to 1960, when Britain declared a state of emergency in Kenya and resorted to a heavy-handed approach in its response to the Mau Mau movement.

ROLLING OUT THE MAU MAU SERIES

Royal Media Services, through its television and radio broadcast services, will run the Mau Mau series for a total of eight weeks of half-hour excerpts on Citizen TV. Seven of the eight weeks will be dedicated to half-hour TV slots for the series, while a longer slot will be dedicated for the final week. Furthermore, and in collaboration with KHRC community networks, Royal Media Services will run the series on its vernacular radio stations and where possible, send out film crews on the ground to record reactions and discussions, reactions which will form part of the final week’s presentation.

Each week, for both television and radio presentations, the Mau Mau series will be guided by a team of experts – the suggested number is four – drawn from a diverse pool who will take into account regional representation, communities’ diversity, gender balance as well as academic expertise on the Mau Mau movement. While every effort will be made not to lose the main goal of the series – raising public awareness on the Mau Mau movement and building public support for the Mau Mau suit in London – the series will provide an excellent forum for the KHRC to incorporate issues of transitional justice and democratic governance within the current political discourse in Kenya. To this end, the panel of experts will guide the overall seven-week presentation of the series, as well as its grand finale, along the following broad thematic areas:

- The Mau Mau movement: The focus will be on the origins of the movement and whether the movement was justified (especially within the context of international law) in rising up against British colonialism. Consequently, Britain’s response to the Mau Mau movement will be examined, both within the context of its domestic law as well as its international law obligations, as a way of establishing the basis for the Mau Mau suit against the British government.
- The politics of land: Under this theme, the contentious issue of land acquisition and land ownership both within the colonial and the post-colonial eras will be discussed.
- The politics of impunity: The colonial origins of the politics of impunity and the continuation of the same vein in independent Kenya will be examined.
- The quest for good governance and a human rights driven socio-economic and political order in Kenya: The focus here will be on the crisis of governance in Kenya and the relentless push by Kenyans for a more democratic society driven by, among others, the ethos of human rights.

SCHEDULE

The campaign runs as follows on Citizen TV:

- Tuesday 24 February 2009: White Man’s Country Part 1 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 3 March 2009: White Man’s Country Part 2 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 10 March 2009: Mau Mau Part 1 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 17 March 2009: Mau Mau Part 2 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 24 March 2009: Kenyatta Part 1 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 31 March 2009: Kenyatta Part 2 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 7 April 2009: Itungati – the Mau Mau Story – 9.45 pm

A series of interviews with historians, academics and Mau Mau veterans will take place both on Citizen TV and all 13 vernacular stations.

The series will also be supported by a series of articles in Pambazuka News.

An SMS Campaign in support of the campaign is up and running too. Please send an SMS to (Kenya) 4445 with the words ‘MASHUJAA’ or ‘HEROES’.

For more information contact the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC):
- Zahid Rajan – tel: (+254) 0722344900
- George Morara – tel: (+254) 3874998/9 or (+254) 0712288400

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.