Mau Mau Uprising

As its name suggests, the Kikuyu Central Association was made up of many Kikuyu members. Within this group of nationalists, some leaders were evidently more passionate about their nationalist cause than others, and far too impatient to follow Kenyatta’s philosophy of peaceful protest and self-improvement by growing coffee. Instead, a core of Kikuyu leaders – including mastermind Dedan Kimathi – created something known as the Movement, the Unifier, or simply the Mau Mau Uprising. Though the etymology of “Mau Mau” is often debated, one thing is certain – this was not at all a peaceful rebellion, nor was the violence reserved for the white men.

During this uprising, guerrillas targeted Africans who collaborated with the British colonizers. This resulted in massive bloodshed; in one attack, the rebels killed 93 Africans, and up to 1,800 in total. This warfare was largely ignored by the colonial government, however, which only reacted when white-owned farms began to be raided, though only about 100 Europeans were killed. This inspired massive fear in the remaining white population, many of whom fled – prompting a strict response from the military.

 

In 1952, a state of emergency was called in which the government attempted to restore order by cracking down on the Mau Mau. In short, many thousands of Africans were murdered by the Europeans. Official figures estimate that 11,000 guerrillas and 2,000 suspected collaborators were killed, but historians calculate the actual numbers closer to 30,000 dead, including the executed mastermind of the rebellion, Kimathi, and 100,000 arrested, leaving only an eighth of the Mau Mau rebels alive and free by 1955; the rebellion itself was well and truly crushed by 1956. Much abuse and torture was suffered by Kenyans during this time; in 2003, lawyers had compiled over 6,000 depositions from Kenyans suffering all manner of abuse, torture, and other unspeakable acts. New evidence has been unearthed suggesting the death toll in fact registers far above 50,000, a figure that would require the “rewriting of British imperial history,” according to a BBC news broadcast at the time the evidence was presented. The outrage over these atrocities, which, as the broadcast shows, was so great it exists even to this day, merely served to fan the flames of nationalism and give freedom fighters leverage to soon free Kenyatta and, not long after, Kenya itself.

In the words of Barbara Castle, one of the twentieth century Labour Party's most important politicians:

"In the heart of the British Empire there is a police state where the rule of law has broken down, where the murder and torture of Africans by Europeans goes unpunished, and where the authorities pledged to enforce justice regularly connive at its violation."

The Kenyan insurgents began the violence of this movement, but the scale of British response was hardly appropriate and certainly not honest in its motives. Claiming to seek merely the restoration of balance in Kenya, the military violently decimated the rebellion as well as innocent African suspects for crimes against only the white landowners and persecuted Jomo Kenyatta for those crimes as the most popular – and potentially dangerous – leader of Kenyan nationalism, offering him a mockery of a trial and sentencing the sixty-odd year old man to the longest possible term of 7 years. Regardless, he was then held in prison for over 9 years as the leader of a rebellion he did not create, condone, or have any control over.