Candidate Number: 11578 Course Code: HY436 Teacher Responsible for Course: Dr.

Joanna Lewis In his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire says that colonialism is a system of domination that ultimately restricts both parties involved: the subjugators and the subjugated. The dehumanizing aspects of this unnatural structure mean the colonizers and the colonized are in a constant crisis of identity. The existential difficulties implicit in Frieres argument on the human impact of colonialism are grounded in context with Concerning Violence from Frantz Fanons The Wretched of the Earth. Here, Fanon explains that decolonization is an inherently violent process because it involves a forced transition (27). Freires and Fanons understandings are very much related as decolonization involves redefining ones place in a preset social hierarchy. The violent path to decolonization in Kenya illustrates the tensions of identities in transition. A lethal combination of social, political and economic factors festered and came to a head causing the 1952 State of Emergency and the heavy-handed British counterinsurgency. This paper looks at the various social, political and economic factors that made the path to decolonization in Kenya so violent through the lens of the crisis of identity the forced social structure colonialism imposes. The paper, moreover, focuses on the factors that caused the state of Emergency and the severe British response. This hastened the end of colonial rule, as it created a split between the white settler community and the metropole. The British governing style of divide and rule separated the Kikuyu communities. This division and the internal debate about identity that it incited was a factor in much of the intense African-on-African violence that began before, and continued after the Emergency. As David Anderson notes, less than 300 British civilians and soldiers were killed throughout the entire conflict as compared to the more than 1,800 African civilians

murdered by Mau Mau (4).1 Bruce Berman says, The impact of colonial capitalism and the colonial state hit the Kikuyu with greater force and effect than any other of Kenyas peoples, setting off new processes of differentiation and class formation (196). The British allocated control to a few African chiefs who had power and privilege, and benefitted from their loyalty to the crown (Berman 197). Charles Tilly offers a sound analysis on the social implications this type of governance has on communities. He cites opportunity hoarding as a key potential factor in collective violence- a relational apparatus that promotes and sustains an array of inequalities within a group. Opportunity hoarding operates when members of a categorically bounded network acquire access to a resource that is valuable, renewable, subject to monopoly, supportive of network activities and enhanced by the networks modus operandi (10). Due to the system of indirect rule, the Kikuyu people were divided between a wealthy politically connected minority and a poor, disempowered majority (Berman 196). In Mau Maus of the Mind, John Lonsdale describes the Kikuyu as increasingly, a divided and mutually hostile people (395). This schism generated not only a sense of bitterness within the group, but created a crisis of identity about what it meant to be a Kikuyu. The British missions campaign against the Kikuyu tradition of clitoridectomy further widened the gap in the community, some Kikuyu Christians left the churches and mission schools and created their own Kikuyu Independent Schools Association (Anderson 19-20). Mau Mau murdered a number of high-profile African Loyalist Chiefs. The most infamous case being the 1952 massacre at Lari during which approximately 70 Kikuyu Chiefs were killed. The African Home Guard retaliated, killing almost two people for every one killed by Mau Mau (Anderson 126-133). Cases of local score settling occurred once the British declared a state of Emergency and removed the Kikuyu to camps for interrogation. Loyalists participated in screening operations and were provided the opportunity to identify old enemies, torture prisoners and take their land (Elkins 69).
1ThisnumberdoesnotincludetherebellossesatthehandsoftheBritish.Official

figureshavethetotalnumberofMauMaukilledataround12,000butAnderson thinkstheactualfigureismorelike20,000(Anderson4).

Another social factor that affected the violent path to decolonization in Kenya was the British Victorian racist view of Africans. Long-held racial understandings are one of the explanations for the British counterinsurgencys brutal treatment of Mau Mau and the Kikuyu people. The British empire was united in their so-called liberal opinion that part of their duty in Africa was to bring light to the backwards, savage Dark Continent (Elkins 5). One of the goals of colonialism was the civilizing aspect of the missions and implicit in this is the paternalistic view that one race is superior to another. Many even thought because Africans were a primitive and savage people, more force was necessary in order to make a point and restore order (Vandervort 210). Because the British didnt see Africans as equals, their treatment of them in response to the insurgency was in kind. The Mau Mau oathing process and the violent way they killed their victims, generally by hacking them to death, added to the view that Mau Mau were even more savage than most Africans (Elkins 113). The oathing procedure, with symbols including goats blood, ram intestines and eyeballs was used to solidify political allegiance in a divided and tense time (Lonsdale 399). The process emphasized what the British saw as the primal African nature and added to the extreme counterinsurgent response (Elkins 47). Berman explains that throughout the years of the Emergency into the first years of Kenyas independence the British ignored the economic and political issues Mau Mau were reacting to, and chose to view the rebel group through an essentialist lens, seeing it strictly as a primitive cult (182). Before the Emergency in Kenya approximately 29,000 European settlers lived in a colony with about 5 million Africans (Anderson 9). Living as a white minority in a colony and exploiting a black majority generally viewed as barely human causes a state of constant tension. This worsened and came to a head when stories (often exaggerated) about Mau Mau spread (Lewis). The fear of a ferocious, atavistic cult drove settlers into a state of terror (Elkins 47). Convincing the officials of colonial Kenya that Mau Mau was an evil group empowered the British and African Loyalists to legitimize the cruel guerrilla response they orchestrated (Berman 192). The extensive reaction to the Mau Mau guerilla attacks was enacted through a series of large-scale military operations. Bombing and acts of mass retaliation were organized (Lewis). In addition, Kikuyu were forcefully rounded up, taken to enclosed

camps and viciously interrogated (Elkins 63). According to accounts she gathered, Elkins says screening teams beat, mutilated and whipped suspects and inserted broken bottles, knives, snakes and hot eggs into body orifices (66). This kind of dehumanizing violence reigned in the camps and later in the enclosed villages where Kikuyu were forced to live. That colonialism causes a crisis of identity is seen in the division in the Kikuyu caused in part by the Britishs divide and rule policy. The presence of the external power, moreover, made the Kikuyu question their culture and tradition, and separate accordingly. For the British, the Mau Mau revolt inspired fear and the need to prove that they were as organized and civilizing a power as they purported themselves. A variety of political factors also contributed to the violent decolonization process. One of the motivating issues for Mau Mau was desperation to force political change. By the 1950s in Africa, other nations were evolving politically, Africans were gaining more freedom and states were on the verge of decolonizing, yet Kenyan politics remained static. Even after many Africans served in World War II, white settlers in Kenya campaigned against greater political representation for Africans (Anderson 3). Berman notes, For most of the first decade after 1945, British political development policy had no clear role for African nationalism (189). In The Politics of Collective Violence, Tilly explains that only in times of revolution and occupation do governments step in to change the political dynamic and replace systems of exploitation and opportunity hoarding (11). Mau Mau felt desperate to rattle the existing political institutions in hopes of forcing change. Regarding long-term political causality, colonial Kenya had a higher level of severe punishments for Africans than most colonies (Anderson 78). Once the state of Emergency was declared following the Mau Mau attacks it was only in keeping with the British pattern to respond firmly. Frightened settlers needed to feel white institutions were swiftly restoring order, even though in reality the counterinsurgency was a disorganized and violent process (Anderson 6). The British response was politically motivated. The colonial government needed to legitimize its actions to the metropole and cement power over Kenya for the future. Anderson discusses the difficulties the colonial government had in deciding what to call

the Mau Mau crisis. Calling it a war made the situation seem like a battle between two states, which it was not, and calling it a rebellion seemed to suggest incredible disorder in the colony. In the end the British decided on the term civil disobedience (238). Despite the aggressive war being waged, in 1953 the colonial government made a big spectacle about adopting a hearts and minds campaign that included rehabilitation through work (Elkins 111). Susan Carruthers says for the colonial government, this campaign was really directed towards winning over the hearts and minds of citizens in the United Kingdom (Hunt 410). In the continued British tradition of keeping up appearances, the colonial government took every opportunity to highlight the purported successes of the program (Elkins 111). Since most of the Kikuyu screened were subjected to inhumane forms of torture, many admitted to things they had not done to stop the beatings (Elkins 66). The hearts and minds campaign was splashed across the press in Kenya and Britain, and gave the appearance that the colonial government was treating the civil disturbance with an appropriate balance of firmness, fairness and moderation. In reality, too many settlers demanded retribution to make the rehabilitation camps anything but a deadly experience. After Operation Anvil in 1954, tens of thousands of Kikuyu were sent to detention camps (Elkins 127-128). Some were camps for people deemed to have soft Mau Mau sympathies. The others were work camps for the 30,000 people the screening teams considered unfit to be part of society. According to Elkins, these camps were explicitly punitive (129). Disease, starvation and sexual violence ran rampant in the camps (Elkins 208-209). Politicking continued after 1956, when detainees began to be released. The British government instituted a variety of measures that allowed it to maintain economic control over former detainees (Kershaw 259). For example, only with a Loyalty Certificate (which no one who had taken an oath would ever obtain) could one engage in private or government work outside of the Kikuyu reserves. Curfews and movement restrictions were imposed, and thousands who violated them were arrested (Elkins 273). The inherently violent nature of decolonization and crisis of identity is illustrated in the political proceedings as well. Mau Maus desire to impose political change relates to Fanons point that decolonization must involve violence because it is a forced

transition. As Elkins points out, In the end, outright violence and bureaucratic manipulation cannot be divorced. They worked in concert toward the ultimate goal of restoring and strengthening British colonial control in Kenya (274). Fear and anger about the changing political status quo (and their place in it) made the colonial response violent, yet the essential style of British rule caused much of this reaction to be institutionalized.. Economic factors played an important role in inciting and furthering the conflict. The seizure of African land by European settlers had been a bitter issue from the first days of colonial rule in Kenya, in 1902 (Anderson 10). In Kenya, land was divided by race, and settlers had no compunctions claiming the most arable land for themselves (Anderson 21). Africans protested the land seizure, but when the British did secede land to Africans, it was land of little fertility and poor quality. The creation of the Land Commission in 1932 essentially confirmed European ownership to all but the very smallest bits of land in contention (Anderson 20). In the southern region of Kiambu, for example, Africans looked on and often helped the newcomers build houses and barns, not realizing the huge amount of the land they would one day claim (Anderson 23). The conflict over land came to a head with the expulsion of tenants from the Rift Valley (Anderson 23). Because of the European seizures, more and more Africans became tenants on settler owned farms. White colonialists saw the recruited labor simply as hired help, whose residence on the farmland held no bearing on their rights to it, even as the tenants worked the land and acquired capital (Anderson 24-25). By the end of the 1930s many Africans had been tenant farmers for generations (Anderson 25). The Africans, on the other hand, saw their rights to the land as implicitly understood. In Kikuyu tradition, this right was called githaka and meant that they had immoveable claim over the plot of land they cultivated (Anderson 25). The end of World War II illustrated this clash of understandings. With the post war an economic boom, white settlers had the capital to develop the land, and they started placing more restrictions on African land and livestock. The squatters were stuckthey could either accept these harsh new terms or become landless workers. In 1946 the issue deepened when Europeans in some areas decided to evict the tenants altogether. Squatters were forced to move and unable to even take their livestock with them

(Anderson 26). The expulsion of tenants and the increase in population intensified land hunger in the Kikuyu reserves. There was simply too little land for too many people. Forced to live in sanctioned off reserves of infertile land, Africans were unable to maintain their already meager standard of living, and the future looked bleak (Anderson 31). Tilly says exploitation is a fundamental relational mechanism that causes social inequalities that manifest and act as a relational factor in inciting collective violence. Land remained a sensitive subject throughout colonial rule. Indeed, once the state of Emergency was declared the British offered land to Loyalists who helped the counterinsurgent movement, furthering the divide between the Kikuyu people (Lewis). Another short-term economic issue was the lack of opportunity for most Africans, especially former servicemen in Nairobi. After serving in World War II, many blacks returned to the capital, more worldly and educated, with money to invest. They became quickly disillusioned in Nairobi, with no opportunity, their progress obstructed by the minority who preferred to give opportunities to their own clients (Anderson 36). As their savings depleted these men quickly became bitter about being so shut down after serving the British crown. Additionally they were, perhaps, more politically aware after their military experience (Anderson 36-37). Organized violent movements often occur in frontiers and cities that harbor uncontrolled, armed concentrations of young, single men (Tilly 1). A recurring theme in colonial Kenya is the lack of opportunity blacks faced. It seemed wherever they saw a way to work within the imposed system, the government put up a wall. It is ironic that after the extreme violence during the state of Emergency, the situation in Kenya fizzled. Between 1959 and when Kenya gained independence in 1963, first the British government and then the white settlers were willing to negotiate with the Africans (Lonedale and Odhiambo 4). The impact the state of Emergency had on the metropole as influencing the need for decolonization is indisputable. That said, Mau Mau should not be understood as cohesive movement towards independence. In his review of the oft-cited Elkins book, Derek Peterson correctly explains that when Kikuyu took oaths, they were not joining a specific political movement but rather demonstrating their desperation as they grasped to understand and maintain their identity in a political

system that infiltrated their lives on a social, political and economic level. Similarly, the heavy handed British response to Mau Mau can be understood as a declining imperial power frantically working to affirm its presence and maintain control. This motivation was partly for political and fiscal purposes, but a response to an existential dilemma that demanded they legitimize their rule as times changed.

Works Cited Anderson, David. Histories of the Hanged: Britains Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire. London, Great Britan: Phoenix, 2005. Print. Berman, Bruce J. Nationalism, Ethnicity and Modernity: The Paradox of Mau Mau. Canadian Journal of African Studies. 25.2 (1991): 181-206. Web. 17 Jan 2010. Elkins, Caroline. Britains Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. London, Great Britain: Pimlico, 2005. Print. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. London, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1963. Print. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1996. Print. Hunt, Richard A. Book Reviews: Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counterinsurgency. The Journal of Military History. 61.2 (1997): 410-411. Web. 29 Jan 2010. Kershaw, Greet. Mau Mau from Below. Oxford, Great Britain: James Currey Ltd., 1997. Print. Lewis, Joanna. HY436: Race, Violence and Colonial Rule in Africa. London School of Economics and Political Science. London, Great Britain. 21 Jan 2010. Class Lecture. Lonsdale, John. Mau Maus of the Mind: Making Mau Mau and Remaking Kenya. The Journal of African History. 31.3 (1990): 393-421. Web. 29 Dec 2009. Odhiambo, E.S. Atieno, and John Lonsdale, eds. Mau Mau & Nationhood. Oxford, Great Britan: James Currey Ltd., 2003. Print. Tilly, Charles. The Politics of Collective Violence. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print. Vandervort, Bruce. Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa 1830-1914. London, Great Britain: UCL Press Limited, 1998. Print.