‘Truth be Told’: Some Problems with Historical Revisionism in Kenya

Abstract

Historical revisionism is equally appealing to state and non-state actors during periods of intense socio-political change, especially following civil conflict, when the need for unification is paramount. This applies to Kenya as it struggles to come to terms with the post-electoral crisis of 2007/08. The need to redress state-orchestrated amnesia about Mau Mau and the struggle for independence is also important; encouraged by first president Jomo Kenyatta, ostensibly in the interests of national unity, the trend was continued by his successor. Since Mau Mau was unbanned in 2003, and a lawsuit was brought by veterans with the support of a human rights group against the British government in 2009, there has been an upsurge in public memorialisation and debate about the liberation movement in Kenya. This has been accompanied by increasing calls for ‘true’ history to be written. Veterans have persuaded the state to support a project on rewriting Kenya history, which links to efforts to commemorate heroes and broaden official definitions of heroism to include a wide range of ethnic communities and rebel leaders from different periods of anti-colonial resistance. These themes are reflected in two new history exhibitions developed by National Museums of Kenya (NMK), and in the local media, which has done more to popularise these histories and commemorative initiatives than any scholarly texts. This article draws on research interviews and the literature on resistance, social memory and patriotic nationalism to problematise and analyse these developments, within the context of constitutional change.

Keywords:

• Kenya
• Mau Mau
• loyalism
• liberation struggle
• amnesia
• constitution
• heroes

Notes

‘Truth Be Told’ was the banner displayed above ‘Re-telling the story of the freedom struggle’, Daniel Wesangula Sunday Nation 25 January 2009.

The Proposed Constitution of Kenya published by the Attorney-General of the Republic of Kenya, Government Printer, Nairobi, 6 May 2010:5.

The British called it Mau Mau. Members of the movement preferred the name Land Freedom Army. Many explanations have been given for the meaning of the words Mau Mau, see for example Edgerton (1990):56–7.

‘Experts dedicate new law to liberation heroes’, Daily Nation 5 August 2010. The Committee of Experts is the main technical organ in the constitutional review process.

‘Mau Mau movement says “No”’, The Standard Online 18 July 2010, quoting Kenya African Mau Mau Union officials.

‘Must one have been in the forest to be a hero?’ asked Ogot in 2005:505.

Executive Summary of ‘Report of the taskforce for country-wide data collection on criteria and modalities of honouring national heroes and heroines’, submitted to the then Minister of State for National Heritage Suleiman Shakombo, by Taskforce Chair V.G. Simiyu, August 2007:vii.

The Kapenguria Six were Jomo Kenyatta, Paul Ngei, Bildad Kaggia, Achieng' Oneko, Fred Kubai and Kung'u Karumba, tried together on charges of managing Mau Mau. After a highly flawed trial, they were found guilty and jailed. None of them took part in the struggle militarily, yet Oneko, Kaggia and Ngei are described as ‘the militant leaders of Mau Mau’ in the new NMK history exhibition. More properly, they were part of the militant wing of the KAU.

A reference to the crisis that followed the disputed December 2007 elections. All Kenyans do not agree that Mau Mau is unifying, but few voice this publicly. Descendants of loyalists and devout Christians who refused to take the oath have begun to speak out, for example Muchiri Karanja, ‘Villagers want Mau Mau veterans to apologise for brutal killings’, Sunday Nation 13 December 2009; Mwaura Ndung'u, ‘The massacre (58 years ago today) that still divides Lari’, Saturday Nation 26 March 2011.

I borrow this phrase from David Anderson, personal communication. He, Daniel Branch and others argue that the majority of Gikuyu ‘faced both ways’ during the State of Emergency because they had to, and it is unwise to put any figure on Mau Mau or ‘loyalist’ support. My thanks to David for this clarification.

Gikuyu/Agikuyu is the correct spelling of the ethnic group and its language, but Kikuyu will be used when quoting other authors. The Gikuyu, Aembu and Ameru peoples are closely related, and constituted the majority of Mau Mau fighters and supporters. Some Kamba, Maasai and members of other communities were also involved.

A Kenyan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) was established in 2009, but soon became mired in controversy when chairman Bethuel Kiplagat was accused of being unfit for office. He resigned in November 2010.

‘There were millions of Africans who were wholly uninvolved with Mau Mau’, writes Elkins (2005:361). Branch refers to many citizens having been anti- or non-nationalist (2009:221).

Informal conversation in the History of Kenya exhibition, Nairobi National Museum, March 2011. The guide, a university history student, was explaining the exhibits to Kenyan schoolchildren, who constitute the majority of museum visitors.

The case was issued in London on 23 June 2009, and resumed in the High Court on 7 April 2011. On 21 July the Court held that there is a case against the UK government, and ‘the claims are fit for trial’, overturning the UK government's argument that liability was transferred to the Kenyan government at independence. The next hearing will be in spring 2012. Brought by the KHRC and the Mau Mau War Veterans' Association, through UK lawyers Leigh Day, it seeks compensation for injuries sustained by four elderly claimants while in detention. Historians Caroline Elkins, David Anderson and Huw Bennett have provided supporting statements. My thanks to lawyers Martyn Day and Daniel Leader for information.

Critiques include Blacker (2007); Carruthers (2005); Peterson (2008). Lewis (2007) and Ogot (2005), to a lesser extent Carruthers, point to weaknesses in both Elkins (2005) and Anderson (2005).

Quoted for example in Clough (2003):255.

Some groups have made commendable attempts to raise awareness and challenge historical amnesia, notably: the KHRC, the Goethe Institute and other organisers of the ‘(Re)-membering Kenya’ series of public debates in Nairobi in 2008–9 that brought together scholars and citizens to discuss issues arising from the post-elections crisis, organisers of the Amnesia Art Exhibition Project (see www.goethe.de), and an aborted Kenyan Historical Reconciliation Project to which Karega-Munene and I contributed. Public hearings before the TJRC also play a key role in these processes. The history exhibition at Nairobi National Museum also has a small display of photographs titled ‘Dark Moments in Our Country's Political History’, about political assassinations. However, it provides no analysis or explanation, simply stating that the killings of Pio Gama Pinto, Tom Mboya, J.M. Kariuki et al. ‘are still riddled in mystery’.

I attended this conference, and took notes on the presentation. All quotes are from these notes.

Kimani has since been deposed in an internal coup. At the time of writing, the secretary is Munyui Mwangi.

The history department at University of Nairobi (UoN) also received similar demands, but decided not to accede to them. Prof Vincent Simiyu of UoN and Prof Henry Mwaniki of Egerton University agreed to collaborate with the veterans, together with Peter Ndege of Moi.

Author's notes from the conference.

Personal communication with Kenyan contact. I cannot reveal my source for reasons of confidentiality.

Anonymous personal communication with Kenyan contact, August 2010.

Ibid.

Both men are extensively quoted in Wesangula op. cit. More recently, see ‘Freedom heroes finally honoured’, M. wa Kinyatti The Standard 20 October 2010.

Sunday Nation 25 January 2009.

Co-produced by Nation Media Group and Hilary Ng'weno.

‘Kenya: Campaigning for Mau Mau – Continuing Resistance’. KHRC Press Release dated 6 March 2009, viewed online at http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200903091175.html (accessed on 24 July 2010).

See for example ‘Support the Mau Mau reparations campaign’, Pambazuka News 5 March 2009. Among the four campaign objectives listed is ‘energise ongoing efforts for recognition of Kenyan heroes and heroines’, see http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/54582

Interview with George Morara, August 2009.

Author's notes on a speech by George Morara, 18 August 2009, Malindi.

KNCHR website, www.knchr.org. I was invited to take part in a planning workshop for this proposed exhibition at Nairobi National Museum, July 2010.

Maina Kiai, personal communication, February 2010. Kiai was in March 2011 appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association.

Letter dated 28 June 2006, Dr AA Moody Awori, Office of the Vice-President and Ministry of Home Affairs, to Maina Kiai, KNCHR.

‘Support the Mau Mau reparations campaign’, KHRC Pambazuka News 5 March 2009.

Personal communication with Martyn Day, 17 June 2010.

Barrister Daniel Leader of Leigh Day confirmed this view, in a telephone conversation on 18 January 2011. ‘We publicly accept that loyalists were guilty of abuses, that is part of the case.’ Abuses such as castrations were, he said, ‘undertaken by Home Guard, but they were being supervised by colonial officers’.

KHRC event to present the Mau Mau case for reparations, 25 June 2009, School of Oriental and African Studies, London. My thanks to John Lonsdale for sharing notes on this meeting. Atsango Chesoni replaces Muthoni Wanyeki as KHRC Director in September 2011.

‘Mau Mau: the empire's ghost returns’, Carina Ray:18–22; ‘Mau Mau: ever-present past’, Mukoma wa Ngugi:24–7; ‘Mau Mau: raw British brutality’, Zarina Patel:28–9; New African 287 2009:18–31. The last two articles were first published online at www.pambazuka.org

‘The day of Kenya's heroes’, Martin Mutua The Standard Online 21 October 2010, www.standardmedia.co.ke/print/phb?id=2000020717&cid=4 (accessed 21 October).

This is not the place to describe in full how NMK developed these two exhibitions, and to provide a detailed analysis of the permanent exhibition. See my chapter in Managing Heritage, Making Peace (Coombes, Hughes and Karega-Munene Forthcoming).

History Exhibition Script, Nairobi Museum, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, 10 January 2007:14.

Olonana is the correct name for the Maasai prophet, Lenana the anglicised form.

‘Mau Mau: the unsung heroes’, produced by NMK 2010.

‘Resistance and Nationalism: Kenya, 1895–1963’, draft exhibition storyline for travelling history exhibition, Kenya Oral History Centre and National Museums of Kenya, July 2010:26.

Elkins also wrote that Mau Mau was ‘composed almost entirely of Kikuyu’ in an article titled ‘Britain has moral duty to allow Mau Mau case to proceed’, The Standard 27 June 2009.

Ben Knighton estimates this based on figures in Barratt, Kurian and Johnson (2001), personal communication, September 2010.

See note 7 above ‘Report of the taskforce’:34.

I support the case in principle. My critique, however, focuses on the ways in which it is being used to skew historical analysis and public debate.

‘Documenting a colonial past: Kenyan project records recent history before it's lost’, Alan Powell Harvard Gazette Online 2 September 2010, http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/09/documenting-a-colonial-past/ (accessed 8 September 2010).

NMK website, www.museums.or.ke

Personal communication, July 2010.

See http://generationkenya.co.ke