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Abstract
The idea of freedom, or wiathi, lay at the centre of political and moral discussion around the time of Mau Mau. But what did this idea of freedom entail? This article focuses attention on the need to reconstruct what was understood by wiathi by concentrating on the particular context in which the term was used. It is suggested that wiathi denotes an idea of freedom as moral agency, which confers authority to act within the community and makes one fully adult. Although that idea has certain parallels with the principal ways in which the term ‘freedom’ is typically understood in political analysis, wiathi is properly understood by treating it on its own terms.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to John Lonsdale and Charles Larmore for their valuable comments on earlier drafts.
Notes
1. CitationBenson, Kikuyu–English Dictionary, 194.
2. See CitationSkinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, 29–78.
3. See CitationSkinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, 65.
4. For a broad survey of freedom in terms of political independence, see CitationYoung, ‘Itineraries of Ideas of Freedom in Africa’.
5. CitationLonsdale, ‘Mau Maus of the Mind’ and ‘Moral Economy of Mau Mau’, 326. The translation is reproduced in CitationBerman, ‘Nationalism, Ethnicity and Modernity’, 200; and in CitationO'Hanlon, ‘Gender in the British Empire’, 390.
6. The Mau Mau association with ‘militant nationalism’ is widely found. See, for instance, CitationRosberg and Nottingham, The Myth of ‘Mau Mau’, 354; CitationFuredi, ‘Kenya: Decolonization through Counterinsurgency’, 148; CitationAnderson, Histories of the Hanged, 12.
7. CitationKaggia, Roots of Freedom, 193.
8. CitationKariuki, ‘Mau Mau’ Detainee, 182.
9. CitationPugliese, Author, Publisher and Gikuyu Nationalist, 148.
10. Regarding the prohibitive cost of bridewealth for many would-be husbands in the 1940s, see CitationShadle, ‘Bridewealth and Female Consent’, 247.
11. O'Hanlon, ‘Gender in the British Empire’, 390.
12. Quoted in CitationLonsdale, ‘Moral Economy of Mau Mau’, 326 (emphasis added).
13. CitationOruka, Sage Philosophy, 143.
14. CitationOruka, Sage Philosophy, 121.
15. Quoted in CitationSchatzberg, Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa, 42.
16. CitationColony and Protectorate of Kenya, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 302 and 304.
17. CitationKershaw, ‘The Land is the People’, 168.
18. CitationSmith, ‘Njama's Supper’, 527.
19. CitationChabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 99.
20. Schatzberg, Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa, 41 and 44.
21. CitationKenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, 65.
22. CitationBerman and Lonsdale, ‘The Labors of Muigwithania’,18.
23. CitationPeterson, ‘Writing Gikuyu’, 305 and 147.
24. See CitationHirsch, Social Limits to Growth, 27.
25. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 305.
26. CitationMuoria, ‘Kenyatta is our Reconciler’.
27. Benson, Kikuyu–English Dictionary, 532–33; Lonsdale, ‘Moral Economy’, 326.
28. Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, 76.
29. CitationKenyatta, Suffering Without Bitterness, 216.
30. CitationKenyatta, Suffering Without Bitterness, 244.
31. Oruka, Sage Philosophy, 122.
32. Peterson, ‘Writing Gikuyu’, 331.
33. Kenyatta, Suffering Without Bitterness, 234.
34. Kenyatta, Suffering Without Bitterness, 345.
35. Kenyatta, Suffering Without Bitterness, xiii.
36. Quoted in CitationLonsdale, ‘Mau Maus of the Mind’, 418.
37. Lonsdale, ‘Authority, Gender and Violence’, 60–61.
38. Kenyatta, Suffering Without Bitterness, 152.
39. CitationOdinga, Not Yet Uhuru, 310.
40. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, 200.
41. Kenyatta, Facing Mount Kenya, 76 and 175.
42. See CitationBerlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, 33–34.
43. CitationMacCullum, ‘Negative and Positive Freedom’, 333 and 312.
44. To be exact, freedom as non-interference is one type of, rather than synonymous with, negative freedom. Another variant of negative freedom is discussed below, namely the idea that one is free only when one enjoys the guarantee of non-interference.
45. Only since the seventeenth century has freedom as non-interference taken root as the main way of understanding freedom. See CitationSkinner, ‘Visions of Civil Liberty’.
46. Only since the seventeenth century has freedom as non-interference taken root as the main way of understanding freedom. See CitationSkinner, ‘Visions of Civil Liberty’., 105.
47. CitationHobbes, Leviathan, 145.
48. CitationHobbes, Leviathan, 146.
49. CitationHayek, ‘Freedom and Coercion’, 88–89.
50. CitationNussbaum, Women and Human Development, 70–86. Nussbaum lists ten capabilities ranging from the abilities to live and have good health to using one's senses and imagination.
51. CitationSen, Development as Freedom, 14–15 and 87.
52. CitationSkinner, Liberty Before Liberalism, 82.
53. CitationPettit, Republicanism, 22–23.
54. Quoted in CitationNeuhouser, ‘Freedom, Dependence and the General Will’, 364.
55. CitationRousseau, Social Contract, 50 and 54.
56. CitationWeber, Political Writings, 159.
57. CitationWeber, Political Writings, 129 and 159.
58. CitationWeber, Political Writings, 129 (especially n. 42).
59. CitationLöwith, Max Weber and Karl Marx, 78.
60. CitationPippin, ‘What is the Question?’, 156.
61. Ewen MacAskill, ‘Shia Clergy Push for Islamist State’, The Guardian, 3 May 2003, 25.
62. Quentin Skinner, ‘A Third Concept of Liberty’, London Review of Books, 4 April 2002, 16.
63. Andrzej Walicki, ‘Marx and Freedom’, New York Review of Books, 24 November 1983, 52.
64. CitationBoele van Hensbroek, African Political Philosophy, 7.
65. Report of the Commission for Africa (2005), 115 [cited ?]. Available from http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/report/introduction.html; INTERNET.