, I
RETHINKINGFRA TZFA 0 IN THE CO TEXTOFTHEKE YAN
DECOLONIZATIO EXPERIE CE, 1895-1992 (I
BY
EDWARD NAMISIKO WASW~G'ANI
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PIDLOSOPHY IN IDSTORY AT KENYATTA
UNIVERSITY, NAIROBI
SEPTEMBER, 2003
Kisiang'ani, Edward
Rethinking Frankz
Fanon in the content
III WI I2004/269865
JEff Y i
ii
DECLARA TION
This thesis is my original work and has not been presented for a degree in any
other university
EDW ARD NAMISIKO WASWA KISIANG'ANI
This thesis has been submitted with our knowledge and approval as the University
Superviso~s
PROF. ERIC MASINDE ASEKA
DR. MILDRED A.J. NDEDA
iii
DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to all the sons and daughters of Kenya who have been abused,
detained, displaced, exiled, harassed, maimed and killed for fighting to dismantle the
formal and informal variants of colonialism in our beautiful country.
1\'
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Every thesis is in a sense a corporate enterprise and in many ways a social
product. During the preparation of this work, I have acquired many debts to institutions,
friends, colleagues and informants, without whose input this project would not have
succeeded.
In the first place, I would like to acknowledge with thanks the enormous support I
received from my parent university. I like to think that this work is in some sense a
memorial to my years as a student and lecturer at Kenyatta University, Nairobi. But
whether that university would Iike to think so too is another matter. Yet, I can never
forget that in addition to hiring me to teach in the Department of History, Archaeology
and Political Studies for the last fourteen years, on several occasions, the university
allowed me to travel abroad in order to sharpen my intellectual abilities.
My work has been nourished by many sources. I owe a special debt of gratitude
to the many informants who kindly granted me interviews. This, to me, was a very
fulfilling experience. Besides, this study benefited from archival and written sources
procured from several libraries. I would like to express my profound appreciation to the
staff at the Kenya National Archives in Nairobi for their invaluable support in assisting
me to access primary documents for this work. Other libraries which cannot escape my
mention include, the Moi Library at Kenyatta University, the Jorno Kenyatta Memorial
and the Institute of Development Studies' libraries at the University of Nairobi, the
Public Affairs Section of the American Embassy in Nairobi, the O'Neil library at the
Boston College in Boston and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Special
recognition too goes to the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in
Africa (CODESRIA) which gave me a number of opportunities to access its wonderful
library in Dakar, Senegal.
In the year 2000, this study received a critical boost when the U.S State
Department selected me to attend the prestigious Fulbright Summer Program in America.
This enriching experience took me to a couple universities including those in Boston,
vNew York City and Washington D.C. In America too, I interacted with a pocketful of
scholars and accessed materials that forced me to re-examine some of the assumptions 1
had held for long.
I am fortunate to find myself in the unusually collegial department of History,
Archaeology and Political Studies at Kenyatta University. This department has
encouraged me, over the years, to follow my historical star. I have gotten special help
when I needed it from our current Chair Dr. Mildred Ndeda and former Chair Prof Eric
Aseka. However, in many special ways, all the members of our department have given
me various forms of support since I began working on this project. Thus, with deep
respect and humility, I wish to register my appreciation to the following members of the
academic staff in our department: Prof Gabriel Jal, Dr. Pius W. Kakai, Dr. Samson
Omwoyo, Mr. Edwin Gimode, Mrs. Martha Wangari, Mr. Felix Kiruthu, Mr. Godwin
Murunga, Mr. Peter Esese, Mr. Joel Imbisi, Mr. Washington diiri, Mr. Pius Cokumu,
Mr. Peter Wafula, Mr. David Okelo, Mr. Lazarus Ngari and Mr. Peter Lemoosa. Special
thanks too go to my dear friends, Prof. Chris Shisanya and his wife Constance; Leah
Wambura and Susan Mwangi for their encouragement. There are many more people
whose support I would wish to acknowledge here but considerations for space make it
impossible for me to thank them all.
Two special people require a special mention. I would like to thank my two
supervisors, Prof. Eric Aseka and Dr. Mildred deda for their incisive criticisms of the
work and for their intellectual guidance. The two went out of their way to read several
versions of this work and made critical suggestions that improved the quality of this final
product. I should point out that, on his part, Prof. Aseka has for many years been my
mentor. He woke me up from the dogmatic slumbers of modernism to the challenge of
postmodemism and postcolonial ism. On theoretical issues, I have for many years been
picking the brains of Prof. Aseka.
Without my parents, there would be no me and therefore no thesis. Everything I
have ever achieved in my life has been because of the sound and disciplined upbringing I
received from my father William Waswa and my mother Rose Nasimiyu. My
appreciation to these pillars of my life is immeasurable. They have never stopped
VI
reminding me that the most important thing in the life of every human being remains and
will always be education. Thank you Baba, and thank you Mama for your evergreen
encouragement, inspiration and support.
Much of the stress and very little of the joy of writing a thesis is shared by the
researcher's family. Recording my gratitude for their support and good humor for the
many hours and days when my attention was obviously elsewhere is small recompense
but sincerely meant. Thank you my children Pu}ity, Faith, Blbu, B~lla, ffu"gene, Etdridge, ??e?
and La!;~\fondly known as Titi ). You will always be a wonderful part of me and I love
you so much.
Finally, my acknowledgement will be pale and incomplete without my
mentioning my heart's friend, my wife and my life companion, for her consistent
motivation and support for all my academic endeavours. Electine dear, this is your work.
You have contributed to it more than you may realize. You have been both the father and
mother of our children during all those days I have been away from home. Thank you
Tina for being a precious part of my yesterday, today and for ever.
Last but not least, I want to thank Mrs. Caroline B. Runyenje for bearing with my
irritating corrections and for typing the entire work. Her patience, energy, hard work and
rare attention to detail marks her out as a very special professional indeed.
., \hI', '~
XI'./'
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Title.............................................................. i
Declaration. .. . . . ... . . . ... ... ... . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . .. . . . . .. . 11
Dedication..................... 111
Acknowledgements... IV
Abstract......................................................... x
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION.................................... 1
1.1 The Context of the Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1
1.1.1 Colonialism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 The Colonial State... ... ... . .. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .... 2
1.1.3 The Nation -State....................................... 3
1.1.4 Frantz Fanon: A Brief History and Foundation
Of his Intellectual Anti-Colonial Discourse..... 6
1.2 Statement of the Problem.......................... 25
1.3 Research Objectives................................ 26
1.4 Research Premises................................... 27
1.5 Review of Literature.. 27
1.6 Theoretical Framework.............................. 37
1.7 Justification and Significance of the Study........ 50
1.8 Scope............ 50
1.9 Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.10 Conclusion. .. . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . ..... 53
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT IN KENYA'S COLONIAL
STRUCTURES, 1895-1952 55
2.1 Introduction........................................... 55
viii
2.2 The Land Question.................................. 59
2.3 The European Town... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 67
2.4 The Administrative and Military Frontier......... 74
2.5 Labour and Taxation... ... ... ... ... ... ... .. . ... . .. .. . 81
2.6 Education.............................................. 89
2.7 The Problem of Political Marginalization........ 101
2.8 Conclusion............................................. 107
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 THE MAKING OF VIOLENCE IN COLONIAL KENYA:
FROM MAU MAU TO INDEPENDENCE, 1945-1963 108
3. 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.2 Gathering the Storm of Violence, 1945-1952 .... 112
3.3 The Genesis ofMau Mau .......................... 115
3.4 The Mau Mau War, 1947-1952 ..................... 117
3.5 The Mau Mau Violence, 1952-1955 ............... 126
3.6 The Fanonian Dialectic of Violence in the Kenyan
Context During the Mau Mau Era .................. 133
3.7 The Path to Political Independence .................... 142
3.8 Conclusion ................................................ 155
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 THE BffiTH OF THE NEO-COLONIAL STATE IN
KENYA: THEKENYATTA STATE, 1963-
1978......... 157
4. 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4.2 The Challenges of the new Nation 158
4.3 Facing the Challenges: The Main Pillars of the
Jlre Kenyatta State............................... 160
4.4 Political Intrigue and Intolerance...................... 162
ix
4.5 The Land Crisis.......................................... 166
4.6 Tribalism.................................................. 174
4.7 Education and Culture... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..... 178
4.8 Oppression and Repression........................ 188
4.9 Winding Up: Panic, Restlessness and more Repression
in the Kenyatta State. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
4.10 Conclusion.............................................. 203
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 THE MOl STATE, 1978-1992..................... 205
5.1 Introduction........................................... 205
5.2 Neo-colonial Continuity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 206
5.2.1 Tribalism and the Politics ofEthnicity... ... .... 207
5.2.2 The Economy.......................................... 213
5.2.3 Repression and the Struggle for Decolonization... 216
5.2.4 Accomplishing A Critical Hurdle: Towards a Multi-
Party Political Culture............... 228
5.3 Conclusion......................................... 240
6.0 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION . 242
7.0 SOURCES 256
ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that the problematic of decolonization remains one of the most
intriguing subjects in contemporary scholarship. With regard to the African continent, the
mention of the term decolonization evokes profound emotions, debates and controversies,
just as it raises some very fundamental questions. One of the questions that is often
raised with regard to this subject is this: when did the process of decolonization in Africa
actually begin and when did it end? Another question related to the foregoing one
concerns the definition of the term decolonization. It: -for Africa, decolonization implies
the dismantling of the European imperialist structures on the continent, has this so far
been achieved? Is it possible to argue that, over forty years into the independence
experience, Africa can confidently boast to be free of colonialism? These and many
other stimulating questions have perennially consumed the intellectual energies of
scholars and political theorists grappling with the historically complex relationship
between the African continent and the Euro-American axis.
Frantz Fanon is, possibly, a leading scholar and political theorist on the discourse
of decolonization in Africa. Born in Martinique in 1925, Fanon spent most of his adult
life in French North Africa. Indeed, he became the chief architect of the Algerian
revolution that resulted into the political collapse of the French regime in Algeria.
Throughout his writings, Fanon tackled critical colonial issues that embraced but were
not confined to alienation, racism, exploitation, political participation, class struggle,
liberation, socialism, culture, the nation-state, national leadership, neo-colonialism,
tribalism and above all, violence. No doubt, these issues are crucial entry-points for
anybody wishing to interrogate the structure of European colonialism in Africa. This
study highlights and critiques some of these issues within the context of Kenya's
decolonization experience.
Given that Fanon's discourse on colonialism was derived from his own
experience under French imperialism, this study appropriates some of his ideas to an
alternative British colonial situation in Kenya in order to ascertain if his conclusions
could polymorphously be employed to interpret any given imperial situation. Guided by
Xl
Fanon's pessrrrusrn about what seemed to be Africa's premature celebration of
independence in the early 1960s, the study adopts the view that, in Kenya, the formal
colonialism which began in 1895 did not end with the political collapse of the British
rule. Rather, the study looks at the attainment of Kenya's independence in 1963 as a
well-calculated transitional move by the British to re-invent and Africanize colonialism
so as to maintain their hegemony over the African country. Consequently, the study
treats both the Kenyatta and Moi states as continuities in the colonial project which began
in the late 19th century. To capture this reality, the study has employed the analytical
devices of the postmodernist and the postcolonialist theoretical dispositions. Notably,
through the post-modernist perspective, the study finds space to generally question the
grand narratives of the West, some of which came to justify the installation of colonial
rule in Africa while others have tended to influence the way in which the discourse on
decolonization has been developed. On the other hand, the postcolonial theoretical
standpoint has enabled the study to question Eurocentric forms of knowledge which seem
to give Africa and its people certain identities of disability and inferiority and which
have, in turn, justified colonialism in both its formal and hegemonic dispensations. Thus,
through the postcolonial domain, the study enriches the counter-hegemonic discourse that.
remains fundamental to the realization of the goal of true liberation in Africa. The study
derived its data from both primary and secondary sources. While secondary data was
fundamentally limited to library research, primary data was procured from the Archives
and from the oral respondents.
Finally, this study demonstrates that there is a lot of literature dealing with
Kenya's experience with formal and informal variations of colonialism (for example
Odinga 1967, Kanogo 1987, Ngugi 1980, 1981, 1986; Furedi 1989, Edgerton 1990,
Rosberg and Nottingham 1966, among others), but no study has so far been undertaken to
specifically interrogate Fanon in the light of the Kenyan decolonization experience.
Consequently, this study undertakes a modest intervention to address this intellectual gap.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Context of the Problem
1.1.1 Colonialism
The penetration of colonial capitalism into the African continent during the
closing decades of the 19th century marked a fundamental turning point in the history of
the African people. This change was inevitably accompanied by the introduction of new
ways of life to the hitherto unique but immensely rich traditional African lifestyle.
European colonialism was itself a culture with diverse manifestations. The new culture
which, by and large, created a permanent crisis of identity among the African people had
serious social, political and economic implications. Colonial capitalism had a
culturalizing force when it was ruthlessly introduced to Africa in order to expedite social
and economic exploitation.
The leading colonial powers in Africa were Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal
and Germany. Each of these powers practised a distinctive colonial system with unique
characteristics. For example, the British colonial philosophy of indirect rule was
different from the French policy of assimilation. While the British indirect rule set out to
exploit the African people without necessarily transforming them into British citizens, the
French assimilation policy had the objective of creating black Frenchmen who could even
attend the French National Assembly in Paris. As well, the authoritative German
paternalism was different from the British form of indirect rule. Yet despite the structural
2differences amongst these colonial systems, all of them seem to have been driven by the
objective of exploiting the African people so as to enrich the Western economies.
In Kenya, British colonialism could be examined from two fundamental angles
The first level of colonialism was the formal one when the British took on active control
of the affairs of the country and directly oppressed the Africans. This period begins from
around 1895 and ends in 1963. The second phase, is the post-independence era. This is
the period which followed the symbolic withdrawal of the British from Kenya. It was
marked by the retention of neo-colonial British hegemony over the new nation. The
struggle against the two forms of colonialism is what should constitute decolonization.
This study represents a conscious effort to study the various attempts made by the
Kenyan people to dismantle colonialism, both in its formal and informal dispositions.
1.1.2 The Colonial State
Generally, the imposition of colonial rule in Africa also signalled the birth of the
colonial state. In Kenya, British colonialism worked for the creation and subsequent
development of the colonial state. There are many definitions of the state as there are
ideological perspectives (Salim, 1984: 1-5). But for purposes of this study, the state will
be defined as an organ of society which arises out of the development in society of
irreconcilable antagonisms or struggle, among social classes or groups of people with
conflicting interests (Ochieng and Atieno-Odhiambo, 1995:xiii). Thus, when society is
divided into separate classes, the ruling class has the opportunity to create a strong
organization which helps to control the rest of the society. But the need to control the
rest of the society also implies that relationships between groups of people in the society
are often based on some form of suspicion and oppression. Within this experience, it is
3important to note, the state becomes the institution which the dominant social class
creates to wield coercive power over other classes or groups of people it seeks to rule,
dominate and exploit. Under colonial capitalism, the colonial state in Kenya seems to
have been set up to deliberately coerce, dominate and exploit Africans. It set out to
establish, protect and enhance the economic, political and cultural interests of the British.
These interests were secured through the normal Montesqieuan separation of powers
rationalized in three separate arms of the state namely, the executive, the legislature and
the judiciary. In Kenya, like in other parts of Africa which came under colonial rule, the
branches of government in the colonial state were manned by many officials including
policemen, judges and soldiers. These officials formed a formidable machinery that
protected the wealthy Europeans against the poor Africans.
1.1.3 The Nation-State
It has to be stressed that the colonial state ruled over a colonial society that had
both minority Europeans, Asians, Arabs and majority Africans. The oppressive
tendencies of the Europeans forced Africans to protest and ask for self-determination.
This marked the beginning of the nationalist struggle against colonialism. By our critical
reading, anticolonial nationalism creates its own domain of sovereignty within colonial
society well before it begins its political battle with the imperial power (Chatterjee,
1992:6). It does this by dividing the world of social institutions and practices into two
domains - the material and the spiritual. The material is the domain of the 'outside', of
the economy and the statecraft, of science and technology, a domain where the West had
proved its superiority and to which the underdeveloped world had succumbed (Ibid) In
this domain then, Western superiority had to be acknowledged and its accomplishments
carefully studied and replicated. The spiritual, on the other hand, is an 'inner' domain
bearing the essential marks of cultural identity. The greater one's success .in imitating
Western skills in the material domain, therefore, the greater the need to preserve the
distinctness of one's spiritual culture. This formula, it seems, was a fundamental feature
of anti-colonial nationalism in Africa and Asia (Chatterjee, 1986).
There are several implications from the foregoing reasoning: First, nationalism
declared the domain of the spiritual its sovereign territory and refused to allow the
colonial power to intervene in that domain. But because the colonial state was
determined to control every aspect of the colonizer's life, the stage had been set for
serious conflict. In this way, the colonial society became a site of contestation in which
the colonizer insisted on maintaining his coercive state while the colonized made
relentless efforts to maintain his sovereignty by fighting for the recognition of his cultural
entity called a 'nation', a nation that had developed out of the spiritual domain. But in its
post-independence arrangement, the spiritual domain of the new nation was not entirely
African nor was it exclusively European. It embraced a hybrid of values informed by
linguistic and social modifications that had the capacity to unite various groups into some
loose but formidable political force.
Consequently, it is important to note, the struggle for decolonization III Kenya
seemed to have coalesced around the cultural/spiritual domain of the African people in
the colony which created the nation even before the anti-colonial war began in the 1950s.
Within the spiritual domain, therefore, the nation of Kenya was already sovereign even
when the state was in the hands of the colonial power.
5At independence, the same Africans who had been fighting against colonial
oppressors now took the reigns of power and began to replicate colonial laws and
institutions. This implied the shameless use of state power (the material domain of the
nation-state), by the African leadership, to oppress, intimidate and exploit citizens.
Furthermore, it signified the continuous appropriation of tribalism" as an effective tool of
dividing the various ethnic communities in order to entrench an unpopular political
dispensation. Thus, like their colonial predecessors, the new African leaders became
enemies of the spiritual domain of the nation and, by extension, nationalism. Yet, these
leaders had come to power precisely because they believed the colonizers were enemies
of the spiritual/cultural entity called the 'nation'. Notably, the new leaders celebrated the
birth of the 'nation' but continued to rule the society by perpetuating the fundamental
tenets of the colonial state. As a result, Frantz Fanon, observes:
The state which by its strength and discretion ought to inspire
confidence and disarm and lull everybody to sleep, on the contrary
seeks to impose itself in a spectacular fashion. It makes a display,
it jostles people and bullies them, thus intimating to the citizen
that he is in continual danger (Fanon, 1967: 132).
*By tribalism, we mean that the tendency to whip up ethnic chauvinism in order to achieve certain social
economic and political objectives. The cancer of tribalism can, therefore, serve to give unwarranted
privileges and opportunities to some ethnic communities while at the same time marginalizing and
discriminating against others.
6But in replicating colonial institutions, leaders of the new African states also
highlighted a fundamental dilemma. While their spiritualism was with the nation, their
materiality was with the colonial state. The crisis of managing dual identities on the part
of the African leadership, it seems to me, remains one of the chief causes of conflicts,
instability and economic degeneration in Africa today. The result emanating from the
crisis of identity in the African nation-state is that those who believe in the spirituality of
the nation have often undertaken to continue fighting for decolonization even when the
colonial state was already patronized by Africans.
Eghosa Osaghae has observed that in its post-independence arrangement, the
nation-state has become an instrument of international capitalism. (Osaghae, 1994:2).
Eshetu Chole (1995:2) reiterates the same point when he argues that the post-independent
era in Africa represents a generalized failure of gigantic proportions in the political,
social and economic spheres. This was mainly because bureaucracies were too large,
governments were too wasteful, planning was not properly done, prices were not right
and farmers had no incentives (Berg, 1981). However, the story is more complicated
than that. In its post-independence disposition, the nation state is also an imposing site of
spiritual/cultural contestations which inform the new struggle against neo-colonialism.
In sum, the nation state in Africa, born at independence, was a product of the material
(the European), and the spiritual (the African) domains of the colonial society.
1.1.4 Frantz Fanon: A Brief History and the Foundation of his Intellectual
Anti-Colonial Discourse
With regard to the entire Third World struggle for freedom and democracy during
the twentieth century, there is probably no revolutionary thinker and political activist who
7has surpassed Frantz Fanon. Indeed, of all black writers and intellectuals, Frantz Fanon
is perhaps the most written about (Hansen, 1978: 1). Frantz Fanon, the West Indian
political theorist as well as medical practitioner was born into French colonialism on the
Principle Island of Martinique, West Indies, on the 25th of January 1925. Martinique, with
its fine habours, had been used by Western nations to deliver slaves to the Caribbean.
Furthermore, the colonizers saw in Martinique a country ideally suited for· the
establishment of plantations which would produce much needed raw materials such as
sugar, coffee and vanilla (Panaf, 1975: 10).
Since Martinique's indigenous population had been exterminated by Western
brutality, through conquest, it had became necessary for Europeans to import slaves in
order to meet the increasing demand for labour. Importation of slaves from Africa was
done on a larger scale in the early 17th century. Thus, Fanon's ancestors came from
Africa and he himself was a grandson of a slave (Ibid.: 10). When slavery was abolished
on the island, the slave mentality still persisted. The blacks considered themselves
inferior while whites looked upon themselves as superior beings. Thus, the end of slavery
did not signal the achievement of freedom for former slaves. Rather, former slaves
continued to experience French colonialism in its peculiar dispensation of political
power.
Throughout its colonies, France employed the policy of assimilation in handling
its colonial citizens. The policy socialized French colonial subjects in French culture and
language. The ultimate objective for this project was to create culturally transformed
French citizens in the colonies. For the black people in Martinique, assimilation became
an industrial complex for manufacturing black skins moulded in white masks.
Consequently, Fanons early education followed strictly the lines laid by the
French assimilationist policy. The only books available were official school textbooks
concentrating on the glories of metropolitan power and the French Empire. As a
department of France, Martinician students read the same books and took the same
examinations as white students in metropolitan France (Ibid.: 14). They were taught the
history of France as if it was their own history (Geismar, 1971: 15). Their classrooms
were decorated with pictures of the wine harvest in Bordeaux and winter sports in
Grenoble (Ibid.: 15). Fanon and his brothers learned French patriotic songs, French
language, French literature, French history and French mannerisms. French culture was
accepted with uncritical adulation as the only legitimate and universal way of life. The
effects of this on students was deep and permanent. Students developed a profound sense
of personal identification with the French culture and the French way of life while at the
same time dismissing the African ways of life as backward The universal truth then was
France. Frantz Fanon recounts that even at home, training was not different. Everytime
he misbehaved, he was told by his mother to stop acting like a 'nigger' (Fanon, 1970: 191).
Mainly because of the French policy of assimilation, Martinicans, like the older
generation of black Americans, accepted racist stereotypes about Africans.
Consequently, Martinicans spent evenings talking about the savage customs of the
Africans the same way as whites did. Fanon recounts his experience:
As a schoolboy, I had on many occasions to spend
whole hours talking about the supposed customs of the
savage Senegalese. In what was said, there was a lack
of what was at the very least paradoxical. Because the
Antillean man does not think of himself as a black man; he
thinks of himself as an Antillean. The Negro lives in
Africa. Subjectively, intellectually the Antillean conducts
himself like a whiteman (Ibid.: 148).
9Thus, having been intensively socialized in a colonial education system which judges
itself as superior and which despises African culture, Fanon ended up identifying himself
with French culture. He also despised African cultural practices. Several years later
Fanon was to write:
I am a white man. For unconsciously, I distrust
what is black in me, that is the whole of my
being (Ibid.: 19\).
But until he got a chance to live in France, Fanon did not realize the futility of
considering himself more French than African. While in France. he would be known not
as a 'student' but 'a black student'. Later on, he discovered himself to be not only black
but also Negro (Panaf, OpCit: 17). Whether or not he liked this discovery is a matter
that might unfold as we discuss his intellectual project and its impact on the
decolonization thought.
Fanon received both his primary and secondary education in Martinique.
Secondary education brought him face to face to school teacher and distinguished
philosopher, Aime Cesaire. At the time when black cultural values were highly despised
in Europe, Cesaire became a strong believer in the doctrine of Negritude. By Negritude,
he meant that there was nothing wrong with one being black. Glorifying blackness,
Cesaire asked his fellow countrymen with an African ancestry to be proud of being black.
Ideas about the veneration of black people came to pre-occupy the thinking of Fanon. In
high school, and while pondering the meaning of Negritude, he began to read literary and
philosophical works, a practice that introduced him to the ideas of prominent European
thinkers such as Friederich Nietzsche, Karl Jaspers, Kierkagaad and Hegel (Geismar,
10
Op.cit.: 43). These thinkers were to be important contributors to his existentialist neo-
Marxism in the years that followed.
In 1947, Fanon left Martinique to study medicine in France. He first enrolled in
dentistry in Paris but after three weeks of introductory courses, he abruptly left for Lyon
to study medicine, complaining, with a rather racist overtone, that there were too many
'niggers' in Paris (Ibid: 43). Probably, Fanon wanted to be in a place where he could not
be reminded of the black 'savages', the Senegalese. He might also have preferred Lyon to
Paris because the former, having the lowest proportion of black population, might have
provided him with better opportunities to get assimilated into French culture than the
latter. Precisely, as he himself exclaims in Black Skin, White ~'Iasks,
What is all this talk of a black people, of a negro national ity?
I am a Frenchman. I am interested in French culture and French
civilization, the French people I am personally
interested in the future of France, in France's values, in the French
nation. What have I to do with a black empire? (1970: 203).
Ghanaian scholar, Emmanuel Hansen, attributes these painful comments from Fanon to
the internal conflict the West Indian intellectual had been was experiencing at the time.
Hansen makes futile attempts to defend Fanon arguing that Fanon's exclamations might
have developed from the demands of assimilation and the need for autonomy (Hansen,
1978:21). This, however, does not in any way lessen the impact of Fanon's disgust for
fellow Africans. The project of assimilation seems to have transformed Fanon into a
black Frenchman.
After a year's work in Chemistry, Physics and Biology, Fanon entered Medical
School where he worked hard to earn the respect of his peers and his professors. Besides
Medicine, Fanon continued to read existential philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger,
II
and Sartre. He also read Marx, Lacan and Lenin. In addition, he attended the course of
lectures of Jean Lacroix and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It was Marleau-Ponty whose ideas
on humanism and violence were later to influence the thinking of Fanon. While a
medical student, Fanon immersed himself in playwriting producing for himself three
plays between 1949 and 1950. The plays are still unpublished because, as his widow
revealed, Fanon wished them to remain so (Hansen, Op.Cit.: 22)
In 1 ovember 1951, Fanon defended his medical thesis, submitted to the Faculty
of Medicine and Pharmacy at Lyon. The thesis focused on neurological research but it
employed the ideas of existential philosophers such as Sartre, Nietzsche, Jaspers.
Marlean-Ponty and Heidegger. Furthermore, the thesis gave a critical analysis of mental
disorders by situating them in their social and cultural contexts (Perinbam, 1982:20). The
last section of the thesis is a free-flowing discussion predicated on humanistic values of
man's place in society. Thesis notes reveal that Fanon was influenced by socio-
psychologists Jean Jacques Lacan (1910-1978), Marcel Maus (1872-1950), and the social
anthropologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl (1957-1939). After a reveting defence which took
several hours, Fanon went through and was awarded his degree by his professors. But
the professors were shocked that, throughout the defence, Fanon had extensively quoted
Nietzsche's 'God is Dead' (Geismar, 1970:51-52). This shock was hardly surprising given
that Nietzsche was then a leader of a subversive intellectual movement in Europe which
questioned the universalizing tendencies of Western modernity and culture. In fact
Nietzsche's 'God is Dead' prophesized the end of Western civilization.
From Lyon, Fanon moved on to do his residency at St. Alban hospital under
Professor Francois Tosquelles. At that time, Tosquelles was carrying out innovative
12
experiments in the field of socio-therapy. Fanon worked with Professor Tosquelles for
two years, during which time both of them published a number of research-papers on
psychiatric medicine. In 1953, Fanon became a qualified Psychiatrist and was quickly
offered the directorship of a Martinican hospital. He, however, turned down the offer and
instead headed for Algeria to practice medicine (Hansen, Op.Cit.:28). Fanon wanted to
leave France and go to Africa which at that time was in a state of nationalist ferment.
Ghana was for example 'making rapid advances toward self-government and Nigeria was
following rapidly behind. In Uganda, there was political unrest following the British
meddling with the institution of the Kabaka leading to the deportation of the latter. In
Kenya, political agitation had turned militant as Mau Mau violence threatened to dislodge
colonial domination (Roseberg and Nottingham, 1966).
In Algeria, Fanon became one of the six divisional directors of the French
Psychiatric Hospital at Blida - Joinville. Situated about thirty five kilometers from the
capital city Algiers, the hospital now named after him, - a large picture of Fanon hangs
in the main reception hall - lies in a spacious walled compound where trees provide
occasional shade. At the hospital, Fanon provided medical assistance to all those who
found their way to the Psychiatric clinic. He treated Algerians alienated and devastated
by colonial war. As well, he treated those Europeans involved in the dirty work of the
torture and mistreatment of Algerians. It is here that Fanon realized that colonial
violence had serious effects on both the colonizer and the colonized.
He learned that in a colonial territory such as Algeria - characterized by economic
oppression, political violence, racism, torture, murder, and human degradation - the
psychiatric disorders which the people suffered were the direct result of the social
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situation. Accordingly, he came to terms with the fact that it was futile to treat a patient
and send him back to the same environment. What, therefore, had to be changed was not
the people but the social and political conditions prevailing in Algeria (see Poussaint,
1972. Grier and Cobs, 1969). As a result, Fanon concluded, the colonial system should
be destroyed so as to transform the social situation (Fanon, 1969:53-54). From here on,
Fanon became a rebel in hospital. Voluntarily, he resigned his job and in January 1957
and later participated in the strike of doctors sympathetic to the nationalist movement
directed by the Front for the Liberation of Algeria (F. LN.). The authorities responded by
expelling Fanon from the country (Hansen Op.Cit.: 33).
The expulsion drove him back to France. He stayed in Lyon for a short time with
his French wife's family and then left for Tunisia, another French colony, to work for
F.Li. In Tunisia, Fanon worked as member of staff of El Moudjahid. the F.LN.
mouthpiece (Ibid.:3). By this time, Fanon had become a professional revolutionary. He
transformed the F.L.N. mouthpiece into a radical paper that variously commented on the
social, political and economic aspects of the Algerian Revolution. In the El Moudjahid.
he churned out political write-ups which fueled the violent course of the revolution.
Under the pseudo name Dr. Fares, Fanon taught medicine at the University of Tunis
(Geismar, Op.Cit.: 132).
In addition, he practised medicine at a government psychiatric hospital at
Manouba. At Manouba, his innovative and revolutionary ideas did not get a warm
reception from his colleagues. Being a perfectionist, Fanon tried to impose on others the
same dedication that he applied to his work. Doctors accused him of being overbearing
while others began to refer to him cynically as the 'Nigger'. Things got worse when the
I.•
head of his medical unit Dr. Soltan tried to fire Fanon on the ground that he was a spy for
Israel. This accusation came about because earlier on Fanon had taken a stand against
anti-semitism (Fanon, 1970:88-9).
During his short Iife-time, Frantz Fanon wrote four books. The first one was
'Black Skin White Masks (1952) which was a psycho-sociological update of his medical
thesis. The second book was the Wretched of the Earth (1961) which was a painful
analysis of the depressing social and psychological living conditions of colonial subjects.
It is in this book that Fanon argues in favour of the critical role of violence in the
decolonization process. Other books written by him are Toward the African Revolution
(1969) and A Dvinu: colonialism (1980). Toward the African Revolution was released
after his death and it was a collection of some of the editorials he wrote for EI Moudiahid
as well as some of his own presentations at international conferences. In A Dying
Colonialism. Fanon makes a case for the inevitable victory of colonial subjects over their
masters. This was his book of hope for the colonized people of the world who were then
fighting against Western domination.
In order to understand Frantz Fanon's political ideas, it would be prudent to first
examine his treble experience that took him from Martinique to Europe then to Africa.
Secondly, we should look at his vicissitudes during the Second World War. Finally, we
should not only examine some of the readings he made but also look at how those
readings shaped up his thinking which he then applied to specific colonial conditions
obtaining in Africa.
As we have noted before, when slavery was abolished on the island of
Martinique, slave mentality still persisted. France has boasted that in its relationship with
15
its colonial subjects, there was no question of colour discrimination. This deception
worked for a while, for compared to the British, the French assimilationist system
involved the creation of a class known as evolues, members of which had opportunities
and certain legal rights (Panaf, Op.Cit.: 10). While the British relied on tribalism and
religion to implement the policy of divide and rule, the sophisticated French added
another division in the creation of evolues among the black communities. In Martinique,
the division was along class lines. Out of the colonized, who were both oppressed and
exploited, the French system created a class of evolues to which it granted the political,
economic and social privileges accorded to its own middle class (Ibid. II).
At the time of Fanon's birth, France had established local municipal councils
based on adult suffrage and the people could elect a senator and two deputies to the
French Assembly in Paris. On the British side, however, no colonial subject found his
way into the British House of Commons. Consequently, a Martinican could boast then
that theoretically he was a French citizen because he could become a member of the
French Assembly. As Fanon notes:
Those who were privileged to go to France
spoke of Paris ..... And those who were not
privileged to know Paris let themselves be
beguiled (1969:29).
Evidently, to most Martinicians, Paris and of course France, represented the most adored
master-narrative, beyond which nothing else existed! Paris and France were the ultimate
dream of black Martinicans.
It is hence important to observe that before the Second World War, the conscious
section of the Martinicans saw exploitation which cut across colour lines. Fanon wrote
16
that in Martinique it was rare to find hardened racial positions since the racial problems
were covered over by economic discrimination. He says thus:
Despite the greater or lesser amount of Melanin the skin may
contain. there is a tacit agreement enabling all and sundry to
recognize one another as doctors, tradesmen and workers. A
Negro worker will be on the side of a Mulatto worker against
the middle class Negro. Here we have proof that questions of race
are but a super-structure, a mantle, and obscure ideological emanation,
concealing an economic reality (Ibid.: 28).
In such an arrangement, the ski was theoretically the limit for the evolue in Martinique
because he saw the same opportunities being offered for personal advancement by the
French system to members of the island's own black petty bourgeoisie. Therefore, the
em/lies' aspirations became those of the entire people, and it was they who transmitted
the idea to the people that they were French and not a colonized people. Such was the
experience into which Frantz Fanon was born and raised.
Second, let us look at the vicissitudes that characterised Fanons life during the
Second World War. During World War II, Fanon interrupted his secondary education by
joining the French army which was then engaged in difficult battles against the Germans.
First, he fought and successfully helped to liberate Martinique and Dominica before
being deployed in France, Morocco and Algeria. From the point of view of the colonized
peoples of the world, the war accelerated the growth of nationalist movements in both
Africa and Asia. But the war had its own lessons. The oppressed colonial subjects
within the camp of the allied forces joined the conflict because it was a war between the
older imperialist powers and the rising Fascist countries represented by Germany and
Italy.
17
To win the minds of the oppressed, the colonialists said that the war was being
fought against Fascist dictatorships and racism as exemplified by Nazism. The war was
thus fought in order to preserve democracy, freedom and equality. Irreversibly, the war
experience which shook Martinique as it did to the rest of the world had the effect of
awakening the minds of the oppressed including the likes of budding scholars like Fanon.
As a result, oppressed peoples came to realize that they too could win their freedom and
their independence. It was thinking along such lines which finally had the effect of
liberating them from their slave mentality (Panaf, Op.Cit.: 12).
Fanon's Martinique was affected in concrete and practical ways by the Second
World War. News from the war front indicated that it was only a matter of time for the
Germans to wipe out the French Empire from the phase of the Earth. Apart from gaining
French territorial space in Europe, the Germans overran the French in Vietnam. The
Germans too installed a puppet pro-Nazi regime in Paris. Fanon argues:
The downfall of France, for the West Indian, was in a sense
the murder of father. This additional defeat might have been
endured as it was in the Metrapole but a good part of the
French fleet remained blockaded in the West Indies during the
four years of the German occupation (1969:32).
The blockaded soldiers did not engage in production but consumed the surplus which the
people produced. The soldiers were also arrogant, chauvinistic and racially inclined.
Like the poor whites of South Africa and America, the soldiers regarded themselves as
superior to the colonial subjects. The Martinicans felt the full impact of racial arrogance
and prejudice during this time. Commenting on this situation, Fanon wrote:
The four years during which they were obliged to
live shut in on themselves, inactive, a prey to anguish
when they thought of their families left in France, victims
18
of despair as to the future, allowed them to drop a mask
which when all is said and done was rather superficial and to
behave as "authentic racists" (Ibid.).
For the first time since the outbreak of the war, Fanon noticed the differences between the
white Frenchmen and blacks. Generally, because of the war experience, Martinicians
came to grips with the reality that racism rather than class struggle alone informed the
relationship between blacks and whites. In Martinique, resistance against French racism
tookthe form of coloureds and blacks refusing to take off their hats whenever the French
national anthem was being played. But lack of political organization and consciousness
seemed to have worked against the possibility of a serious revolutionary outbreak on the
island. Fanon seemed to have taken his lessons.
While serving in the French military units in Europe and in North Africa, Fanon
was surprised at finding similarly unpleasant racial tensions and attitudes as those he had
already witnessed in Martinique. For example, while on the trip to North Africa, he
witnessed how French Troops had attempted to 'requisition' the sexual services of a group
of black female volunteers from Martinique and Guadeloupe (Geismar Op.Cit.: 31). He
was deeply upset by this incident as conflicts began to develop in his mind about the
nature of the reality of the black-white relationship and the hypocrisy of the white world
(Hansen Op.Cit.: 180).
During the actual operations, Fanon observed, black troops were always sent to
the worst areas of the war; they were also quartered in some of the most inhospitable
places. He noticed that white troops were treated differently and preferentially (Ibid.).
They had different rations and more often than not, better living quarters, hot water and
other conveniences not given to black troops. He also discovered that even though
19
considered inferior to whites, Arabs too routinely despised blacks while blacks from the
Caribbean looked down upon blacks from the African continent. In Toulon, France,
Fanon had to watch white Frenchwomen dancing with Italian prisoners of war after
turning down requests from black servicemen who, needless to say, had risked their lives
to save the French from the Italians and the Germans (Geismar Op.Cit.: 38-39).
However, despite the Arab and European racism. Fanon was deeply angered by
the German destruction of North Africa. He was also touched by the poverty, famine and
destitution which defined French Algeria. By the end of the war, Fanon had become
cynical about France and the French values he had been taught to admire both at home
and in school. He seriously began to consider the possibilities of fighting against French
colonialism.
Third, a brief look at Fanon's intellectual life. Earlier on, we intimated that Fanon
read the works of distinguished European political thinkers and philosophers. It was
remarkable that one who was barely 25 years could speak and write so knowledgeably
about a variety of subjects. Being a psychiatrist, it is not surprising that he frequently
mentions Lacan, Adler and lung in his books. He also knew about the writings of
Enlightenment philosophers such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Kant and Hegel. Fanon scanned
the works of classical French novelists like Balzac and Zola. His reference to Alan Paton
showed that he was also concerned with the political situation in South Africa (Panaf,
Op.Cit.:27). Most probably, Fanon's frequent admiration of Western values might have
stemmed from this intellectual socialization.
Fanon was initially drawn to the idea of Negritude and called on the black
intellectuals to turn to Aime Cesaire for inspiration and guidance. But later he saw the
20
limitations and dangers of such a concept, and rejected it. Deep inside, he seemed to
think that Negtritude was a form of black racism. In the concluding chapter of Black
Skin White Masks, he stated his position very clearly when he quoted Marx:
The social revolution cannot draw its poetry from the past,
but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before
it has stripped itself of all its superstitions concerning the
past. Earlier revolutions relied on memories out of world
history in order to drug themselves against their own content.
In order to find out their own content, the revolutions of the
191h century have to let the dead bury the dead. Before, the
expression exceeded the content; now the content exceeds the
expression (Fanon, quoting Marx, 1970: 159).
It is obvious from the above that Fanon had not only become intoxicated with the ideas of
the Enlightenment philosophers but was not ready to listen to anything else except the
Marxian interpretation of social transformation. Yet we cannot help asking some
questions concerning the above quotation. How can a revolution draw its poetry in the
future when in fact it is meant to fight against injustices which occurred in the past and
which continue to haunt humanity in the present') It appears Fanon failed to historicize
the struggle for national liberation. In the case of colonialism, how can a meaningful
struggle against colonialism not mention the past atrocities of imperialism and how those
atrocities had destroyed the people's social, political and economic achievements? In our
consideration, it is the past which should provide the poetry for a meaningful revolution
so that past mistakes are not repeated in the present and in the future.
Though profoundly influenced by Marx and Engels, Fanon made efforts to
develop his own brands of Marxism which dealt with the unique situations that
confronted his experience. This was necessary because, the focus of the classical Marxist
thinking was on the European societies that had similar cultural and economic conditions.
21
However, Fanori's life was defined by European colonialism that was deeply rationalized
by racism. Thus his Marxism had to be responsive to colonialism and racism.
For example, Marx and Engels had spoken of the alienation of the workers in the
capitalist society after analyzing the capitalist mode of production. Fanon saw similar
alienation amongst the masses of the oppressed. Marx had said that the only way to
solve the contradiction between capital and workers was by the latter expropriating the
former's power. From Marx, Fanon borrowed the concept of 'historical materialism'
which looked for all causation in matter as opposed to metaphysical or primary causes.
Similarly, he adopted the Marxian mode of production analysis, thereby recognizing that
material life determined social relations of production, as well as the political and
spiritual processes of life. In his economic analysis, he applied Marx's theories of classes
and of surplus value to the colonies, all of which provided the philosophical justification
for change by violence.
Furthermore, through the existentialist prism of Jean-Paul Sartre Fanon accepted
Marx's historical necessity by claiming the conjunction of the inevitable revolutionary
process in history with the confirmation of it by the revolutionary elect. Claiming the
peasants as his revolutionary elect, he never tired of re-assuring them that 'at last in the
full glare of history they will finally be on the winning side' (Perinbam, 1982:90).
Notably, Fanon combined the Marxian materialism with the Sartrean existentialism to
develop the concept of existential Marxism.
The philosophy of existentialism was challenge to the Marxist philosophy of
dialectical materialism. In the twentieth century, and especially during Fanon's years,
Marxism-Lenism had became a dominant trend of revolutionary workers and peasants
22
with success stories being reported in the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, North
Korea and Albania (Panaf, 1975: 44). But freedom for the state did not necessarily mean
freedom for the individual. Existentialism, instead of turning the searchlight on capitalist
society, focused attention on the plight and problem of the individual. Sartre and his
group attacked Marxism for dividing the world into the objective and subjective and for
giving primary place for the object.
In our view, the ideas of the Sartrean project questioned the universal project of
the Enlightenment movement which had the habit of recommending meta-discourses and
meta-binaries. Indeed, in Sartre we see the first serious effort to deconstruct Marxism
and to direct the searchlight to the grey neglected area, the individual. As a result, we see
Sartre's contributions and his existential philosophy as profoundly useful in enriching the
postmodemist intellectual discourses during and after the zo" century Nevertheless, in
Fanon we see evidence of an attempt to synthesize existentialism with Marxism.
Fanon held the view that a Marxist-socialist revolution was the only path the
African nations could take so as to overcome the political, social and economic obstacles
created by European imperialism on the continent. However, influenced by the Satrean
existentialism, Fanon insisted that a true socialist revolution must accommodate the
protection of individual freedoms and rights. According to him, this was the only way
African nations could avoid the catastrophe of having a free country in which its
individual citizens were encased and subjugated. Fanons marxist existentialism was
further enriched by his readings of the psychoanalytical works of Sigmund Freud and
Jacques Lacan. Psychoanalysis enabled Fanon to analyse the mental effects of
colonialism on the colonized peoples of the world. In all fairness, it is extremely
tempting to describe Fanon as a Marxist, a neo-Marxist, an existential Marxist and a
psychoanalytical Marxist.
But Fanons brands of Marxism were drastically different from the neo-marxist
variant of the dependency and underdevelopment theories postulated by such thinkers as
Paul Baran and Gunder Frank. While advocating a socialist revolution as Fanon did, the
dependency and underdevelopment theorist were neither existentialist nor psychoanalytic
in their approaches. Unlike Fanori's, the discourse of the dependency school ends with
the analysis of the economic relations between the peripheral and central capitalist
societies without taking stock of the mental and existential effects of those relations to the
individual citizens of those societies.
But the most intluential philosopher who seems to have exerted the most
profound impact on the thinking and perceptions of Frantz Fanon other than Sartre,
l-Ieidegger and Nietzsche was German philosopher and doyen of European thought, G.W.
F. Hegel. Given his deep interest in the unequal relationship between the colonizer and
the colonized, Fanon was naturally drawn to Hegel's paradigm of unequal power struggle
(Hegel, 1977: 111-119). It is from Hegel that Fanon was able to understand contlict
within a social setting. Through Hegel, Fanon learned that when two people meet, they
are at first distinct and separate. But in the process of exchange, their personalities begin
to interact thereby heightening their mutual awareness. In this experience, a struggle or
contlict ensues as each person tries to dominate the other in order to maintain self
assertion and self maintenance.
Later, the struggle translates into a life and death matter. But as the struggle
continues, the two people begin to recognize each other. However, conflict will always
2.+
persist as long as the struggle continues. As they recognize each other, the two people
will then resolve to live within the value system that tends to be a hybrid or synthesis of
both. It was from this presentation that Hegel gave to us the triad of confl ict. The two
hypothetical people above represent the thesis and antithesis respectively. Through
conflict, the thesis and antithesis becomes synthesis. Fanon was so excited by this
philosophy that he undertook to examine colonial relations within this Hegelian
paradigm. Yet as we shall demonstrate, this paradigm is only applicable in instances
where those engaged in conflict share the same racial and cultural values. Colonial
societies have peculiar cultural differences which negate the Hegelian analysis.
We have already explained that to some extent Fanon was also influenced by
Jacques Lacan, Marcel Maus and Lucien, Levy-Bruhl. From Lacan, Fanon borrowed the
ideal of 'desire' which latter appeared in the characteristic Hegelian form of desire-for-
recognition in unfulfilled repose (Lacan, 1970:89-97). From Levy-Bruhl, he explored the
idea that the primitive never separated himself from nature; and that his theology,
symbolism, imagery, rituals and above all his myth, reinforced his 'essential
homogeneity' with nature. Maus too discussed the internal dynamics of the primitive
world and, for Fanon and Bruhl, the primitive mind was in Africa. Fanon's bias for
African cultural values might therefore have developed from this specific experience of
reading Bruhl and Maus.
A fundamental feature associated with Fanori's arguments on decolonization IS
violence. In the Wretched of the Earth, Fanon says:
Violence alone, violence committed by the people, violence
organized and educated by its leaders makes it possible for the
masses to understand social truths and gives the key to them.
Without that struggle, without that knowledge of practice and
25
action, there is nothing but a fancy parade and the blare of
trumpets (1967: 118)
Fanons belief in the primacy of violence in executing a revolutionary programme was
premised on his commitment to the logic that since colonialism had been installed by
violence, it had to be overcome by violence. Thus, Fanon viewed colonial regimes as
regimes of violence that had to be dismantled by the counter-violence developed by the
colonized. Generally, Fanon uses the term violence in several senses. He uses it, for
instance, to indicate a purposeful act of physical injury, outright force, military
radicalism, political pressure, physiological injury, murder, detention and revolutionary
change (Hansen, 1978 90-94). All these forms of violence, it seems to us, have been part
and parcel of the historical process of the Kenyan decolonization experience.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Looking at our brief historical survey of the life of Fanon and his intellectual
texturing, we realize that his ideas were as diverse as the subjects he tackled. It is not,
therefore, possible to handle all his ideas in one single study. As a result, the current
study attempts to examine, rethink and appropriate only those ideas of Fanon that seem
relevant to the problematic of decolonization. Specifically, the study analyses his
perceptions on the emancipatory capacity of colonial violence and the relevance of these
perceptions to the Kenyan post-colonial history. It also explains how Fanon's
socialization m Western discourses shaped his analysis of colonialism and
decolonization. Further, using the Kenyan experience as the basis, the study explores and
analyses the pessimism of Fanon about the authenticity of political independence in
Africa. Thus, central to the investigation of this research project is a deliberate effort to
answer the following questions:
26
(i) What were the Western roots of the Fanonian intellectual and political ideas?
(ii) How did Fanon apply some of these ideas to the overall analysis of colonial
situations in both Africa and his native Martinique?
(iii) How can the Fanonian discourse on violence and liberation struggle be used to
explain colonial relations in Kenya?
(iv) In the Fanonian sense, why did Kenya's political independence in 1963 have little
impact on the creation of a free, independent society?
(v) What were the main elements of both the Kenyatta and Moi neo-colonial states
and how did these features reflect ideas and assumptions of the Fanonian
discourse on decolonization?
1.3 Research Objectives
This study has been guided by the following objectives:
(i) To demonstrate that the Kenyan decolonization struggle did not end with
the attainment of independence.
(ii) To show that the post-independence era in Kenya witnessed the birth of
the neo-colonial state that was for all practical purposes informed by
Eurocentric forms of knowledge and a leadership deeply socialized in
European values.
(iii) To illustrate that Fanons ideas about the emancipatory capacity of
violence are relevant in analysing both the colonial and the post-
independence histories of Kenya.
27
(iv) To explain how Fanons pessimism about the viability and authenticity of
post-independence entities in Africa is rooted in colonial history whose
narratives ought to retlect efforts to create new forms of knowledge and
structures that go beyond Eurocentrism.
(v) To demonstrate that the post-modernist and the post-colonial perspectives
have the capacity to inspire fresh thinking that would hopefully make the
African post-colonies more relevant and more responsive to the needs of
the people than might have been the case before
l.-t Research Premises
The study revolves around four fundamental premises. It proposes that:
(i) Frantz Fanon's ideas on decolonization can adequately account for all the
intricate aspects of Kenya's colonial experience.
(ii) Conflict in colonial Kenya revolved around issues of social injustice,
political marginalization and economic exploitation.
(iii) Pervasive violence in colonial Kenya was driven by the fact that violence
is part and parcel of any society and was not unique to colonial Kenya.
Colonialism in Kenya did not end with the attainment of independence.
1.5 Review of Literature
The body of literature on Kenya's struggle for freedom is enormous.
Unfortunately, most of this literature gives the impression that colonialism ended with the
symbolic withdrawal of the British in 1963. Furthermore, specific literature which
attempts to rethink Frantz Fanon's ideas within the context of the Kenyan decolonization
2X
experience IS lacking. Apart from showing that colonialism continued beyond
independence in 1963. this study interrogates some of the Fanonian ideas in the light of
the Kenyan colonial experience It is. nevertheless. important here to highlight some of
the contributions of several scholars to the historiography of colonialism.
In the book entitled The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon (1967) produced what
many scholars have described as a manifesto for the Third World countries Borrowing
heavily from the fields of medicine, philosophy and history, Fanon makes an exquisite
interdisciplinary exposition of the economic and psychological effects of imperialism.
He concludes that colonial capitalism had been installed through violence and it had to be
overcome by violence. Although Fanon feels that colonial capitalist systems should be
replaced by socialist entities, he was nevertheless doubtful about the viability of the
African nation- states within their post-independent experience. In sections of The
Wretched of the Earth. Fanon makes scattered references to the decolonization struggle in
Kenya. This study relies heavily on the ideas raised in this piece of work in order to meet
the challenges of revalidating and appropriating Fanon to the historical discourse of the
Kenyan decolonization experience.
Fanon's other book, Black Skin White Masks (1970), is an enriching piece of
work on the humiliating psychological effects of colonialism. It is also in this work that
one comes across the scholars who shaped Fanon's thinking. Here, Fanon devotes five
pages to Hegel and Sartre, showing the influence of the phenomenology of the mind.
Like Hegel, Fanon experienced the long journey of consciousness looking for itself He
discovered a shocking contrast between his own self-image and how others, especially
the French, looked at him. As a result, he became pre-occupied with the question of
identity and self-definition. Besides. Hegel supplied Fanon with the triad of conflict with
which he was able to analyse colonial relations. But Sartre, on the other hand, gave
Fanon an existentialist approach to life which opened Fanon's mind to the reality that
state freedom did not often imply individual freedom.
Marxi fled existential ism.
But Hegel and Sartre are not, however, the only ones who influenced Fanon's
That was the basis of his
thoughts. As already stated, he also read Lacan, Levy-Bruhl, Maus, Kierkegaard, Marx
Lenin and even Nietzsche. While bearing in mind the scholars who influenced Fanon's
intellectual discourse, this study has utilized the ideas raised in Black Skin White Masks
to argue our case that the Kenyan decolonization which began soon after the imposition
of colonial rule in 1895 continued beyond the independence watershed in 1963.
In Toward the African Revolution (1969) and A Dying: colonialism (1980), Fanon
expresses the inevitability of victory by the colonial subjects. He assures colonial people,
with characteristic optimism that their struggle for self-determination was bound to
succeed. Emphasizing that no force could possibly stand on the way of a people's
determination to achieve freedom, Fanon raised the hopes of colonial peoples across the
African content. In this study, however, we demonstrate that the force of neo-colonialism
in Kenya was overwhelming enough to block the authentic realization of true liberation.
A number of biographers have made intellectual efforts to analyse the thoughts of
Fanon. Among the most distinguished of his biographers are David Caute (1970), Renate
Zahar, (1970), Peter Geismar (1971), Irene Gendzier (1973), Emmanuel Hansen (1978)
and B. Marie Perinbam (1982). This study has employed the guidance of these
]0
biographers in order to develop a discourse on the Fanonian perspective and its relevance
on the narratives of the Kenyan decolonization experience.
Padmore (1953) analyses the main causes behind the I\lau Mau outbreak. He first
attributes the movement to the alienation of African lands by Europeans. Secondly. he
points out that, as a result of that alienation, Africans were condemned to reserves and to
unemployed life causing them to rebel. Pad more also emphasizes that the Mau Mau
rebellion resulted from adversities caused by forced labour, economic marginalization
and political domination. Since the \ ..Iau Mau movement was a crucial element in
Kenya's struggle for decolonization, this study utilizes Pad more's views as a basis for
understanding the socio-political and economic hopelessness of the African people during
the colonial period. Although Padmore does not talk about Frantz Fanon, his arguments
are useful to this study in reconstructing and accounting for the actual instances of Mau
Mau struggle.
Carothers (1955), attempts a psychological explanation of the Mau Mau
movement from a medical standpoint. He argues that the movement emerged from the
development of an anxious conflictual situation in people who, from contact with alien
culture, had lost the supportive and constraining influence of their own culture but who
had less solid foundation in new ways. An important question arises, was the struggle for
decolonization in Kenya a contest of culture?
Mboya (1963), states the fact that Kenya was violent because Africans faced the
perennial problems of unemployment, low wages, discrimination, indirect rule through
chiefs, lack of political representation in the legislature, racism and, above all, land
alienation. Like Fanon, Mboya seems to attribute violence to the inevitable need to
31
resolve social conflicts in Kenya's colonial setting. Although Mboya does not mention
his encounter with Frantz Fanon in the 1950's, his ideas seem to embody a Fanonian
emancipatory motif that is useful to our study.
Rosberg and Notthingham (1966) recognize the weight of such grave Issues as
land alienation, taxation, education and racism In Kenya's political life. Although this
work does not deal with the Fanionian ideas, it raises fundamental issues about
decolonization. Odinga (1967), sums up his political beliefs and tells the story of his
transformation from a local teacher to emerge as an international figure. Odinga gives an
account of neo-colonialism in Kenya and contends that those who sacrificed most for
Kenya's independence had lost out for those who had played safe. Its theme of 'not yet
uhuru ' resonates with the Fanonian notion of flag independence in Africa. In general, the
book is a scathing indictment ofKenyatta's neo-colonial state which' in Odinga's view had
began operating as if it were another colonial entity, thereby rendering the whole
celebration of independence (which he calls 'uhuru') fake and worthless. Odinga states
that independence in 1963 was a fraud. It appeared to him that colonialism had not ended
with the hoisting of the Kenyan flag. The study examines Odinga's views and
interrogates them within the context of both the Kenyatta and the Moi states.
Singh (1969), argues that Kenya's trade union movement was part and parcel of
her nationalist struggle. Trade unionism was, therefore, a tool for resisting imperial
colonial rule as well as an avenue for winning and consolidating national independence.
Singh emphasizes that Africans in Kenya fought against land robbery, forced labour, low
wages, long working hours, compulsory registration system, racial segregation, colour
bar and other practices. Along with his colleagues in the trade union movement such as
Jesse Kariuki, Joseph Kang'ethe. Bildad Kaggia and James Mungai, Singh became one of
the leading personalities in the struggle for Kenya's decolonization. Singh's colonial
trade unionism was part of the decolonization saga which seems ignored in the analysis
of Fanon. The phenomenon of trade unionism needs to be revisited and interrogated
within the context of Kenya's quest for freedom.
ltote (1979), provides us with a deeply rooted inside story of the Mau Mau
movement, exposing some of the secret techniques and devices used by the Mau Mau
warriors. ltote, himself an active participant in the movement, describes the activities of
the intrepid men and women of Kenya who fought for their country under difficult
conditions. As such. the work is an i.IJlportant source of reference to our study given that
Fanon makes direct references to the Mau Mau struggle.
Kanogo (1987), gives an analytical history of the Kikuyu squatters (basically
landless peasants) and their important role in the Mau Mau movement. Given that
squatting or labour tenancy was an important ingredient of the colonial political
economy, this work is relevant to our research in the sense that Fanon preoccupies
himself with the question of the revolutionary potential of the peasantry in his discourses.
Although Kanogo does not talk about Frantz Fanon, as she had other objectives, her ideas
on squatting are invaluable to our present study. Notably, Kanogo contends that
establishing colonial rule in Kenya and attempting to turn the country into a white
settlement had a profound effect on the local African population. In her VIew, land
alienation in Kenya led to the squatter system.
Furedi (1989), seeks to demystify the Mau Mau movement using solid fieldwork
and documentary research. He uncovers the social and economic problems of colonial
33
Kenya which led to the Mau Mau outbreak. Like Kanogo's, Furedi's work lays special
emphasis on the issues of squatting and land alienation. This commendable piece of
work like the other foregoing accounts does not appropriate Fanon to the Kenyan
decolonization process.
More recently, works on the Kenyan decolonization process have been produced.
For example, works by Edgerton (1990) and Kahiga (1990) are useful to our project
because both authors delve into the intricate issues of the Mau Mau movement in
particular and the entire Kenyan decolonization experience in general. Berman (1990),
another author on the politics of Kenya's decolonization, examines the development of
Kenya's colonial state as a structure of power and an instrument of domination from a
larxist perspective and from the liberal organizational theory standpoint within which he
analyses the colonial bureaucracy in Kenya. Indeed, Berman argues that the colonial
state was shaped by contradictions between maintaining effective political control with
limited coercive force and ensuring the profitable articulation of metropolitan and settler
capitalism within African communities. In his Marxist view that departs from Fanons
neo-Marxisrn, the dialectic of domination resulted from the uneven transformation of
administrative control in the inter-war period. Berman enlightens us on how colonial
contradictions led to the political crisis of the Mau Mau era which, in turn, undermined
the colonial state.
In the first book he co-authored with John Lonsdale entitled the Unhappy Valley
1 (1992), Berman addresses several important themes in the history of colonial Kenya.
The themes include conquest, origins and subsequent development of the colonial state,
the contradictory social forces that articulated African societies to European capitalism
and the creation of new political communities as well as the changing meanings of
ethnicity in Africa in the context of social differentiation and class formation. Further,
the work makes a deeper historical contribution on the development of the contemporary
Kenyan society and highlights on the British and Kikuyu origins of the Mau Mau and the
Emergency of the 1950s. In their second book the Unhappy Valley 2 (1992), both
Berman and Lonsdale focus their attention on violence and ethnicity. Since violence and
ethnicity are critical pillars of both the Kenyatta and the Moi States, this work is
intellectually enriching. The subject of violence, it is important to observe, is central in
Fanon's discourse on decolonization.
Maloba (1993) traces the structural origins of the Mau Mau movement, arguing
that the rebellion was essentially an uprising of the peasants of Kenya. He situates the
movement within the nationalist struggle and explores its internal divisions as well as its
relationships with the conventional party politics of the Kenya African Union. Maloba
demonstrates that the movement's aim, like that of other peasant revolts, was the
overthrow of colonial domination and the attainment of national independence. Although
this work hardly focuses on Fanon 's relevance to the Kenyan decolonization experience,
it provides interesting data and interpretations which are useful to this study.
In the book Decolonization and Independence in Kenva (1995), B.A. Ogot and
W.R. Ochieng edited various materials tackling the dilemmas of African nationhood.
The book demonstrates that decolonization does not necessarily entail the transfer of
alien power to sovereign nationhood; it must entail the liberation of the worlds of spirit
and culture as well as economics and politics. The book seems to be oblivious of Fanon,
35
nevertheless, it has rich data that may be utilized to interrogate Fanonism in the light of
Kenyan decolonization experience.
In our view, contemporary Africa's nation-state is in a deep crisis of identity and
stability. This is because the nation-state in Africa was born out of the wider project of
Western imperialism. As a result of this, the African nation-state is often defined and
informed by Eurocentric forms of knowledge, most of them irrelevant to the tackling of
local problems. In a stimulating book, Postcolonial-Identities in Africa (1996), edited by
Richard Webner and Terence Ranger, the problems of African postcolonies are raised by
several scholars. Among others, these scholars include Patrick Chabal (on 'The African
Crisis'), Donal B. Cruise O'Brien (on 'The lost generation in \Vest Africa'), Filip De Boek
(on 'Postcolonialism, Power and Identity in Zaire'), Hani Englund (on 'Transition to
lulti-party politics in Kamuzu Banda's Malawi'), and both Cyprian Fisty and Peter
Geschiere (on 'Witchcraft, Violence and Identity in post colonial Cameroon'). Both the
editors and the authors of this book recognize the futility of periodizing African history in
specific historical epochs by falsely placing breaks where non exist. Instead, these
authors argue, intellectual efforts should be directed in analyzing colonial legacy, its
nature and its impact on the problematic of the crises facing the African nation-state.
Since part of our theoretical framework revolves around the conceptual idea of
postcolonial ism, this work has been immensely useful to the current research.
In Decolonizing the Mind (1986), Kenya's foremost intellectual powerhouse as
well as freedom fighter, gugi wa Thiong'o is heavily influenced by the Fanonian
thought and therefore sees the English language as representing the colonial legacy in
Kenya. Rejecting the use of English in the teaching of literature in Kenya, Ngugi in a
36
neo-Marxist nuanced discourse. argues that English justifies the continuation of colonial
legacy in formerly colonized societies. This work is critical in our understanding of the
struggle against colonial hegemony in post independent Kenya. Other books by the same
author which highlight the problems of colonialism in its hegemonic form include; Petals
of Blood (1978), Detained (1981), Devil on the Cross (1982) and Writers in Politics
( 1982).
In line with analysing the brutalizing effects of colonialism on the African nation-
state, Kenyan scholar Pal Ahluwal ia (1996) has produced what seems to us the first
informative work on Kenya's postcolonial experience. Although Ahluwalia's postcolony
seems to be falsely equated to the post-independent political entity, nevertheles . his
work delves into the political and economic problems which faced Kenya at the height of
Cold War politics. Ahluwalia's work concludes that the Kenyan nation-state has, in its
post-colonial experience, served the interests of Western imperialism. At the conceptual
level. this work has been crucial to our study
Aseka (2000) demonstrates his cynicism for the postmodernist approach in
accounting for and critiquing modernity and its social projects. He declines to accept
postmodernism as viable tool for deconstructing modernity. He, therefore, declares that
postmodernism is a theory without theoretical rigor. Quite correctly, Aseka sees
postmodernism as representing a fundamental attack on the rationality of modernism and
modernist epistemology. But he also observes that neo-colonialism has metarmophosized
into post-colonialism, arguing that this imprudent wisdom is couched in what appears to
him post-modernist obscurantism. While respecting the views of Aseka, this study has
made efforts to explain that postcolonialism is not the same as postmodernism. In other
works (Aseka, 1997: Aseka, 2003), he conceives the postcolonial theory as a dimension
of postmodernism and rejects its sub-altern assumptions which he argues derive from the
revisionist Marxism of Antonio Gramsci. In Aseka (2003), a serious attempt is made to
re-examine Fanons discourse on decolonization and national culture. In our view,
postcolonial ism does not begin with the attainment of independence in polities that were
formely colonized. The experience of postcolonialism begins soon after the imposition
of colonial rule. Therefore, neocolonialism is only one of the phases within the
postcolonial discourse.
The foregoing literature review IS hardly exhaustive but all the same it
demonstrates that no comprehensive research has so far been done to revalidate Frantz
Fanon's liberation ideas in the context of the Kenyan decolonization experience.
However, it is noted that the body of literature on the decolonization of Kenya is huge.
1.6 Theoretical Framework
During the past forty years, a great deal of intellectual capital has gone into the
studyof the nation-state in Africa. Within that period, both scholars and lay people have
expressed concern that the African nation-state has failed to serve the interests ·of the
African people. In grappling with the problematic of the nation-state, some scholars
suggested that the African nation-state could be made more relevant and more useful
through a deliberate project of modernization. The modernization theorists including
Rostow (1960), Hagen (1962 and 1968), Myrdal (1968), for instance, recommended that
development in Africa would only be achieved through the simultaneous transfer of
Western political, social and cultural structures together with the diffusion of the
3X
economic and technological complex from the West (Hoogvelt, 1975:53). Implicitly,
therefore, Africa's progress could only be achieved against the background of European
values.
The basic assumption of the modernization scheme was that Africa had been left
out of modernity when the Enlightenment era struck Europe around the is" century.
Consequently, the logic goes, Africa could not make any meaningful progress in its
social, political and economic fields until it espoused the principles of Western
modernity, science and rationalism. Therefore, as a concept. modernization came to be
the only universal truth that would rescue Africans from their state of hopelessness.
Indeed, to some people, the establishment of the colonial state in Africa was a deliberate
mission to bring Africans to the heart of modernity and civilization.
Thus, colonialism was seen as an instrument of modernization. Emerging in the
early 1960's, modernization was deemed as the panacea for the depressing African
condition (Amin 1976, Rodney, 1976). But a few years into independence, newly freed
African states began to confront the reality that the modernization theory presented a
general framework for development toward modern statehood conceived mainly within
the Western mould of thinking. African nation-states had to come to terms with the
irrelevance of modernization to the African condition because this project had overlooked
the African reaiity and achievements. Worse still, many African countries appeared to be
political fictions because their sovereignty was virtually non-existent, their control over
economic flows across their boundaries, virtually minimal, and their external dependency
alarming. Modernity and independence had become counterfeits.
Because of this situation, a couple of scholars with a Marxist persuasion had by
the mid-1960s come to the conclusion that the spread of Western modernity from the
European metropole to the African periphery was the cause of the underdevelopment in
the African states, during the colonial and post-independence eras. According to several
scholars including Gunder Frank (1967), Samir Amin (1976) and Walter Rodney (1976),
Chilcote and Edelstein (1974), among others, the Westernization of Third World
economies had created a culture of dependency whereby these economies could not stand
on their own without the support of Western metropoles. The experience of Africa in the
1960s and 1970s shows that in the name of modernization, Western countries undertook
td" interfere with- the internal affairs of African states and went further to maintain
autocratic leadership that supported the preservation and sustenance of Western cultural.
political and economic values on the continent. As a result, Africa became more and
more underdeveloped because, in its post-independence era, the continent continued to
play similar cultural, economic and political roies of supporting Europe's progress as it
had done during the era of formal colonialism.
The neo-Marxist perspective of underdevelopment recommends that, to develop,
Third World nations should first and foremost stop supporting Western Europe and
America, through the continuous supply of primary goods, and instead espouse projects
which would break down the dependency syndrome. This syndrome would, in the view
of neo- larxist thinkers, be destroyed if there was a profound alteration of the political,
social and economic relationships between the West and the underdeveloped world. The
alteration of relations would inevitably involve the overthrowing of the capitalist market
..W
economy and the mobilization of domestic populations In a nationally-oriented effort
(Fanon, 1967).
Furthermore, the neo-Marxist thinking was against Africa's dependence on
foreign capital which did not invest its surplus in the underdeveloped nations (Rodney,
1976). Foreign investment in formerly colonized states had been carefully planned to
favour the sale of manufactured goods of the developed world while at the same time
stagnating the economies of young nations with an irrational emphasis on agricultural
rather than industrial development. Thus, development would require the elimination of
foreign penetration which supports the status quo, and the creation of a socialist context
of development (Chilcote and Edelestein, 1974:28)
However, like its forerunner, Marxism, neo-Marxism was permanently transfixed
on economic determinism as if economics had the capacity to explain all the diverse
aspects of humanity. Indeed, it was evident that the socialist agenda which the neo-
Marxist scholars recommended for Africa turned out to be just another V\ estern grand
narrative .because it had been developed and authored by European-educated scholars
such as Marx and Lenin. otably, African countries such as Tanzania and Ethiopia,
which espoused socialism, had by 1984 reported little success. There was hence no
denying that both capitalism and socialism were Western variants of social organisation
of society for purposes of development which needed to be cautiously applied to Africa.
From the early 1980's, the African condition deteriorated despite the continent
being rigorously forced to embrace the Western ideologies of development, within the
parameters of capitalism and socialism. This state of hopelessness raised new challenges
for scholars. These challenges began to be tackled through the emergent postmodernist
-t I
and postcolonialist thinking. In the last twenty years, these theoretical formulations have
received a great deal of attention from African and Africanist scholars.
Postmodernism, it is crucial to understand, is not about what comes after
modernity because, to be fair. modernity has not yet come to an end. Rather,
postmodernism highlights the crisis of modernity and rebels against the universal
categories of Western civilization. It is a condition of being entangled and trapped in
modernity as something from which we cannot escape but in which we can no longer put
or find faith (Pangle, 1992:36). Because of our lack of faith in modernity, we begin
questioning its 'normalizing' and universalizing tendencies until we conclude that
modernity remains authoritarian as long as it continues to force the rest of humanity to
espouse Western European values. Thus, in its broadest sense, postmodernism represents
a deliberate counter-discourse against modernity. Consequently, the postmodern
theoretical perception enables us to put our faith in a new reality that human life was full
of opposing landscapes. fissures, change points and phases which are infinitely temporal
but which cannot be explained in one simple meta-narrative.
For instance, European science is just one variant of the many sciences that
humanity has; its culture, just one of the many cultures; its economic organization, just
one of the many economic systems; its political order just one of the many political
orders that humanity has so far developed. This experience teaches us that European
forms of knowledge, cultures and systems are not and should not be seen as universal
givens. Yet, in the service of Western rationalism, colonialism was imposed on Africa
with a mission to destroy African values while at the same time preaching and enhancing
the universalization of European ideals. Our study embraces the postmodernist
theoretical framework in interpreting colonialism in Kenya because, this conceptual
standpoint gives us an opportunity to argue that the struggle against colonialism in Kenya
was a contest against European modernity and universalism.
On the other hand. post-colonialism is first and foremost a counter-discourse of
formerly colonized others against the cultural hegemony of the West with all its imperial
structures of feeling and knowledge (Xie, 1997: 8). Within this logic. there is a need to
embrace a radically different narrativization of history In many ways, therefore, post-
colonialism signifies an attempt by the formerly colonized to re-evaluate. rediscover and
reconstruct their own histories and cultures. It is also an act of rethinking the history of
the world against the inadequacy of terms and conceptual frames invented by the West.
It represents an urgent need and determination to dismantle imperial structures in the
realm of culture. However. it does not signify the demise or pastiness of coloniality
(Ibid: 14). Rather, it points to the colonial past that remains to be interrogated and
critiqued. It also admits an indebtedness to the past and responsibility to the future.
As one of its cardinal duties, the post-colonial discourse includes but goes beyond
the anti-colonial nationalist struggle. This is because anti-colonialism was primarily a
nationalist movement for political and economic independence. However, since the
heydays of anti-colonialism, nation-states have emerged in formerly colonized spaces and
the imperial structure has been dismantled in political terms (Ashcroft, Griffins and
Teffin, 1989:6-7). But as many critics have pointed out, formal independence for
colonized countries have rarely meant the end of the First World's hegemony (Shohat
1992: 104). Rather, Westerners after their withdrawal from these countries continued to
rule morally and intellectually (Chakrabarty, 1992:8). It is this crisis of hegemonization
t
that gives birth to the experience ofneo-colonialism. Thus, neo-colonialism emerges as a
regeneration of colonialism through hegemonizing Western economy, technology and
ideology.
As we have intimated above, postmodernism is a counterdiscourse against
modernity itself. The counter-discourse began around the end of the 19th century when
the German scholar and philosopher Friedrich ietzsche started questioning the
universality of Western civilization. According to Nietzsche and his loyal student Martin
Heidegger, the late 19th century ushered in a historical period that for the first time
permitted humanity to have a clear view of the fully evolved meaning of the commitment
to science and rationalism that came increasingly to dominate Western civilization in the
preceeding centuries (Pangle, 1992: 36-38). In the view of the t\VOphilosophers, Western
civilization must now be recognized as the culmination of a tradition whose history
reveals the unfolding 'nihilistic' (belief that nothing has meaning or value) consequences
of the attempt to ground life in reason. Celebrating this line of argument, ietzsche
signified the collapse of Western civilization by declaring that 'God is Dead' (Heidegger,
1950: 193-247). Critics of modernity have advanced powerful arguments contending that
rationalism is incapable of providing an acceptably profound, diverse, creative and
historical account of what is truly human (Kisiang'ani, 2000: 14).
Reason, in seeking or demanding fixed and universal standards, necessarily
corrodes the diverse faiths and decisions supporting the endlessly competing standards of
justice and moral judgement. The contemporary rationalist movement toward
equalization of values or equalization of objects of value, the stress on tolerance, the
easy-going 'agreement to disagree', and the liberal open society are symptomatic of
dissolution of standards and the loss of dedication in life (Heidegger, 1961 :37-1 00).
Rational self-consciousness is no doubt an essential tool for the clarification of a peoples'
highest values but hypetrophic reason, at least in the Western experience, endangers and
banalizes 'values' by its tendency to reduce to a lower common level what is
distinguished. Colonialism came to define what was distinguished to the African people
by giving a privileged status to Western European values.
Modernity, with its authoritative trust in scientific reason has tragically led the
J Western World into the tendency of totalizing reality and setting untenable universal
parameters for human behaviour and existence. As a result, in its original form, Western
civilization seems to recognize no other civilization and is thus authoritarian and
oppressive. As a rule, truth, both truth in general and truth about any existing thing must
conform to Western standards. Whatever does not appear to fit in the Western
categorization of truth is treated as a myth or relics of tradition or as products of naivete,
pretense and ignorance Carrying this tragic attitude against others, European colonialists
entered the African continent with set minds about truth. They undertook to destroy
African cultural values and made great efforts to realign the African lifestyle along the
lines defined by Western civilization and modernity. Colonization was hence a project
within the modernist project.
In this study, Kenya is treated as a postcolony which is grappling with imperial ~
hegemony. Overail, Simon During's definition that postcolonialism represents the need in
nations or groups which have been victims of imperialism to achieve an identity
uncontaminated by universalist or Eurocentric concepts and images (During, 1990: 113-
131) is adopted. ·Postcolonial criticism, as Gyan Prakash points out, forces a radical
..)
rethinking and reformulation of forms of knowledge and social identities authored and
authorized by colonialism and Western domination (Prakash, 1992:8). As is evident in
many colonial discourses authored in the West, the colonized have been given the
identity of the other, the inferior the savage (Said, 1979).
The thrust of postcolonial thinking is, therefore, to recognize the existence of the
otherness and dismantle formulations which inform discourses on otherness. When the
modernist project was introduced to Africa through colonialism, it not only brought in
some universalizing European cultural values to be followed by the colonized others but
it also gave certain identities to non-European peoples: identities of laziness,
backwardness, savagery and sexual hyperactivity among others. It is these values and
these identities that a non-Western colonial subject is faced with in a post-colonial
setti ng.
A leading postcolonial theorist, Gayatri Spivak, has argued that the imperial
project which institutionalized economic and social hegemony has in turn created a
category of voiceless colonial subjects. Spivak calls this suffering lot, the subalterns
(1990). The term 'subsaltern', it has to pointed out, did not originate with Spivak.
Rather, the term assumes profound political and social significance through the works of
Italian scholar Antonio Gramsci (1992). Originally, 'subaltern' was term for
subordinates in military hierarchies. However, Gramsci used it to refer to groups of
people who are outside the established structures of political representation. Postcolonial
theorists have found this term especially appealing in describing the appalling conditions
of colonial subjects who has been permanently sidelined to the periphery in the enigmatic
power game initiated and controlled by the West. 1n appropriating the postcolonial
theory to the Kenyan decolonization experience, this study has been enriched by the
philosophical assumptions of subalternism as a tool of analysis for conceptualizing and
confronting formal and informal colonialism in Africa.
But when does the postcolonial begin? In the postcolonial, as Linda Hutcheon
reminds us: 'on the one hand post is taken to mean after 'because of' and even
unavoidably 'inclusive' of the colonial; on the other, it signifies more explicit resistance
and opposition, the anticolonial' (1995: 10). The post-colonial, therefore, designates
moments within colonialism and beyond. To be realistic, the post colonial era in Kenya
does not begin after independence in 1963. Rather, Kenya's post-colonial experience
commences soon after the imposition of colonial rule in 1895. The conflict between the
African people and the Europeans over issues of taxation, land, labour, education and
racism represents an effort to radically rethink and reformulate forms of knowledge and
social institutions authored and authorized by colonialism and Western domination. In
doing this, and unlike the postmodern theory, post-colonialism enables those
marginalized others, within the colonial domain, to undo the colonial contamination by
embracing distinct political agendas and theory of agency which postmodernism
threatens to cancel.
When formal colonialism in Kenya ended in 1963, the informal type, the neo-
colonial experience, assumed a privileged position making it even more urgent for
Africans to increase their pace of rethinking and reformulating Western values in their
country. Independence did not thus mark the beginning of postcolonialism but it
constituted a mere transition from what Abdul Jan Mohammed terms the dominant phase
of colonialism to the hegemonic phase of colonialism (Jan Mohammed, 1985:61). It is
.+7
this hegemonic phase which forms the spinal cord of neo-colonialism. Without doubt,
therefore, neo-colonialism is a fundamental component of the post-colonial discourse.
This study adopts both the crucial elements of post-colonialism and the essential
features of postmodernism in an integrated theoretical approach. There is little doubt that
the postcolonial discourse benefits tremendously from Derrida's and Foucault's
deconstructions of Western thought. This provides a basis for a powerful critique of the
rule of modernity that the colonies experienced in a peculiar form. It is probably because
of this realization that Arif Dirlik, a critic of the postcolonial theory, shares the
assumption that post-colonialism is a progeny of postmodernism (Dirlik, 1994:33!). Yet
despite post-colonialism's indebtedness to postrnodernism. it is dangerous to regard
postcolonial ism as a mere figure of postrnodernism. For this position represents a general
tendency to turn post-colonialism into a West-centred discourse against West-centered
universalism and rationalism. True, postcolonial ism owes most of its sophisticated
conceptual language to postmodernism, but it emerges as a distinct discourse with a set of
problematics different from those of postrnodernism. Indeed, postmodernism is a tool for
critiquing modernity from the European standpoint while post-colonialism is an
instrument of interrogating modernity from the point of view of the other, the colonized.
Thus post colonialism looks at the specific effects of modernity, propagated by
colonialism, on people who were never part and parcel of European culture.
But postmodernism, while rigorously challenging the fundamental assumptions of
Science, Truth, Religion, Order, Subjectivity and Sign institutionalized since Plato and
sublimated by modernism, tends to universalize its problematics. Yet postcolonialism
historicizes postmodern thematics deploying postmodern arguments in the service of
decentering world history as well as vindicating and asserting the identities of the
formerly colonized (Xie, 1997:8). Consequently, to identify post-colonialism as a
function of postmodernism is to cancel the difference between post-colonialism and
postmodemism, to universalize the problematics of postmodernism and ultimately to
ignore the uneven development of history.
In analysing the Kenyan political entity, we recognize the fact that .this post-
colony was from the very start organized and shaped by the Eurocentric forms of
knowledge which, by and large, had their roots in the rationalism of modernity and
Enlightenment Applied to the Kenyan people, this rationalism gave birth to the other
who had 'no role in civilization' and who was racially 'inferior' to the West During
colonialism, Africans were profoundly affected by the universalizing habits of Western
modernity and rationalism. Living within the discourse of the other, Africans lost their
identity to the point that they could neither accept themselves as a distinct entity nor
could they be accepted in the West as part and parcel of European civilization. It is this
experience which created the need by the marginalized other (the Africans) to have
distinct political agendas and a theory of agency (post-colonialism) while at the same
time recognizing the futility of grounding human existence in universal parameters (post-
modernism).
To summarize our theoretical position with desperate brevity, a number of
observations are in order. We now know that the postmodernist thinking represents a
subversive movement that was developed by European thinkers to question their own
modernity - a modernity which excluded the Africans. Thus postmodernism advocates
for diversities within the European cultural dynamic. Consequently, applied to the
condition of the colonized peoples' of Africa, the postmodern intellectual dispensation
faces some crises. The first crisis is cultural because, having been developed within the
European cultural fabric, postmodernism does not have the ability to embrace the cultural
diversity of the colonized lot in Africa. The second crisis is purpose. Postmodernism
questions European universalities and advocates for the toleration and accommodation of
certain European values, habits and customs which have been subverted by the totalizing
paradigms of Eurocentricity.
Given the foregoing, postmodernism only becomes relevant to Africa with regard \
to its questioning the universalizing tendencies of Western civilization but not at all with
regard to addressing the unique experiences of the African people both before and after
the colonial onslaught. If colonialism was a project aimed at spreading Western
modernity to Africa, then the African people should be careful on how to deal with the
problem. Interrogating colonialism, strictly within the postmodernist perspective, will of
necessity only yield Eurocentric alternatives and diversities which in turn might enhance
European hegemony in Africa. And here is where postcolonialism becomes a relevant
subversive movement against Western modernity, operating outside that same modernity.
By questioning Eurocentricity outside European modernity, the post-colonial •
discourse embraces a sense of purpose not only to highlight the plight of formerly
colonized others but also to exploit the possibility of decentering world history from the
Euro-American complex to other parts of the world. This implies a deliberate effort to
put in the spotlight non-European cultures, political systems, economic programs,
educational policies, scientific knowledge and social values. Thus, this study borrows
heavily from the fundamental assumptions of the two theoretical positions as it makes
50
efforts to tackle the complex Issues of decolonization In Kenya, both at formal and
informal levels.
1.7 Justification and Significance of the Study
As it has emerged from the literature review, no scholarly work has been done on
the appropriation of Frantz Fanon's ideas to the Kenyan decolonization process.
Furthermore, no study has been undertaken to study the Kenyan decolonization process
by way of engaging postmodem and postcolonial problematics. The current study
illustrates the importance of doing this. Accordingly, the study represents a crucial entry
into documentary analysis of data. As well, this study undertakes to develop a theoretical
conversation hitherto shunned in the historiography of the Kenyan decolonization
process.
1.8 Scope
The study focuses on Kenya's decolonization experience between 1~5 and 1992.
Essentially, 1895 was the time when the political construction called Kenya was declared
a British protectorate, heralding the establishment of colonial rule. This study does not
view the period of independence of 1963 as the end of colonialism but rather a transition
to the neo-colonial experience. Beyond 'independence', therefore, the struggle for
decolonization continued throughout the Kenyatta and during the Moi states. The year
1992- the time when Kenya espoused multiparty political culture by holding the first
genuinely multi-party elections since the end of formal colonialism- represents the peak
of that struggle.
51
1.9 Methodology
First and foremost, this study has derived its data from library research. Data was
collected from local libraries including the Moi library at Kenyatta University, the Jomo
Kenyatta Memorial as well as the Institute of Development Studies libraries at the
University of Nairobi. More secondary data was gathered from the Public Affairs
Section of the American Embassy in Nairobi, the Council for the Development of Social
Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) centre in Dakar, Senegal, and the O'Neil
library at the Boston College in the United States of America.
The primary data has been harnessed from the Kenya National Archives and the
Macmillan library in Nairobi as well. The two centres have huge collections of primary
documents including newspapers, autobiographies, journals and government reports
about colonial Kenya's long history of decolonization. It needs, however, to be
mentioned that in Chapter Two, quantitative data compiled from records available at the
Kenya National Archives, has been reconstructed into tables signifying the various
taxation and education trends which obtained during the era of formal colonialism.
Nevertheless, this does not imply that the study has employed quantitative techniques.
Rather, those tables have been given strict qualitative interpretations without diluting the
overall objective of the study.
Through the purposive sampling procedure, oral data for the study was obtained
from some of the survivors of Kenya's struggle for freedom. Furthermore, lay persons
who have experienced the traumatizing effects of colonialism in its formal and informal
shapes provided us with crucial data for this study. The purposive sampling procedure
was used to identify African colonial administrators, farm boys, policemen, civil
52
servants, teachers and above all freedom fighters. In each category of respondents, ten
people were interviewed. The data was edited and analysed within the problematic of
decolonization.
Special attention was paid to the relevance of the data to the critical issues of
colonialism, in its formal and informal shapes, including those of political participation,
racism, land, forced labour, education and taxation. In general, two methods were used
to analyse data. First was the content analysis method and second was the document
review analysis. Both were employed to examine data from key informant interviews
and life histories, and to interpret primary and secondary documents as well This helped
us to strike a middle ground on issues which elicited diverse points of view and opinions.
Rather than engage these important informants in a structured questionnaire, this
study employed a free-discussion approach in an effort to achieve a fulfilling explanation
of the nature and content of Western imperialism in the Kenyan postcoiony.
Furthermore, focused group discussions were organized by the researcher. These
discussions targeted informants who were relevant to particular themes. For example, on
matters of education, teachers were targeted for group discussions. The researcher posed
questions, members of the group responded and ultimately the researcher took notes. It
should, however, be observed that this study is chiefly a philosophical rather than an
empirical inquiry of the Kenyan decolonization experience. Thus, much of its research is
based on library sources. Consequently, oral sources have been consulted mainly to
authenticate the written sources so as to enrich this philosophical inquiry.
With regard to information about the formal era of colonialism, the study targeted
informants who were above 60 years. The age limit is significant because Kenyans
53
within this age demarcation must have experienced the hardships of formal colonialism
and they too witnessed the transition to neocolonialism. Yet for the informal era of
colonialism, informants had to be above forty years because this age limit provided us
with an .opportunity to target people who could competently comment on both the
Kenyatta and the Moi states. In total, the study interviewed sixty respondents. The
overall data collected has been analysed through the pnsm of the postmodemist and
postcolonialist theoretical dispositions.
1.10 Conclusion
In this introductory Chapter, we have outlined the main features of our research
project and argued that the imposition of colonial rule in many African countries resulted
in the deliberate displacement of African social, political and cultural systems through the
introduction of European values. Thus the process of decolonization (in which Africans
began to question the European entry and presence in Kenya) began immediately after
this displacement took place.
It has been shown that due to the complex nature of the problematic of
decolonization in Kenya, an integrated theoretical framework of both postmodemism and
post-colonialism would be appropriate in highlighting the critical issues involved in the
process. The chapter has also demonstrated the theoretical importance of the ideas of
Frantz Fanon to the Kenyan decolonization experience. It has further been pointed out
that colonialism in Kenya began in 1895 but continued beyond the 'independence' year of
1963, only that in its post-independence shape, colonialism was directly supervised by
the local elites. Accordingly, the scope of our study focuses on the period between 1895
and 1992. In the next chapter, we examine the development of can fl iet In Kenya's
colonial structures.
55
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT IN KENYA'S COLONIAL
STRUCTURES, 1895-1952
2.1 Introduction
Before 1895, a political entity called Kenya did not actually exist. In the 1880's,
the inland areas of present Kenya comprised a web of domestic economies of
complimentary nomadic and sedentary pastoral forms of production (Berman, 1990:49)
The sedentary pastoralists, located largely in the hillier areas of eastern and western
highlands flanking the Great Rift Valley also practised a limited shifting cultivation of
annual cereals based on female labour on a minute fraction of the grazing area. Conn icts
tended to occur within rather than between economic zones. There was massive
abundance of land which made land tenure rules redundant (Kitching, 1980:282). Yet,
even within the hybrid experience of nomadic and sedentary life, interior Kenya had
historical contacts with Arab and Swahili traders who were more interested in ivory and
slaves than in colonization.
It was thus the British who laid out both the external and internal geographical
boundaries that defined a polity which later became Kenya. Therefore, Kenya is a
deliberate cultural, political as well as an economic construction of the West. With the
establishment of colonial rule, came the birth of the colonial state which undertook to
dismantle and rearrange the political, economic, and social institutions of the African
people and realign them along the exploitative frameworks of capitalism. In this way, the
colonial state became an urgency of the metropolitan British imperialist state (Berman
and Lonsdale, 1992: 13-15).
56
From the very beginning of the imperial project and the operationalization of its
institutions in Kenya, the majority of the African people were condemned to the voiceless
cadres of the society. They were both socially and economically dispossessed by the new
power regime fronted by Western imperialism. In the perception of some post-colonial
theorists, these colonial subjects were the subalterns of the colonial process (see Spivak,
1987, 1988, 1990; Rodrigues, 2003; Ashcroft. Griffiths et al., 1989).
European control of what was later to be called Kenya began with the
missionaries of the 1840s led by such personalities as John Rebmann and Ludwig Krapf
(Scanlon, 1966, Kieran, 1966). The two established mission stations in the coastal
region. Later in the 1860's, missionaries were followed by explorers and adventurers like
Joseph Thompson, James Grant and John Speke, working for such European
organizations as the Royal Geographical Society as well as the Church Missionary
Soceity (CMS). In the 1870's and 1890's, a chartered company by the name the Imperial
British East Africa Company (IBEAC) was given permission to control the affairs of the
region on behalf of Britain until colonial rule was finally installed in 1895.
From the mid 1870s onwards, European interest in Kenya, which had innocuously
started off in the earlier decades as mere spiritual, explorational and missionary
enterprises, turned commercial as competing European nations installed their respective
chartered campanies in the region (Zwanenberg and King, 1975 chapters 8 and 9, Marris
and Somerset, 1971:30-3). The Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) under
William Mackinnon carried the British cause while the German East Africa Company
under Karl Peters directed the German agenda. At this time, Britain was desperate to
57
control the headwaters of the Nile so as to secure its interests in Eastern and Northern
Africa.
Although the initial objective of the IBEAC was to exploit the areas around
Uganda and Congo, which were rich in animal and mineral resources, time proved that
the hinterland of Kenya carried enormous agricultural potential which could hardly be
ignored. The fertile soils of the Kenyan highlands coupled with .the region's wildlife
variety attracted the attention of Europeans. It was not going to take long, especially
after the 1884 Berlin conference which gave Kenya to Britain, before the British could
declare a protectorate over the new territory. Consequently. on the is" of June 1895.
most of the country we know today as Kenya was officially declared a British
Protectorate (Bennett, 1963:3). The move came soon after the IBEAC had become
bankrupt and demonstrated obvious inability to run the affairs of the territory on behalf of
Britain.
Colonial rule gave rise to serious conflicts between the African people and the
Europeans. Kenya's people, before imposition of colonial rule were like the American
nation, made up of strangers, both adventurers and refugees (Mwakyembe, 1986:32).
Therefore, the transformation of Kenya from a polyglot of strangers into a coherent state
was the work of force. According to John Lonsdale, the British employed violence on a
locally unprecedented scale and with unprecedented singleness of mind. Furthermore,
the imposition of colonial rule in Kenya entailed the process of Westernization and
capitalist penetration of African economies. Logically, colonialism effected the
articulation of indigenous modes of production with the capitalist mode of production and
5X
the integration of the African economies into the Western capitalist system of market
relations (Lonsdale, 1987:7). All this was achieved through force and violence.
As early as 1890, for instance, most Africans who had experienced the
traumatizing effects of European conquest had become apprehensive and hostile. The
Kikuyu, for example, were reported to have been implacably hostile to European agents
of the IBEAC, who had established one of their forts at a place called Dagorretti in
Kikuyu territory (Edgerton, 1990:4). Here the Kikuyu resisted force, rape, theft of their
crops as well as the slow encroachment on their land by Europeans. In 1893, an IBEAC
official, Francis Hall, mounted two punitive expeditions that killed 90 Kikuyu with a
similar number being wiped out the following year (Ibid) Hall believed that the only
way to help the Kikuyu was to wipe them out (Muriuki, 1974: 155) In the ten years
between 1895 and 1905, the British employed a similar strategy of force to acquire land
at the coast, central Kenya and the RiH Valley region and to set up a harshly politicized
colonial state (Ochieng' and Atieno-Odhiarnbo, 1995~iv)
In this Chapter, we examine the development of contlict 111 Kenya's colonial
structures using the Fanonian logic of violence. As Fanon himself observed while
describing the initial imposition of colonial rule:
..their first encounter [settler and native] was marked by violence
that is to say the exploitation of the native by the settler was
carried on by dint of a great array of bayonet and cannons
(Fanon, 1967:28)
Uppermost in our discussion is thus a deliberate attempt to exarrune the three zones
which, in Fanon's Algeria, were most susceptible to conflict and violence. These are the
land question, the European town and finally the administrative frontier. In Kenya,
59
however, unlike Algeria, conflict included but went beyond the three zones. The Kenyan
experience, as we shall see shortly, registered conficts in the fields of land education,
labour as well as in the sphere of political marginalization.
2.2 The Land Question
No discussion of the history of colonial Kenya would be complete without a
critical understanding of the role of land in shaping up the colonial state. The arrival of
European speculators, adventurers and prospective farmers signalled the loss of land for
the African people. The initial encouragement of white settlement in Kenya was given
by Sir Charles Eliot (Bennett, Op.Cit.: 10-13). As a British commissioner with immense
administrative experience in Asia, Eliot saw European settlement in Kenya as a way of
protecting the Uganda railway from the 'hostile' tribes. The Uganda railway was crucial
in exploiting the agricultural potential of Kenya's hinterland. In general, however,
European settlement in Kenya as it was elsewhere in Africa was informed by certain
fundamental ideological assumptions.
Throughout Africa, the colonial ideology had to develop within two major sets of
constraints - those imposed by the ideological presuppositions introduced into the
situation by the new governing class, and those originating in the exigencies of the local
social situation which the colonial administrators had to bring under their own control
(Brett, 1973:43). Within these limits, there can be discerned two broad types of social
theory whose relative dominance depended upon the nature of the structure of production
created in the export sector. The distinction here was between those areas in which
agriculture came to be based upon expatriate family class and those in which African
peasant producers were dominant. The former lay in regions of temperate climate -
60
South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Algeria and regions of Northern Rhodesia, Malawi,
Tanganyika and Kenya (Smuts, 1930:56). The latter was dominant in the remainder of
the continent where it was generally assumed that cash-crop production would be
predominantly in the hands of African peasant producers. Nevertheless, both expatriate
and peasant production aimed at enhancing the European exploitation of Africa.
Consequently, the two forms of production required colonial security and control so that
the colonial political economy could reap maximum profits. Because of its crucial
economic role, land became the focus of colonial security and control.
Of profound significance was the European belief in the notion of Africa's
essential 'immaturity' with reference to the problems created by modern industrial
society (Brett, 1973:45). Thus, the colonialists expected many African communities to
react negatively to the introduction of "modernity" in their lives. Europeans, assumed
that Africans could only be induced into civilization through close and continuous contact
with established European community, hence the need for permanent settlement and
control in the Kenya colony by the British.
But settlement and control also implied the establishment of permanent imperial
administrative structures organized around the prefectural model. This model gave the
colonial governor and his administrative staff powers to ensure that the local population
complied with the European colonial policies.
Settlement and control, it is worthwhile to note, would thus enable the European
colonial officials to constantly monitor the hostile tendencies of the African communities
towards the introduction of modern values of life. In Kenya, this policy was useful in
preventing the local population from destroying such economically important
)
GI
infrastructure as the Uganda railway. But what really, is the meaning of modernity? If as
it were, modernity embraced the universalizing habits and customs of the Western
European person then it must from the beginning be considered oppressive to the African
colonial subjects and subversive to their cultural systems. The postmodernist
enlightenment illuminates this idea when it argues against the logic of universalizing
values of certain sections of humanity by forcing those same values on the rest of
humanity.
Thus, the need to bring Africans to 'civilization' and to bring African resources
into the British sphere depended upon the establishment of European settlement in Kenya
(Smuts Op.Cit.:64). It was in November 1929, when South African apartheid leader Jan
Smuts delivered the Rhodes Memorial lectures at Oxford, dealing at length with the
general questions of European settlement and native policy in Africa. Summarizing the
social philosophy behind permanent European settlement in Africa, Smuts stated thus:
No flash in the pan of exploitation will overly help the
course of African civilization .... Only an ever-present,
settled European order can achieve that high end. The
call of Africa for civilization, the call of the world for
tropical products, the call for these islands for migration
and employment combine to give very real force to the case
which I am making today (1930:66).
Within the fabric of the modernist project, British land alienation was being done in the
name of civilization - to educate the African people in European social, economic and
political values (Mitchell, 1947:3). These values, including agricultural techniques,
educational projects, economic practices were purely those of the Western European
man. The values were presented as universal givens for the entire family of humanity.
But as we have already signified before, Freidriech Nietzsche found these totalizing
62
tendencies of Western Europeans. not only oppress: ve but also untenable. The
postmodernist theoretical perspective moulded in the Nietzschean framework thus helps
us to question these tendencies. The nationalist struggle against the land alienation
practices of the British should hence be seen as a struggle against, the totalizing habits of
Western imperialism.
Through Eliot's encouragement, and in the light of the foregoing theoretical
presumption, the settlers acquired land in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley. Some of
the areas most affected by massive European invasion included Kikuyu, Kiambu, Thika,
Kinangop, 01 Kalaou and the ~dount Kenya regions of the central part of the colony. In
the Rift Valley, land alienation was formidable in such areas as Gilgil, aivasha,
Subukia, Njoro and Elburgon. Further west, Kitale, Kericho and Kapsabet areas too lost
land to Europeans. George Padmore, quoting an Italian expert on colonial affairs, reports
that there were only thirteen British settlers in Kenya in 190 I. But between May 1903
and December 1904, two hundred and thirty two thousand acres of land was alienated
from various ethnic communities in Kenya and distributed to 342 Europeans. The same
source reports that the number of European settlers had increased to 3, 175 in 1911, it
reached 9,661 in 1921 and 16,812 in 1930 and totalled 28,997 ten years later (Padmore,
~1953 :357). The increasing population of settlers signified the proportionate loss of
productive agricultural land by the Kenyan communities.
Individual settlers in Kenya were given hundreds of acres of land on easy terms
that bordered on free acquisition. From 89 holdings totaling less than 5,000 acres in 1903
the number of holdings allocated jumped to 263, totaling 368, 125 acres in 1905 (Ridley,-r-,
1968: 56). During the colonial period in Kenya, land grabbing was enormous. For
example, in 1903 Lord Delamere received from the British Commissioner 100,000 acres
in the Rift Valley. A few years later, he received 60,000 acres. Eventually, Delamere
owned 176,768 acres of good land (Sorrenson, 1967:232).
The original leases of land in Kenya were for 99 years but on settler complaints
that the period was too short, leases .were extended to 999 years. By 1920, 5.5 million
acres of land had been confiscated for European use. Of this, the total Kikuyu land taken
away was 1,640 square' miles or 1,049,600 acres (Frost, 1978: 108). Rober Edgerton
reports that in 1902, the Kikuyu were so enraged by the massive grabbing of their land by
Europeans that they intensified their resistance. In that year, one Kikuyu village in
Dagorretti was outstanding in its reaction. Thus:
A white settler was pegged to the ground, his mouth wedged
open with a stick then an entire Kikuyu village, men, women and
children urinated into his mouth until he drowned. The angry
Africans also cut off his genitals .... (Edgerton, 1990:5).
By 1952, some 9,000 settlers had exclusive rights to 16,700 square miles of land,
including 4,000 square miles of Forest Reserve. This happened as several million
Africans sought to eke out a livelihood within their congested locations called reserves
(Bernett and Njama, 1966:32). Indeed, less than 0.7 per cent of the entire Kenyan
population - a figure which included all Europeans - held what has been estimated as 20
per cent of the colony's best land (Ibid).
Acquisition of African land was a symbolic assurance of political control. In turn,
political control guranteed economic safety. But ownership of African land was not just
a prestigious affair for the settlers. African lands were acquired by force so as to turn
these critical assets to economic benefit using the Africans themselves. Consequently,
the force that was deployed to acquire land was also appropriated in similar ways to
recruit African labour. Organized African labour, it was thought, was the only way the
settlers could be sure of a constant flow of tax revenue from the natives.
Therefore, the British conquest of Kenya went hand in glove with the violent acts
of land alienation. Using armaments from the Royal Army as well as Navy, the British
depended on both local African manpower and auxiliary Nubian and Arab troops from
I orthern Africa. Systematically, these troops were then joined by expert British soldiers.
. .
The result was conquest of the Swahili dynasties at the coast and later the take-over of the
white highlands in the interior. Forceful seizure of African lands gave way to a
centralized state which rested on force and the new imperial ideology of progress
(Berman and Lonsdale, 1992: 1"+). The new imperial ideology of progress glorified
property ownership and racially exclusive property rights. After the conquest, Kenya
became a more harshly politicised economy.
Among the Nandi of the Rift Valley, the entrenchment of British rule and the
subsequent grabbing of land caused an explosive situation Between 1895 and 1904, they
caused constant trouble to the British. They also raided the newly built Uganda railway
stealing bolts, spikes and other material (Bennett, 1963 :21). The British fought hard
pushing the Nandi into designated reserves and killing the Nandi Laibon to pave way for
European settlement (Ngeny, 1970: 11-123). Similar expeditions for white settlement
were launched among the Kipsigis of Sotik. Earlier on, the British had raided the
Babukusu of Western Kenya with the same objective. The foregoing examples would
seem to confirm Fanon's view that colonial rule was installed by violence. Indeed, the
violence we witness here is a combination of physical injury and outright use of force
65
which, as Fanon observes, 'is an indication that between the oppressors and the oppressed
everything can be solved by force' (Fanon, 1967:56).
The Kenyan colonial land policy was similar though not entirely the same as that
which obtained in Fanon's colonial Algeria. In Algeria, settlers too owned most of the
arable lands. They acquired land by just any means available including force. In 1954,
when the liberation war broke out, European settlers and administrators either owned or
controlled close to 40 percent of the arable land, although they only made up about ten
per cent of the total population (Ruedy, 1967). The first-conquered lands included those
originally under Turkish Suzerainty and those belonging to Muslim populations which
resisted the French. Appropriated between 1830 and 1920s, they included some of the
best lands in Mitidja coastal plains together with good lands in the Kabylia Mountains
and the High Plateaux. The second -habus - were inalienable lands held in pious trusts
and used sometimes for charitable purposes. By 1844, this land was available for settler
occupancy. The third - collectively owned tribal lands - become available for occupancy
between 1844 and 1846 (see Perinbam, 1982: 59). Finally the French adopted the 'vacant'
land policy which permitted settler occupancy of privately and collectively owned
agricultural grazing land.' By the end of the nineteenth century, the emergence of the
landless Algerian peasantry about whom Fanon spoke had already become a reality.
In colonial Kenya, the establishment of capitalist estate production - of wheat,
dairy products, coffee, sisal and tea among others - depended on the appropriation of
r:
African land. Bruce Berman, one of the leading European scholars on Kenyan history
argues that:
It is not clear, however, that this separation of Africans from
their means of subsistence had an immediately deleterious effect
GG
on their well- being save in the case of the pastoralist, who suffered
in terms of gross acreage, immeasurably larger than the African
cultivators (1990:58).
Berman's remarks are untenable because they tend to underestimate the brutalizing
effects of European land alienation. Oral evidence undermines Berman's comments.
William Malisia (0 I:200 I) a retired school teacher who began his teaching career in
1956, observes that his Abakitwiika clan lost large tracts of land from the. colonialists in
the 1930's. The respondent explains how his own grandfather, the late Wabuteya
Bunguswa had informed him how, in the earlier decades, the clan had been impoverished
and starved when Europeans seized African land in the present Karnukuywa settlement
scheme of Bung om a District. According to Malisia, the Abakitwiika was mainly a clan of
cultivators who shifted from one area to another in search of fertile lands The clan grew
finger millet, sorghum, yams, cassava, sweet potatoes, com and even green grams. The
respondent reported that European invasion in Bungoma caused his clan massive loss of
land, starvation, landlessness and loss of identity. This is the reason why some of
Berman's arguments on land alienation in Kenya should be treated with caution.
However, it should be pointed out that the continuous alienation of African land
as well as its use and control was supervised by officers of the British administration in
the colony. As principal agents of imperial control, these officers confronted issues
related to African activities with a religious zeal. The prefectural administration
possessed a status of power that enabled it to pursue and implement land policies which
favoured Europeans. In addition to maintaining a peaceful political order, this
administrative bureaucracy worked hard to ensure native compliance with the central
directives, through the exercise of authoritarian control (Berman and Lonsdale, Op. Cit.:
07
231). The prefectural bureaucracy was staffed by an elite cadre of administrators who
were expected to be skilled in the exercise of power and to back their orders with force if
necessary - 'to hold the line' literary for the regime (Fesler, 1965:536-66). As result, the
regime's security and stability depended on 'such administrative personalities as the
governor, the provincial and district commissioners. The administrators assisted by the
police, represented the violent muscle of the European rule that facilitated the alienation
of African lands.
The historic passing of the Crown Lands Ordinance by the colonial government in
1915 meant that virtually all African land in Kenya was declared Crown Land and
consequently put under the jurisdiction of the British (Berndt, Op. Cit.: 370). Land
alienation had the ultimate effect of preventing Africans from producing sufficient
subsistence crops, destroying their economic independence and forcing them to work as
wage labourers on European farms. In justifying this arrangement, Lord Delamere
argued that Africans had to be forced into the labour market by cutting the amount of
land available to them so that wage work would be their only means of survival (Ken va
Government, Evidence and Report of Native Labour Commission, 1912-1913: 108). To
the African communities, loss of land meant loss of their most important resource for
survival. The situation was untenable, that is why throughout the colonial period land
was not only the focus of friction between Africans and Europeans, but it also constituted
the most powerful single grievance in Kenya's struggle for liberation.
2.3 The European Town
The second conflict zone on the French frontier which Fanon identified was the
(jl{
European town. From the European perspective, towns were central as they separated the
'civilized' from the 'barbarian'. For landed settlers in rural areas, towns were places to
escape the inert, passive and sterilizing pressure of the native environment. In Fanon's
analysis, however, towns became symbols for the division of the Manichean colonial
world into two different species and centres from which 'native' population were decided
for. acted upon, manipulated, controlled coerced and heavily taxed. Outside the town
was' the native town which Fanon refers to as reservations. Here the colonial 'species'
'moved around like crouching animals, daring only to cross into the town when required
by economic necessity' (Fanon, 1967:30-32).
In Algeria, European uban development began shortly after the conquest. Towns
most affected by the expanding frontier were Algiers, the capital city, Oran in the west as
well as Bougie and Annaba in central and eastern Algeria respectively. The last two
towns were occupied in 1833. Before long, the French were in Arzew and Mostaganem
( 183-+) in the west as well as B Iida, where Fanon was later to take up residence at the
Psychiatric hospital (Perinbam, 1982: 425-430) ..
The Kenyan experience was similar. In constructing the Railway line to Uganda
in the late 1890's, the British established small towns and forts along the way. Although
Mombasa was already relatively developed, other towns like Voi, Nairobi, Nakuru and
Kisumu developed during the era of colonialism. In agricultural areas, towns such as
Kiambu, Thika, Kericho, Eldoret and Kitale also came up, signifying the arrival of
'civilization' in the interior parts of Kenya. Invariably, Europeans in a small urban
frontier exercised disproportionate power over majority of the Kenyan people.
As Fanon observed, the rural masses, the subalterns of Gramsci and Spivak
remained relatively aloof (Fanon Op.Cit). Until the 1930's, the majority of the Muslim
population in Algeria remained in the countryside. Impoverished, landless and
demoralized by French 'pacification' many seemed - as Fanon puts it - to be 'retrograde
obscurantist, petrified and bogged down in fruitless inertia'. By the 1920's and 1930's,
however, the situation began to change. Driven by rising birth rates, persistent rural
penury, epidemics and famines, land hungry Muslim masses began converging on the
cities (Perinbam, 1982:427-45). After the 1930's, the 'Manichean' or the rural urban
dichotomy which had 'mercifully' separated Europeans from the mass of population
began to close. By the 1940s, the shanty towns about which Fanon spoke were already in
existence.
In regions of Kenya where land alienation was rnasstve, many people were
rendered homeless. The most affected areas include, central Kenya, Rift Valley, some
parts of the coastal region and the Western part of the country Some of the displaced
people sought refuge on newly acquired European farms while others who could not cope
with life in the African locations called reserves migrated into towns in the hope of
finding manual jobs. Furthermore, towns seemed to promise good life, jobs and
opportunities for one to become rich. But because African entrants into the urban centres
could not share common residence with Europeans, African shanty towns developed in£) oximity with the European town. The conflict between the European and African
town is vividly explained by Fanon when he says:
The zone where the natives live is not complimentary to the·zone
inhabited by settlers. The two zones are opposed but not in the service
of higher unity. Obedient to the rules of pure Aristotelian logic, they
both follow the principle of mutual exclusivity. No reconciliation
70
is possible The settler's town is strongly built town, all made of
stone and steel. It is brightly lit town, the streets are covered with
asphalt, and the garbage cans swallow all the leavings, unseen settler's
feet are never visible, except perhaps in the sea; but there you are never
close to see them. His feet are protected by strong shoes although the
streets of his town are clean and even, with no holes or stones. The settler's
town is a well-fed and easy-going town; it is a belly of good things. The
settler's town is a town of white people, of foreigners (\967:30).
But in contrast, the situation in the town of the colonised people was depressing enough.
As Fanon observes:
The town belonging to the colonized people or at least the native
town, the Negro village. the Medina, the reservation is a place of
ill-fame, peopled by men of evil repute. They are born there, it
matters little where or how. It is a world without spaciousness; men
live there on top of each other and their huts are built one on top of
the other. The native town is a hungry town, starved of bread,
of meat, of shoes, of coal, of light. The native town is a crouching village,
a town on its knees. It is a town of niggers and dirty Arabs (Ibid.)
Indeed, the profound difference between the European and the native towns explains the
depth of contlict between the 'natives' and the colonizers. As Fanon explains:
The look that the native turns on the settler's town is look of lust,
a look of envy; it expresses his dreams of possession; to sit at the
settlers table, to sleep in the settler's bed, with his wife if possible.
The colonized man is an envious man. And this the settler knows
very well; when their glances meet he ascertains bitterly always
on the defensive 'They want to take our place'. (Fanon, 1967:30).
A typical colonial town in Kenya had specific names for the native town. Almost
all the major cities of colonial Kenya had shanty enclaves defined by names like Majengo
(shanty buildings) and Huruma (sympathy). Other names which defined native towns
were Kariokor (a place of World War I African Carrier Corps), Kamukunji (meeting
place), Kaloleni and Kambi Somali (a camp for the Somali) among others. All these
names had a territorial and racial significance with regard to defining the native town.
However, the European enclaves were basically known by European names of places and
their historical heroes.
~ 71
In the highly compartmentalized colonial world, the native In the native town
does not just want recognition from the settler as in the Hegelian experience but he also
covets the quality of life the colonizer lived The economic reality of colonialism was
defined by inequality and the immense difference of ways of life between natives and
Europeans. Furthermore, when as Fanon said several times, you examine at close
quarters the colonial context, it is evident that what parcels out the world was to begin
with the fact of belonging to or not belonging to a given race. In the colonies, the
economic substructure was also a superstructure. The cause was the consequence: 'you
are rich because you are white and your are white because you are rich' (Ibid: 3 I).
In colonial Algeria, just as in Fanon's native Martinique, the French adopted the
assimilationist policy of administration. By this strategy, the French urged
'Frenchinization' among its colonial subjects, encouraging urban elites to be French-
speaking and French- educated. The philosophy behind the assimilationist policy was to
create Frenchmen out of Africans as well as Muslims. But reminiscent of his own
experience, Fanon noticed that even though some evolues followed the letter of the law,
even converting to Christianity, the French never ceased to remind them of their Muslim
ongins. The latter usually connoted something pejorative that the 'Muslim' was an
oversexed predator; or lazy; or that he had criminal instincts; or that in biological terms
he was not far removed from the reptile world (Gendzier, 1970: 170-172).
Turning to assimilation policies affecting the legal status of Muslims, Fanon noted
that the French had extended the area of French civil territories into predominantly
Muslim zones. Assimilation was, therefore, a French cultural policy deliberately put in
72
place to destroy the identity of the colonial subjects In all its dependencies including
Algeria.
Socially. colonialism was racist. The era of modem imperialism in the 19lh
century, which of course marked European expansion In Africa, was also the era of
scientific racism. As part of the most vibrant branch of Social Darwinism, racism and
racist mythology were compatible with mainstream Western science deep into the zo"
century (Thompson, 1985: 13). Western scientists and academics articulated the theory of
a 'great chain of being' in which white people were at the top of the chain, and black
people at the bottom of the human part of the chain, close to orangutans at the top of the
non-human part (Ibid.: 13~ Hansen, 1973:80). Given 'scientific' respectability. this racist
reasoning was a distinct part of the culture of imperialism as Europeans advanced in
Africa and was often used as a justification for this expansion. Franz Fanon argues that
racism was a necessary counterpart of colonial rule. He observes that:
It is not possible to enslave men without logically making
them inferior through and through. And racism is only the
emotional, effective, sometimes intellectual explanation of
this inferiorization (1967: 52).
In Toward the African Revolution, Fanon reiterates the same point when he concludes
that:
Race prejudice in fact obeys a flawless logic. A country that
lives, draws its substance from the exploitation of other peoples,
makes those people inferior. Race prejudice applied to those
peoples is normal (1969:40-41).
Thus, the position Fanon wishes to emphasize here is that racism was the consequence
and not the cause of the system of exploitation of one group by another.
In British colonies such as Kenya, economic inequalities and racism defined the
ditTerence between the European and colonial towns. The myth of inherent European
superiority and African inferiority rationalized colonialism in Kenya. The feeling that
skin colour determined the mental and physical abilities of a person was entrenched in the
European mind even before the colonization of Africa. Racism in colonial Kenya
permeated through every aspect of the people: education, labour, taxation, land tenure,
administration, housing and socialization. Africans here were' prevented from possessing t-'v'A
firearms, from using white toilets, from consuming hard liquors such as whisky as well asY
from patronizing such exclusive areas as the orfolk and the New Stanley hotels In
Nairobi (Edgerton, 1990:20-35).
During World War I and II, Africans served in segregated units of the army and,
on return from the wars, the soldiers were given nothing beyond a few shillings despite
the fact that they had, during the war, committed their lives to defend British imperialism
(Kilikinj i O. I, 2002). This was unlike the British soldiers who, after the war, received
large tracts of land in settlement schemes including those in Nandi, Kinangop, Trans-
Nzoia, Njoro and Laikipia areas (Haberson, 1973: 7-8).
Although the British adopted the policy of indirect rule by which the local chiefs
and village elders would effect colonial laws while at the same time allowing Africans a
leeway in continuing with their own cultural practices, the final result was the same: to
prove the British superiority and African inferiority. Because racial mixing was
unacceptable in colonial Kenya, the African reserves and locations were created. With
time, both the reserves and locations became the frontier of poverty and misery because
they received little attention from the colonial authorities with regard to provision of
services, (Mbaria O. I, 2000). The shanty towns of Majengo in both Nairobi and
Mornbasa were homes for the wretched of the earth. But there was a difference between
the way these wretched people looked at themselves and the way Europeans viewed
them. While the poor people of Kenya considered themselves as adults with rational
minds, Europeans believed that, indeed, Africans were just children. In her personal
reminiscences, Charity Waciuma summarizes Kenya's colonial situation thus:
I rapidly grew up to dislike these white men who made people
work like slaves and paid them half a shilling a day for it, who
sometimes struck the grown men as if they were children and
indeed threatened us as if, mentally, emotionally we were
permanently children (1969: 52).
The thrust of Waciuma's observation is that colonialists in Kenya did not recognize the
maturity of the Kenyans and in fact treated adults as if they were children. othing could
be racially depressing than this. Subsequently, racism came to be one of the most
touching issues in the colonial period and it remained a crucial grievance for the
nationalist leaders during their struggle for decolonization.
2.4 The Administrative and Military Frontier
The administrative set-up of colonial rule was based on the prefectural model.
Prefectural administration in the colonies was an adaptation of an administrative
apparatus with deep historical roots in the rise of the European nation-state and the early
development of capitalism. Like their later colonial offspring, the original prefectural
administrators played contradictory roles, caught between the imperatives of
centralization, uniformity and order and claims of local rights, particularism and
differential rates of change (Berman, 1990:75-76).
75
Thus, in deploying prefectural administration as the foundation of the colonial state,
European powers draw upon a form for which they had an historic repertory of
experience. For France, in particular, where prefectural administration achieved its arch-
typical development, it represented a well known and practised instrument of control.
For Britain, it was a state form unknown at home, but had been explicitly adopted and
refined in the encounter with indigenous social forces in the non-white colonies of the
Empire, particularly India and Africa (Low, 973: chapter 2; Scott 976:96-81). In virtually
all the European colonies, prefectural governors were the principal agents of the
construction of centralized state power, exercising primary responsibility for the
stimulation of production and trade and the maintenance of public order (Berman Op.Cit:
75).
During colonialism, the administrative and military frontier - Fanon's third
colonial frontier - was purely undisguised violence. As with the town frontier discussed
above, the administrative and military frontiers served different ends in the diverse
colonial society. While, for white settlers, the lines of demarcation guaranteed political
and legal separation, for Algerians, it was sometimes a form of apartheid: complete with
unequal civil and political liberties; together with highly visible institutions of coercion
and oppression. In his analysis of violence, Fanon discussed the effects of
institutionalized and violent apartheid on administrative and military frontiers where the
'geographical layout' was marked by barracks and police stations and where the official
liaison or representative of the settlers and of the oppressive regime was the policeman
and the soldier. It is they who, Fanon thinks, controlled civil populations in their
'reservations' with force and with threats of violence (Fanon, 1967:29).
7(,
But the civil population was not just a simple unit. The civil African population
was complex yet broadly defined by two fundamental identities: race and tribe. The shift
from race to tribe was pioneered by the British and articulated in the policy of indirect
rule. As Mohamood Mamdani has pointed out:
It was a transition made by every colonial power. For there were
compelling reasons that flowed from the very nature of the colonial
encounter. Occupying powers learned that if popular resistance
could not be smashed frontally it would have to be fragmented
through reform...... Race as the main way of defining the social
status of the colonized had two important disadvantages: first it
defined the colonized as a racially oppressed majority; and second it
was difficult to legitimate this mode of control by anchoring it in any
traditional context. As the cutting edge of social Ii fe, racism compounded
rather than eased the problem of rule in colonial context for its thrust was
not to divide and rule but to unite and rule (Marndani, 1996:90).
Consequently, the alternative to racism - as the main way of the social, legal and
political status of the colonized - was tribalism. Unlike race. tribe would dissolve the
majority of the colonized into several tribal minorities. In Kenya, as in colonial South
Africa, the administrative and military focus of British rule was on promoting tribalism
through the appointment of tribal chiefs who in turn 'mediated' between the African
tribes and the colonial authorities. This ensured proper control of the 'natives' by the
colonial rulers. The strategy was effective in establishing and controlling the African
homelands such as Transkei, Ciskei, Venda and Bophuthatswana where the apartheid
policy of separate development was implemented (Devenish, 1987:30). But in Kenya,
this policy brought about the creation of tribal reserves, in the rural areas, which were
allowed some limited 'self rule' that was legitimated through brutal tribal chiefs
appointed by the colonizers. The African chiefs were directly answerable to the
European governors rather than to their own tribesmen and women. It thus goes without
77
saying that formal colonialism employed hegemonic tendencies when it used African
chiefs as bridges to reach the native population.
In theory, the institution of the African chief was used by Europeans to hoodwink
the world that, after all, Africans were in charge of their own destiny because they were
being ruled by personalities from within the black race. However, in practice, the
institution of the chief perpetuated, protected and signified the Western hegemonic
programmes and values over the African people. These programmes and values gave rise
to a highly alienated category of human beings within the native population, dispossessed
of cultural, material, economic and political freedoms. It is the category of hopeless
people that Antonio Gramsci once referred to as the subalterns
In Fanon's Algeria, administrative centres were complex structures designed to
divide rural populations according to ethnic and religious identities. For example, in the
arid southern regions of Algeria, occupied almost entirely by Muslims, the French
presence was primarily a military one (Perinbam, 1982:61) Operating through various
administrative instruments, military personnel specialists in Arabic dialects and cultures,
administered these Southern departments either directly or through local dignitaries such
as bachagas, aghas, qodis and sheikhs (Ibid).
But in areas where European populations existed to some degree, but in small
minority, the administrative formular was different. Here, a type of administration
known as mixed commune was applied, where official policies ensured the submission of
Muslim populations by permitting limited participation in municipal elections and by
leaving local affairs in the hands of qadis or local officials who administered according to
Muslim law. Departmental matters in these mixed communes were, however, handled by
French authorities. Yet in areas where European populations dominated, self-governing
communes prevailed. Here, like in France, an elected mayor administered according to
French laws, customs and municipal traditions.
The administrative and military fabric in colonial Algeria was a combination of
policies which separated the rural elements within the Algerian society. These policies
favoured settlers who, for the most part. lived in jurisdictions separated from the rest of
the Algerian populations. Although there were of course some exceptions, all too
frequently, settler attitudes encouraged discriminatory and authoritarian practices.
Seeking to ensure supremacy at the price of separation, many settlers preferred plural
institutions. which restricted representations. to unitary ones with wider representation as
was the case in more homogeneous societies. Thus, except in those urban areas where
assimilation policies were effectively implemented, the administrative and military
frontier became increasingly conflictual and violent in proportions especially when social
unrest increased in the few years before the outbreak of the Algerian War of
independence in 1954.
In contrast with Algeria, colonial Kenya did not have any self-governing regions.
Yet the question of land and property rights remained emotive and sensitive. In the
coastal regions for example, the question of land become acute after Europeans took
control. Under Bantu law, no individual owned land but tribal authority allocated land to
families for cultivation (Trimingham, 1964: 145). Land could also be allocated to
strangers and Arabs were given permission to settle upon making a regular series of
presents to tribal authorities. They planted coconuts and cultivated by means of slave
labour but the land was not regarded as theirs, only trees and crops which alone could be
79
sold. Africans who had embraced Islam continued to observe traditional land tenure
practices which empowered indigenous people to make decisions about land use.
Although the British administrative policy was that of indirect rule, the highest
ranked African administrative official was the chief who served under colonial District
and Provincial Commissioners. The latter two were all white regardless of which
geographical area one was looking at. The head of the colonial administration was the
Governor. The Governor relied, in his administration, upon selectively recruited colonial
staff most of them with an el itist social and economic background. Many officials of the
administrative staff in colonial Kenya went to school in Britain's leading public schools
such as Eton and Balliol (Furse, 1962 216-232) After 1910, recruitment of
administrators targeted those with Oxford or Cambridge University degrees (Armstrong,
\972: 152). For British administrators, emphasis on good education in privileged
institutions was consistent with the British imperial policy of creating a unified higher
state administrative cadre of the dominant class in Britain sharing, whether they were of
aristocratic or bourgeois origin, a common background, culture and ideas. So the
administrative officers who were recruited for Kenya had this unique background. But
they too were officers who fiercely believed in the project of imperialism.
The imperial administrative staff, it was realized, could not directly deal with and
handle the native because of complex linguistic and cultural reasons. Accordingly, the
post of chief was created to bridge the gap between Europeans and Africans. Chiefs were
chosen from among 'progressive' and collaborating African adults whose loyalty was
skillfully secured through allocation of limited leadership and material responsibilities
(The l airobi Law Monthly, April/May 199\ :27). The chiefs had express authority to use
81 Y
so
force where necessary to ensure that imperial policies were effected. In addition to
mobilizing people to work as labourers on European farms, chiefs played a fundamental
role in collecting tax money. Representing the brutality and heartlessness of the colonial
state, African chiefs in Kenya extorted money from virtually everyone in the district, took
land and livestock and demanded attractive women to sleep with. thus misusing their
powers. Agents of Chief Nabongo Mumia of the Wanga 'sub-tribe' in Western Kenya
were particularly notorious for this kind of behaviour (Mwaturo O. I, 200 I). In addition,
chiefs took bribes to manipulate cases before them, particularly those relating to taxation
and land (Muriuki, 1974: 168-169).
For most Africans in Kenya, the white administrator was the colonial state but
chiefs were an extension of that state. As colonial functionaries, chiefs were assisted in
their work by a tribal police. The police force was deliberately established by the
colonial government to instill fear in the African and to force him to obey colonial laws.
Members of the force were drawn mainly from the non-educated ranks of the African
population (Ruoro 1.0, 2001).
By the orders of chiefs, some 'disobedient' Africans experienced such brutalities
as being forced to work through hailstorms, being punched, handcuffed and inhumanly
kicked ( yongesa OJ: 200). Other resisting Africans were, on the orders of the chiefs,
caned to death or critically injured by a hippo-skin whip (Wasike, 0.1:2001). The
offences punished by death with the express approval of African chiefs and their
European superiors included tax evasion, labour avoidance and subversion (Sifuma, 0.1,
2000). In general, the British administrative machinery signified violence, brutality and
suffering for the majority of the African people. It is, therefore, no wonder that when the
8\
conflict turned irrepressibly violent, chiefs and European administrators become leading
targets of the African violence.
But having considered Fanon's three frontiers of conflict, we found out that in Kenya
there were three more avenues of serious contlict between the Europeans and the
Africans which, for some unexplained reasons, Fanon did not seem to give greater
prominence with regard to colonial Algeria. These avenues existed in the fields of labour
and taxation, education and finally political marginalization.
2.5 Labour and Taxation
From the very start, the colonial regime set out to control indigenous labour.
Europeans considered taxation as the most critical method of compelling the 'native' to
leave his reserve for the purpose of seeking work (East African Standard, February 4,
1913) The same source reports that raising the rate of wages would not increase but
diminish labour because higher wages would enable Africans to easily meet their tax:
obligations as well as their domestic needs. But low wages would motivate Africans to
work harder and for longer periods in order to pay taxes and still spare some little money
for domestic use.
As we have intimated elsewhere, Frantz Fanon argued that colonialism was
established and maintained by violence. This violence was realized through conquest,
through education and through land alienation among other things. We hasten to add that
colonial taxation and labour practices were crucial avenues for sustaining European
violence against the Africans. Africans were taxed without being given an option of
saying no. They were also captured and forced to work on newly acquired European
farms. Between 1919-21, for instance, an acute shortage of labour on European farms
82
forced the then British Governor in Kenya, Sir Edward Northey to use force (Berman,
1990:46). These actions were a fundamental reflection of the structure and content of
European colonial violence in Kenya.
Taxation and the concomitant effects of low wages were, therefore, effectively
employed to stimulate the flow of cheap labour from the reserves. The point of conflict
here is that Africans sold their important labour at low prices decided by Europeans! As
a result of providing non-competitive labour, the standards of living for most African
families remained comparatively low throughout the colonial period. Most households
could not afford such basics as blankets, cooking fat, soap and even a balanced diet
(Wakasa 0.1 200 I)
The highest proportion of labour on European farms was provided by squatters.
Squatting or labour tenancy was a creation of white settler colonialism in Kenya. By the
squatting arrangement, Africans were said to have accepted to work on the white man's
land in order to be temporarily allocated plots on the same land to raise their own food
(Kanogo, 1987). Before 1920, life on European farms was unregulated. On the average,
however, a squatter worked three to six months in a year for his master. In turn, the
squatter could theoretically cultivate as much European land as he wished; he could also
graze his livestock on European farms. But in practice, legal impediments prevented the
Africans from utilizing the settlement farms as they wished. During the time the squatter
worked on a European farm, he earned four shillings and a ration of posho (maize flour)
in a month (Furedi, 1989:40). Posho was given because most Europeans believed that
the nutritional demands of an African did not go beyond maize meal.
However, from 1920 onwards squatters worked under service contracts which ran
from one to five years renewable with 180 working days per year (Ibid.). If in the
process of serving his contract, ownership of land changed, squatters, too passed into the
hands of new owners to complete the contract. This system resembled Europe's
mediaeval serfdom. Furthermore, the squatters, and indeed all the labourers on
European farms had no say in the price of their labour. They were paid what Europeans
thought was appropriate for the African workers. It has to be observed too that even
when squatters raised some food crops such as maize while on European farms, it was the
white man who fixed the prices of such commodities (Wakasa, O. I, 200 I).
As early as 1919, 16.000 Africans, mostly Kikuyu, lived and worked on the land
of white settlers in Naivasha and Nakuru areas of the Rift Valley (Furedi, 1978: 108).
The total white population then in the two areas was only 215 people including women
and children (Ibid.) But just before the outbreak of Mau Mau, there were about 250,000
contract wage labourers in the entire Rift Valley working as squatters (Rosberg and
ottingham, 1966:23; Kanogo, 1987:244). In the 1920 and 1930's the colonial
government in Kenya moved aggressively to systematize labour as a source of revenue.
Chiefs were empowered by colonial authorities to use force to procure labour.
Thus, the only way Africans could pay their taxes was by working as wage earners not
only on state projects, but also on European farms as well. Attempts too were made to
deny Africans alternative means of making a living because of fear of labour flight from
European farms. For example, Africans were barred from growing such high-paying
cash crops as coffee, tea and wheat that would have enabled them to easily settle their tax
obligations and to decline to work on European farms. Under the ative Registration
S-l
Ordinance rules, first passed in 1915, but only brought into force in J 920, the 'kipande'
(labour pass) system was introduced to keep track and control of the men on the farms
(Bennett Op Cit.: 37-40; Clyton and Savage, 1974: 132). This required every male
African over the age of fifteen (15) to register before an administrative officer, when his
finger prints were taken and he was issued with a registration certificate, the 'kipande '.
In line with the British policy of 'divide and rule' the pass bore the name, tribe and
fingerprints of the carrier, his past employer's recornrnendations and the present
employer's stamp (McGregor - Ross, 1968: 189). The 'kipande ' had to be carried at all
times when moving or living outside of the reserves, usually in a metal cylinder, hung
around the neck. Each time an African entered or left employment the employer had to
sign him on or off on the certificate (Berman, 1990:147). By the end of 1920,194,750
certificates had been issued and this climbed to 519, 056 by the end of 1924 and to 1,
197,467 by 193 J (McGregor-Ross, Op.Cit.:, 189-193). Essentially, the pass was a mark
of servility. but more importantly, it enabled employers to keep control of their labourers
(Pad more, 1953:359).
The Registration Ordinance also created a category of 'crimes' as Africans
became liable to fine or imprisonment for failing to carry, for losing, or destroying the
'kipande '. In addition, penalties were provided for employers who failed to demand the
'kipande ' when hiring labour, failed to file with the Registrar the particulars of the
Africans and employed and failed to sign off a worker when his contract was finished
(Berman, 1990: 147). Thus the' kipande' assisted as well in maintaining the cheapness of
labour by restricting both a man's freedom to leave his work and his freedom to bargain
with an employer for a wage not necessarily related to his previous employment'
X5
(Clayton and Savage, 1974: 132). Finally, the 'kipande ' also created opportunities for
abuses by both employers and officials especially with regard to the harassment of men
identified as 'trouble-makers' or 'bad hats' Berman, Op.Cit.: 147). In the Fanonian
sense, the system was a form of psychological violence meted against the Africans by
Europeans. This was deliberately done to deny Africans their freedom of choice, and
movement in addition to promoting the stereotype of the inherent inferiority of the black
man.
Every year the colonial government collected large sums of money in taxes. The
important feature about the tax collection was that Africans, in comparison with either
Europeans or the Asians, seemed to carry the highest tax burden in the colony. Let us
examine the following tax statistics (Table A) from two colonial districts namely Kiambu
and Fort Hall (Murang'a).
TABLE.--\: TAXATION PATTERl\S ALONG RACIAL LINES
District Year Approximate European Asian Total African African
African pop. pop. in Pop. in Revenue Poll & Tax
Figures Figures Figures 111 Hut Burden
Shillings Taxes in in%
Shs.
Kiambu 1927 103053 973 860 589,'+20 466.-+20 79
1932 115.007 - - 361,702 340.200 94
1937 133.721 6.+ 259 397,961 37·U15 9~
1942 142.187 - - H9,741 387,920 86
Fort 1927 162,890 483 705 817,149 768,120 9.+
Hall 1932 171,734 61 432 779,940 729,204 93
(Murang'a) 1937 195.366 52 379 729,055 706,4.+0
I
97
1942 192,208 - 508 723,363 666,657 92
SOURCE: Adopted from the Annual Reports for Kiarnbu and Fort Hall (Murang'a)
Districts for the years indicated (see Bibliography). These reports are
readily available at the Kenya National Archives (KNA), 1 airobi.
A number of conclusions could be drawn from the above statistics. In all the
years targeted, the African population heavily outnumbered both the European and Asian
86
population. The imbalance in population was effectively used by the colonial authorities
by forcing Africans to carry the main ta-x burden.
Yet in terms of income and accessibility to resources, both the Asians and
Europeans were far ahead of Africans (Ochieng and Atieno-Odhiambo, 1995:xv, Zeleza,
1989: 35-36). In their unrestrained eagerness to posses everything, the colonial
oppressors in Kenya developed a conviction to safeguard their strictly materialistic
concept of existence. Money became a measure of all things and profit became the
primary goal. For these oppressors, what was worthwhile was to have more - always
more - even at the cost of the oppressed having less or nothing (Freire, 1973:44).
Therefore, taxation became a significant avenue through which colonial authorities in
Kenya maintained their opulent status and a platform for perpetuating the underprivi leged
status of the oppressed.
Indeed, payment of tax by the oppressed people of Kenya was a colonial
requirement and this requirement was effected by the use of force for those who
attempted to question it. Thus within the Fanonian perspective, colonial taxation could be
said to be a form of violence both at the physical, economic and psychological levels.
For all practical purposes, therefore, taxation was a significant battleground that
perpetuated colonial violence and conflict. Not surprisingly, the African came to target
taxation as one of their grievances against white domination.
Table A above reveals that the African taxation formed almost all the revenue
collected each year. For example, in 1927 the African tax burden in Kiambu District was
79% of the total revenue collected; it rose to 94% in both 1932 and 1937 and dropped
slightly to 86% in 1942. The same trend obtains in Fort Hall District. We need,
R7
however, to stress that even after paying the poll and hut taxes, Africans still had to pay
part of the tax burdens for the remaining percentages of revenue collection. In 1927. for
instance, Africans in Kiambu District paid taxes amounting to 79% of the total revenue
collected that year. But the remaining 21~:oof the revenue, it is important to state, was
not exclusively drawn from Europeans and Asians. In this small percentage, Africans
also contributed through the payment of rents, native registration fees, court fines,
forfeitures, trade license fees and a host of other small taxes created by the colonial
government (DCIKBUI1/20: 12). The Europeans and Asians, on the other hand,
contributed their tax share to the remaining 21% through the payment of non-native poll
tax, education tax, trade license tax and motor vehicle fees.
The above explanations make it clear that the percentages of the African tax
burden as indicated in Table A were, every year, actually higher than they appear. The
tax trends in Fort Hall and Kiambu are a fair representation of tax trends in other districts
across colonial Kenya. Records for other colonial districts including West Pokot, Meru,
North Nyanza and Kitale among others (readily available at the Kenya National Archives
in Nairobi) all point to similar tax trends throughout the colonial period. It may be helpful
to add that many Africans who were employed by government as junior clerks, teachers,
demonstrators and messengers, too, paid taxes and experienced the trauma of earning low
wages.
In 1952, over 46,000 Africans employed in colonial services received less than
two pounds per month (Padmore, Op Cit.: 360). With every few exceptions, Europeans
occupied the top of the colonial economic, political and social pyramid. Their salary
scale was the highest in the colonial state. In 1960, for instance, there were only 61,000
88
Europeans as compared to 169,00 Asians, and 7.8 million Africans. Yet despite these
demographic differences, about 40 per cent of the total wage bill accrued to Europeans
during that year (Ochieng and Atieno-Odhiarnbo, Op.Cit.: xv). However, despite earning
more, Europeans paid less in terms of taxes.
In general, African labour produced most of the wealth which was taken to
Europe for long-term investment. However, some of the taxes collected went into the
maintenance of the colony's administrative set-up as well as in the construction of
physical facilities. The facilities included exclusive hotels, schools, good houses, good
roads and postal as well as telephone networks which collectively defined the European
town Several Kenyans protested the harsh labour conditions and the exploitation of
Africans by Europeans through taxes. Still more 'deserted' labour farms while others
refused to register as colonial citizens (Berman Op Cit.: 146).
But keeping labourers on the jobs remained a continuing problem. In the face of
the grueling work demanded, the frequent cruelty of European and Asian employers and
the generally poor housing and diet, many African labourers 'deserted' duties by running
away from work. In doing this, runaway African labourers also undertook to perfect the
art of evading the payment of taxes. On hearing stories of runaway labourers about the
brutalities of labour policies on European farms, some potential labourers in the reserves
made efforts to avoid the ritual of registering as colonial citizens (Berman, 1990:46).
But any infringement of labour laws was considered a very serious crime In
colonial Kenya and the heaviest penalties were imposed on those found 'deserting' labour
duties (Aaronovitch and Aaronovitch, 1947: 113). Through the Kenya and tribal police,
the provincial administration periodically constrained African movement outside of the
reserves and limited their freedom to enter and leave employment. Punishment for labour
otTences ranged from physical flogging, monetary fines to imprisonment (Wangamati
O. I, 2000). The entire system of labour and taxation was violent.
It, therefore, seems obvious that both labour and taxation were strategically
appropriated by the colonialists to promote uneven development in favour of Europeans.
It is our argument here that both labour and taxation were important zones of conflict
during the period of Kenya's decolonization.
2.6 Education
Another avenue of colonial conflict was education. Apart from being designed to
prove the black man's inferiority, colonial education aimed at training individuals for the
service of colonial society (Nyerere, 1968:269) Furthermore, it had the objective of
training Africans, not for independence but for subservience (Odinga, 1967:63) Settlers,
according to Daniel Sifuna, held the view that African education should be directed
towards a useful labour force (Sifuna, 1985:4). The introduction of Western education in
Kenya undermined the value of traditional African education.
Traditional African education emphasized human relations and behaviour. It also
stressed the importance of communal activities. In the multi-tribal society of Kenya,
tribal cohesion was vital for survival. Each tribe had to foster its own identity and having
done that ensure that identity was preserved. One aspect of education, therefore, was the
maintenance of this unity while a second one prepared the individual for his rights and
responsibilities in the family, clan or tribe (Mutua, 1975:9). Thus traditional education
<)0
transcended all economic considerations and was not concerned with teaching the
individual to earn a living.
Western education, on the other hand, was not only individualistic but also
materialistic. While traditional education taught individuals to be members of a cohesive
society, Western education was based on individualism and had little relation to society
(Kenyatta, 196812) With the coming of Europeans, economic considerations became
paramount in education (Ibid, 1975: 10) During colonialism, Europeans created a need in
some Africans to make an individual living and Western education provided the means to
do this. By introducing the 'certificate cult', the colonial government set the African
people on the road to the modern economic world defined and perpetuated by Eurocentric
forms of knowledge and values.
It is, however, practically impossible to obliterate a civilization without
exterminating the people who hold that civilization The intention of the white
immigrants into Africa was to suppress the African ways of life and to superimpose their
own form of civilization on the indigenous people. The method of achieving this end was
seen as vital. All aspects of African life had to be covered to ensure total cultural
strangulation. This was covered in a one-pronged approach, literacy, education,
civilization and Christianity. These four aspects of European life were introduced
together with no distinction between them (Isiye 0:1, 2001). If one wanted to become
literate, one would only do so in a mission school where one was forced to be a Christian.
After their initial resistance to Europeans, the Africans became inspired with a
desire for Western standards, chief among which was literacy. Under the circumstances,
prevalent at that time, literacy guaranteed economic progress. Furthermore, literacy came
91
to be equated with Christianity and Christianity too became equated with economic
progress. But as time passed by, especially with the increase in indigenous literates,
Africans came to realize that Western education was all about literacy and foreign ways
of life. It was thus incapable of helping them cope with social, economic and political
conditions that had been imposed on them. Furthermore, they realized that in its Western
form, education had been tailored to keep them perpetually subservient to the Europeans
(Wekesa 0.1, 2002).
Colonial education, which was an extension of Western education imposed on the
African mind certain binaries including those of colonizer/colonized, primitive/ civilized,
European/Other as well as religious/superstitious. These binaristic mapping of power
relations gave the impression that through colonialism, civilization and modernity would
flow from the centre which was the West to the periphery which was Africa. This false
notion had to be forced down the throats of the oppressed African people with the result
that colonial subjects surrendered their identity to the West. In this way, education seems
to have been transformed into a critical instrument for destroying the African identity.
It is crucial to observe that the entire project of colonial education brought to the fore
two critical issues - humanization and dehumanization. With the objective of sustaining
the control of the Africans, colonial education was designed to dehumanize the people of
Kenya. A fundamental feature of this education was its narrative character. Through
narration, the oppressed people were made to be passive recipients of the colonial
teacher. The contents and values of the narrative were those glorifying the superiority of
the white people. The curriculum was alien and unable to articulate the local reality.
Narration led African students to memorize mechanically the narrated content that
was for all practical purposes British in structure (Wangila O. I 2002). As our oral
respondent Joseph Wangila recalled, his school days were marked by singing 'God save
the King', every mornings and every evenings (Wangila 0.1, 2002). Distinguished
Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire himself a follower of Fanons, summarizes this
experience when he says of the oppressor's narration that:
Worse yet, it turns them (students) into 'containers', into receptacles
to be 'filled' by the teacher. The more completely he fills the
receptacles the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles
permit themselves to be tilled, the better students they are (Freire, 1972:58).
Education thus becomes an act of depositing in which students of the oppressed lot
are the dispositories and their teacher (a colonial functionary) is the depositor. Instead of
communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which students
patiently receive, memorize and repeat. In Kenya, students of the oppressed lot were
supposed to memorize content which articulated the so-called inferiority and savagery of
the African people and to highlight the perpetual superiority of Europeans. Paulo Freire
calls this, the 'banking' concept of education in which the scope of action allowed to the
students extends only as far as receiving, filling and storing deposits (Ibid.: 58).
In the 'banking' concept of education, knowledge was a gift bestowed by those
Europeans who considered themselves knowledgeable upon those Kenyan Africans
whom they considered to know nothing. Yet projecting an absolute ignorance onto
others, a character of the ideology of oppression, seems to me to negate education and
knowledge as processes of inquiry and invention. Tragically, the imperial education·
project allowed the colonial teacher to present himself to his African students as their
necessary opposite; by considering their Ignorance absolute, he justified his own
existence.
Alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, the students accepted their
ignorance, thereby justifying the teacher's existence. But with time, the African students
came to realize that like the Hegelian slave, rebellion against this oppression was
possible. If we consider colonial education as dehumanizing. we should also accept that
the same education imposed a violent psychological experience on the indigenous people,
thereby perpetuating what Ngugi wa Thiong'o calls' mental colonization (Ngugi, 1986).
By rejecting this system, the natives were throwing a violent blow to the Europeans who
had initially rejected and worked hard to destroy Africa's educational values.
In Kenya, three parties controlled African education. They were the missions, the
government and the settlers. Almost unanimously, the three parties concurred that
vocational. industrial and religious instruction should constitute the African curriculum.
Imbued with racial feel ings of superiority, most whites considered spiritual, vocation and
industrial education as best suited for Africans (Berman, 1975a). The first mission
centres (for instance the Rabai mission near Mombasa) date back to the 1850s.
Missionary education emphasized the Christianization of the black soul because
Christianity was viewed as the universal religion of mankind. Every other non-Western
religion was, in the European consideration, superstition or witchcraft (Mugo 0.1, 2000).
But in his rebellious disposition, Fanon remarks that:
Christianity preaches subservience kills the
spirit and values of the native. It is like D.D.T which
destroys parasites (1967:32).
True, missionary education in Kenya killed the African spirit and destroyed the African
identity, creating a highly obedient class of Africans who became a fundamental tool for
the capitalist exploitation of colonial Kenya.
It seems to me that some of the Africans who had gone through rmssionary
education detested it later. This was because, apart from being of low quality, missionary
education had been designed to keep them out of politics and critical reflection (Njoka,
Ruoro O. I, 1999). European and Asian children went to special, rather than missionary,
schools that had the facilities to prepare learners for secondary and university education.
Higher education for Europeans and Asians could be acquired abroad but it also
guaranteed high positions of management and responsibility. This situation had the
effect of nurturing the fertile grounds for hostility between Africans on the one hand and
Europeans and Asians on the other.
Industrial education in the colony could be traced back to 1909, when J. l elson
Frazer, a colonial official from Bombay was commissioned by the British government to
recommend an appropriate system of education for the East African Protectorate (later
known as Kenya colony). Fraser advised the colonial authorities
, .. not (to) put forward plans for literary education for
Negroes but to consider the possibilities of developing
industries among them (The Leader of East Africa,
October 30, 1909)
In the spirit of Fraser's recommendations, Africans were denied literary education
because it was considered too superior for the black intellect. Accordingly, the British
authorities embarked on aggressive projects to train Africans in basic skills with regard to
smelting, carpentry, agriculture, tailoring and typing. Influenced by the ideas of Booker
T. Washington, the African-American scholar who advocated vocational education for
95
blacks, the then director of education in colonial Kenya J. Orr circulated a memo to
mission schools urging them to undertake more industrial education as way of helping
'docile natives' (King, 1971: 104). (
Following the recommendations of the Phelps-Stokes Commission of 1924, the
Jeans School for industrial education was established in Kabete, Nairobi (Ibid.). More
industrial schools were established in Narok, Loitokitok and Kipkelion. Mission schools
in Kikuyu, Kibwezi and yeri started 'setting up workshops for industrial education.
Indeed, by 1949 the colonial government had established the Beecher Commission with
the aim of reviewing African education. The Beecher report. among other things
emphasized the need for having pupils retain their rural attitudes. As well, the report
stressed the teaching of rural science and handicrafts to intermediate schools.
Most importantly, at the time when hostilities between African and Europeans
were at fever pitch, the Beecher Commission warned against any attempts to teach
literary education that would produce a subversive force that would be inimical to
colonial authorities (African Education: The Beecher Report, 1949: vii-viii). The fear of
teaching literary education was grounded in the colonial officials' belief that such
education would excite the Africans politically. Yet exciting Africans politically went
against the principal of 'banking' education. In its broadest sense colonial 'banking'
education sought to minimize or annul the students' creative power and to stimulate their
credulity. Colonial authorities were, therefore, swift in dismantling any efforts to change
the status quo in education. As Freire notes:
Thus, they (oppressors) react almost instinctively against
any experiment in education which stimulates the critical
faculty .... (Ibid.: 60).
The racial attitudes of providing quality education were also reflected in the field
of funding. Despite the fact that in sheer numbers, school-age African children
outnumbered Europeans at any given time during the colonial period. African education
received very little funding (Ingham, 1963:337). In 1925, for example, the colonial
government spent Kshs. 524,835.85 on European education which represented 33% of
the national budget on education as compared to Kshs. 424,279.47 on African education
which represented 26.6% and Kshs. 23,862.68 on Indian education which represented
15%, with the remaining 25.4% going to administrative costs (Educational Annual
Report. 1925:2-6) Below, is presented concrete statistical data for the years 1943 and
1944 to demonstrate once again that European education received more funding than
either African, Asian or Arab education (see Table B).
TABLE B: EDUCATION EXPENDITURE IN SHILLINGS AND
PERCENTAGES
I I jND [AJ"I
I ITOTAL IYEAR ADMINIS- AFRICAN ARAB EURO- IEXTRATRATION I PEAN ICOSTS
19·U '+25,820 1,502.360 98,520 1,0'+0.800 1,756.900 - '+.82-+,40 I8.8'% ~ • 01. 2% 22°;;, 36%J 1/0 I
19.+.+ '+30,260 1.879,360 157,280 1,272,9'+0 2,392,620
I ~;l,800 16,3om I6.8(1.) I 30% 3% 20% 38%
SOURCE: Education Annual Reports, Kenya National Archives (KNA) 1943 and
1944.
From the table, there appears to be some progressive consistency in the enrolment of
European and Indian pupils in school. However, the irregularity of the African enrolment
seems evident. This inconsistency could be attributed to the violent and disruptive
capacity of colonial land and administrative policies which affected the African people
97
more than any other person who lived in the colony. Yet despite the irregularity (either
the sudden drop or rise in numbers) African pupils were always numerically more than
either European or Asian students. Yet as Table C (below) shows. despite the
demographic superiority of the African enrolment, the colonial government spent very
little money on the education of individual African pupils.
TABLE'C: COMPARATIVE PER-CAPITA EXPENDITURE FOR THE
EDUCATION OF THE DIFFERENT RACES
YEAR RACE NO. OF PUPILS TOTAL PER CAPITA
EXPEi\OITURE IN KSHS.
IN SHS.
Arab and
African 26.269 35.612 U
1925 Indian IA75 11.768 7.9
IEuropean 5.' -l n.I07 -l1.7
Arab and
African 13.312 83.088 6.2
1930 Indian 3.537 30.582 8.6
European 1,1-l-l -l9.189 -l3
Arab and
African 22,9-l0 82,323 3.6
1931 Indian -l.285 3-l.3-l8 8.0
European 1,16-+ 49,189 -+2.2
Arab and
African 99.165 74,097 0.7
1935 Indian 6,627 3-+,O6-l 5.1
European 1,168 4-l,O-+1 37.7
SOURCES: Times Education Supplement, No. 554 of2811111925 p.S2. Education
Annual Reports 1925,1930,1931,1935 (K.N.A.).
<)~
Looking at the per capita expenditure for the education of the different races, we note
that less money was comparatively invested in an African pupil (lumped together with
Arabs) than in either the European or Asian. This discrepancy in funding seems to have
underscored the colonial government's belief in the inferiority of the back people
(Huxley, 1932:389-92)
The consequence of providing uneven education opportunities and resources as
evidenced in the above statistics was that African pupils had to live with such problems
as congestion in classrooms, shortage of teachers and other inconveniences related to
insufficient funding. The racial overtones which accompanied the provision and funding
of African colonial education seemed to imply that the programme of Western education
was deliberately being tailored to produce 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' (Dodd
1960: 14). That is why fricans did not passively accept the colonial discriminatory
policies in education.
Several areas of contlict which emanated from the crisis of colonial education in
Kenya could be cited. Since the first education programmes were associated with
missions, the first conflict was between missionaries and the indigenous people. In the
first decades of the 201h century, education was aimed at children and adolescents
(Anderson, 1973: 106). This meant that it interfered with tribal rites and instruction and
many Africans opposed it because it tore away children from their tribal way of life.
Further, children played an important role in the family economic life. The parents did
not see any immediate benefits to be gained by sending their children to school when
they should have been herding cattle, goats and helping in the gardens. To make matters
worse, the parents expected youths who went to mission stations to be paid as labourers
99
for helping in the construction of mission houses and for working on mission gardens.
This situation raised conflicts that affected school enrolment.
In the second place, the Africans conflicted with missionaries because of the issue
of land. When missionaries were identified with the land grievance and their form of
education failed to meet the circumstances of the times, criticism of and opposition to
missionary influence deepened to erupt in the 1929-31, 'circumcision controversy'. As a
result of land 'purchase' by the missionaries, existing villages came under mission
control with all that this meant in terms of access to the local people and pressure on
them to attend catechism and send their children to mission schools (Mutua O~iL 29)
A general conflict developed as the missionaries sought to tear people from traditional
society and ways of life condemning all rites and rituals of ancestral worship as 'idolatry'
(Ibid). It thus became evident that the missions were beacons of irrelevant education;
they signified the demise of traditional life and they epitomized European land alienation
in Kenya. All these were contributory features to the process of violently destroying the
African cultural life and the subsequent replacement of African traditional lifestyles with
European customs.
In the 1920's, two major African protest movements against British educational
policies are on record. First, nascent political associations such as Young Kavirondo
Association petitioned the colonial government to provide among other things, secondary
education hitherto completely neglected. (Nairobi Law Monthly, April/May 1991). The
second protest came around 1929. This time, the Presbyterian Church of the East African
Mission based at Kikuyu banned its members from carrying on with the ritual of
clitoridectomy (female circumcision!) without considering the ritual's relevance to the
100
African society. It was a common practice for missions to ridicule African cultural
values. The acrimony which followed the proscription of the African ritual at Kikuyu,
forced some Africans to withdrew their children from the mission schools and the church
(Mutua, 1975:33). The rebels formed the Kariug'u Association (!\.ariIlKu- meaning
traditionalists) which laid the foundation for the establishment of the Independent
Schools Association (Ibid.: 34). With the focused objective of setting up African schools
and churches, the Karing'a Association moved quickly to establish schools in Kiambu,
Murang'a, Ernbu, Meru and the Maasai country. This was a typical case of conflict
within the education zone. But underneath this conflict was the African peoples' realistic
search for an independent identity and recognition.
The first reaction of the colonial authorities to the Independent School movement
was to detain some of its leaders. But on second thought, the colonial government
allowed the registration of independent schools in the hope that such schools would
provide a safety value through which African tensions could escape (Mugweru 0.1,
2000). But this supposition was wrong. Lacking in everything from books to teachers,
independent schools became crucial centres for promoting anti-Western sentiments.
Indeed, independent schools became centres of agitation against colonialism.
Evidently, several leaders of the independence struggle in Kenya including Mbiu
Koinange and Jomo Kenyatta worked at the independent schools. Koinange, for
example, taught at the Githunguri Teachers College which was born out of the womb of
the Independent School Movement (Mutua, Op Cit.: 34). Not surprisingly, during the
Emergency, the British governor closed all the independent schools and colleges. Thus,
the struggle for quality and relevant education represented the quest by the colonial
lOl
subjects of Kenya to humanize themselves by dismantling the discriminative educational
policies and programmes that were the hall-marks of colonial rule.
2.7 The Problem of Political ;\larginalization
Leon Blum once defined colonialism as the forceful domination and exploitation
of natural resources by the colonizer in a way which was disavowed by law, by modern
standards of morality and by all that belongs to .the history of humanity (as quoted in
Mandouze, 1961 :48). Blum, a former French governor in Algeria made these remarks
after being upset that his white French Algerian legislators had declined to approve a bill
to offer citizenship to some 20,000 Algerian Muslims. Though a white colonial
functionary, Blum's observations seem to agree with Fanons reservations about
colonialism.
The central theme of British colonialism in Kenya was domination and
exploitation. In the modernist sense, political democracy meant the will of the majority
freely expressed through the ballot box while respecting the rights of minorities. In the
Kenya colony, the African majority had neither the ballot nor the freedom to bring
change. Under colonialism, democracy was narrowly interpreted as the right of a small
white minority to rule over an overwhelming black majority. As a result of this attitude,
the political peripheralization of the African people in the Kenya colony became
institutionalized. Africans had no rights to vote and were not for many years represented
in the colonial assembly in Nairobi. The European master thought for and represented
Africans in virtually every economic, political and social spheres of life.
Colonialism too demanded the exclusion of Africans from government because an
African participation was seen as a threat to the survival of the colonial project (Ake,
102
1978:82-89). In political terms, therefore, colonialism was a dictatorship. It was
imposed by violence and maintained by violence. Ruling with utter indifference to the
opinion by the governed - the Africans - colonialism perfected a reign of terror by
silencing its opponents through detentions, exile, even outright extermination (Maloba.
1995:9). There is hardly an African country that does not have its list of martyrs of
freedom - those that were killed, imprisoned or detained for opposing specific or general
colonial policies. The job of persecuting and harassing colonial subjects was done by
colonial administrators. But these administrators were appointed and not elected. They
owed their allegiance to foreign centres of power, represented in the colonies by
governors. They were not accountable to Africans for their actions nor did they pretend
. to be constrained in their actions by local opinions. Because they were part of a
dictatorial system, they relied on force of arms to implement policies.
Frantz Fanon once observed that:
Decolonization which sets out to change the order of the world
is obviously a programme of complete disorder. But it cannot
come as a result of magical practices, nor of a national shock,
nor of a friendly understanding. Decolonization as we know is
a historical process that is to say that it cannot be understood, it
cannot become intelligible nor clear to itself except in the exact
measure that we can discern the movements which give it historical
form and content (1967:27).
As early as 1917, returning African World War I veterans seemed to worry the
colonial authorities because of the worldwide exposure these veterans had gained in war.
(The Nairobi Law Monthly, April-May 1991:27). Subsequently, the colonial government
put in place a deliberate strategy to encourage tribal instead of countrywide nationalism.
This strategy was fueled by the British tactics of 'divide and rule'. Between 1920 and
1940, several ethnically based organizations petitioned the colonial government on very
un
senous Issues. Unfortunately, for the British, as time went by most of the issues raised
by the African tribal associations assumed not just a national pedigree because they
affected every African across the colony. but they also reflected the deep political
marginalization of the colonial subjects.
The first African association, the Kikuyu Association was formed just before
1920 by such colonial chiefs as Koinange wa Mbiu, Josiah Njonjo and Kinyanjui wa .
Gathirimu (Spencer, 1985:25). The Association was not in essence opposed to the
colonial rule; rather its members merely sought to improve the people's material
conditions within the colonial framework. The toothlessness of the Kikuyu Association
forced Harry Thuku, then a young Kikuyu telephone operator in Nairobi, to form his own
Young Kikuyu Association in 1921 (Thuku, 1970:20). Thuku's Association attracted an
urban membership drawn from various East African communities residing in 1 Iairobi.
Thuku travelled extensively to several parts of the colony to popularize his Association
and to deliver it from a tribal cacoon.
Unsuccessfully, Thuku petitioned the colonial government, against colonialism.
He also published the first African newspaper Tangazo, which articulated the African
grievances (Mungean, 1960:489-508). Sensing trouble from his activities, the colonial
. authorities arrested and subsequently deported Harry Thuku to Kismayu (Ibid.: 523). A
peaceful pro- Thuku mass demonstration of about 5,000 Africans was held in front of the
present-day Nairobi's Central Police Station, prompting the police to open fire which left
at least 21 people dead. Further, the Kikuyu Association was proscribed.
The case of Thuku is a typical expression of violent conflicts which characterised
colonial relations. Frantz Fanon explains that the naked truth of decolonization 'evokes
10.+
searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it' (1967:28). The crushing
of the pro- Thuku demonstration was a clear signal by British authorities that they would
not tolerate meaningful political agitation from the African people. Further. it was a
warning to all the African nationalists who wanted to articulate trans-tribal issues that
they would also be crushed. Indeed, elsewhere. Fanon stated clearly that colonialism was
separatist. It did not just simply state the existence of the tribe but it in fact reinforced it.
Thuku was going beyond his tribe and he had therefore to be crushed.
Other ethnic organizations which followed the Kikuyu Association included the
Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), the Ukamba Members Association (UMA), the
Kavirondo Taxpayer's Association (KTW A) as well as the Taita Hills Association
(THA). 111 these Associations pursued a tribal agenda but nevertheless they established
a base of confrontation and conflict against which the nationalist struggle was later
tailored. In general. the grievances of these Africans associations ranged from struggle to
retain the dignity of African culture, the petitions against poor education and taxation
policies to the demand for the African participation in government.
In the 1940s, a number of events in the colony transformed the conflict between
the Africans and Europeans to new levels. First, African World War II veterans led by
Bildad Kaggia teamed up with the few educated Africans led by James Gichuru to found
the Kenya African Union (KAU) (Bennet, Op. Cit.: 111, Spencer, Op. Cit.: 115-147).
KAU broke ranks with tribal organizations and established its branches countrywide.
KAU aimed at uniting all Africans in Kenya and fought for equality between Africans
and Europeans. KAU too asked the Europeans to return the African land (Ibid.: 132).
Led by Governor Philip Mitchell, the European settlers condoned the activities of KAU,
IOS
at least for the time being, since the party was considered moderate and peaceful in its
demands. But these peaceful demands occurred against a humiliating backdrop of
European violence in the colony. This violence was realized everywhere as the settler
government made deliberate efforts to implement educational, political as well as social
and economic policies (see Chapter 3). Increasingly, some African leaders began to
appreciate the futility of pursuing peaceful methods to bring about desired change. Thus,
violence became an inevitable force to counter violence .'
Contributing to the problematic of the struggle against colonial domination,
Frantz Fanon observed that decolonization was always a violent phenomenon (1967:27)
True to this prediction and interpretation some members of KAU began to embrace
violence in order to liberate Kenya. From 1947 onwards the young men of KAU decided
that a more radical approach was crucial in forcing the Europeans to address the African
problems (Edgerton, 1990: 5 I) Led by Bildad Kaggia, John Mungai and Fed Kubai, the
young men established a radical wing within KAU that later sparked off the violent Mau
Mau war of liberation (Rosberg and Notthingham Op.Cit.: 220).
Besides KAU, Africans expressed their disgust about British colonialism through
trade unions and newspapers. In the late 1940s Trade Unions such as Fred Kubai's
Kenya African Road Transport and Mechanics' Union, Bildad Kaggai's Clerks' and
Commercial Workers' Union, Chege Kibacha's African Workers Federation and Makhan
Singh's East African Trade Union Congress eschewed the traditional distinctions between
labour and politics and became powerful tools for political articulation and mobilization,
especially in urban areas (Kaggia, 1975: 78-79). Within this spirit, the East African
Trade Union Congress demanded independence for Kenya, in 1950 (Singh 1969:273-80.
lOG
In response to this demand, the colonial government acted decisively by arresting
Makhan Singh and later detaining him without trail at the remote orth- Western fort of
Lokituang where he stayed for II years (Ibid.) Other trade union leaders such as Kubai
were also intimidated by several short-lived arrests. The African people reacted to the
colonial government's purge on trade unionists by going on a strike which paralyzed
Nairobi for nine days (Ibid.).
The African newspapers published during the late 1940's included, Wiyathi,
Baraza, Uhuru wa Mwafirika, Rongo ya Meru, Wasya Wa Mukambo, Mumbi, Hindi ya
Kikuvu and Muramati among others. These newspapers wrote mostly in local languages
and they dealt variously with critical social economic and political issues which affected
Africans within the difficult colonial experience (Clayton and Kilingray, 1989: 114-116).
In general, the newspapers helped to raise the people's level of political consciousness
which was necessary for any meaningful struggle for freedom.
Conflict between the colonial government and Africans was also noticed in the
activities of African religious sects. Such independent religious groups as 'Dini ya
Musambwa' and 'Dini ya Kristo' put pressure on the colonial government to bring
changes. In addition to condemning the European occupation of African land, African
religious sects campaigned for the preservation of African cultural values. African
religious sects too insisted on the freedom and independence of the African people (Ogot,
1977: 276-282). Indeed, these and many other indigenous African religious groups
legitimized the spirituality against which the inner-domain of the nation-state (which we
discussed in Chapter One) was founded). The colonial government reacted to African
107
religious pressure by frequently arresting and detaining religious figures such as Elijah
Wa Nameme of Dini ya Musambwa and by driving others underground.
2.8 Conclusion
In this Chapter, we set out to demonstrate how colonialism in Kenya gave rise to
serious conflicts between the African people and the Europeans. The Chapter addressed
the three zones of conflict which Frantz Fanon viewed as platforms of conflict between
the colonizer and the colonized. Fanon's three zones include the land question, the
European town and finally the administrative Frontier.
Recognizing that Fanon's three zones were mainly derived from French colonial
Algeria, this Chapter has shown that, in British colonial Kenya, there were more zones of
conflict than those that obtained in the Fanonian analysis. In going beyond the three
Fanonian zones, the Chapter identified and critiqued more zones of conflict in colonial
Kenya including those of education, labour and taxation, and finally the sphere of
political marginalization and African participation. These zones were avenues through
which colonial rule was ruthlessly maintained. However, the same zones came to be
platforms on which the indigenous people of Kenya, operating as the dispossessed
subaltern community within the colonial equation, launched their resistance and counter-
violence against British imperialism. In Chapter three, we explore the making of colonial
violence from Mau Mau insurgency to the independence watershed.
IOS
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 THE MAKING OF VIOLE:\CE IN COLONIAL KENYA: FRO;\I MAlJ
MAU TO INDEPENDENCE, 1945-1963
3.1 Introduction
In Chapter two, we identified a number of critical avenues through which colonial
contlict was registered. It was pointed out that contlict in the Kenyan colony manifested
itsel f in such spheres as the native town, the land crisis, the administrative frontier, the
taxation and labour fields and, of course, the education arena. Through these fundamental
spheres, colonization undertook to violently deny the African people all basic rights. The
ultimate result of this situation was the systematic alienation of the African people from
their true identity, their cultural institutions and their land. Violence, became a crucial
strategy to overcome this state of hopelessness.
But what really is the meaning of violence? It need not be lost on us that violence
is any relation, process or condition by which an individual or group violates the physical
social and psychological integrity of another person or group. From this perspective,
violence inhibits human growth negates inherent potential, limits productive living and
causes death (Coser, 1966:298-303).
Distinguished German philosopher and economic theorist, Karl Marx sa~ every
society as inherently contlictual. According to Marx, societies are in ceaseless contlict
because human beings are always struggling for a better living. Tn their struggle for a
living, in their dialogue with nature, men develop certain instruments, tools and forms of
labour and experiences which Marx described as productive forces (Fischer, 1970:25).
\0<)
Marx described as production relations, the relations governing men's existence, which
are essentially dependent on who owns the means of production.
Because there is a continuing struggle over the ownership of the means of
production social relations of production are not permanent. They keep changing as men
struggle to appropriate the social product which results from specific social relations.
From the Marxican perspective, social conflicts define and explain the demise or the
development of such economic and social systems as communalism, slavery, feudalism
and capitalism (Ibid.). The overthrow of any of these systems entails a revolutionary
process. Marx saw the possibility of a peaceful revolution but he was convinced that a
violent revolution was often inevitable to smash the machinery of the state. He observed
thus:
We must declare to the governments; we know that you are
the armed power which is directed against the proletariat.
We shall proceed against you by peaceful means where possible,
and by force of arms if necessary (Fischer quoting Marx,
1970: 132)
Clearly, the Marxian violence is rooted in the social relations of the entire society and it
is not thus owned by anyone distinctive group.
But Frantz Fanon's notion of violence differs from that of Karl Marx 10 one
fundamental way. According to Fanon:
The violence which has ruled over the ordering of the
colonial world, which has ceaselessly drummed the
rhythm for the destruction of native social forms and
broken up without reserve the systems of reference of
the economy, the customs of dress and external life, the
same violence will be claimed and taken over by the
native ... (Fanon, 1967:31).
110
Evidently, Fanon reasons that it was the colonizer who introduced the culture of violence
into the colonized. Thus, the logic goes, once the colonized internalized the oppressors'
violence he, in turn, used it against the latter. According to Fanon. resistance to the
colonizer's violence constitutes counter-violence. He contends that without this variant
of violence, freedom was fugitive. However, the Fanonian contextualization of violence
seems to miss the point that violence was a permanent feature of every society and. cannot
thus be claimed by any race, ethnic community or social group.
By thinking that the violence of the colonized was the same violence he had
acquired from the colonizer, Fanon demonstrated very little understanding of the intricate
social structures of colonial societies in general, and the African communities in
particular. In Africa, violence had a certain social justification. It was legitimized
resistance against oppression and was also justified as a self-defence mechanism. This is
because it is as unafrican to obediently accept oppression without putting up a resistance.
However, a recourse to violence in Africa was often the last reSOI1. Consent and
consensus were critical tools employed by the African societies to resolve social conflicts
so as to avoid unnecessary violence. Thus, African societies valued the virtues of
compromise .and reciprocity in social relations. At the heart of every conflict resolution
process in Africa were respected traditional institutions patronized by elders. Did Fanon
trace the historical base for mediating violence in Africa?
In the Fanonian context, violence does not seem to have an end. Yet we know
that, in Africa, violence could still be terminated through consensus. Might colonial
violence be a reflection of the failure on the part of the colonial authorities to master and
understand the various ways of managing conflicts in Africa? Could this, we may ask, be
III
the same problem the postcolonial regimes in Africa have faced since the early 1960s?
Probably because of his Martinican displacement in the African Diaspora Frantz Fanon
was unable to theorize on violence from the African standpoint.
But the foregoing theorization does not constitute a senseless dismissal of Fanon 's
thesis on violence. It raises many valuable arguments. For instance, there is no question
that colonialism oppressed its subjects through violent intimidation and outright use of
force. Frantz Fanon has demonstrated - in Black Skin White Masks as well as in The
Wretched of the Earth - that colonial oppression and one of its expressions, racism,
legitimized structural violence that permeated through the cultural and material
arrangements of society (Yeats, 1994:42). To overcome this violence, Fanon reasons, the
colonized had no alternative but to fight for the colonizer's recognition. Relying on
Hegel, Fanon avers that the oppressed and the oppressor were each other's key to sanity.
Only by recognizing the other, the logic goes, can we come to recognize ourselves This,
however, cannot occur when any notion of inferior or superior prevails. Taking this
dialectic further, we can argue that in Africa the violent and oppressive colonial policies
signified a lack of mutua! recognition between the Africans and the Europeans. Thus, the
violent African responses to European negation came to demonstrate a great struggle for
recognition. Fanon was certain that only the mutual recognition of the belligerents could
ensure the permanent liberation of individuals and the society.
Our objective in this Chapter is to demonstrate that the Mau Mau upnsing
signalled the peak of colonial violence in Kenya. Mau Mau was, therefore, the logical
outcome of years of conflict between the colonial authorities and the African people.
Besides, we also show that the Mau Mau violence was in itself a fundamental quest for
112
identity by the African people. Furthermore, we point out that Mau Mau violence was
not a generalized phenomenon of all Kenyans seeking to free themselves from colonial
rule.
3.2 Gathering the Storm of Violence, 1945-1952
Promoted by the 1939 White Highlands Order in Council, European settlers in
Kenya sought to increase their numbers through closer settlement and their acreage
through expanded production (Atieno-Odhiambo, 1995:27). Consumed by the culture of
what historian David Anderson describes as the 'tyranny of property' and eager to
consolidate Kenya as a 'White Man' Country', European settlers increased the pace of
land alienation after 1945 (Anderson, 1987, 249-268). This program was achieved at the
cost of great pain resulting from physical and psychological violence meted against the
Africans
In addition to closer settlement involving the settling of young white soldiers on
land, there was the provision of settling up Egerton College in Njoro for their exclusive
use. More significantly, the process of mechanization of settler agriculture began during
the Second World War years, became more intensified thereby rendering the squatters'
.,
labour obsolete. In both cases, there was loss of land to Europeans and lose of a
livelihood by the squatting community (Atieno-Odhiarnbo, Op.Cit.:27). Physically,
capital and technology drove the squatters from the surface of the land, terminating the
contract between them and the settlers and ultimately causing both physical and
psychological pain on the African populations. The rapid changes in land alienation and
land use programmes affected the more than 250,000 African squatters living in forests
113
and settler lands within the Rift Valley (Youe, 1987:210). Halfofthese were Kikuyu. In
the ensuing years, it was this population that had to be cut down through a combination
of state coercion and settler rejection.
Similar measures taken against squatters in the Njoro region were also atfected
among the Tugen pastoralists in the Lembus Forest (Anderson, 1987:262-265). In the
Uasin Gishu plateau, squatters faced colonial assault in the years after 1946, where
repatriation of their stock to reserves was a common feature of their lives. In 1950 for
instance, 53,000 head of cattle were voided out of the district into the surrounding reserve
(Youe, 1988:59) Yet in the reserves, there was little room to keep the animals. The
white authorities were thus practicing violence against the Africans who were being
rendered homeless and property-less in the lands of their birth.
Through the 1939 White Highlands Order in Council, the British government set
up more White Highlands to protect their European interests. This caused congestion in
the reserves prompting some African communities to raid adjacent reserves in search of
pasture and land. For instance, the Ilchamus pastoralists found themselves locked in
struggle against the Tugen for access to pasture; the Nandi against the Luo and Luhya in
Nyando and Kipkaren valleys (Atieno-Odhiarnbo, Op.Cit.:29). This sort of violence in
which the African saw his fellow African, rather than the settler, as the ultimate enemy
was envisaged by Frantz Fanon when he stated thus:
While the settler or the policeman has the right to strike
the native, to insult him and to make him crawl to them,
you will see the native reaching for his knife at the
slightest hostile or aggressive glance cast on him by another
native; for the last ... resort of the nati ve is to defend his
personality vis-a.-vis his brother. Tribal feuds only serve to
perpetuate old grudges deep buried into the memory .
...... .By throwing himself with all his force into vendetta the
I 1-+
native tries to persuade himself that colonialism does not exist
..... (\967:42).
But for how long would this pretense continue In Kenya') For how long would the
African embrace the habit of avoidance behaviour? It was just a matter of time and the
African would come to direct his violence to the right target - the settler.
The congestion in the reserves caused serious damages on the delicate
ecosystems. Rampant in many African reserves were, therefore, cases of soil erosion. To
arrest the consequences of land deterioration in the reserves, the colonial government
demanded that Africans provide free and unpaid labour to construct bench-terracing.
This demand was unpopular countrywide because Africans felt that the white man
wanted the programme to succeed in order to access the reclaimed lands (Huxley, \960).
Resistance was thus witnessed among the Kaya, Duruma and the Giriama at the Coast,
the Marachi in Sio Port, Busia, the Kipsigis in Kericho, the Luo in I yanza as well as the
Maragoli in Kiboswa (Atieno-Odhiambo, Op.Cit.:; Bates, \989).
Serious psychological violence was increased in the years after the end of World
War II and it became common place in everyday life. Professor Atieno-Odhiambo has
observed that everyday life was 'constant annoyance' in the Kenya colony of the 1940s.
The colour-bar - the exclusion of Africans from goods and services enjoyed by
Europeans - was a signifying marker of the period. Europeans, Asians and Arabs alike
had a stake in Kala-ba (i.e the practice of racial discrimination) and dished it out with
impunity (1995:32): Houseboys were shenzi (fools) and African women were prostitutes
(malaya). Arabs abused Africans with terms like pumbavu (stupid), kafir (worthless,
afriti (devil) and mshenzi (fool). Whites retorted to Africans with deregatory terms like
lIS
fogojf(fuck oft) ot fakint (fuck in). Other irritating, terms were sokwe nttu (chimpanzee),
klima nina (your mother's vaginal) which were obs.cene and humilia.ting. This
unbearable situation was compounded by frequent arrests of Africans by the police on
tramped-up charges (Ibid.). Furthermore, Africans were expected to remove their hats
and salute whitemen and women passing by, regardless of their status. All these
frustrations resulting from various forms of settler violence could only be overcame by
one word uhuru (freedom) (Mboya, 1963). The Mau Mau organizers and adherents fed
on these frustrations and undertook to answer colonial violence so as to eject Europeans
out of Kenya and thus pave the way for uh II ru.
3.3 The Genesis of Mau Mau
The exact time that the movement we call Mau Mau began is still contestable.
According to Spencer, the Mau Mau movement began in 1944, soon after the return of
the detained Kikuyu Central Assocation (K.C.A) leaders from Kapenguria (Spencer
1977:2001). However, recent research done by Edgerton (1990) and Kahiga (1990)
indicates the movement actually began in 1947, one year after the formation of the
politically moderate and non-violent Kenya African Union (KAU).
A group calling itself the 'Forty Group' broke ranks with other nationalist forces in
KAU and formed Mau Mau. The 'Forty Group' was uniquely composed of young men,
most of them circumcised around 1940 (Njoka 1.a 2001). In addition, some of these
young men including Bildad Kaggia, Fred Kubai and John Mungai had, by 1947, just
returned from active military service in World War I where they had witnessed the
intensity of European violence (Kaggia O.l: 1999). It was thus the failure to strike a
116
consensus between the moderates and the radicals which caused the latter to temporarily
break away and found Mau Mau. The moderate wing of KAU was, however, led by such
personalities as James Gichuru, Jomo Kenyatta and Eliud Mathu who felt strongly that
Kenya's independence from Britain could be won through non-violent peaceful means.
Therefore, this group supported the pathway of constitutional negotiations as strategy for
winning autonomy from the English.
But the radical wing (the Forty Group) was convinced that the employment of
violence was the only effective method through which Europeans could be ejected out of
Kenya. At this point, some Africans in Kenya had reached a point where they had as
Chester Fontenot argues, been awakened to the need for self-revolution and self-
evaluation (Fontenot, 1978:95). This, for the radical wing members, was an exciting
period where the past reached forward to resuscitate the present. They had witnessed
many years of land alienation, social deprivation and political oppression. They had then
come directly in contact with their real selves and realized that colonialism had destroyed
their past. It was clear that African culture had been reconstructed, rewritten, literally
whitewashed to advance exploitation. The truth of the matter had dawned on them that
because the oppressor could not come to recognize the dignity of the African, the
oppressed should employ force, instead of peaceful negotiations, in order to earn that
recognition.
In espousing the strategy of violence, the radical wing of KAU undertook to
employ physical force that would ensure the death of the oppressor. More importantly,
this native violence that Fanon came to characterize as counter-violence, focused on the
destruction not only of the oppressors' lives but also on the obliteration of institutions and
117
property that had given these oppressors a false sense of superiority. Targeted for this
counter-violence, therefore, were colonial settlers and administrators, their families, their
houses, farms and livestock; the colonial transport system, the administrative
infrastructure as well as the African collaborators. Generally, it is accepted that when
Africans in Kenya took up arms in the new spirit of violence as advocated by the Mau
Mau, they called themselves the Land and Freedom Army (Itote, 1979: 191). The twin
demands of land and freedom were central to the resolving of problems caused by many
years of colonial domination.
3...t The Mau Mau \Var, 1947-1952
In 1947, despite KAU's public opposition to militancy, Kikuyu workers went out
on a strike against the mangement of the Uplands Bacon Factory near Lari in Kiambu.
Though initially appearing as a normal labour conflict in which African workers
demanded better terms of service, the colonial authorities attributed the unrest to a
movement that later became known as Mau Mau (Muchiri 0.1, 2000). Some colonial
administrators, too, associated the strike with Chege Kebacha's, African Workers'
Federation that had been secretly linked to Mau Mau (0.1., 2001). The Uplands' strike
was met with the full force of colonial police with the result that three people were killed
while six more were injured (Rosberg and Nottingham, 1966: 238). Ngure was
Kamande, who says that he served as a casual worker at the Bacon factory comments:
Africans were not supposed to ask for their rights.
They were not supposed to ask for better working
conditions. They were not human beings. They
were beasts who only understood the language of
violence. That is how the white man looked at us
and that is how he treated us (0.1, 1999).
IIX
The same source reports how Jomo Kenyatta, a moderate KAU advocate, made abortive
attempts to stop the Bacon strike.
At the beginning of 1948, a dispatch from the resident Labour Inspector of
Nakuru reported that an illegal squatter organisation had been discovered on Ngata Farm
near Nakuru. The dispatch noted that:
.... there was an illegal squatter Association to which people
were being asked to subscribe the sum of Sh. 100/= to collect
funds to promote strikes and other trouble. Three of these
squatters refused to attend this association and were beaten
up by the other squatters (KNA, MAAlI24. 'The Central
Co-ordinating Committee for Resident Labour' No. 18, Report,
From the L.O Labour Commissioner, 13th March 1948).
Subsequent investigations by the intelligence forces revealed that the new squatter
association had branches in several other areas of the colony (Ibid.). Later in the year,
Kikuyu squatters boycotted Indian shops in Nakuru district, accusing Indians of
exploiting Africans by undercharging a bag of potatoes by Shs. 8.00, buying it for Shs.
4.00 and selling it for Sh. 12 (East African Standard Nov. 19, 1948). At the end of 1948,
the Chief Native Commissioner reported that in the Rift Valley,
.... There is definitely evidence of a go slow policy among
young labourers though the older generation remains
unaffected (African Affairs, Annual Report, 1948:64).
Soon, the government authenticated reports of mass oathing among the Kikuyu
and other sympathizers of the new African protest movement. Oathing was a crucial
I I!)
element in the recruitment process of the Mau Mau adherents. As Mutegi Njeru, a Mau
Mau fighter in Meru explains;
The administration of oaths to the Mau Mau adherents
should not be viewed as primitive because even modern
governments and political parties have mechanisms of
eliciting loyalty and commitment to a cause including
the institution of oaths (Njeru O. I, 1999)
Indeed, oaths created a life-time commitment of the Mau Mau adherents to the cause of
fighting the white people and throwing them out of Kenya. Furthermore. oathing, done
within the African cultural perspective. tended to reinforce the spirituality of the nation
which was considered sovereign and which was not open to European penetration. It is
hence this spirituality which came to consummate the agenda for the African struggle for
decoloniation.
At the time of heightened political temperatures, oathing practices caused
profound wornes to European settlers 111 Kenya. A memorandum by the Director of
Intelligence and Security reports thus:
Mau Mau started its activities towards the end of 1947 and
1948 when several oath ceremonies are known to have taken
place in the Naivasha District (KNA, Government House, 3/71).
True, between 1948 and 1949, may squatters in the Rift Valley, especially in areas like
Nakuru, Elburgon, Molo, Nyahururu and Olenguruone were oathed on the instructions of
the Mau Mau Central Committee members in Nairobi (Chege 0.1, 2001). In 1950,
members of the Central Committtee along with their recruits took a new oath whose
wording was extremely aggressive. The 1950 oath-taking exercise came in the wake of
the massive eviction by the colonial government of some 12,000 squatters from the
120
prosperous farming area of Olenguruone. The majority of these squatters ended up in the
Lari area of Kiambu District. Squatters were evicted mainly because of being linked to
oathing practices. The 1950 oathing activities whose aim was to kill white people (Mugo
0.1, .2001) involved the recitation of specific words and the performances of certain
rituals which included the slaughtering of goats. Recruits were forced to eat raw meat
and drink raw blood from the goats. They were also sprinkled with the animals' intestinal
waste. In some cases, recruits drank the urine of women (Maria 0.1, 2001). After the
sacrifices, the recruits recited words which ran like this
If you ever disagree with your nation or sell it, you
may die of this oath; if you ever sell a Kikuyu woman
to a foreigner, may you die of this oath, if you ever report
a member of this society to the government, may you
die of this oath (Edgerton, 1990: 52).
Initially, oathing in the Rift Valley was done voluntarily by squatters because,
after all, many of them lived under appalling physical conditions and anything that would
bind them against Europeans was often welcome. However, when colonial surveillance
over the oathing ceremonies became severe, some Africans started fearing for their lives
and subsequently declined offers to be oathed. As a result, Mau Mau leaders found it
inevitable to force people to take oaths. One had to choose between death and oath-
taking. Njagi Wamuchiku, who was forcefully oathed, reports that those who declined to
be oathed were beaten up, strangled or killed (Wamuchiku 0.1, 1999). Another man who
was forced to take oath was Joseph Murithi Kiboi. He reports that during the oath taking
exercise, he was forced to swear the following words:
1 swear that I will fight for the African soil that the
121
White man has stolen from us I swear that I will try to
trick a white man or any imperialist into
accompanying me, strangle him, take his gun and
any valuables he maybe carrying. I swear
that I will offer all available help and further the cause
of Mau Mau. I swear that I will kill if necessary anybody
opposed to this organization (Murethi and Ndoria, 197\: IS).
The intensity of the Mau Mau movement was also felt among trade unions. In
\ 950, for example, Fred Kubai, a senior member of the Central Committee of the
movement and leader of the East African Trade Union Congress (EA TUC) ir.itiated a
strong campaign to thwart the move by the British government to grant Nairobi, a royal
charter (Kubai quoted in Kisiang'ani, 1993194). The proposed charter aimed at making
Nairobi a 'whites only' city. Kubai said that during his campaign against the British
move, he had learnt that some prominent African personalities both inside and outside
KAU seemed to support this segregatory move (Ibid.) Notable among these 'traitors'
were people like Tom Mbotela, a pro-government KAU leader and Muchiri Gikonyo a
Nairobi City Councillor. It, therefore, came as no surprise that Kubai and his fellow
militants targeted Mbotela and Gikonyo for assassination (East African Standard May 19,
1950). A special suicide squad was established to kill Mbotela and Gikonyo. Somebody,
however, leaked the plan to the authorities before it could be effected. Nevertheless,
along with Makhan Singh, another prominent Asian trade unionist, Kubai demanded
immediate independence for East Africa (Edgerton, Op.Cit.: 54).
In response, the colonial government arrested the two leaders causing many of
their sympathizers to proclaim a general strike which paralysed Nairobi for over two
weeks. The strike erupted into a violent confrontation between the police and the
protesters. The police crushed the strikers with tear gas and armoured cars leaving
122
several people dead and others injured (Ibid.). The intensity of violence was described by
Jamson Gitau a resident of Nairobi in 1950:
.... the armoured vehicles chased people in all directions and
many were trampled on as they tried to escape the reign of terror
unleashed by the police. Those who could not ran fast enough were
choked by teargas, arrested, flogged and bundled into waiting lorries
(0.1,1999).
Contributing to the prolematic of colonial conflict and liberation, Frantz Fanon
put violence at the centre of his analysis. Fanon argued that:
National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of
nationhood to the people; commonwealth; whatever may be
the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization
is always (emphasis mine) a violent phenomenon (Fanon, 1967'27)
Although Fanon does not come out clearly to say what he means by violence, our
readings of him help us to make reasonable conclusions about his meaning of the
concept Certainly, Fanon's violence means physical injury, force and coercion; it could
also imply psychological harm. The question which, however. remains uppermost in our
intellect is whether or not to agree with Fanon's deterministic argument that
decolonization is always a violent process.
So far, we have demonstrated how the African people in Kenya resisted colonial
domination. We have seen physical violence in the Bacon factory strike that left three
people dead. We also saw that the oathing of people bound them to violently attack
Europeans. Soon there was the general boycott of Asian-run shops because of the blatant
exploitation of the African people over the pricing of potatoes. Then came the plot to
assassinate Mbotela and Gikonyo. Finally, it is already evident, the African people
publicly demanded independence for East Africa. These incidents were profound
expressions of colonial violence both from the colonizer and the colonized.
123
But if we can only be human by recognizing the humanity of the other - violence
as a method promises to enslave everyone whether it is white-instigated or black-
instigated. Violence can sometimes be necessary but those who wielded it systematically
cannot help becoming brutalized by it (Coser, 1966:298-303). Of course, Fanon
advocated only to expel the settlers but he was contradictory on this score because he
never clearly defined the term. Often, Fanon uses violence and force interchangeably. In
The Wretched of the Earth, he even mentions 'peaceful violence'. It is confusing. In fact,
Fanon's resilience on the notion of violence prevents its clear definition as a dynamic
within decolonization: violence, used to explain everything, explains nothing (Dane,
1994:36)
We need, therefore, to emphasize that right from 1944, when Eliud Mathu
joined the Legico to 1950 when Kubai and his associates demanded independence,
African political activities which were geared at breaking down colonial chains were
intense but those activities could hardly be described as violent in a general sense.
Mathu, Gichuru and later Kenyatta believed in constitutional approaches to bring change
in Kenya. Violence was not thus part of their strategy. In fact, Jorno Kenyatta, who later
became Kenya's first African President after the end of formal colonial rule, himself
denounced Mau Mau on many occasions. In one such occasion, during the trial of Mr.
Rawson Macharia, a supposed government collaborator, Jorno Kenyatta told the British
prosecution counsel Mr. Dennis Pritt in the 1950s that it was the policy of KAU to
denounce Mau Mau because KAU believed in non-violent methods and that there was no
connection between KAU and Mau Mau (1991:265).
124
So far, it appears somewhat untenable to totally embrace Fanon's view that
decolonization was always a violent process. Peaceful negotiations, it is important to
stress. could also lead to some form of freedom. As the Kenyan example will show' later.
it was the peaceful constitutionalists rather than the violent radicals who carried the day
during the count-down to the achievement of political independence The theoretical
conception in this study is post modernist and postcolonialist. From the post-modernist
understanding, Fanon's authoritative and seemingly universal contention about the
deterministic nature of violence in decolonization seem to hamper our freedom to gain a
critical and non-authoritative but persuasive understanding of the history of the Kenyan
decolonization. If we were to be consumed by this determinism. then we would possibly
be forced to argue that everything that happened in the count-down to independence was
violent, which, however, was not the case. Both violent and non-violent methods were
invariably employed by the African people to answer European violence. It is also the
contention here that all those who cooperated with and those who violently opposed the
colonialists had an underlying objective of gaining some anatomy and weakening
European control.
Fanons deterministic celebration of violence was based on the binaries which
pitted the European against the African (the Other). To a larger extent, the binary
mapping is easily provable. However, the case of Makhan Singh, an Asian nationalist
shows clearly that colonial relations in Kenya were not based on simple racial binaries.
Between the distinct binaries lay the in-between space that was often complex and
intricate. It was this space which accommodated the non-European and the non-black
125
Africans who may not have considered issues of independence as urgent but who
nevertheless wished that Kenya was delivered firm colonial domination.
By its nature colonialism crushed African cultures and introduced oppressive
values within the colonies. In the struggle for freedom, whether during Mau Mau or
during the 1928 circumcision crisis, culture became a critical issue. By denouncing
African cultural values as primitive (something Fanon never freed himself from),
Europeans forced the native to fight for the master's recognition in the Hegelian
paradigm. But the native's self actualization was, however, realised through the
establishment of independent churches in the early 1930s and the use of traditional
remedies in the treatment of ailments especially during the Mau Mau warfare in the
1950s. So the struggle for freedom translated into the struggle for identity. On the other
hand, Europeans used force against the Africans because the struggle by the latter
threatened the privileged position of the former. But this is not to rule out the fact that
even as hostilities were developing in the early 1950's, several moderate African
politicians and chiefs were involved in peaceful negotiations with Europeans (Ngei 0.1,
2000).
Because of the revolutionary mood prevailing in Kenya, Mau Mau violence
became a frequent topic of conversation and concern among settlers in 1950 (Nakuru
District Annual Report 1950:31). During that year, attacks on European-owned farms
became a common feature. At the same time, there were also reported cases ofMau Mau
road blocks at night. In October, telephone wires in both Marashoni Forest and
Elbgurgon were cut by suspected Mau Mau adherents (Furedi, 1989: 111) and Europeans
in Nakuru District had their machines and farm implements destroyed. For instance, a
126
farm in Njoro suffered damage of farm machinery worth over $500 (Nakuru District
Monthlv Report Labour Reports, October 1950)
Towards the end of 1951, a fighting group iKiama Kia Raw) had penetrated the
Mau Mau ranks. The group provided security guards for oathing ceremonies, messengers
and recruiting officers. In addition, Kiama Kia Ram members accompanied oath
administrators to deal with any uncooperative 'squatters in the Rift Valley (Mbugua, 0 I.
2000). In response to the deteriorating security situation, the government initiated
programmes of mass evictions of squatters from the European settled areas. At the same
time, newly established African advisory councils, most of them full of African
collaborators, were empowered to deal with the Mau Mau menace (Furedi, Op.Cit: 115)
3.5 The Mau Mall Violence, 1952 - 1955
It is clear from the foregoing that in the years 1947, 1949, 1950 and 1951 there
was a looming security problem in the Kenya colony. The problem was made worse by
the culture of violence which then rationalized every action both from the European and
the Africans. This violence could be seen from two angles. First, because of the illegality
of their actions, European colonizers undertook to employ violence so as to intimidate
Africans into submitting to the dominating and totalizing cultural practices of the West.
Within the discourse of post-colonialism, one should view the Mau Mau protest as
counter-violence against the European colonial establishment's determination to force
Africans to submit to Western European cultural and economic values - thereby leaving
Africans with absolutely no chance to assert their own identity.
127
At the beginning of 1952, the security situation in Kenya had moved from bad to
worse. European settlers began to agitate for firm actions against Mau Mau (East African
Standard, April 4, 1952). In response to the settler demand, the government embarked on
tight security measures to protect whites. In May 1952, the colonial authorities arrested
and detained 150 squatters suspected to be Mau Mau adherents in Subukia (East African
Standard, May 9, 1952). District Commissioners of Kiambu, Fort Hall (Murang'a),
Meru, Nyeri, Nanyuki, Naivasha and Laikipia were given sweeping powers to deal
decisively with Mau Mau adherents.
Frequent police raids were also noticeable in some areas of Nairobi, suspected to
shelter Mau Mau adherents (Kairo 0.1, 200 I) Surprisingly, in August, the wealthy
Christians among the Kikuyu met in Kiambu and supported the colonial government's
position on lau Mau. In a six point resolution issued after the meeting, the Christians
condemned Mau Mau and vowed to assist the government in fighting the movement
(Times, London, August 23, 1952). In September, 1952, 546 Kikuyu were placed under
preventive detention because of their Mau Mau activities (East African Standard,
September 5, 1952). On 26th September, Reuters reported that Mau Mau raiders had
killed 100 sheep and 84 cattle on European farms. It was also reported in the Legislative
Council that 23 Africans including two women and children had been murdered by Mau
Mau worriors (Edgerton, 1990:63-64). More reports came in pointing at the murder of
several Europeans. Cases of assault and arson became commonplace. For example, at the
beginning of October 1952, a Mr. AM. Wright, who lived near Thika was stabbed to
death by assassins suspected to be Mau Mau (1bid.).
128
But the most shocking murder came on the 7th of October 1952, when a trusted
African colonial Chief, Waruhiu wa Kungu was brutally assassinated while returning
from Nairobi to his Kiambu home (East African Staandard, October 9, 1952). The
murder of the Kikuyu Chief triggered celebrations among his people who had all along
considered him a traitor of the worst type. As Maina Kibugi, a resident of Kiambu at the
time of the murder, says:
Waruhiu was a tyrant who ruled his people with an iron hand.
He lived like a white man and disliked African customs and
values. He collaborated with the thieves of our land. Many
people wanted him to go and they were happy when he went
(Kibugi 0.1, 2000)
Clearly, Waruhiu was racially black but culturally white. The assassination of Chief
Waruhiu coupled with the apparent breakdown of law and order almost everywhere in the
Rift Valley and Central Kenya forced Governor Evelyn Baring to embark on long
deliberations leading to the Declaration of Emergency on October 20, 1952 (East African
Standard, October 21, 1952). The State of Emergency signalled the banning of all
African political organizations and trade unions, the proscription of African newspapers,
the closure of independent schools and the arrest of prominent African political leaders in
the famous "Operation Jock Scott' (Furedi, 1989: 118).
The Declaration of the State of Emergency by the colonial authorities and the
subsequent use of excessive force, coupled with the persistent crackdown on the Mau
Mau followers drove many young people into the forests. On the British side, the scale
of violence was measured in terms of its military muscle. Six battalions of the King's
African Rifles, drawn from Kenya, Tanganyika and Mauritius were put on active duty.
129
Further, several battalions and police stations in the British Empire were put on alert for
possible shipment to Kenya (Edgerton, Op.Cit: 67).
Inside the colony, there was indiscriminate arming of settler population. Tracking
dogs trained in chasing Africans were imported from South Africa. Loyal Kikuyu were
ordered to be homeguards (a special African semi-military wing) in defence of the settler
system (Pankhurst, 1986.86). This was followed by intensified British repression. As
R.K. Pankhust observes:
On the European side, power slid more firmly into
the hands of militant settlers who were transformed
overnight into an armed phalanx. Settlers' commandos
were recruited. In the situation of panic thus more than
SOO settlers from allover Kenya gathered at Kalou
to reiterate their traditional demand: Government of
Kenya by Kenyans under European leadership and a free
hand without interference from overseas politicians. On the
African side, wholesale arrest of moderate responsible leaders
produced panic and confusion, which necessarily placed
policies of moderation and responsible action at a discount
whilst opening the field to any advocate of more drastic
measures (19id: 88).
During this confusion, about 187 people thought to be Mau Mau elders were arrested.
Among these were Jomo Kenyatta, a moderate KAU leader who had several times in the
past denounced Mau Mau. Others arrested in\cuded Bildad Kaggia, Kung'u Karumba,
Paul Ngei, Achieng Oneko and Fred Kubai. In the operation, the authorities confiscated
one and a half tons of books and documents belonging to Jomo Kenyatta (Clough, 1977).
The operation leading to the arrest of Mau Mau suspects was done with the usual
unrelenting brutality and top urgency. Suspects were attacked at night while in their
sleep, kicked, handcuffed, slapped and thrown into car boots, (Kaggia 0.1, 1999). Bildad
130
Kaggia laments that some of the brutal arresting officers were Africans working in the
service of Europeans (0.1: 1999).
But the British efforts to intimidate the Mau Mau fighters did not bear immediate
fruit. Between October 20 and December 31, 1952, more incidents of the African
guerrilla activities were reported. During this period, another loyal African colonial
administrator, ChiefNderi ofNyeri, was ambushed and killed in an operation believed to
have been organized by a Mau Mau general, Stanley Mathenge (Wanyoike 0.1, 1999).
In Kikuyu, Kiambu, Erick Bowker, a British veteran of the two world wars was found
murdered. In Nyahururu, Ian Jock Meiklajohn, a retired British army commander
enjoying life in Kenya was killed and his wife badly injured (Kisiang'ani, 1993:204). In
the Rift Valley, an African informer at Ndoswa village, near Njoro, was assassinated
lliakuru District Annual Report. 1952). This was followed by the killing of a white
settler at Leshau in Laikipia District, an incident which prompted the colonial authorities
to burn down the whole village (East African Standard. November 26, 1952).
In 1953, the confrontation graduated to new levels. Mau Mau generals such as
Dedan Kimathi, Stanley Mathenge, Waruhiu Itote, Muriuki Kimotho (General
Tanganyika) had consolidated their positions in the forests and were now in charge of the
proceedings. The power of Mau Mau was felt through the increased assassination of
Europeans and their African collaborators. This forced the government to transfer the
control of the Kenyan security from the police to the British Army (Ndirangu 0.1, 1999).
The skill, determination and effectiveness of the Mau Mau warriors was balling
to the colonial authorities. More killings were reported. Early January 1953, two
European farmers, Richard Bingley and M.C.H. Ferguson, were killed and their guns
131
taken by what the East African Standard described as 'a gang of panga-arrned Africans
(January 3, 1953). On the 5th of January 1953, another trusted colonial administrator,
Chief Hinga Waiganjo was killed in his hospital bed at the Kiambu Native Hospital
where he had been admitted for other ailments (East African Standard, January 6, 1953).
On January 25, 1954, Roger Rucker, his wife Esme and their six year old son Michael
were killed by Mau Mau warriors at Kikuyu (Edgerton, Op.Cit.: 72). The government, in
response, evacuated more than 100,000 Kikuyu servants and labourers working in the
white highlands. The evacuation was done without prior warning. Africans were
evacuated at gunpoint leaving behind their household possessions and personal effects
(Leigh, 1954). Frantz Fanon observes that:
... the violence of the colonial regime and the counter
violence of the native balance each other in an extra-ordinary
homogeneity (1967.69).
Indeed, despite the white reprisals, violence from the Mau Mau continued. Instead of the
movement becoming weaker, it grew stronger. During the year 1953, two more incidents
reiterated the power and resilience of the Mau Mau. The first incident was the Naivasha
Attack, the second, the Lari Massacre.
The Naivasha attack was executed on March 26, 1953 and it targeted the
Naivasha Police Station. The brain behind the attack was General Mbaria Kaniu whose
men had only three rifles, one shot gun and a pistol (Leigh, 1954: 17; Wachanga,
1975: 57). In this incident, about 80 Mau Mau soldiers raided the station at night and
hacked to death a police constable on duty (East African Standard, March 28, 1953). The
warriors broke into the armoury, took 18 submachine guns, 29 rifles and 20,000 rounds
132
of ammunition (Ibid.). Before they drove off in a police truck, they had successfully
released 173 prisoners, many of them Mau Mau followers (Wachanga, Op. Cit.:_57).
The second incident was the Lari massacre which took place about half an hour
after the successful I aivasha attack. At this time, the Lari population was composed of a
sizeable number Rift Valley squatters who had been expelled from Olenguruone in the
late 1940s (Kariuki 0.1, 2000). Lari was itself a farming area inhabited by the Kikuyu
evenly divided between government loyalists who owned the land and landless tenants
who had been thrown out of the Rift Valley because of their suspected Mau Mau
affiliations. The loyalists were led by Chief Luka Wakahangara who was reportedly
cruel and brutal to his subjects (Karanja 0.1, 2000). Joseph Mugo one of the residents of
Lari at that time observes:
The tenants hated the loyal ists. Tenants felt that
loyalists had been given land because they had
accepted to sell their country to the while man.
(0.1. 2000)
As a result of the hostility between loyalists and tenants, the latter, many of them Mau
lau supporters launched vicious night attacks on the former. In what culminated into
the Lari Massacre, 87 people including Chief Luka Wakahangara and his 8 wives were
killed. About 32 people were seriously injured and over 200 houses were burned down.
As well, more than 1,000 head of cattle belonging to the loyalists were maimed
(Sorrenson, 1967: 101). Jairo Kimotho, a survivor of the Lari Massacre, says that the
government killed over 1900 Africans in retaliation, (0.1,2000).
The deteriorating security situation in the Kenyan colony forced the colonial
government to revise its strategies of dealing with the problem. The colonial authorities
set up special tribunals to try arrested suspects (Kiriga, 1992: 80-145). Those found guilty
133
(and many of them were convicted) were jailed or detained. But in the Aberdares, over
94 newly recruited warriors under the leadership of General Kago (Chege Kariuki) were
ambushed and killed. By the end of 1953, the Mau Mau had lost 3.064 warriors. 100
were captured and an unknown number wounded or unaccounted for (Majadalany,
1962: 188). Furthermore, almost 100,000 supporters of Mau Mau had by this time been
arrested, 64,000 of these brought on trial (Ibid.).
During the year 1954, the government started arming homeguards. Homeguards
worked alongside newly created pseudo-gangs in the daunting task of crippling the Mau
Mau movement. The gangs were composed of both Europeans and Africans, with the
Europeans painting themselves black so as to lure Mau Mau warriors into deadly traps
(Mathui, 0.1, 2000). However, the most decisive military action against the Mau Mau
movement came in April 1954 when the colonial government launched the famous
'Operation Anvil' (Wa Githumo n.p, 1986). In this operation, many male Kikuyu were
arrested and taken to concentration camps where they were detained without trial. To
deal with the forest warriors, the colonial authorities resorted to air strikes, pounding the
Aberdares and the Mount Kenya regions with heavy bombing. By 1955, the Mau Mau
movement had actually been defeated with most of its leaders killed or put under
preventive detention.
3.6 The Fanonian Dialectic of Violence in the Kenyan Context During the Mau
Mau Era
In discussing the nature of violence in the process of decolonization, Fanon
Observes:
13-l
The naked truth of decolonization evokes for us the searing
bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it (1967:28).
So far, this point of view is partially true because we have just witnessed above how the
conflict between the Mau Mau supporters and the colonial authorities turned violent to
the point of shading a lot of blood through the bullets. But we have also to recognize that
not all Africans in Kenya were part and parcel of this blood-letting process. There were
many Africans who supported peaceful negotiations to freedom (Walucho Maruti 0.1,
2001).
Franz Fanon recognized this when he variously referred to the ambiguous role
played by the national bourgeoisie. He argued that at times the nationalist elite
negotiated with the colonists and betrayed the people. Commenting on the betrayal of the
national bourgeoisie Fanon says:
One step more, and the leader of the nationalist party keeps his
distance with regard to that violence. He loudly proclaims that
he has nothing to do with these Mau Maus, these terrorists,
these throat slitters. At best he shouts himself off in a no man's
land, between the terrorists and the settlers and willingly offers
his services as a go-between. This is to say that as the settlers
cannot discuss terms with these Mau Mau he himself will be
quite willing to begin the negotiations (Op.Cit.: 49).
The story of Jorno Kenyatta and his colleges in KAU during the Mau Mau struggle in the
1950s is a powerful testimony to Fanons revelations. In his view, the actual
revolutionary process takes place when the wretched sections of the society, dominated
by the peasantry resolve to take up arms to dismantle the colonial system (Ibid.: 36-60).
Fanon trusted this cadre of people because they never benefited from the colonial system
135
and had, therefore, nothing to lose except their misery and their land. Those are the
people who become 'new men' as a result of espousing violence. According to Fanon:
the colonial world is a world cut into two, the dividing
line, the frontiers are shown by barracks and police
stations. In the colonies, it is the policeman and soldiers
who are the offically instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen
of the settler and rule of oppression (1967:29).
It is imperative to observe that a nationalist leader such as Kenyatta could
denounce a movement which was pursuing the same goal of liberation as himself. In an
apparent reference to Jomo Kenyatta, Fanon demonstrates what Mau Mau meant to some
nationalist leaders. To some sections of the nationalist movement, Mau Mau adherents
were 'terrorists and throat slitters'. But to other sections of the nationalist leadership
(especially the militant groups) the Mau Mau worriors were genuine freedom fighters in
the service of Kenya's liberation struggle.
The official position of the European countries, with regard to the Mau Mau
movement, was articulated by the Western press and this position seemed to agree with
the perception of the movement by some moderate nationalist leaders including Jomo
Kenyatta. To the West, Mau Mau was a secret subversive society owing its power to the
practice of witchcraft (East African Standard, September 9, 1952). It was also a tribal
organization confined to the Kikuyu (Ibid.). The Manchester Guadian described the
movement as childish and babaric (October 17, 1952). Oliver Lyttleton was quoted by
the ew York Times, October 20, 1952) as having described Mau Mau as an anti-white
gangsterism. From the foregoing, there were definitely many Mau Maus to many people
and this has been acknolwedged by several scholars who have undertaken to study the
history of the liberation struggle in Kenya (Maloba, 1993:3). But whatever position is
136
taken, there is little doubt that the movement grew out of the brutalizing economic and
social conditions perpetuated by British colonialism in Kenya. Scondly, the .movernent 's
adherents believed in the strategy of violence as a means to achieve their ends.
In our sub-section 3.4 above, we enumerated the details of confrontation between
the Mau Mau and the British imperialists. But we hasten to add that the colonial world
could not be oversimpli tied to be just one cut into two, between the colonizer and
colonized. The colonial world was much more complicated than that. As a matter of
fact. while the binary division existed, we also had African collaborators in the form of
policemen, chiefs and loyal servants who possessed the hybrid qualities of both the
colonizer and the colonized. Some were culturally attracted to the colonizer but
naturally, because they were Africans, they remained part of the colonized. Indeed, in
Kenya, these Africans who had been alienated from their own people formed the frontier
that seemed to divide the colonizer and the colonized. The African collaborators, not the
barracks and the police stations, were it seems to me, the officially instituted go-
betweens, the spokesmen of the settler rule and oppression. The police stations and
barracks came in only when law and order was threatened.
The point we are making here is that people like ChiefNderi, Luka Wakahangara
and Chief Waruhiu were Africans but they could not effectively fit in the Fanonian
binaries of the colonizer and the colonized. They were both. That is why in studying
colonial situations in Africa, we shall be more efficient if we dispense with the rigid
dichotomies of the modernist approaches and espouse the hybridities as well as the
decentring visions embraced by postcolonial scholars such as Hommi Bhabha (1994). It
would be problematic to give the impression that the struggle for decolonization was a
137
straightforward affair between the colonizer and the colonized. The murder of the
Kikuyu chiefs and any spies of the colonial rulers is a testimony to the complexity of the
colonial situation as several people within the colonial equation possessed dual or
multiple identities.
Perhaps it IS worth' our while to ask why some Africans either wanted to
collaborate with whites or why others wanted to negotiate for freedom in a peaceful
manner. The critical point here is power. Those who collaborated hoped that the white
man would surrender power to them one day. Those who asked for peaceful negotiations
wanted to inherit European power structures which they adored. For this group, there
was no going back to the good old days and so they did not see the need to destroy what
they would have needed soon after the expected departure of the colonialists from the
country (Kilikinji 0.1, 200 1). In the same way, those who espoused violence wanted to
seize power by force.
Frantz Fanon has argued that from their first encounter, the relationship between
the colonizer and the colonized was marked by violence. Again the binary of
colonizer/colonized is used here with a lot of caution. But the contention of Fanon that
from the word go violence marked the life of the colonizer and the colonized is debatable.
Although conflict existed between the two groups (assuming that the colonized were a
homogeneous entity with same interests and objectives) there were also peaceful
moments between the groups. Colonial life was not all about violence. Colonial life was
about other things including, going to church, grazing, marriages, sexual habits, African
customs, harvesting, beer parties, name it'
We are told by Emmanuel Hansen, that pedantic reviewer ofFanon's that:
138
(settler violence) is an integral part of the capitalist
society where alienation is the feature of each person's
life and where each person treats the other as an object
( 1978.99).
Hansen's argument fits well into the Western discourse which has often reduced human
existence to the lowest common denominator of economics. But in this study, we say
that human life is not the same thing as economics; it is more diverse and complicated
and economics is just a small section of that overwhelming diversity and complication.
Thus, the above dialectic should be stretched further to include all aspects of social,
cultural and political dimensions of the human society Indeed, its noteworthy, at least
from Fanon's standpoint, that since violence was initially introduced by the colonizer into
the colonized, the colonizer internalized the same violence and used it against the master.
However, it seems difficult for us to conclude that the violence we see among the African
peoples in Kenya right from 1895 to the peak of Mau Mau activism was an oscillating
spiral of force inherited from Europeans.
Such line of argument is demeaning because it is disrespectful to the African
mind. Like all other members of the human species, the African people carried and they
still carry a latent arsenal of violence. This sort of violence can be activated anytime
conditions allow. As Bulhan reminds us, violence is integral to relations and social
conditions. Violence is in any relation, process or condition by which an individual or
group violates the physical, social and/or psychological integrity of another person or
group (Bulhan, Op. Cit.: 192). Colonial conditions of deprivation, marginalization and
exploitation called in the inherent violence from the back-stage of the African psyche. It
is, therefore, our submission here that violence is part and parcel of every society and is
not thus unique to particular people of particular colonial situations.
13<)
The problem with Fanon, however, lies in his adoration of Hegel. In the master-
servant representations, Hegel gives the master immense powers over the servant. The
Hegelian master thinks for his bondsman. Frantz Fanon was almost irreparably
consumed by this unequal relation where the servant was inferior to the master that when
it came to analysing colonial situations. the West Indian theoretician felt that without the
master's violence, the bondsman could never originate his own form of violence.
Despite the excessive bombardments, police and army reprisals directed at the
movement, the Mau adherents fought with alarming courage and commitment. Two
things, at least from the Fanonian perspective, explain this undiminished courage of the
warriors. First, all Mau Mau warriors had been oathed to kill arid to destroy colonialists
by all means necessary. Oathing bound the recruits to the cause of violence. As Fanon
put it:
The practice of violence binds them together as a \ hole
since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain
a part of the great organism of violence (Fanon, 196773)
On the critical issue of loyalty to the cause of liberation, through violent methods, Fanon
observes that:
You could be sure of a new recruit when he could no longer
go back into the colonial system. This mechanism it seems
existed in Kenya among the Mau Mau and it required that each
member of the group strike a blow at the victim. Each one
was thus personally responsible for the death of that victim.
To work means to work for the death of the settler (Ibid.: 67).
Indeed, as Fanon observes, in this sort of conflict, each party seeks the annihilation and
death of the other; the settler wants to kill the African and African too is determined to
kill the settler.
140
A few comments should, however, be made with regard to the issue of oaths.
This is because Mau Mau oathing practices were often viewed in Western scholarship as
primitive and anachronistic. Oath-taking is part and parcel of every society. Modem
governments administer oaths to their servants in order to cultivate trust and commitment
to service. In the modern military establishments, oath-taking is mandatory for all
soldi.ers. Depending on which society we are looking at, oath-taking may take different
dimensions. Some oaths could involve simple recitations and the reading of the holy
scriptures while others may involve the drinking of human and animal blood. The Mau
Mau oaths had a complicated cuisine, some of which bordering on the absurd! But this
complication is not the same as primitivity. Frantz Fanon, possibly looking at the
contents of the Mau Mau oaths and relating these with the African dances he detested,
seemed convinced like his mentor Hegel that the African mind was primitive (see Fanon
1967:45). If we, however, adopted that kind of argument then we will not even find any
rationale in situating the Mau Mau struggle withing the domain of the Kenyan
decolonization process. Oaths bound people to violence because the colonial authorities
had refused to address most of the crucial grievances of the African people.
To the colonialists, the African counter-violence was a wake-up call about the
deteriorating colonial situation. However, for the African, their violence served several
purposes. In addition to unifying and binding members of the fighting group, violence
served an existentialist purpose. Frantz Fanon observes thus:
... at the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force:
It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from
his despair and inaction, it makes him fearless and restores self-
respect (Ibid.:74).
1~1
Two observations could however be made from this. First, is non-violence in all its
forms a reflection of inferiority, despair and inaction? When, for example. a husband
beats up his own wife who refuses to cook, does that mean the man is fighting his own
inferiority? Does it also imply the man is cleansing himself? Indeed, the point we are
making here is that there were other forms of violence in colonial Kenya, purely
unrelated to colonial conditions but very prevalent among brothers, families, children,
friends, relatives and which had no relationship with Fanon's generalized discourse of
inaction, despair and inferiority.
Our criticism is that Fanon's violence and its cathartic implications need not pass
as a general rule for human existence. Further, even within the colonial situation such as
Kenya's, we had moderates in parties like KAU, we had African Christians, collaborators,
spies and chiefs who did not embrace violence. Can we say because they did not practice
violence, they were inferior, inactive and fearful? Within the Hegelian paradigm, the
master is already superior to the bondsman. If that is the case, then what inferiority was
the colonial settler trying to prove when he employed excessive violence against the
native during the Mau Mau era? Or is Fanon saying that settler violence was normal
while native violence was an instrument for restoring to them superiority and confidence?
The Mau Mau violence involved a great deal of risk-taking both for the fighters
and Europeans. But in the face of death, risk-taking was the ultimate creation not only
because it guaranteed survival in the face of stubborn opposition but because it was the
most critical gateway to change. We have argued that in the Hegelian and by extension
the Fanonian perspective, people involved in a reciprocal conflict created themselves
through mutual recognition and eventually through self-actualization. While the Mau
I-t2
Mau war was reveting In all its forms, there was no evidence of mutual recognition
between the fighters and the European colonialists. In our Kenyan context, events
leading to and including the Mau Mau itself indicate the abstract negation of the
bondsman (the colonized fighter).
According to Frantz Fanon, the absolute negation of the bondsman by the master
usually leads to the former turning to some transient pleasures. Transient pleasures
become a way of self-actualization in the face of such negation. Can we say the Mau
Mau turned to transient pleasures at anyone time? It is common knowledge that many
Mau Mau fighters envied the privileges and comfort of the colonial masters.
Accordingly, their violence was partly aimed at destroying the master so that they could
take over those privileges. This attitude by the fighters, in fact, negates the view that
violence necessarily leads one to the platform of self-actualization and freedom. In the
Mau Mau case, African violence seemed to confirm the inferiority of the natives. This
was because the natives undertook to violently overthrow Europeans so as to inherit the
comfortable privileges of the colonialists. By extension, this would deliver the Africans
into a new status of superiority hitherto occupied by Europeans.
3.7 The Path to Political Independence
By mid 1950's, the sustained attacks on Mau Mau hideouts by the British had
weakened the movement to the point of no return. The colonial state appeared once again
to be firmly in control (Berman 1990:377). Many Mau Mau supporters and fighters had
been killed or detained. Detention camps were established in such places as Hola,
Manyani and Langata where the living conditions were appalling and inhuman (Times
I·n
London, May 7 1954). In these centres the colonial authorities employed both physical
and psychological violence to neutralize opposition against British imperialism. The
British violence against Africans oppositionists had paid dividents by the late 1950s. At
the time, only sporadic outbreaks of Mau Mau attacks from small bands of warriors still
holed up in the forests occurred. The movement had been defeated, its leaders detained
and Kenya retained its status as a colonial state.
As already observed, Frantz Fanon believed that decolonization will always be a
violent process. But the defeat of Mau Mau in Kenya seeks to disapprove this
contention. This is because the neutralization of the movement hardly brought about any
meaningful decolonization. Furthermore, the defeat of Mau coincided with an increase in
political activity between the colonialists and those members of the African moderate
factions who believed in peaceful negotiations for the constitutional transformation of
Kenya. The colonial government encouraged the entry of African moderates such as B.A
Ohanga and Daniel arap Moi into the Legislative Council. Ohanga and Moi had on
several occasions denounced Mau Mau and did not overtly say they wanted Kenya to be
independent from Britain.
The struggle against Mau Mau had obviously exacted a price from the British
imperialists. Their military occupation of Kenya could not last indefinitely, but neither
could they return the country to the status quo (Ogot, 1995:48). Reform had became
imperative. But what kind of reform was being envisaged? It was a reform which was to
be skillfully prepared to Africanize colonialism while at the same time safeguarding
European influence and control. Thus, the colonial regime now saw the need to broaden
the basis of collaboration at the national level to include Africans within the political and
econorruc structures of the colonial society. The main objectives of these colonial
reforms were to create a base upon which collaborative African leadership could emerge
and undermine the support of Mau Mau fighters. Such programmes could hardly be
described as one that enhanced the process of decolonization. Rather, the basic aim of
the project was to be thwart serious nationalist efforts as those embraced in the Mau Mau
activities and to reinvent colonialism and repackage it for British convenience.
But to repackage colonialism also implied undertaking certain reforms that would
persuade the uninitiated that Kenya was undergoing a certain decolonization. The first
areas of attention was land. In 1954, the year of draconian and Nazi-type 'Operation
Anvil' that put thousands of Africans in detention camps, a new land programme called
the Swynnerton Plan was initiated. The Plan provided the funding and rationale of land
consolidation programmes and enclosure movement so as to revolutionize agricultural
practices in African areas. The main objective of the Swynnerton Plan was to create
family holdings which would be large enough to keep the family self-sufficient in food
and also enable them to practice animal husbandry and thus develop a cash income
(Ibid.). It was envisioned that 600,000 families would have farming units of ten acres a
family, which would raise their average productivity in cash sales from £ 10 to £ 100 a
year after providing their own needs. The land reforms were accompanied by the
removal of the remaining restrictions against African production of lucrative cash crops
such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum, hybrid maize and dairy products (Colony and Protectorate
of Kenya, 1954).
The Swynnerton Plan hoped to achieve its objectives in about 20 years from 1954.
The programme appropriated the legal provisions of the Forfeiture of Lands Act of 1953,
1.t5
to confiscate land individually owned by the so-called 'terrorists' and to put it in the new
reform programmes. It is estimated that by 1956, 3,510 people had already forfeited their
land under this Act (Lamb, 1974: 11). Moreover, the 'villagization' policy (based on the
model of the fortified villages of the Malaysian emergency) that accompanied land
consolidation was explicitly designed to break links between Mau Mau soldiers and their
supporters, buttress the position of loyalists and seal the landlessness of the former. These
reforms were not the ones that the Mau Mau fighters had envisaged and could not thus be
seen as positive moves by the British towards decolonizing Kenya. Nevertheless,
between May 1954 and August 1956, about 1,077,500 Kikuyu and Embu people had
been herded into 854 villages (Ibid.). Similar moves were made though with less severity
in parts ofNyanza and Western provinces.
The second move to re-invent and repackage colonialism was made by the
Carpenter Committee Report of 1954. This committee proposed minimum wages for
African families (Colonv and Protectorate of Kenva: Report of the Committee on African
Wages, 1954). The conditions imposed by the State of Emergency and the desire of the
imperial government to create a middle class among the African population enabled the
government to adopt these reforms of wage structure. The Kenya Labour Department
encouraged the formation of employers organizations to help facilitate the growth of
collective bargaining. The department also assisted in the maintenance of trade unions.
It is against this background that fiery spokesmen of workers such as Tom Mboya
emerged (Ogot, Op.Cit.:49). But Mboya was only going to operate within the rules set
by the British industrial system and was therefore not different from any workers' leader
in Britain then.
l-t6
Thirdly, there was the Lidhury Commission which accepted the principle of equal
pay for equal work. Government employees of all races were to receive equal salaries
and conditions of service. On paper, this recommendation was an important move in the
deracilaization of the Kenya society, but in practice things were different. In literally
every aspect of Kenyan colonial life discrimination, against Africans continued. Africans
were often the last ones to be hired and the first ones to be fired. Europeans and Asians
continued to enjoy better salaries and better terms of service than Africans (Malisia 0.1,
2002).
The final effort to reinvent and repackage colonialism was channeled through the
African political activities. At the height of the Mau Mau insurgency in 1954, the
government came up with the Lyttelton Constitution to derail the struggle towards true
decolonization. The new constitutional dispensation introduced a new central government
structure based on a ministerial system and which included African and Asian Ministers.
It also conceded to the principal of multi-racial representation. Historian B.A. Ogot
observes that in undertaking these reforms,
The colonial regime hoped that the 'middle class'
Africans would become part of shared interests
integrated into the colonial order (Op. Cit.: 5).
These hopes were achieved through the emergent political activities of the African
leadership.
As brutal torture and mass arrests of dissidents continued, as forced labour
campaigns and detention without trial persisted, the colonial authorities in Kenya
encouraged the formation of district rather than national/political associations. Although
these associations were basically tribal and at times regional, some African leaders did
1~7
not mind them. Among others, these district associations included the Nairobi District
African Congress (under the leadership of C.M.G. Argwings-Kodhek) and the Nairobi
Peoples Convention Party (under Tom Mboya). Others included the Mornbasa African
Democratic Union the African District Association (Central Nyanza), the Nakuru African
Progressive Party, the Nakuru District Congress as well as the Abaluhya Peoples
Association (Ibid.: 52). The only nationalist party KAU had been banned in 1953 as a
result of having had links with Mau Mau (Crowley, 1967:98). District and tribal
organizations only helped to enhance the colonial agenda of 'divide and rule' as Africans
stepped on each others toes in the narrow pursuit of tribal and regional interests while at
the same time craving for European attention and recognition. These were hardly good
signs for genuine decolonization.
True to form, many of the leaders of these district and tribal political groups did
not envisage independence for Kenya. B.A. Ogot has demonstrated that such tribal
figures as Daniel arap Moi, B. A. Ohanga (appointed first African Minister in 1954), J.
Kebaso, J.D. Otiende, W.W.W Awori, D.N. Murno, Francis Joseph Kharnisi, Ronald
Ngala and J.M. Kasyoka, among others, who were leaders in those tribal or district
political organizations either believed that Kenya would never be independent nor did
they make decolonization their main political agenda (Ibid.: 51-59). All that these
leaders sought were reforms that would lead to the African acceptability into the colonial
cultural set-up. This attitude must have impressed the colonial authorities as it
contributed immensely to the derailment of the decolonization process by deliberately
Africanizing, instead of dismantling, colonialism.
1~8
Celebrating the increasing number of loyalists who did not necessarily wish to
dismantle colonialism but who instead asked for accommodation in a system which had
brutalized Kenya for years. the colonial authorities undertook constitutional reforms
which increased the number of Africans in the legislative Council. In October 1957, the
Lennox-Boyd constitution was conceded extending the multi-racial formation by raising
the African representation in the Legislative Council to fourteen (Mboya 1963, Odinga,
1967).
Between 1958 and 1960, Jaramogi Odinga Oginga led members of the Legislative
Council to petition for the release of Jomo Kenyatta, the detained KAU leader.
Following his defence in Kapenguria in 1954, and considering the fact that on several
occasions Kenyatta had himself denounced Mau Mau, one could be excused for thinking
that members of the Legislative Council including Odinga knew that Kenyatta was for all
practical purposes a loyalist, like them, who had been mistakenly associated with Mau
Mau. Like Moi and many other members of the Council, Kenyatta detested Mau Mau.
As the Legislative Council members negotiated for the repackaged colonialism called
independence, there was need to bring on board Kenyatta not only because he did not
represent the aspirations of Mau Mau but also because Mau Mau had to be isolated from
the nationalist forces.
From the European political standpoint, the period between 1955 and 1958 was
critical. All indications from London and from settler circles were that Kenya would
remain a white man's country for a long time to come. This shows that Mau Mau
violence had had little impact on the British attitudes about political change in Kenya.
Not surprisingly, in January 1959, Colonial Secretary Allan Lennox-Boyd presided over
a conference attended by the Governors from Britain's three East African colonies where
it was decided that independence would probably come to Kenya by 1975 (Swainson,
1980: 189).
Since independence was a long way to come, the British continued to exact
violence in the colony. Already the Emergency had authorized the use of excessive force
to subdue rebellion and ensure African compliance. In March in 1959, the British
security forces killed hundreds of Mau Mau detainees in the Hola detention Camp
(Murray-Brown, 1972:312). This genocidal incident of violence - the Hola Masscre -
exposed the brutal side of the British psyche. The massacre was intended to send a clear
message that the British had not been moved by the Mau Mau 'rnenance and were
willing to use any amount of force and brutality to secure the Kenyan colonial state. In
April, Lennox Boyd told the British parliament that he was unable to envisage a time
when it would be possible for any British government to surrender their ultimate
responsibilities for the destiny and well-being of Kenya. The same message was echoed
by Governor Evelyn Baring when he assured settlers that Kenya would continue to be a
'fotress colony' and that independence was not going to be given soon. At this point,
some extremely conservative European Kenyans led by the Royal Air Force (R.A.F)
Group Captain L.R. 'Puck' Briggs and A.T. Culwick still demanded white supremacy
including racial segregation. But settler leader Michael Blundell made efforts to
convince Europeans that Kenya could peacefully be transformed into a multiracial
society with a multi-racial government (Edgerton, 1990:202).
Most of Kenya's white settlers breathed a sigh of relief when Harold Macmillan's
Conservative Party won the British General Election in 1959. The Labour Party, they
150
feared, would not have protected them and their interests. Surprisingly, however,
Macmillan was determined to bring independence to Britain's African colonies as
quickly as possible. On February 3, 1960, while addressing the South African
parliament, the British Prime Minister declared that 'a wind of change is blowing through
the continent and whether we like it or not this growth of political consciousness is a
political fact and our national policies must take account of it' (Ogot 1995:540. This
came as a profound surprise to European settlers in Kenya.
But Macmillan had learned from France's bloody struggle In Algeria that there
could be no military solution to the rising tide of nationalism in Africa. By the end of
1959. 12,000 Frenchmen had died in the war along with nearly 150,000 Algerians
(Bogonko, 1980). Macmillan understood that even the British victory over Mau Mau
could be temporary and that if whites were to retain power in Africa, the British
government would have to be willing to kill large numbers of Africans. Macmillan
wanted to avoid bloodshed. He too knew that Britain no longer had the strength to hold
on its African possessions (Macmillan, 1972: 1972). The Africanization of colonialism
through the granting of political independence was thus less costly and more beneficial to
British interests than the retention of formal colonialism. While on a tour of Ghana in
1960, Macmillan did not mince his words about the African independence when he said:
We (the British) share the strong tide offeeling among
Africans that this is their time of destiny saying that
the rise of nationalism in Africa was a fact British policy
would have to acknowledge (Fisher, 1982:233; East African
Standard, January 19, 1960).
Evidently, Britain had come to acknowledge the profundity of African
nationalism. But if African nationalism had to be 'meaningful' to Britain, it had to be
151
channeled through men who were acceptable to British values and traditions. For the
case of Kenya, such men could not definitely be found among the Mau Mau. Through
the efforts of Ian Macleod (Macmillan's new Secretary of State for colonies), the Kenyan
march to independence was hurried specifically to isolate the Mau Mau and their violent
supporters.
Contributing to the problematic of decolonization in Kenya, Gary Wasserman
contends that the major goal of colonial administration in Kenya from 1960 onward was
to thwart the development of African political organizations which might challenge the
inherited political economy (197616) Accordingly, decolonization was a dual process
of bargaining and socialization, with independence as the ultimate end. From this
perspective, the decolonization process was not so much the upward development of an
indigenous African political movement (as it should have been), as the downward
manipulation of the movement into a system (as it was) (Ibid: 166) Wasserman's
concensual-decolonization in which the British liberal colluded with the local elites to
lock Kenya into a neo-colonial web finds echoes in much of the dependency literature in
Kenya (Leys, 1988).
But the debate on the nature and structure of the decolonization process has been
stretched beyond the views propagated by Wasserman and Leys. Both scholars argue
that the 'decolonization' of Kenya which translated into the granting of independence in
1963 was a planned phenomenon. On the contrary, however, the most popular view on
this issue is fronted by nationalist claims that the violence of the political struggle forced
the British authorities to grant independence to Kenya. But Bruce Berman sees it
differently. According to him:
152
The decolonization of Kenya was neither a
triumphant struggle for national liberation nor the
essential maintenance of structures of colonialism
through the co-optation of the nationalist movement,
although the nationalist struggle and efforts to maintain
structural continuity were clear features of the process
(Berman, 1990:378)
Fundamentally, Berman attributes the decolonization process that translated into political
independence to economic factors dictated by the articulation of indigenous forces into
the world economy. Through these changes, and with specific emphasis on the creation
and development of the indigenous peasantry and petit bourgeoisie, Kenya was
transformed from being a colony to a 'developing nation'. This transformation, Berman
contends, took place between 1954 and 1969 (Ibid.).
From the arguments posed by Berman, three observations could be made. Clearly
Berman's views seem to SUppO!1our standpoint in this study that the significance of the
196;- independence watershed has been overplayed because it reflected just one small
aspect of transition within the colonial state. As it is evident, Berman's 'transformation'
gives prominence to the years 1954 and 1969 and ignores the independence year of 1963.
Indeed, what Berman describes as the articulation of indigenous forces into the world
economy, through the empowerment of the dominant African class, was part and parcel
of the process we have termed the 'Africanization of colonialism'. But more importantly,
Berman seems to give little room to the emancipatory role of colonial violence. By
underplaying the importance of the nationalist forces (especially the militant Mau Mau
wing), Berman poured cold water on the Fanonian thesis that decolonization was always
a violent phenomenon.
153
In January 1961, Macleod invited bot I: white and African delegations from Kenya
to a conference at Lancaster House. an ostentatious London mansion. Macleod worked
out his plans with dexterity and skill. After five weeks of exhaustive talking. Macleod
declared that Kenya would become a parliamentary democracy based on universal
franchise (Edgerton, 1990:206). The white delegates were stunned. African rule was on
the way. But people who took part in the Lancaster conference including Martin
Shikuku, Tom Mboya, Oginga Odinga, James Gichuru and Jeremiah Nyagah, among
others, were moderate political leaders who were highly socialized in Western European
languages and traditional values. These are the same people that Europeans wanted to
hand over power to. Ultimately, therefore, the African delegation at Lancaster agreed
with their European counterparts about the type of constitution that would be put in place
in the new democratic dispensation that accommodated the interests of both parties.
From the very start, members of the delegation demanded the release of Kenyatta
as a pre-condition to the 'Africanization of colonialism'. But knowing very little about
Kenyatta, Macleod was reluctant to meet this demand. Yet as will be shown in Chapter
Four, the Kenyatta Presidency was from the word go derisive of Mau Mau. Kenyatta was
not a Mau Mau follower and he treated all Mau Mau leaders with suspicion. After long
deliberations involving Macleod and Governor Patrick Renson as well as the Kenyan
nationalist leaders, the colonial authorities released Kenyatta and began negotiations for
the country's independence. Once the British were convinced that Kenyatta and his allies
in the Lancaster delegation were not violent, a smooth transition to independence was
assured.
15~
But the Africanization of colonialism which was later epitomized by the granting
of independence in Kenya had its own transition. Both the settlers and the colonial
administrators began to make a tactical retreat to pave way for constitutional wrangles
amongst African factions in their efforts to secure regional and ethnic interests. It was
not thus a coincidence that in the heat of these tempests, two main nationalist parties were
soon formed after the colonial authorities lifted a ban on political parties with a
nationalist outlook. The two new parties were KANU and KADU.
At the time of Kenyatta's release in 1961, the moderate wing of the original KAU
had already transformed itself into the Kenya National African Union (KANU) led by
James Gichuru (Ogot, Op. Cit.: 65) Competing for power with KANU was the Kenya
African Democratic Union (KADU) led by Ronald Ngala, Masinde Muliro and Daniel
arap Moi. KANU coalesced around two major ethnic communities, namely the Luo and
the Kikuyu. However, KADU became the party of the small ethnic communities,
including the Mijikenda, Maasai, Tugen, Nandi and Luhya, of Kenya. onYthe
encouragement of the settlers who now came to consider themselves as a minority,
KADU pledged to defend the interests of minority ethnicities against the possible
domination of the big tribes. It is important, however, to observe that many of the leaders
of KANU and KADU who spent a great portion of their time in the 1950s.te> condem~l-tlie
Mau Mau were still influential in the ultimate creation of the Kenyatta state in 1963.
Returning to Fanonian theorization on violence, we thus find it hard to buy the argument
that violence can deterministically lead to freedom and decolonization. Furthermore,
even if one was to consider the symbolic move by the British to grant independence as
155
some form of decolonization, one would appreciate that this process was not achieved
through violence but through round table negotions.
3.8 Conclusion
With special reference to Kenya, this Chapter has highlighted the making of
violence, right from the formative stages of Mau Mau to the ultimate Africanization of
colonialism through the granting of independence. But it has also been pointed out that
the colonizer's violence did not emanate from the colonizer because violence was
inherent in all human beings and was thus part and parcel of every society.
The Chapter has taken us through the genesis of the Mau Mau movement and
argued that the insurrection developed out of the need by some African people to get
back their land and freedom from the Europeans. We have demonstrated that in the quest
to achieve this objective, some moderates in KAU such as Jomo Kenyatta, James
Gichuru and Eliud Mathu espoused peaceful methods of constitutional negotiations for
the African liberation. These moderates denounced violence. On the other hand, we
have pointed out that a radical wing of KAU preached the use of force and advocated the
employment of violence as the only viable strategy for winning Kenya's independence.
The militant wing comprised of such personalities as Fred Kubai, Bildad Kaggia, Kungu
Karumba and even Makhan Singh.
When hostilities reached a peak in 1952, the British Governor in Kenya, Evelyn
Baring, declared a State of Emergency which forced many Mau Mau supporters into the
forests. We have demonstrated the damage the Mau Mau guerrillas meted out on human
life and property. The response from the British authorities was equally lethal. Through
15()
air strikes and sustained military action. the Mau Mau movement was defeated by 1955.
Kenya remained a colonial state with its structures intact. Mau Mau supporters and
leaders were either detained or killed in action. Excessive force was used to liquidate
opposition against colonialism. This disapproved Frantz Fanon's view that
decolonization was always a violent process as Mau Mau violence never actually brought
about an end of colonialism in Kenya. The path to independence was skillfully prepared
to exclude Mau Mau warriors. As the negotiations for Kenya's independence were going
on, several Mau Mau leaders were still in detention.
Furthermore, the danger of using modernist binaries in analysing colonial
situations such as Kenya's has been highlighted because the Kenya colony was not a
simple binary of the colonizer/colonized. As has been evident in our data, there were
several African chiefs who supported colonialism and some paid the price of that support
by losing their lives to the Mau Mau warriors.
Indeed, the colonial government began to prepare to hand over political power to
people who had a pathological hatred for the Mau Mau violence - further disapproving
Frantz Fanon's contention that violence could bring about decolonization. In the next
Chapter, we undertake to examine the Kenyan post colony conceived as a nation-state,
within the post-independence disposition.
157
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 THE BIRTH OF THE NEO-COLONIAL STATE IN KENYA: THE
KENYATTA STATE, 1963-1978
.t.l Introduction
The Kenyatta state, conceived out of the political transition to Africanize
colonialism, was born in 1963, when the British authorities ceded political power to the
new African leadership under Jorno Kenyatta. It was an experience which witnessed the
birth of a 'new' nation: the neo-colonial, nation-state. The state was neo-colonial
because even though it had changed its political leadership. it retained the critical pillars
of formal colonialism. There were many people who celebrated this change with pomp
but the events which unfolded after the hoisting of the Kenyan flag seemed to make a
whole mockery of the newly gained freedom.
But what were the salient features of the new nation state') The new sovereignty
born of nationalism had two distinct features. First, the newly independent state had the
inner feature which was premised on the differences between the cultures of the colonizer
and the colonized. As Partha Charttarjee, once observed, the more nationalism engaged
in its contest with the colonial power in the outer domain of politics, the more it insisted
on displaying the marks of 'essential' cultural difference so as to keep the colonizer from
that inner domain of national life (Chatterjee, 1993:26). In the outer domain of the state,
however the supposedly material domain of law, administration, economy and statecraft
nationalism fought relentlessly to erase the marks of colonial difference. Difference
could not be justified in that domain because, as in the case of Kenya, the new African
leaders undertook to retain British institutions.
158
In this domain, the newly independent states of Africa, through the guidance of its
nationalist leaders, began reasserting the claims to the universality of the modern regime
of power. And in the end, by successfully 'terminating' the life of the colonial state,
nationalism demonstrated that the project of that modern regime would be carried
forward only by superseding the conditions of colonial rule (Ibid.). From the post-
colonial theoretical standpoint, the new state was still entangled in the mess of forms of
knowledge authored and authorized by the West but camouflaged in the Africanity of its
leadership.
This Chapter examines the anatomy of neocolonialism in Kenya by highlighting a
number of issues. First, it highlights the formation, challenges and pillars of the new
state and second, it scrutinizes how' neocolonialism manifested itself in such fields as
politics, land, education, repression and culture as well as in the opposition politics.
Finally, the chapter explores how these fields doubled up as sites upon which the
decolonization process continued within the post-independence dispensation.
4.2 The Challenges of the new Nation
Frantz Fanon's celebrated essay 'The Pitfalls of National Consciousness' (in The
Wretched of the Earth), puts the African independence on trial. In this essay, Fanon re-
articulates the inherent conflict between the national middle class, in the newly
independent African state, and the masses. The former embracing the values of the
colonial system (as manifested in the acquisition and display of opulent cars and lives), is
conceptually incarcerated by the habit patterns established by the mother country
(Fairchild, 1994: 196). Fanon suggests that this middle class, which assumes power at
the end of the colonial regime, is inadequately prepared to replace the colonial system
159
because of lack of its training and resources. Consequently, the new middle class must
resort to sending 'frenzied appeals for help' from the mother country (1967: 149). Thus,
instead of independence, the 'decolonized' nation-state remains fiscally dependent and
indebted to the colonial power as national leaders recreate the rule of Western colonial
powers. The Kenyan nation state, it seems to me, was not an exception to this Fanonian
pessrrrusm.
At independence, it was evident that many years of colonial rule had disrupted the
social, political as well as economic patterns of public life in Kenya. The economy
displayed typical characteristics of underdevelopment with heavy reliance on foreign
capital and the production of primary commodities for export (Ochieng ', 1995:83). This
underdeveloped economy meant that independent Kenya would have to formulate
policies that would not only arrest Kenya's mounting urban and rural poverty and decay
but also strategies that would put the economy into indigenous hands. It was also
important for the new state to empower local investment to boost local development and
to reverse the trend whereby what was produced during the colonial period never
returned for the development of the economy.
The main strategy for Kenya's i new development agenda was contained in the
Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965, entitled 'African Socialism and its Application 10
Planning in Kenya '. In brief, the paper noted that the people of Kenya had no voice in
government; the nation's resources were organized and developed mainly for the benefit
of non-Africans; and the nation's human resources remained largely uneducated,
untrained, inexperienced and unbenefitted by growth of the economy (Atieno-Odhiambo
and Wanyande, 1989:116). Consequently, the Kenyatta state undertook to mobilize its
160
resources to attain a rapid rate of economic growth for the benefit of the people. The
newly installed KANU government hoped to achieve this broad objective by promising to
urgently address certain fundamental issues including the nurturing of political
democracy, the development of mutual social and political responsibility, redistributing
various forms of property so that nobody would have too much power and ensuring that
citizens enjoy freedom from want, disease and exploitation and finally developing a
progressive taxation regime that would narrow the gap between the rich and the poor
(Ochieng', Op.Cit.: 84). Evidently, therefore. the promise for democracy, good life and
freedom punctuated the pronouncements which marked the formative years of the
Kenyatta state.
4.3 Facing the Challenges: The Main Pillars of the Kenyatta State
It has already been pointed out that once the colonial authorities became sure that
Kenyatta was anti-Mau Mau, they allowed him to take pan in the transition to
independence. On his release from detention in 1961, Kenyatta was easily elected the
indisputable KAl'-ru leader. Soon, he jointed together two large influential ethnic groups,
the Kikuyu and the Luo into the largest party and mobilized nationalist forces (Bennett
and Roseberg, 1966). From there on, Kenyatta marched forward to negotiate for power
in the new political dispensation. His immediate opponents were not the Europeans.
Rather, his actual enemies were members of the opposition parties who had coalesced
around the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU). While KANU pressed for a
unitary state, KADU advocated for a regionalist (majimboist) political disposition.
Several KADU leaders, supported by the settlers, feared that since KANU derived its
powers from the big ethnic groups it was impossible for it to cater for the interests of the
161
smaller communities (Ogot, 1995:69). Thus, KADU undertook to organize regional
centres of power in Kenya so as to neutralize KANU's dominance of the political scene.
During the 1963 elections. Kenyatta emphasized the need for unity as a
precondition for rapid economic and social development. KANU represented that spirit.
Division of power along regional lives, Kenyatta felt, was going to destroy uhuru. The
voters' were taken in by Kenyatta's persuasive skills when they handed KANU a
resounding victory. But even after KA..l'\fU's victory, the new constitution which political
parties had agreed upon before elections was fundamentally a hybrid combination of
federal and unitary demands of the new nation (Ibid.:70-73). The constitution covered
several areas from the composition of the Central Government, the separation of powers
to the powers of the regional authorities with regard to finance, taxation and local
government.
More importantly, however, the constitution retained the fundamental elements of the
Westminster system of governance. This system proceeds from the three branches of
government - the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary - and moves on to
emphasize the rule of majority, under the majority party; the sanctity of the rule of law
and the acceptance of opposition parties. Evidently, at independence, Kenya's political
structure was based on the Westminster master-narrative of Great Britain. This .master-
narrative, it was thought, would assist in the rapid modernization of the new nation-state.
It is a little difficult to imagine that as their main objective of taking up arms to fight
colonialism, the Mau Mau fighters would have wished to enhance the installation of a
more refined British political system than that offormal colonialism itself!
162
4.4 Political Intrigue and Intolerance
During the formative years of his rule, Jomo Kenyatta targeted for intimidation
and frustration of those who did not agree with him. Frantz Fanon anticipated this
intolerance in post-independence Africa. As regards internal affairs and in the sphere of
institutions, Fanon argues, the national bourgeoisie will give equal proof of its incapacity.
He avers:
In a certain number of underdeveloped countries, the
parliamentary game is faked from the beginning. Powerless
economically, unable to bring about the existence of coherent
social relations, and standing on the principles of domination
........ the bourgeoisie chooses the solution that seems to it the
easiest, that of the single party (1967: 132).
Fanons views came to gain intellectual significance within the post-colonial theoretical
discourses. By its nature, colonialism robbed the African leadership of its custodianship
of the indigenous peoples' material culture, social values and political legitimacy (Aseka.
2003:82). At independence, this trend continued because the new African leadership
which emerged had one fundamental problem. Only recently, the new leadership had
escaped (because of the attainment of independence) from the subaltern movement for
change to positions of privilege that had hitherto been the preserve of the European
managers.
In Kenya, for example, the subaltern leaders of the independence struggle of the
1940s and 1950s, led by Jomo Kenyatta and James Gichuru, among others, were from
1963 onwards transformed, into black Europeans representing Western hegemony in the
country. Such leaders became irrelevant when they forgot about the needs of the
dispossessed peoples they had previously represented. In a nutshell, the post-
163
independence African leadership in Kenya became ruthless in defending Western
modernity in Kenya by implementing imperial administrative, social and economic
policies (Aseka,2003:78)
Ultimately, the sudden transformation of the new African leadership into
instruments of Western hegemonic leadership in Kenya, created a deep gap of leadership
within the ranks of the dispossessed subalterns. To fill this gap, a crop of leaders who
had been in the independence movement but whose views could not be accommodated
under the Kenyatta state began to rally the oppressed peoples of Kenya into a new form
of subaltern resistance against Western hegemony. In addition to embracing Oginga
Odinga, Bildad Kaggia and J.M. Kariuki, the emerging resistance movement absorbed
both the scholars and artists who thus became the voices of subalternism in the new
nation-state.
In order to consolidate centralization, the Kenyatta state denied KADU an
effective secretariat. Furthermore, the government undertook to maintain close control of
the civil service (Gertzel, 1966: 201-251). Through underhand political dealings,
corruption and use of money, Jomo Kenyatta's government began to persuade opposition
members to cross the floor and thus dissolve KADU. Three major strategies were
deployed by the government. First, opposition leaders were offered cabinet posts.
Second, the government threatened those who opposed it with detention or imprisonment.
Finally, the government, blatantly refused to develop opposition areas (Mwenya Muniafu
0.1, 2001). Consequently on the io" November 1964, KADU announced its dissolution
and Kenya became a 'de-facto' one-party state. This political development occurred soon
after Jomo Kenyatta had given a passionate Madaraka Day speech in June 1963,
16~
guaranteeing his government's commitment to protecting the constitution which among
other things had recognized formal opposition in parliament (Reporter, Nairobi, June 29
1963, p.IO) Through the single party political arrangement. a modern form of
dictatorship of the ruling clique, unmasked, unpainted, unscrupulous and cynical (Fanon,
1967:32) had been born in Kenya.
The central government took another important step to strengthen its position ..
There was the requirement that all regional drafts of legislation be referred to the central
government before being introduced in the regional assemblies (Ahluwalia, 199635).
Besides, KA 'U increased the problems of KADU when it made a decision to delay the
implementation of the financial provisions as laid down in._the constitution (Gertzel,
Op.Cit.: 33). To complicate the matter more, the leadership of regions made matters
worse for themselves by substantially raising their incomes while school teachers in those
regions were not paid (Ghai and McAuslan, 1970 33). Such actions by regional
assemblies eroded public sympathy as they were seen to be hindering the development
process. Jomo Kenyatta took full advantage of this to install authoritarian pillars in his
new regime while at the same time weakening majimboism.
Tn addition to frustrating political opponents, Jomo Kenyatta assumed the powers
of the colonial government and maintained an authoritative political Centre inherited
from Britain. The Centre, which formed the dominant discourse, became the point of
departure and reference by all the citizens of Kenya. As a result, opposition within the
Kenyatta State became treasonable and Kenyatta's word was law (Nakhosi 0.1, 2001).
Thus, from the onset, the Kenyan 'independent' nation-state had a serious problem of
political identity. Report Maxon has observed that:
165
..... the main thread that runs through Kenya's social history
during this period [post independence era] is, as in the
political and economic spheres, the strong continuity that linked
the initial years of independence firmly to the years that
preceded it (1995:1 10).
Encapsulated in Eurocentric forms of knowledge, the new state espoused the oppressive
tendencies of the outgoing colonialists and even continued to preach the stereotypical
images the colonizer had about Africans. The new rulers rejected opposition, and
threatened dissenting voices with detention in a characteristic fashion of the colonial
state. With the one party state deeply entrenched, both the Lower and Upper House
(Senate) were merged into one and a new National Assembly was put in place to help
rubber-stamp Kenyatta's whims and aspirations. Constitutional changes were passed
even before they reached the House because every elected member of parliament owed
his political survival to Kenyatta (Barasa 0 1, 2001).
The tool of oppression within the first Kenyatta government revolved around the
civil service. The provincial administration (whose structure remained colonial in every
aspect) became accountable to the Office of the President instead of the Minister for
Home Affairs (Odinga, 1967:243-245). It was therefore the administrative officer rather
than the party official who was in 1965 the major link between the executive and the
people (Gertzel, 1970:203). The Provincial and District Commissioners became
chairmen of Security Intelligence Committees, signifying the assertion of power by the
Office of the President. Like their equivalents working under the colonial Governor,
Provincial and District Commissioners in post-independent Kenya were given powers to
control the political process and had the responsibility of licensing public meetings,
166
including meetings held by members of parliament (Ibid.: 36). In this way, the Executive
usurped the powers of the Legislature and the Judiciary.
4.5 The Land Crisis
One of the most contentious Issues 10 the Kenyatta State was land and the
allocation of resources. Most members of parliament, especially those outside Kiambu
felt that land allocati.on in Kenya during the Kenyatta regime favoured the inner Kiambu
group where Kenyatta himself came from. But to the Kenyatta state, nationalization
quite simply meant the transfer, to the select few, of those unfair advantages which are
the legacy of formal colonialism (see Fanon, 1967: 122)
No one tried more conscientiously than former freedom fighter Bildad Kaggia to
put the government on the road to a land policy that would be good for the expansion of
the Kenyan economy, by protecting the interests of the landless and the poor people who
had elected the uhuru (freedom) government. As early as September 1963, Kaggia had
written to Bruce Mackenzie, the then Minister for Agriculture, and told him:
Everyone in this country is well aware of the land hunger that
has existed among Africans as a result of the robbery of their land
by the British colonial imperialists. The logical method to solve
the problem posed by this robbery would have been to nationalize
all big estates owned by the Europeans and make them either state
firms, so as to alleviate unemployment or to hand them to
co-operatives formed by landless Africans (Odinga, 1967:266).
Apart from advocating free land distribution to the landless, Kaggia also called for free
education and free medical facilities for the people. Nobody in the Kenyatta government
listened. Instead on 22, May 1964, Kenyatta wrote to Kaggia expressing serious concern
at Kaggia's repeated attacks on the Ministry of Lands and Settlement and at Kaggia's
interference with land consolidation in Murang'a (Ibid.). Kenyatta too challenged
lG7
Kaggia to resign if he felt that the government was not doing the right thing. Kaggia took
the challenge and resigned as the parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Education
arguing that:
As a representative of the people, I found it very difficult
to forget the people who elected me on the basis of definite
pledges, or to forget the freedom fighters who gave all they
had, including their land, for the independence we are enjoying
(Ibid: 267).
Both Kenyatta and his closest ally Tom Mboya made it clear that there would be no free
things, including land in the newly independent Kenyan state (Mboya, 1970:80). Yet
despite this assertion, Kenyatta continued to dish out, for free, large tracts of land to his
friends and relatives from Kiarnbu.
On the other hand, another political colossus, Oginga Odinga wanted a
government which handled fundamental national issues such as land distribution,
nationalization of resources and foreign policy by taking into account the aspirations and
needs of all ethnic groups. However, despite peaceful calls for reform in distribution of
resources, Kenyatta went ahead and utilized most of the £5 million British loan for
resettlement to give land to his own tribesmen. Through this programme, the Kikuyu
obtained huge junks of former white highlands in central Kenya and the Rift valley
province. Kenyatta himself acquired thousands of acres around Nakuru town which his
family owns up to date. To effect the acquisition of land, several African squatters, some
of them poor Kikuyu, were thrown out of the former European farms as a precondition
for political stability (Segal, 1967:47). This action reminds us of the brutal eviction, by
the colonial authorities, of squatters from Olenguruone in the 1940s.. Kenyatta was right
on course with political as well as economic violence which had defined and sustained
formal colonialism.
16X
Furthermore, Kenyatta set up land settlement schemes and asked Kenyans to pay
deposits so as to obtain loans for final purchase. At independence, many people were
poor and could not raise the deposits. Consequently, the majority of those who obtained
land were those who could enjoy political as well as financial support from Kenyatta and
his allies (Khayota 0.1, 200 1). But Kaggia, just like Odinga, felt that land vacated by
white settlers should actually have been given free to the African people (Kaggia, 1975).
He made his efforts in parliament but failed. Along with Kaggia, Odinga argued in
favour of the nationalization of resources but again the Kenyatta government rejected the
move.
A number of observations could be derived from the struggle which emerges
within Kenya's political elite. First, Kenyatta's derision of Kaggia's protestations is not
far-fetched. The two personalities belonged to different wings of the nationalist struggle.
Kenyatta was a member of the educated and moderate wing of KAL while Kaggia
belonged to the militant faction of the struggle. Thus, in many ways, Kaggia believed
that Kenyatta did not deserve the leadership of independent Kenya, since he never fought
hard enough for the liberation of the country. On the other hand, Kenyatta saw in Kaggia
an irrational and illiterate militant who had little touch with modernity.
However, the disagreement between Odinga and Kenyatta can be looked at from
two angles. First, though both of them were fairly educated, they had deep ideological
differences on the appropriate strategies to employ in order to improve the quality of life
for the people of Kenya. While Odinga felt socialism was the correct way for the
country, Kenyatta espoused capitalism.
The rift between the radicals and the conservatists in KANU had by 1966 reached
a peak as Odinga and Kaggia received countrywide condemnation for espousing the
communist ideology. Evidently. the new nation-state came to be torn between two
Western authoritative meta-narratives - capitalism and communism. Coming at the
height of the Cold War politics, the struggle between KANU radicals and conservatists
alienated Odinga and his allies as the Western capitalist nations including Britain threw
their weight behind the Kenyatta state. Indeed, on receiving assurance of Western
support for his government, against communist elements in Kenya, 10010 Kenyatta
undertook to enhance political repression and intolerance.
If we take capitalism as one of the grand-narratives of modernity as defined by the
West, then we should also accept communism as another variant of Western
modernization. After all, both modern capitalist and communist theories of social
development were conceived in Western European cities. Contributing to problematic of
the evils of capitalism, Frantz Fanon recommended socialism, which is the central thesis
in communism. In the postmodernist spirit, Fanon was right to question capitalism. But
having been caught up in the Modernist web, he questioned one grand-narrative,
capitalism, and suggested another grand-narrative socialism - both of them being part and
parcel of Western philosophical thought.
Thus like Fanon, Odinga, Kaggia and their socialist colleagues in Kenya, were
also entangled in modernity to the extent that they fought one aspect of modernity with
another when they questioned Kenyatta's capitalist state by suggesting that it should be
replaced by a communist entity. The Kenyatta state, it has to be admitted, needed
decolonization and the first step to do so was to question its relevance as Odinga and his
170
allies were doing. But to address Kenya's problems by suggesting another alien solution
emanating from the same philosophical tradition was untenable. This is probably why
the post-colonial discourse is appropriate in addressing the condition of the formerly
colonized others because it takes cognizance of the unique cultural identities of these
others and ultimately introduces a certain sense of urgency in tackling their problems.
Apart from allocating resources to his friends, 'tribesmen' and relatives, Kenyatta
embraced the colonial agenda of not turning Kenya into an industrial state because such
move would have denied the European world the much-needed African unfinished
products for European industrial production. Further, the Kenyatta government believed
that industrialization would be capital-intensive and thus create urban unemployment.
Consequently, like the formal colony that Kenya was, the neo-colony maintained its faith
in the production of agricultural products such as tea and coffee, which Europeans bought
at very low prices, shipped to Europe, processed and then resold to Africans at very high
pnces. Was this not a crisis in the Kenyan post-colony?
Ultimately, disagreement over how the affairs of the new nation should be
conducted led to a major split in KANU, with Odinga condemning Tom Mboya
Kenyatta's ally -for his untailored relationship with the West (Ahluwalia, 1996:43) The
attack exposed Odinga to furious admonition from those KANU conservatists who had
been waiting on the wings. On the instigation of Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, then Secretary
General of KANU announced that KANU would hold its delegates conference in March
1966 (Gertel Op.Cit.: 71). The outcome of the conference at Limuru seemed to signal the
end of Odinga's political career. Being the country's Vice President, Odinga was shocked
to learn that a plan had already been mooted to change the KANU constitution so as to
171
establish eight provincial Vice Presidents. In a series of events which complicated the
political scenario, Oginga Odinga and Bildad Kaggia broke off from KA U and
established a new party, the Kenya Peoples Union (KPU) (Ibicj: 144). Odinga was
joined by 30 other members who defected, including Nairobi M.P. J.D. Kali and J. K.
Tanui - the Baringo South M.P. Others on the defection list were Achieng' Oneko,
Joseph Nthula, Zephania Anyieni, Tom Okello Odongo, Oduya Oprong, J.D. Akumu,
0.0. Maka-Anyengo, F.E. Omido and u.G. Wachira (Ochieng ', 1995:98; East African
Standard, April 26, 1966
Justifying the defection, Odinga questioned the authenticity of Kenya's
independence arguing that Kenya was being ruled by an 'invisible government'. He said
thus:
This government represents first, the international forces purely
concerned with ideological colonization of the country and has no
genuine concern for the development of the people. Secondly,
it also represents the commercial interests, largely foreign, whose
primary concern is big profits for the shareholders. Here too the
interest of the people of Kenya is only secondary and understandably
not their concern (East African Standard, 15 April, 1966).
Summarizing the reasons for his resignation, Odinga went on:
It is fairly clear that there is pressure and desire that I should leave
the government. The authority concerned has however shown
reluctance to say so However, wananchi, my honest
opinion is that the present government has reached a point of no
return ..... can only do for the people the little that the underground
master allows it to. Its guiding star is personal gain. I therefore
find it impossible to be part of it, and my decision is that from now
on I should be free to join wananchi in demanding that their voice be
heard (Ibid.).
About one year after defection from KAl~U and the subsequent formation of KPU,
Odinga increased his political efforts to question the spreading disease of neo-coloniality
when he published his book Not Yet Uhuru meaning 'Not Yet Free" in 1967. The book
172
was a damning indictment of the Kenyatta regime as well as a critical examination of the
pitfalls of national independence within the African post-colony. He saw the colonial
state in its post-independence dispensation as a continuation of brutality, political
intolerance, economic mismanagement and exploitation. selfishness, nepotism, land
grabbing as well as social marginalization perpetuated by the ruling class (Odinga,
1967:253-314). Consequently, Odinga saw the attainment of independence as having
had little impact on the dismantling of colonialism. The struggle had to continue.
Consequently, upon the defection of Odinga and his allies, KANU declared that
all those who had crossed the floor should seek re-election. In the 1966 Little General
elections. the government frustrated KPU members and their supporters and ensured that
that KPU did not hold public rallies. Public rallies called by the opposition were
violently disrupted while the rebel leaders were intimidated. KANU candidates were
openly campaigned for by the government media, making it impossible for many KPU
leaders to make it back to parliament. In the outcome of the elections, KA0:U forced a
majority of 151 seats against KPU's 9. So the combined force of KANU in both the
House of Representatives and the Senate was formidable (Koff, 1966:60). Notably, the
peaceful struggle for change by Odinga and Kaggia should be viewed as a fundamental
effort in the decolonization in Kenya. Yet, even though the opposition endeavor was
non-violent, the government reactions often exposed its readiness to use force in order to
subdue dissent.
Despite the growing dissent to his government, Jomo Kenyatta did not reconsider
his stand and that of his government with regard to addressing the problems facing the
people of Kenya. Instead, Kenyatta saw in his opponents as paid <agents' of communism
173
whose mission it was to dethrone him. In a Kenyatta day rally held at Kamukunji,
Nairobi on zo" October 1967, the Kenyan President lost his cool and delivered a violent
speech to intimidate his opponents. Answering Odinga and his colleagues in the
opposition, Kenyatta told the rally:
Brothers, there are those who ask, 'what is the government doing ?'
And there are those who say, the government has done nothing yet.
But I am telling you, even if we have done nothing, I think. every
citizen should be proud of being free, and that he is Governing himself
is a very important thing.... We all fought for uhuru and it is only the
cowards who used to hide under the beds while others were struggling
who go about [questioning] what the KANU government had done .... You
know KPU .... Ask them where they fought for II/111m. As from today
K.P. U are to be regarded as snakes in grass .... KPU beware. The fighting
for our uhuru is on. Whoever has ears to hear, let hi m heed this?
(Kenyatta, 1968:340-348).
Obviously, snakes are dangerous creatures. Human beings deal \ ith snakes by hitting
them hard and violently on the head and killing them all together because snakes carry
poison which threaten lives. Kenyatta was on a war path to neutralize, by use of force,
fellow countrymen who had fought hard not only for the end of colonialism but also for
his release from prison. These nationalists had to him, transformed into snakes!
In the above quotation, Kenyatta undertook to justify the ineptitude of his
government by saying that such ineptitude was occurring in an environment of freedom,
which to him was more important than providing services required to all citizens. In
addition., Kenyatta reminds the Kenyan people about the heroism of those who fought for
independence and implies that his post-independence opponents were actually cowards.
The idea here was that Kenyatta wanted to pacify the people and make them insensitive
to his abuse of power and his inability to deliver. Frantz Fanon captures this behavioral
pattern reminiscent of post-independent African leadership when he states:
17~
For years on end after independence has been won, we see him
[the leader] incapable of urging on the people to a concrete task,
unable really to open the future for them we see him
reassessing the history of independence and recalling the sacred
unity of the struggle for liberation. The leader, because he refuses
to break lip the national bourgeoisie, asks the people to become
drunk on the remembrance of the epoch which led up to independence.
The leader, seen objectively, brings the people to a halt and persists in
either expelling them from history or preventing them from taking root
in it (1967: 135).
Annoyed with the behaviour of the bourgeois leadership III newly independent states,
Fanon declares that 'in fact the bourgeois phase In the history of underdeveloped
countries is a completely useless phase' (Ibid.: 142)
4.6 Tribalism
A distinctive feature of the Kenyatta State was tribalism. Tribalism is simply the
extension of political, social and economic favours to members of one's ethnic
community without any regard to the aspirations and interests of other communities
The colonial period had formalized and hardened ethnic divisions as the colonial
rulers established a system of administration based on division of Kenya by key 'tribes'.
This and the colonial policy of 'divide and rule'had created forms of ethnic identity and
solidarity popularly dubbed 'tribalism' (Lonsdale, 1977: 123 -13 0). Such ethnic identity
was based on differences in language. Linguistic divisions provided ready-dug lines of
cleavage along which other conflicts would be politicized as it became more and more
important to the ordinary people that the levers of social action should be in 'friendly
hands' (Ibid.). True, decolonization should have changed all this. But the situation was
little altered after independence. Ethnic identity continued to be an important factor, in
Kenya's social equation, under the Kenyatta state. As ethnic paranoia persisted, it
175
became politically correct to be Kikuyu or to speak the Kikuyu language. Average
citizens sought solace and security in ethnic-based social welfare organizations as they
looked more favourably on the leadership of those who spoke their language. Kenyatta
himself used to address the nation in Kikuyu, thus enhancing the status of the community
within the postcolony.
Frantz Fanori once argued that tribal ism was a major challenge of any newly
independent African nation. In the new nation-state, the nation passed over for race and
the tribe was preferred to the state (1967: 121). During the first cabinet of the new
Kenyan republic in 1964. Kenyatta's tribal mind was manifest Out of the 19 cabinet
positions, Kenyatta himself included, there were six occupied by the Kikuyu ethnic
community members as opposed to four by the Luo, two by the Kamba, one by the Meru,
one by the Kisii, one by the Luhya, one by the Kalenjin, one by the Maasai and one by
the European (Khapoya, J 980:28-29) This trend of Kikuyu dominance was maintained
even after the 1966 Little General Election except that that time the Luo cabinet numbers
dropped to three (Ibid. :29). By 1969, Kikuyu leaders had concretized Kenyatta's ethnic
propensities by organizing oaths, in the President's Gatundu constituency to bind the
Kikuyu community to ruthlessly fight to retain the national flag in their background
(Ahluwalia, Op.Cit.:56).
Between 1966 and 1969, the Kenyatta government embarked on the programme
of persecuting and harassing K.P.U supporters and leaders. Although the party's
opposition figures came from across the country, the highest concentration was in the
Nyanza province. It was easy to discern that the contest between the Kenyatta state and
K.P.u. was being trimmed down to a Kikuyu/Luo rivalry. The Kenyatta government
176
went ahead and detained several K.P.U leaders with some like Odinga being put under
house arrest. During this time, K.P.U was treated the same way as did the Mau Mau in
the 1950's. Inside KANU. however, the increasing popularity of Tom Mboya, a Luo
politician, was worrying the Kikuyu political clique. The hatred for Mboya became an
open secret because the Kikuyu elite feared that Mboya could easily wrest power from
Kenyatta. On July 5, 1969, Tom Mboya was mysteriously assassinated on a Nairobi
street (Daily Nation. July 6, 1969).
It was profoundly suspected that, through a hired assassin, Kenyatta
masterminded Mboyas death. Here the Fanonian dialectic of violence can hardly
explain this occurrence. First and foremost, Mboya was Kenyatta 's trusted Minister.
Second, Mboya had not meted any violence on the Kenyatta regime. Consequently,
Kenyatta's violence would seem unreasonable yet it also exposes the inherent weakness
in the Fanonian dialectic of violence. One of the limiting factors in the Fanonian notion
of violence is that violence has an emancipatory objective. Yet, Kenyatta's violence
which might have caused Mboya's death had nothing emancipatory in it. Secondly,
Kenyatta's violence was unprovoked and therefore responsive to a non-existent threat of
violence.
Nevertheless, Mboya's death culminated into fierce Kikuyu/Luo rivalry that
threatened to destabilize the Kenyatta presidency. Riots broke out at Mboya's funeral and
Odinga was officially recognized as a Luo leader. Later on a tour of Kisumu, Kenyatta's
convoy was stoned and several people were in the process killed or injured. The reaction
of the rioters fits perfectly in Fanon's notion of counter-violence but does it emancipate
anybody? Like its colonial counterpart - post independence violence in Kenya only
177
worsened things. Kenyatta attacked Odinga and KPU for plotting to overthrow the
government through riots. As a result, Odinga and seven other MPs were detained and
KPU banned. (Africa Confidential. November 1969)
Despite frequent attacks on tribalism by political leaders, ethnic identity and
loyalty continued to manifest a srong influence in the Kenyan society during the Kenyatta
era. Political support, sports organizations (particularly football where we had Abaluhya,
Luo Union and Gema football clubs), employment patterns and harambee efforts all
reflected the pervasive influence of ethnicity (Maxon, 1995: 122). While expanding
educational opportunities, and the use of Kiswahili and English had the potential for
breaking down ethnic barriers, the inherited education system guaranteed that the
majority of students attended schools with fellow ethic-group members at the primary
level.
During the month of December 1969, with the opposition effectively removed
from the political scene, Kenyatta scheduled the second general election in what turned
out to be an all-KANU affair. All suspected sympathizers of the opposition were voted
out. In the new political arrangement, Jomo Kenyatta formed a cabinet comprising of
twenty members. Out of this, there were seven from the Kikuyu. If you add one Meru
who is a close relative of the Kikuyu's then the figure moves to eight. This compares
unfavourably with only two Kalenjin ministers, two Luhya, two Kisii, two Luo, one
European, one Taita and one Giriama (Khapoya, Op.Cit.: 30). The Kikuyu dominance
over the rest of the Kenyan communities was still upheld.
Even during the 1974 elections, the trend of the Kikuyu dominance in the cabinet was
maintained within the same ratio (Ibid.: 30). The situation was much more critical in the
civil service. The Kenyan civil service was controlled by members of the Kikuyu ethnic
community. For instance, out of the eight provincial commissioners that Kenyatta
employed throughout his regime, at least five were from his Kikuyu community. The
majority of District Commissioners, District Officers and Permanent Secretaries were
also Kikuyu. This civil service imbalance was Kenyatta's deliberate strategy to exclude
Kenya's diverse ethnic groups from participating in public life. In terms of domination,
the Kikuyu replaced the Europeans and took over all the privileges of the latter in the
newly 'independent' postcolony. So the struggle against these tribalistic tendencies was a
struggle for decolonization of Kenya.
4.7 Education and Culture
The concept of education and culture are closely intertwined. Indeed, education is
part and parcel of a peoples culture. Colonialism utilized the critical significance of
culture to enhance the domination of the African people. Frantz Fanon was convinced
colonial culture was incapable of procuring for the colonized peoples the material
conditions which might make them forget their concern for dignity (Fanon 1967: 167).
Contributing to the problematic of culture, Fanon made a couple of observations. First he
advocated for national rather than African culture. This was because, he felt, African
culture did not really exist. He gave the example that there was no common destiny to be
shared by the people of Senegal and Guinea but there was a common destiny between the
Senegelese and the Guinean nations because both states were colonized by the French.
Hence, in a characteristic hybridity later adopted such by such colonial thinkers as
Homi Bhabha (1994) and Gayatri Spivak (1986), Fanon indicated that every African
nation had its own unique problems which required unique and sometimes localized
171)
solutions. Thus, in a postmodern fashion, the problems of the African nations could not
be dealt with in a homogeneous programme called African culture. But knowing the
dilemma in which the African people found themselves at the end of formal colonialism,
Fanon warned against the tendency to go back into the past and glorify past cultures that
had no relevance to the present conditions (Fanon, Op.Cit.: 178-180). In the same vein
he says that people of different African nations should in their post-independence
dispositions, avoid the temptation to uncritically espouse European culture whose
exoticism and past oppressiveness make it irrelevant in tackling local problems.
Consequently, Fanon saw national culture as an important instrument for
liberation. He observes that:
no speech-making and no proclamation concerning
culture will turn us from our fundamental tasks: the
liberation of the national territory; a continued struggle
against colonialism in its new forms (Ibid.: 189).
Every African nation is, at present, faced with many problems. Among these are
problems of famine, indignity caused by colonialism, political instability, poor
governance, illiteracy, diseases, poor communication and incompetent political
leadership. These and many other crises require specialized attention based on the
diverse conditions which operate at national rather than continental levels. The
implication of the Fanonian notion of culture is that it must bare a national dimension and
it should respond to the national rather than the African condition. Fanon adds that:
a national culture is not a folklore nor an abstract populism
that believes that it can discover the people's true nature. It is
not made up of the inert dregs of gratuitous actions, that is to
say actions which are less and less attached to the ever-present
reality of people. A national culture is the whole body of efforts
made by a people in the sphere of thought to describe, justify and
praise the action through which that people has created and keeps
180
itselfin existence (1967: 189).
Evidently, Frantz Fanori's arguments on culture have their own merits. By
empahsizing diversity instead oftranscedentalism. Fanon becomes extremely attractive to
scholars within the postmodemist and postcolonialist movements. More importantly, his
emancipatory perspective of culture is profoundly friendly to the ideas of several
postcolonial thinkers, including Shaobo Xie (1977) Gyan Prakash (1992) Ella Shohat
(1997) and even Edward Said (1979 and 1994), who see postcolonialism as a theoretical
movement which aims at achieving true decolonization for the formerly colonized others,
by dismantling forms of knowledge authored and unauthorized by the West.
Yet it is important to observe that by rejecting the universalism of European
culture as well as African culture, Fanon might not have succeeded to move us into a
fresh intellectual territory. What he calls national culture also thrives on the universalism
which Fanon attempts to run away from. This is because national culture becomes
oppressive when it claims to represent local cultural diversities. Must we ignore these
diversities in the name of national culture? How can we appropriate national culture in
ways that address localized ethnic, gender, regional, economic and political differences
which operate within the overwhelming fabric of a nation. It seems to me that Fanon did
not go far as to address these issues.
The second problem with Fanou's thesis on culture is his failure to recognize the
role of public morality in bringing about desirable change. Fused within the fabric of
culture, public morality could be a useful asset for dealing with political, economic and
administrative crises in Africa. Many African societies are founded against the backrock
of honesty, fairness and accommodation. Could these virtues be appropriated in order to
IXI
give more meaning and more effectiveness to the emancipatory agenda of national
culture than might have been the case before? Again Fanon does not delve into the
dynamics of public morality among the African societies yet we know that traditional
African societies do not condone abuse of power, corruption and the plundering of
resources. Are African countries facing some of these problems just because the
traditional aspects of public morality among the African societies have been ignored as
important cultural components for the continent's postcolonies? It appears to me that the
arguments of Fanon on culture are deficient because they do not embrace the cultural
tenets of African communities and should thus be accepted with some caution.
Finally, Fanon's thesis on national culture is that it should not glorify the past. To
Fanon, national culture should be concerned with the present and the future but not the
past. But as we have pointed out in Chapter One, this argument lacks historical
consciousness. There is no way societies could deal with the present without
understanding how this present came into being. It is true that some of the things which
happened in the past could be irrelevant to the present. But it is also suicidal to assume
that every aspect of our past has little suitability to the present and the future.
Upon the achievement of internal self government on 1 June, 1963, the Prime
Minister of Kenya identified three enemies - ignorance, disease and poverty - to be
overcome by an independent Kenya (Sunday Nation, June 2, 19630. Soon, the
government appointed an education commission headed by Prof. S.H. Ominde to survey
the country's education resources and advise the government on future strategy. The
Ominde Commission of 1964, as it was known, endorsed free primary education. It also
recommended the need to increase school enrollment (Republic of Kenya, Education
182
Commission Report Part II, pp v-vi, 1964). Further, it endorsed integration with a single
curriculum, but different fee structures, for Kenya's racially divided school system.
By 1970 major reforms had been achieved in Kenya's education system The
number of secondary schools rose by 80% and the number of pupils enrolled rose by
76%. And the country had established its first national university in Nairobi (Maxon,
1995: 127). Emphasis on the expansion of higher education also meant that the country
was able to produce skilled manpower to take up jobs left by Europeans. In 1973, the
government abolished fees in primary school to pave way for increased enrollment
(Sifuna, 1990: 162-164)
However, the picture painted above could also serve to obscure certain harsh
realities. During the era of formal colonialism, education was used as an instrument of
marginalization whereby Africans were taught only those things that made them useful to
the colonial political economy. Similarly, colonial education despised African cultural
values making the man of colour to constantly engage himself in efforts to run away from
his individuality, to annihilate his own presence (1970:60). This situation seems to have
been maintained during the lifespan of the Kenyatta state. Frantz Fanon calls this,
alienation.
In the Kenyatta era, education was meant to produce skilled manpower to take
up vacant jobs left by the colonialists including those in the teaching, administrative,
legal, medical, agriculture and financial professions. Because the post-independence
political economy had strong threads of continuity with that of the colonial period, these
professionals had to be well-schooled in colonial knowledge. Thus, in the area of
curriculum, the English medium programme first began in the African schools in 1961,
IX3
spread widely in primary schools. The Ominde Commission recommended its adoption
and, by the end of the 1970s, English formed the medium of instruction in virtually all
Kenyan schools (Sifuna, 1980: 139-143). As an instrument of perpetuating the values of
the colonial system, English language remained a mark of civilization and modernity
within Kenya's post-independence experience.
But to adopt the language of the colonizer is to assume his cultural forms and
thought patterns. Fanon underlines the importance of language when he sates:
I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language.
I find it necessary to begin with this subject, which should provide
us with one of the elements in the coloured man's comprehension of
the dimension of the other. For it is implicit that to speak is to exist
absolutely for the other (1970: 17).
In the colonial territory, the language of the colonizer has a great prestige value. This
prestige was enhanced in the post-independence era. As Emmanuel Hansen observes, the
sentence, 'he speaks English well' or 'he speaks French well' denotes not only a
reference to linguistic ability but also the level of acculturation and acceptance of the
whiteman's ways of life (Hansen, 1978:73). In Fanons own words:
To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax,
to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means
above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of
civilization (1970: 17-18).
Under the Kenyatta state, the curriculum for primary and secondary education
was localized to some extent but the bulk remained as it had been inherited from the
colonial period. It was thus elitist and inegalitarian in nature as it was designed to meet
the interests and the needs of a very small proportion of those who enter the school
system (Ibid.: 104). The heavy emphasis on literary education and the preparation for
white-collar jobs is certainly open to question since by the end of the 1970, considerably
18.+
less than 20% of those finishing school were unable to enter government secondary
school (Todaro, 1981 :276). Evidently, the main feature of education during the period
was one of linear expansion rather than structural reform (Court and Ghai. 197-l: 10)
The neo-colonial experience was still thriving.
Neocoloniality was also witnessed in the way In which the school system was
organized. During the period of formal colonialism, there were three types of schools:
European, Asian and African. As we noted in Chapter Two, European schools received
most of the financial and administrative backing from the government while the African
schools were virtually neglected. The logic was that European schools would produce
students who would later take up lucrative jobs in the colonial government. But
European schools were also expensive and difficult to access.
At independence, schools originally reserved for Europeans and Asians such as
airobi School (then Duke of York) and Lenana School (Prince of Wales) became
centres of 'manufacturing' neo-colonial rulers out of the African youth. Economically
privileged African elites took their children to such schools where Western capitalist
values were held in great esteem. From these schools, the children of the African elite
proceeded to university and later came back to take up jobs being vacated by their parents
(Kenva Education Commission 1965: 199). The rest of the Kenyan children went into
ordinary schools that prepared them to be good 'neo-colonial' subjects under the elites in
the new political dispensation of neocoloniality
Let us briefly go back to the issue of culture. Culture might mean many things to
many people. However, the mention of the term also signifies certain critical
commonalities which seem to recur in its application. Immanuel Wallerstein
185
differentiates between culture as 'the set of characteristics which distinguish one group
from another' from culture as some set of phenomenon which are different from some
other set of phenomena within anyone group (Wallerstein. 1990:33). From a purely
anthropological standpoint, culture represents a way of life, values and beliefs of a people
(King, 1991:2). The important point to note here is that the definition of culture includes
emphasis on human differences .. Thus, the diverse groups of the human race have ways
of life, values and beliefs which set them apart from other groups but which are in no way
superior to the ways of life, beliefs and values of other groups within the human race.
Consequently, any efforts to impose one's cultural values on other people negates
human freedom and violates the sanctity of human difference and diversity. Culturally,
colonialism had the tendency to impose its values, beliefs and ways of life on the
colonized, thereby violating the sanctity of human difference and diversity. The culture .
of the various ethnic groups of Kenya includes but it is not confined to indigenous
languages, eating and sexual habits, educational practices, dress, belief systems, song,
dance and theatre. Since the birth of the Kenyan postcolony, indigenous cultures have
often conflicted with and lived in an unequal relationship with European cultures.
It has already been explained that the inner core of the nation-state is its spiritual
and cultural domain. It is this domain that legitimizes claims to the nation. Thus
nationalism is a cultural expression of a people. This point was put more vividly by
Frantz Fanon when he stated:
For culture is first the expression of a nation,the expression
of its preferences, of its taboos and of its patterns. It is at every
stage of the whole society that taboos, values and patterns are
formed. A national culture is a sum total of all these appraisals;
it is the result of internal and external extensions exerted over society
and also at every level of society (1967: 196).
186
Elsewhere, Fanon, observes that a national culture under colonial domination is a
contested culture whose destruction is sought in a systemic fashion. It very quickly
becomes a culture condemned in secrecy (Ibid. 191). During the colonial period, the
cultural preferences of the African people, their taboos and their patterns of life - all were
either modified, ignored or abused in order to pave way for the modernist values of
Eurocentrism. Under this experience, African culture become condemned asa culture of
secrecy. The struggle against colonialism was thus mainly hinged on the need to restore
the dignity of African cultural values and, by extension, the dignity of the African nation.
With the achievement of independence, there was a general consensus about the
need for the new Kenyan nation-state to develop a national culture as means of enhancing
national unity, pride and patriotism. There was moreover the urge to assert the utility of
African cultural traditions which had been subjected to a multifaceted assault by
colonialism. A new national culture would hence find expression through the nation's
unique artifacts, diversity of song, art dance, theatre, literature and other traditions
(Maxon, Op.Cit.: 139).
However, the Kenyatta state made a number of errors which came to undermine
the objective of building a national culture. Although Swahili was widely spoken at
independence, and it carried the capacity to be a powerful instrument of building a
national culture, it was not given the boost required. Public servants addressed people in
Swahili not because they were proud of it but because it was the only language through
which to communicate with the uneducated (Mwaturo 0.1, 2002). Furthermore, as has
already been pointed out, English was always given official preference. Although
Swahili came to be accepted as a national language, English became not only the medium
IS7
of instruction at all levels of education but also the official language in Kenya. How
could one say decolonization had been achieved at the attainment of independence when
English, the biggest tool of perpetuating colonialism and Western modernity, was still
widely preferred to Kiswahili?
More importantly, the Kenyatta State enhanced the continued encroachment, of
Western culture, thus inhibiting the emergence of a national culture. Apart from the
language policy which not only undermined the power of Kiswahili but also encouraged
ethnic languages to flourish an radio and in schools, the Kenyatta State did little to
change the influence of the West on dress and music. R.M. Osotsi summarizes the
situation vividly when he observed that the Western educated elite who took over Kenya
at independence fell back on the Western-oriented culture they absorbed during the
formative years. He says:
Boarding school, baptism, total alienation from traditional
education process had raised nothing but contempt for their
own culture. This elite was now considered ready to take
all the cultural reigns of the new and young nation. Nothing
more disastrous could have happened culturally (Osotsi, 1990:212).
The problems which were witnessed in the fields of education and culture began
to resonate in minds of the new intellectuals of the 1960s and seventies. With the
establishment of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi in mid
1960s, Kenya witnessed the emergency of a crop of new original and creative minds
including Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek, Owour Anyumba, Taban Lo Liyong,
William Ochieng, Elkana Ongesa, Janet Bujra, Achola Pala, G.M. Manani, H.S.K.
Mwaniki, Washington Omondi and B.A. Ogot among others (Ogot: Op.Cit.: 219). Some
of these were historians, others were creative artists, while a few were song writers. All
of them undertook to write several books and papers reconstructing African history and
culture. Their writings exemplified the on-going decolonization in the field of culture.
They were sending message that decolonization was not yet over. Indeed, some artists
went even further by publishing works in mother languages. They include, Okot P'Bitek,
(Wer Pa, Song of Lawino 1965), Grace Ogot (Miaha, 1968) and Ngugi wa Thiongo
~gaahika deenda, 1977). By writing in indigenous languages and by reconstructing
and highlighting African history and culture, these authors were creating a post-colonial
discourse which revolves around the sense of agency to interrogate forms of knowledge
authored and authorized by the West. otably, however, the cultural decolonization
which we see taking place in Kenya during the Kenyatta state, through the foregoing
artists, can hardly be described as violent. Thus contrary to what Fanon has maintained,
decolonization is not always a violent process.
4.8 Opposition and Repression
Sustained by foreign capital, the Kenyatta State retained foreign economic
policies as the masses suffered poverty, deprivation, unemployment and landlessness.
Following indepedence, the KANU leadership was pressured by Europeans into thinking
that any break with major economic and social policies established during the colonial
era would prove to be detrimental. Consequently, the Kenyatta state undertook to
indiscriminately espouse Eurocentric values and without taking into consideration local
conditions and diversities. European values were accorded a privileged position, making
it impossible for the newly independent nation-state to build up its own unique identity.
Postmodern history is known to challenge the metanaratives of modernity that have
189
defined historical inquiry. In his work, Bevond the Great StOry (1995), American scholar
Robert Berkhofer supported this view when he argued that:
no longer can any single master-interpretive code
be privileged over another as if one \-vere somehow
correspondent to the' real' past than the other
(Berkhofer, 1995:350).
The failure of the Kenyatta leadership to deconstruct the colonial state heightened
opposition against his government as more and more forces questioned the expansion of
colonial hegemony in the country.
Accordingly, both in and outside parliament, the Kenyatta State came under
considerable attack in the early 1970s. During this time, there was also a growing
disparity of incomes between a small elite (Fanon's Pseudo-middle class) and the mass of
population. This observation was confirmed by the International Labour Organization
which reported thus:
In many respects, economic growth has largely continued on
lines set by earlier colonial structures. Posts have been
Africanized and there there has been expansion but the
structures which led to and have sustained inequalities still
remain. The centre still grows and at the expense of the
periphery and important parts of the economy are still controlled
by expatriate interests (Il.O, 1972: 100)
The conclusion of Il.O not only relayed a sense of urgency but also stressed the need to
deal with a series of problems which were interrelated. The LL. 0 observed:
Employment, in our analysis of the Kenyan situation, is
inseparable from an overall strategy of economic and social
development. Thus, any frontal attack on the problem of
unemployment and employment in Kenya has to deal with
the whole gamut of measures related to the economic and
social inequalities, equity and low incomes (ILO, Op. Cit.:_30)
190
Kenyatta responded to these observations half-heartedly and promised to promote the
rural and informal sector. However, not much action was taken on the ground.
Beginning 1971, things took a turn for the worse. Some K.P. U sympathizers in
government raised their voices even at the price of getting detained. Frantz Fanon was
prophetic while analyzing political intolerance in post-independence Africa when he said
in 1961 that:
We should add that in Africa, a certain number of governments
behave in this way. All the opposition parties which moreover were
usually progressive and would therefore tend to work for the greater
influence of the masses in the conduct of public matters and who
desire that the proud, money-making bourgeoisie should be brought
to heel, have been by dint of baton charges and prisons condemned to
silence then to a clandestine existence (1967: 147).
As the economic conditions worsened, it was revealed that a plot to overthrow the
Kenyatta government by the Kenya Armed Forces led by Major General dolo and
airman Frederick Omondi had been foiled (Ahluwalia Op.Cit.: 66). The abortive coup
reflected the people's frustrations from within and without the army as well as the civil
service. Many people felt the need to fight Kenyatta's colonialism so as to achieve true
freedom (Amadi 0.1, 2001). Kenyatta dismissed the coup plotters as 'puppets of
foreigners' (Africa Report, 1971). But the write off of the plotters was as a little
paradoxical. Who between the masses of Kenya and Kenyatta was truly a puppet of
foreigners? Wasn't Kenyatta and his allies serving colonialism in its hegemonic
arrangement?
Earlier in March 1969, distinguished Swahili poet, Abdilatif Abdalla had been
detained by the Kenyatta government after being accused of inciting people to overthrow
the government through armed struggle (Abdulla, 1973:viii). Abdulla was also accused of
191
distributing, in the coastal region of Kenya, what was considered seditious literature
under the title Kenya: Twendapi? ('Kenya: where are we moving to?'). By questioning
the political direction Kenya was taking, the pamphlet cast aspersions on Kenyatta's
leadership. Kenyatta's response to this intellectual violence was detention. And as we
know, detention causes psychological and physical injury to the victims. It is one of the
worst forms of violence. Between 1969 and 1972 when Abdulla was incarcerated he
undertook to utilize his detention period to write deeply philosophical Swahili poems
about the deteriorating political situation in Kenya. These poems were later assembled
and published in 1973 under the title Santi ya Dhiki (Voice of Agony').
The poems were thematic and informative. For example in Usiniue (p.51) ('Do
not kill me') (1973: 56), the author presents a metaphorical picture of a mother who wants
to abort an unborn baby. Through this imagery, Abdulla pleads with the Kenya
government not to kill him and others with similar opposition views before they could
contribute to the decolonization and development of their country. In Yatakoma (p.28)
('It Will End'), Abdulla gives hope to millions of Kenyans then suffering because of the
brutalizing effects of neocoloniality, telling them that one day their tribulations would
come to an end. In Mamaetu Africa (p.36) ('Mother Africa'), the author laments the
pitfalls of the African independence arguing that Africa was embroiled in quarrels among
brothers; it was full of poverty, divisions and political intolerance. Africa, he adds, had
witnessed its people turn into wild animals; people who looted the continent in the face of
poverty.
In Ndiya Panda (p.79) ('crossroads), the author talks about the dilemma of the
newly independent nations of Africa. But having been convinced that the struggle for
192
decolonization must continue In the face of sustained oppression perpetuated by the
indigenous leaders, Abdalla calls on the people to wake up and fight. This theme is
captured in Zil1dllkClI1((p.69) ('Wake up'). In general, the book demonstrates clearly that
decolonization in Africa had not been achieved just by the mere attainment of
independence. Abdalla's publications represented an open letter of disapproval of the
workings of Kenyatta's postcolonial state. Coming from the cultural field of artists,
Abdalla spoke for the dispossessed intellectuals and the suffering peasants as well as
workers living under the brutalizing experiences of the post-independence leadership in
the Kenyan postcolony
Within parliament, fiery political figures took up the struggle against Kenyatta.
Distinguished leaders such as J.M Kariuki, Martin Shikuku and Jean Marie Seroney
became the ardent spokesmen of Kenya's 'wretched of the earth'. They articulated the
voices of the unemployed, the frustrated job seekers, the working poor, the landless, the
young radicals, the informal sector and the squatters (see Mutiso, 1975). As tensions
heightened, discrepancies between a wealthy elite and the masses continued to grow.
These were exacerbated further by ethnic overtones due to Kenyatta's persistent
Kukuyunization of Kenya's public service. As the situation deteriorated, Kenyatta
employed force and threats to subdue his opponents. But as Colin Leys has observed:
In 1973, when the inflationary crisis finally imposed a seemingly
decisive halt to the country's post independence record of
economic growth, the critics became more vocal and it is probable
though at present unverifiable that Kariuki's efforts to mobilize a
political alliance of the rural landless poor and middle peasants,
and the urban unemployed and workers intensified (Leys, 1979:304).
During the 1974, October 14th Elections, Kenyatta fought so hard to have the KANU
rebels defeated but unfortunately for him lM. Kariuki, Martin Shikuku and Marie
(93
Seroney were returned with majority votes. The election was equally depressing for
Kenyatta because he lost some of his most trusted political ministers such as Njoroge
Mungai, Willian Odongo Omamo, Juxton Shako and Eliud Ngala Mwendwa (The
Weekly Review's Voter Handbook, 1979).
In a characteristic colonial tendency, opposition IS usually unwelcome to
imperialists. In a colonial setting, dissent is treasonable and all dissenters must always be
controlled. Political parties in the neo-colonial states, as Fanon observes, often surrender
their powers to party leaders, where militants are isolated and the police and the army
became pillars of intimidation (Fanon, 1967: 136-139). In Kenya, Kenyatta was a typical
case of Fanon's pessimism. Before long, one of his critical opponents, J.M. Kariuki, was
mysteriously assassinated (The Standard, March, 13 1975). J.M.'s death demonstrated
the depth of regime violence on its citizens.
As a result of the assassination, airobi University students demonstrated in the
streets, demanding an objective inquiry into the matter. The government reacted
violently, beating up students and closing the university (Ogot, Op.cit.: 1980). This
episode marked a turning point in the relation between the government and the university
community. Thereafter, a climate of distrust and confrontation emerged with the state
regularly using force to curtail academic freedom. The aftermath of this tragic event
were felt far and wide. Several critics of the government both in and out of parliament
including Martin Shikuku, J.M Seroney and Ngugi wa Thiongo and George Anyona
were incarcerated.
19~
Like Mboya, Kariuki's appeal cut across ethnic lines and he genuinely threatened
the popularity of Kenyatta. His popularity could easily be discernible in some of the
things he said. We reproduce a few of his statements:
A small but powerful group of greedy, selfseeking elite in the
form of politicians, civil servants and businessmen has already
steadily but very surely monopolized the fruits of independence
to the exclusion of the majority of the people - we do not want a
Kenya of 10 millionaires and 10 million beggars, .
I believe firmly that substituting Kamau for Smith, Odongo for
Jones and Kiplagat for Keith does not solve what the gallant fighters
of our Uhuru considered an imposed and undesirable social justice.
This is a deplorable state of things. Nepotism and tribalism have
set in These are evil and must be condemned in no uncertain
terms. We must all join hands to eliminate them and restore credibility
to public life. We must strive to ensure that the next generation will
not blame us for having failed to correct the strains of public life
(Daily Nation, Nairobi. June 4, 1975).
J.M's observations summarizes aptly the crisis, the problems, the structures and the
pitfalls of the Kenyatta state. Independence had become a fraud. Thus, since colonialism
had not ended with formal independence, the struggle against it had to be sustained.
A select committee headed by the then Bungoma East Member of Parliament,
Elijah Mwangale, was set up in the House to probe J.M's murder. But during the
investigations, the committee received very little cooperation from the government (The
Standard, June 4, 1975). However, as it turned out, the committee implicated, in J.M's
murder, some of the leading loyalists of the Kenyatta state including, Silas Mburu Gichua
(Nakuru Mayor), Waruhiu Itote (Former Mau Mau General and then Deputy Director of
the National Youth Service), Police Commissioner, Bernard Hinga, the Head of Criminal
Investigations, Ignatius Nderi, Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police for Rift Valley
Province, Mr. James Mungai, General Service Unit Commandant Ben Gethi and Senior
Superintendent of Police Joginder Singh Sokhi (The Standard, June 4 1975).
195
In parliament, Attorney General Charles Njonjo attempted to rally the House to
vote against the Mwangale Report but members were outraged and even some senior
Ministers in the Kenyatta government such as Masinde Muliro, Minister for Works, along
with his assistant, John Keen voted against Njonjo's motion. Peter Kibisu, Assistant
Minister for Labour too opposed Njonjo's move. The result was that Muliro, Keen and
Kibisu were all. dropped from the Cabinet - a confirmation that the Kenyatta state had
abetted in the assassination of J.M. Kariuki. Members of the J.M. Select Committee were
harassed by security forces leading to an acrimonious exchange in parliament between
Martin Shikuku and Marie Seroney on the one hand, and the government led by Vice
President Daniel arap Moi along with Cabinet Minister Stanley Oloitiptip on the other.
At the end of the debate, the KANU rebels moved a verdict of guilty against the
government and declared that KANU was 'actually dead' (The Standard. February 7,
1975). Later, Shikuku and Seroney were picked up by security forces, from the precincts
of parliament and detained without trial.
Meanwhile, Kenyatta floated the tribal card in order to overcome the crisis. First,
he encouraged the Gikuyu, Meru, Embu (GEMA) association led by Kihika Kimani, then
member of parliament from Nakuru, to launch a nationwide campaign to absolve
Kenyatta's government from the J.M. murder. In Kiambu, with the knowledge and
encouragement of President Kenyatta, large-scale oathing aimed at dismembering other
ethnic communities as well as some members of the Kikuyu community opposed to
Kikuyu leadership took place. The oath, 'Mume. wa Mai Chania Na Mai Mahiu'
represented a commitment to the idea that presidential motorcycles should never cross the
rivers Chania and Mahiu which represent a dividing line between Kiambu and Nyeri
1%
(Ahluwalia, Op.Cit. 78). Ethnic chauvinism under the Kenyatta state could never get
worse. But suspicion, political repression and economic stagnation continued.
~.9 Winding Up: Panic, Restlessness and More Repression in the Kenyatta State
The last three years of the Kenyatta state were characterized not just by the
economic and social hopelessness but also the politics of succession. Succession debates
were highly ethnicised through such tribal organizations as the Abaluhya Union of East
Africa, Luo Union and the Gikuyu, Meru, Embu Assocaition (GEMA) among others.
Each of the tribal groupings worked hard to stamp their authority on the Kenyatta state.
This was not a surprise because, as we have observed elsewhere, the Ker.yatta state had
been sustained by the divisive and retrogressive culture of tribalism.
By 1976, it had become clear that Kenyatta was ailing and his health had
deteriorated drastically. The poor health of the President charged the political batteries of
his own tribesmen as they panicked over the possibility of losing the presidency to
another ethnic community. Key Kikuyu political figures interested in ensuring that the
presidency did not leave their hands began to openly discuss the Kenyatta succession.
GEMA, a pseudo-cultural, economic and political organization was dominated by opulent
Kikuyu politicians and businessmen including Njenga Karume (Chairman), Duncan
degwa (Vice Chairman and Governor of Central Bank), Stanley jeru (National
Secretary), Wilson Macharia (Assistant Secretary) and Dixon Kihika Kimani (National
Organizing Secretary) (Weekly Review, May 19, 1975).
Closely allied to the GEMA leadership were members of the Kenyatta family.
The central figures of the family and their relationship to the president were: Dr. joroge
Mungai, nephew, Udi Gechaga, son-in-law, Peter Muigai Kenyatta, son, Ngengi Muigai,
197
nephew, Margaret Kenyatta, daughter, Ngina Kenyatta, wife, James Muigai, brother, and
Beth Mugo, niece. The years 1976-1977 saw the replacement of a thoroughly weakened
KANU with GEMA. As the Weeklv Review observed then:
Gema was the most influential organization within
KANU, a position which it had strengthened further
by having many of its national and branch executive
officials elected to parliament and various local bodies
(Weekly Review, Nairobi May 19, 1975).
We have already explained that KANU began as a party of two major tribes in the early
1960s. During the sunset years of Jomo Kenyatta, it became GENIA. This situation was
anticipated in Fanon's writings on the problematic of decolonization when he argued that:
As far as national unity is concerned the party will also make
many mistakes, as for example when the so called national party
behaves as a party based on ethnic tlifferences. It becomes, in
fact a tribe which makes itself a party. This party which of its own
will proclaim that it is a national party, and which claims to speak in
the name of the totality of the people, secretly, sometimes even openly,
organizes an authentic ethnical dictatorship (1967147)
The Gemanization ofKANU was a prophetic testimony to Fanon's concerns
The chief objective of GEMA officials was to ensure that in the event that
President Kenyatta died while in office, his constitutional successor, Daniel arap Moi, a
non-Kikuyu Vice President should not be allowed to take over power. Accordingly,
GEMA mobilized its forces in and out of the Kikuyu enclaves to begin an anti-Moi
crusade which culminated into the 'Change the Constitution Campaign' in late 1976. On
26th September 1976, a powerful Kikuyu politician from Nakuru and prominent executive
member of GEMA , Kihika Kimani, launched the attack at a public rally when he
demanded that the Kenyan constitution should be amended so that no future Vice-
President may assume the presidency automatically in the event of the reigning president
19X
retiring or becoming physically or mentally incapacitated or in the case of death (The
Standard, Nairobi September 27, 1976).
Soon, Kimani received overwhelming support from the Minister for Lands and
Settlement, Jackson Angaine, a Meru (also at the same public rally), James Gichuru
(Defence Minister) and Njenga Karume. Paul Ngei, a Kamba Minister, joined the fray to
support the 'Change the Constitution Group'. In October, Kihika Kimani repeated his
earlier calls that if a Vice-President automatically assumed office for 90 days (as
stipulated in the constitution) before substantive elections were held, he might use his
office to eliminate political rivals and maneuver his way to become President (The
Standard, airobi, October 4, 1976)
The first politician to condemn the new move to change the constitution was a
Mombasa M.P Shariff Nassir, a close ally of Moi's and member of the minority Arab
community at the coast (The Standard, Nairobi October 5, 1976) The following day,
Attorney General Charles Njonjo declared that discussions concerning the life of a sitting
President were criminal and treasonable. For some strange reasons, probably related to
his own scheming to out-do Moi without the support of GEMA, Charles Njonjo
denounced the change-the-constitution group (The Standard, Nairobi October 8, 1976).
Jorno Kenyatta supported Njonjo's position (The Standard, Nairobi October 12, 1976).
Meanwhile efforts were made between 1976 and 1977 to hold the KANU national
elections without much success (The Weekly Review, Nairobi April 11, 1977 p.8-10).
By 1976, KANU had not held its elections for ten years which was illegal. On a number
of occasions, KANU elections were called and postponed on the last minute in what
looked like the failure of the GEMA group to marshall enough support to control KANU
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so as to take over the Presidency. By 1977, however, a significant rift had developed
within GEMA which in fact worked in favor of the Moi supporters. Inside GEMA , there
was an abrasive contlict between the Kiambu Kikuyu on one hand and the yen,
1 yandarua and Kirinyaga Kikuyu on the other.
The critical point of concern for the non-Kiambu Kikuyu was that the Kiambu
Kikuyu had benefitted disproportionately from independence. Kiambu, they observed,
had more cabinet ministers, more businessmen and more people in the civil service than
had any other district in the country. Consequently, this factionalism among the Kikuyu
complicated ethnic politics. The Kiambu Kikuyu wanted the Presidency to remain
among the Kikuyu but did not want it to go beyond Kiambu District. This means that
even the Kirinyaga, Murang'a and Nyeri Kikuyu were excluded from any possibility of
assuming the Presidency. It is probably because of this scenario that no Kikuyu from
Nyeri was ever involved in the bid to alter the constitution. Mwai Kibaki, the most
prominent Nyeri politician then chose to side with Moi and that probably explains why
Moi appointed him his first Vice-President after Kenyatta's death.
As the battle for the Presidency continued, paranoia gripped the Kenyatta state
when it stepped up its repression against opponents. Thus, the sunset years of the
Kenyatta state witnessed an escalation of political intolerance to opposition on the part of
the President. His moods were unpredictable and his reactions ruthless. Since detaining
Abdilatif Abdalla in the late sixties, many more people including parliamentarians such
as George Anyona, Philomen Chelagat, John Keen, Peter Kibisu and Masinde Muliro had
suffered the president's brutality. A leading Kenyan novelist, gugi wa Thiong'o, was
detained by Kenyatta in 1978. This was soon after gugi had published the Petals of
200
Blood, (1977), a book that attacked capitalism and scorned the leadership of Kenya.
Ngugi's problems had been compounded, when he established a traditional Kikuyu
theatre at Kamirithu near, Limuru where anti-government plays written in Kikuyu were
acted. Among the most prominent of the plays was Ngaahika Ndeenda ('I Will Marry
When I Like').
In Book x of Plato's Republic, Socrates states that 'hymns to the gods and praises
of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our state'
(DeLombard, 1995:49). More than two thousand years later, a similar philosophy
governed the treatment of artists and intellectuals in neo-colonial Kenya. Although it was
anything but an ideal state, the Kenyatta state resembled Socrates's model repubiic in that
it banished poets and other writers whose work was not politically useful to the state.
The struggle to decolonize Kenya become seditious. As exposed in his prison diary,
Detained (1981), Ngugi's detention, was a culmination of several years of questioning the
usefulness of the Kenyan neo-colonial state and its leadership to the people of that
country. Kenya's political leadership led by Kenyatta met dissent with persecution and
detention. This was a manifestation of violence.
But the tendency to detain political opponents In Kenya had its own history.
Being a pragmatic student of Western capitalism, Kenyatta manipulated the constitution
to assume massive political power. During his rule, there were record thirteen---
constitutional amendments which strengthened his grip on power (Ochieng', 1995: 1940).
One of those amendments tackled the issue of political opponents. In 1966, an
amendment was rushed through the House to legalize detention without trial. Called the
Preventive Detention Act, the new legislation authorized the President to detain, in the
201
interest of public security, individuals without recourse to courts (Okech-Owiti and
Mbaya, 1997:32). This legislation intimidated people to forced obedienc.e and drove
critics of the government into silence. But those like Ngugi and Abdalla who insisted on
fighting on, the solution was to detain them. This experience makes it impossible for one
to differentiate between the Kenya of White colonial rule and the Kenya of the black
African leadership.
The problem with the Kenyatta state is that the ruling political party - KANU -
also doubled up as the government. Detention of opponents was thus approved by both
the party machinery and the state. Frantz Fanon says that in an underdeveloped country,
the bourgeoisie in political leadership never stop repeating that the direction of affairs
should be controlled by a strong authority and a dictatorship (Fanon, 1967: 146). Thus,
the political party plays an understudy to the administration and the police and controls
the masses, not in order to participate in the business of governing the nation, but in order
to remind them constantly that the government expects from them obedience and
discipline (Ibid.).
Detention without trial in the Kenyan post-colony was one way the country's
dictatorship exacted obedience and discipline from members of its population. At the
individual level, detention had the effect of imposing physical and psychological violence
on the persons affected. It interfered with individual freedom and personal will. Yet the
whole purpose of man's existence is to realize this goal. As Fanon put it in Black Skin
White Masks, 'no attempt must be made to encase man, for it is his destiny to be set
free' (1970: 12). KANU's methods of governance through intimidation and detention of
its opponents was an effort in negating man's freedom first and society's freedom second.
202
But freedom had to be achieved within the context of justice and equality. As we
have demonstrated, the Kenyatta state was informed by the vices of tribalism, economic
mismanagement, social degradation and political persecution. These crises worked
against the creation of a society based on justice and equality. It must also be pointed out
that individual freedom depends on what the state does in legitimizing itself. The
Africanization of colonialism under KANU created some sort of freedom for the
Kenyatta state. But when the state began terrorizing its opponents, it actually
destabilized the existential freedom of the Kenyan people in their individual capacities.
Like Marx, Fanon recognizes that the state can be free without the individual being free.
In Kenya, political freedom merely, indicated the Africanization of European
colonialism. This confirmed Fanori's cynicism about formal independence that it was:
A fancy parade and a blare of trumpets. There is nothing save
a minimum of re-adaptation, a few reforms at the tops, a flag
waving; and down there at the bottom an undivided mass, still
living in the Middle Ages, endlessly marking time (1967: 118).
As the confusion in GEMA continued, KANU elections never took place.
President Kenyatta's health moved from bad to worse. Suddenly, on August 22 1978,
Kenyatta died peacefully in his sleep while on holiday in Mombasa (Daily Nation,
August 23, 1978). And because the constitution had not been so far changed to prevent
the Vice-President from assuming office in the event of the President's death, the
GEMA/Kenyatta family alliance became merely academic and insignificant. Moi moved
fast and assumed power thus becoming Kenya's second President.
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4.10 Conclusion
It was the objective of this Chapter to demonstrate that the neo-colonial state of
J0l110 Kenyatta served the interests of Western imperialism and ignored the plight of the
Kenyan people. We have shown that soon after political 'independence' Kenyatta
assumed the role and privileges of a colonial Governor only that this time he espoused
tribal tendencies in his efforts to rule Kenya. Thus, the picture which this chapter has
come out with enriches Fanons pessimism about the nation-state and political
independence in Africa.
The Chapter has demonstrated that as a believer in tribalism and social inequality,
Kenyatta established and built a state which favoured his own Kikuyu tribesmen. As a
result, the Kikuyu dominated Kenya's public life beginning with the cabinet right down
through the civil service and the military. In order to sustain himself in power, Kenyatta
kept his faith not just in all Kikuyu but most significantly in his Kiambu homeland group.
He allowed the group to grab land and entrench itself in Kenya's political theatre. The
Kiambu group also helped Kenyatta to make important political decisions including those
touching on the fate of the regime's opponents.
We have demonstrated in this chapter, that while the Kenyatta state was chiefly
preoccupied with the idea of maintaining strong political power, Kenya's social and
economic problems multiplied. These problems revolved around the critical issues of
tribalism, land, education, culture, political intolerance and the distribution of national
resources. The failure by the Kenyatta State to seriously address these issues condemned
the new nation-state into the abyss of neo-coloniality. Yet as we have demonstrated,
certain sections of the Kenyan society opposed Kenyatta's tendency to Africanize
20-+
colonialism by nurturing the neo-colonial state. These forces were detained, intimidated
out of politics, imprisoned or in some extreme cases assassinated in the name of
safeguarding the newly independent state. The chapter acknowledges that all efforts
made by various groups and personalities to free the Kenyatta state from neo-colonial
dispositions were significant moves to decolonize Kenya. The next chapter interrogates
the Moi state.
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CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 THE MOl STATE, 1978-1992
5.1 Introduction
The critical problems of identity which confronted and defined the Kenyatta state
continued to aggress the Moi state. Despite serious obstacles placed on his way by
Kikuyu tribal chauvinists, Daniel arap Moi dribbled his way to power after Kenyatta's
death. Having been Kenyatta's Vice-President for almost twelve years, since January
1967, Moi understood the workings of his predecessor's state.
As we have seen, in its neo-colonial setting. the Kenyatta state served the interests
of the West by embracing Western political, economic and social policies. Being
friendly to the West, the Kenyatta state became an exemplary beacon of capitalism upon
which Western Europeans launched their attacks against the spread of communism in
Eastern Africa. In this way, the Kenyatta state continued to enjoy financial as well as
political support from the West, even when it condoned corruption, tribalism, land
grabbing, human rights violations and political intolerance.
Soon after taking over power in August 1978, Moi pledged to follow Kenyatta's
'nyayos' (footsteps) (Ahluwalia, 1996: 110). Nyayoism, implied that Moi would continue
to strengthen the major structures of Kenyatta's neo-colonial state and thus uphold the
vices which tended to punctuate the experience of neo-coloniality. In this Chapter, we
briefly highlight this reality and argue that the struggle for the decolonization of Kenya
continued under the Moi regime.
206
- ?:::l._ eo-colonial Continuity
Decrying the ineptitude of the national middle class in addressing the problems of
newly independent states, Frantz Fanon observed that:
In an underdeveloped country, an authentic national middle class
ought to consider as its bounden duty to betray the call ing fate has
marked out for it and to put itself to school with the people: in
other words to put at the people's disposal the intellectual and
technical capital that it has snatched when going through
colonial universities. But unhappily we shall see that very often
the national middle class does not follow this heroic, positive,
fruitful path; rather it disappears with its soul set at peace into
the shocking ways - shocking because anti-national. ... (1967: 121).
Although Daniel arap Moi did not himself go to any university, he as president, became
a pivotal custodian of the majority of the Kenyan middle class. He thus possessed the
capacity to direct the energies of the middle class towards the goal of improving the
quality of life in Kenya. But did he do this')
On the issue of political parties Fanon observed that most of them were consumed
by slogans of independence, leaving the rest of the country's destiny to the unpredictable
events of the future. These parties do not therefore understand what to do in order to
improve their countries' economies because, indeed, they are ignorant of many things
about their own countries. Under the tutelage of new leaders, political parties in the new
nations continued executing the sale of primary commodities to Europe while at the same
time Africanizing national resources. Africanization in this context meant the transfer,
into selected native hands, of those unfair advantages which are a legacy of the colonial
period (Ibid.: 122). As we have witnessed, Kenyatta moved to transfer these advantages
to his Kikuyu relatives and friends as well as supporters from without. Change was thus
207
measured in terms of the number of ethnically correct people appointed as administrators,
barristers, trade agents, directors of prastatals, ambassadors, ministers and permanent
secretaries.
In terms of values and tests, Fanon indicates, the political leadership in the new
nations tended to encourage the middle class and the general public to ape Western
lifestyles. In this arrangement, the middle class came to quickly assume the role of what
Fanon calls 'new colonists' (Ibid.: 124). The Kenyatta state which we analysed in the last
chapter nurtured these new colonists by aping and reliving the comforts and privileges of
their counterparts within the experience of formal colonialism. It was the case 'black
skins dressed in white masks' (Fanon, 1970). rn this section, we argue that while
Kenyatta implanted neocoloniality in Kenya, Moi continued to nurture the process with
more vigor and determination under a political party called KANU. But how did the Moi
State maintain neo-colonial continuity') Let us look at some selected areas.
5.2.1 Tribalism and the Politics of Ethnicity
When he took over, Moi maintained a cabinet whose majority were Kikuyu. In
fact his first cabinet consisted of only two Kalenjins, seven GEMA, three Luo, two
Luhyia, one Taita, one Kisii, one Kamba and one Maasai (The Weekly Review, Nairobi,
October 13, 1978). Moi was, nevertheless, aware that Kenyatta had undertaken to
Kikuyunize the military, the civil service and the cabinet. Being new in State House, Moi
undertook to maintain the status quo, for the time being at least, so as to mask his final
intentions. But, at the back of his mind, there existed the germ of vengeance directed at
all those who had opposed his rise to power. More importantly, however, he wanted to
208
follow Kenyatta's footsteps by first ae-Kikuyunizing Kenya's public life and second by
Kaleujinizing many aspects of the Kenyan state-the military, the civil service and the
cabinet. It is worthwhile to note that since the process of ae-Kikuyunization involved
denial of privileges and status hitherto enjoyed, it implied psychological violence on the
Kikuyu as a community and as individuals.
By 1.980, the new president was safely in control. Yet he knew that he had to
purge the anti-Moi forces within the Kikuyu. To do this, he used sections of the Kikuyu
that were hostile to the political dominance of the Kiambu group to achieve his goal. It
was a case of 'divide and rule'. Top on Moi's list of Kikuyu friends were his new Vice-
President Mwai Kibaki from Nyeri and G.G. Kariuki from Laikipia. Charles I jonjo,
though from Kiambu was trusted by Moi because he had refused to support the change-
the-constitution group in 1976.
A carefully staged drama was put in place to displace the Kiambu faction. As
early as October 1978, Charles jonjo, then Attorney General, revealed in parliament a
plan by certain groups associated with some Kiambu politicians to assassinate Moi,
Kibaki and jonjo himself (Karimi and Ochieng', 1980: 158-95). The plot was associated
with the 200 strong sub-unit of the Stock Theft Unit, based in Nakuru. The plotters, later
known as Ngorokos (bandits), were accused of plotting murder. As it turned out, some of
Kenyatta's leading Kikuyu personalities in the police force were also linked to the
, goroko' affair. In response to this, Moi suspended the Assistant Commissioner of
Police in Charge of Rift Valley, James Mungai. Mungai fled the country to Sudan, then
Geneva only to return a few months later after being assured of non-prosecution. At
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Police headquarters in Nairobi, Bernard Hinga, the Police Commissioner (himself a
Kikuyu) was forced to resign (Ibid.).
The president's vengeance hit Gatundu - Jomo Kenyatta's political base - during
the 1979 elections. To undo the Kenyatta ghost, Moi and the ruling party KANU
supported Zachariah Gakunju against Kenyatta's nephew Ngengi Muigai Although the
election outcome favoured Muigai, Moi had made his point that he was not going to
tolerate people who still lived in the dreams of the Kenyatta state. Indeed, the President's
next move was to hit on GEMA. Several GEMA top directors including, Njenga Karume
and Kihika Kimani were arraigned in court to answer charges of corruption and failure to
file the company's annual returns (The Weeki" Re\'iew. Nairobi, February 2, 1979).
Meanwhile Moi started isolating powerful Kikuyu political figures from Kiambu such as
Mbiu Koinange, James Gichuru, Peter and Ngengi Muigai as well as Njenga Karume.
Instead, the president dealt with their juniors and made efforts to build the careers of
some insignificant political personalities such as Arthur Magugu from Githunguri (The
Weekly Review, Nairobi, March 2, 1979).
During the Kenyatta era, Kihika Kimani and his supporters had become a power
to be reckoned with in the Nakuru area. Kimani was one of the chief brains behind the
Ngwataniro Farmers' Company. This was a land buying company which had helped
many Kikuyu especially those from Kiambu, to settle in the Rift Valley. Moi did not like
this development but he could not have raised any objections while still serving under
Kenyatta (Kimtai O.I, 1999). However, once in power, Moi set out not just to weaken
the Kikuyu company but also to liquidate the powers of Kim ani and his associates. In the
210
company elections which followed early 1979, Kimani and all his 14 directors refused to
seek re-election because they already sensed a government-instigated defeat.
But it has to be said that the Kikuyu were not the only headache for President
Moi. The Luo, arguably the second largest ethnic community after the Kikuyu, were his
next target. During the Kenyatta era, as we have already intimated, Oginga Odinga and
several senior politicians from the yanza province had formed an opposition party, the
Kenya Peoples Union (K.P.u.). K.P.u. had been banned in 1969 thereby sustaining
Kenya as a de facto one-party state. However, despite the ban, former K. P.U leaders
were never allowed into KA U during the Kenyatta era. But as the country's new
President, loi tried to rehabilitate K. P U supporters by releasing those in detention and
appointing Oginga Odinga as Chairman of the Cotton Lint and Marketing Board
(Standard, 1 December 1979).
However, soon Odinga dug his own political grave by issuing public statements
which implied that Moi was his junior and that Kenyatta was a land grabber (Ahluwalia,
Op. Cit.: 123). The rehabilitation process was halted and Odinga was sacked and
subsequently barred from participating in KANU politics. This was a clear signal from
Moi that his government approved the way the Kenyatta state had conducted national
affairs. It was also an indication that those who attacked the Kenyatta state should in
many aspects be considered as enemies of the Moi state. The punitive measures taken to
neutralize Odinga drove him and his supporters into the opposition.
Although Moi's cabinet after the 1979 elections maintained a Kikuyu
majority, underneath he worked tirelessly to remove Kikuyu civil servants sympathetic to
the GEMA alliance. Further, Luo personalities suspected to have been closer or
211
sympathetic to Odinga were also mysteriously removed from public service. Permanent
secretaries, Provincial Commissioners, District Commissioners as well as District officers
were reshuffled in favour of the Kalenjin community (Saisi O. I, 2002). Discontent
against Moi began developing from two major forces. First was the GEMA group
vouching for a Kikuyu President and second was the Luo, supporting Odinga's alternative
policies for developing a better Kenya. A series of complications, many of them created
by Moi's own suspicions and his ethnic biases, almost drove the country to anarchy when
soldiers attached to the Kenya Airforce attempted to overthrow the government on the 1'1
of August, 1982 (Daily Nation, August 4, 1982).
On the political front, the President developed a pathological hatred for dissenting
VOIces. Faced with the threat of opposition groups, President Moi responded with a
severity that surprised even Kenyans who had been critical of Kenyatta's intolerant
policies Moi viewed parliamentary opposition as being tantamount to treason. At the
beginning of 1982, the President's paranoia increased. Holding the Kikuyu in great
suspicion, he began to rely on new sources of support. It was inevitable that he turned to
Rift Valley politicians from his own Kalenjin community for advice. Some of his new
confidants had no administrative or political competence to advise any Head of State but
because they were ethnically relevant, the President trusted them. Top on the list of
advisers were names such as Henry Cheboiwo, Henry Kosgey (hardly three years old in
politics by 1982), Isaac Salatt, Stanley Meto, Vincent arap Too and Nicholas Biwott
(Africa Confidential, Vol. 23 NO.8 April 14, 1982 p.4). These Kalenjin personalities
identified sources of dissent and recommended to the President the actions to be taken to
overcome any opposition to his rule.
212
Commenting on this form of recklessness fronted by the post-independence
political leadership in Africa, Fanon once observed:
We no longer see the rise of a bourgeois dictatorship,
but a tribal dictatorship, the ministers, the member of the
cabinet, the ambassadors and local commissioners are
chosen from same ethnological group as the leader, sometimes
directly from his family (1967: 147).
More importantly, however, the coup also exposed the instability and the chaotic
pluralism of the African post-colony. In the public domain, the political situation in
Kenya did not look too explosive until the coup itself. President Moi had weeks before
the coup, addressed several political rallies and functions which demonstrated that he had
overwhelming support from the citizens. Serious opposition seemed small and
manageable. Everywhere the president went, he was publicly cheered by supporters and
the armed forces did not show overt signs of any disaffection. All seemed to be well and
under control. Yet underneath this lull and these cheers, existed some very explosive
disapproval of the structure, content and policies of the Moi state. The irony of the
situation leading up to the coup confirms one major characteristic of the post-colony:
unpredictably and instability.
As Achille Mbembe puts it, what distinguishes the post-colony from other
regimes of violence and domination is not only the luxuriousness of style and the down-
to-earth realism that characteristise its power, or even the fact that it is particularly raw
power it prefers to exercise. Peculiar also to the post-colony is the way the relationship
between the rulers and the ruled is forged by means of a specific practice: Simulacrum
and Pretense. (Mbembe, 1992: 10). This, Mbembe concludes, explains why dictators can
. go to sleep at night lulled by soars of adulation and support only to wake up the next
213
morning to find their golden calves smashed and their tablets of law overturned (Ibid.).
The applauding crowds of yesterday would, indeed, have become today. a cursing,
abusing mob That is to say, people whose identities have been partly confiscated by an
authoritarian state have been able, precisely because there was this pretense, to glue back
together the bits and pieces of their fragmented identities and to assume a more realistic
role in decolonizing the post colony. The change of habit by the people reduces their
disempowerment, cleanses them as Fanon, would say it, and turns them from what was
hitherto things to some sort of dignified beings.
- ., .,::l._._ The Economy
It is noteworthy to observe that Moi's troubles were compounded by his blatant
failure to fix the deteriorating economy as well as the runaway inflation. Until the mid
1970's, the cumulative annual growth rate for the Kenyan economy was estimated to be
close to 6% in real terms. In 1975, however, the growth rate fell to 1.2% when the
economy was affected adversely both by world-wide recession and rising oil prices
(Hazelwood, 1979). The situation got worse when it became clear that the Kenyatta
administration abetted corruption, nepotism and general economic mismanagement.
During this time, inflation maintained double digit levels while the terms of trade
declined, leading to a serious balance of payments problem. Urban unemployment and
rural underemployment posed serious problems for the country, particularly in the in the
light of a population growth rate of over 4% per annum (Gertzel, 1978: 84-1 00).
Thus, Moi inherited the Presidency in 1978 when export prices were falling and
import prices rapidly escalating. Generally, Moi took over power at the time when the
Kenyan economy was moving close to the intensive care unit. Instead of fixing these
21-l
problems, the President followed Kenyatta's footsteps of mismanagement thereby
worsening the economic status of the nation. The economic hopelessness which the
people had experienced under formal colonialism was taking a turn for the worse under
the neocolonial experience.
By 1982, the economic picture was still bleak (Maxon and Ndege, 1995: 153).
The situation was aggravated by the fact that then and for many years to' come, the Moi
state continued to support a cash crop economy at the time when prices of such crops as
tea, pyrethrum and coffee were falling on the international market (Ibid.: 162-164). The
lack of creativity in dismantling Kenya's over-dependence on one economic truth as
supplied by the West became one of the saddest legacies of the Moi state. At this time,
Kenya's foreign debt stood at US$1,000 million while inflation continued to rise. Charges
of inept management and corruption were now made against the Moi administration. An
example was the scandal in which the then Attorney General, the Minister for Labour,
Deputy Public Prosecutor and C.I.D officials were involved in corrupt dealings with the
Bank of Baroda (The Weeklv Review, April issues, 1982).
Popular perception in Kenya, encouraged by the opposition, was that economic
problems were deeply located in government corruption. Such perception was not
without foundation as Moi and his business associates bought vast holdings of real estate
in Nairobi and other parts of the country. As one observer noted:
Kenyans no longer try to figure out which buildings Moi owns;
they try to figure out which buildings he doesn't own (Maren,
1987: 212).
By 1987, the President's business interests, although difficult to document,
included prime real estate holdings worth conservatively $US 150 million, a construction
215
company, interest In transport and haulage, fuel and petroleum products distribution
through Kobil (Kenya Oil company and Mobil Oil, Kenya) and interest in ~ox theatres
which also had a monopoly of importing films in Kenya (African Confidential, June 24,
1987). Added to these were shares in a large Kenyan bank, Firestone's Kenyan
operations, food wholesalers and myriad of other high-ranking businesses (Ibid.). His
close allies too· had been assisted to acquire government tenders to supply goods and
services. Both Moi and his allies (especially his tribesmen) had acquired thousands of
acres of land across the country some of it marked for public utilities including forests,
parks and other social amenities. Some Kalenjin personalities such as Nicholas Biwott,
Henry Kosgey and Joshua Kulei who had been paupers in 1978 were, by way of
association with the President, already millionaires in 1987. Yet the situation for the bulk
of people, including the landless and urban rural poor remained critical (Ahluwalia,
1996188).
Instead of dealing directly with his corrupt administrative officials, Moi blamed
the economic woes of the country to Asians. He accused the Asian community of being
involved in all social evils in the country (Africa Report, March-April 1982:36). Asians
were accused of hoarding and smuggling essential commodities and some were even
threatened with deportation regardless of whether or not they were Kenyan citizens. In
flashing the racial card, Moi hoped to crystallize ublic opinion against a non-existent
enemy while real economic mismanagement continued within his administration. Within
a short time of being in power, Moi had hit at the Kikuyu, isolated the Luo and now he
had taken his divisive war on the Asians. Like the colonial governors of the 1920's,
1930's, 1940's and 1950's, Moi employed the strategy of divide and rule, ultimately
216
succeeding to destroy. the country's economy by allowing his friends and Kalenjin
tribesmen to loot the national coffers.
5.2.3 Repression and the Struggle for Decolonization
Francis Fukuyama, probably America's leading political theorist, once argued that
there was a strong correlation between stable democracy and levels of economic
development. He noted that:
the reasons why economic development should lead to democracy
are complicated and contingent. Education corrects people to the
large world of ideas including ideologies that provide concepts of
political legitimacy Education and rising socio-economic
status, moreover bring in their train a much greater awareness of one's
personal status and dignity and thus make people unhappy
with authoritarian political systems that fail to recognize them as
tree adults (Fukuyama, 1991:72).
Following Fukuyama, it seems to me, the neo-colonial Moi state was immersed in a
serious economic mess. If as Fukuyama observes, economic problems make people
unhappy with authoritarian regimes, how would the situation be when economic woes are
compounded by the vices of corruption, tribalism and irrelevant education policies? The
situation can only get worse.
Consequently for Kenya, the situation became worse when, in the face of social
and economic crises created under the Moi state, the enlightened members of the society
undertook to put their lives on the line by confronting the regime with a sole purpose of
liberating the country from neo-colonialism. It has to be observed that Frantz Fanon
believed that violence was a creation of colonialism. However, we should abandon that
proposition for a while and argue, as Conor Cruise O'Brien did, that colonialism is itself
a form of violence (O'Brien, 1965:674).
217
Similarly, because neo-colonialism emanates from formal colonialism, neo-
colonialism is also a form of violence. The diverse methods used under the Moi State to
sustain Western hegemony in Kenya and to curb societal and individual freedoms were
themselves acts of violence. Reactions from the people against the growing adversities of
neo-colonialism appeared through physical and psychological forms of violence which
Fanon anticipated. Three fundamental sections of the nation-state organized rebellions
against the Moi state. They include the military, the university community and the cadre
of political activists as well as members of Moi 's own party KAl U.
The rebellion by the military was epitomized by the attempted coup led by the
Kenya Airforce personnel on August I, 1982. The soldiers seized several strategic
positions in airobi including two airbases, the international airport, the post office and
the radio station. With an emancipatory agenda embraced in their military violence, and
through radio broadcasts, rebel soldiers denounced corruption, nepotism, economic chaos
and the dictatorial regime of Daniel arap Moi. After some hesitation, forces loyal to the
President retook the main rebel positions in airobi by noon, but fighting continued for
several days at the Nanyuki Air Base near Mount Kenya and there were reports of
nationwide unrest, looting, rape and acts of brutality committed by security forces in
1 airobi's shanty towns - including Mathare, Kibera and Kawangware - for two days
before the government could restore order.
Violence had been met by counter-violence. Army troops were ordered to shoot
looters on sight. The government admitted to 150 dead but unofficial tallies put the death
tool to 600 and 1800. The coup demonstrated the deep hatred the Kikuyu and the Luo
had developed against Moi. It is significant to note that a majority of the coup leaders
218
were many but they include Pancras Okurnu, Hezekiah Ochuka, as well as several senior
officers in the Airforce such as Commander, General P. Kariuki. In dealing with the
coup. Moi also demonstrated his vengeance and deep hatred for members of the two
communities by ruthlessly handling the rebels. The coup organizers were sentenced to
death, imprisoned for life or detained under very difficult and unhygienic conditions. But
the. significance of the 1982 coup attempt should be put in its correct perspective. The
coup attempt was a sad reflection of the decaying nation-state in Africa. In its neo-
colonial format, the Kenyan nation-state had come to represent a political as well as a
socio-economic monster. Tired of the monster's excesses, the military wanted change
founded against the dead body of the same monster.
Dissent at the University was led by lecturers and students. In September 1979,
the students of the University of Nairobi criticized, through demonstrations, the
government move to bar Odinga and three other former opposition figures from
contesting in the general elections. The government responded by closing the university
and expelling the students' leaders. The Nairobi University Students' Organization
(NUSO) which had emerged as a strong proponent of the autonomy of the university, was
proscribed (Ogot, 1995: 1998). In the following year, the authorities banned the
University Academic Staff Union and prohibited outside speakers from entering the
campus, sparking a spate of riots. As a result of the riots, the passports of twelve
lecturers regarded as critical to the government were seized, thus denying them their
existential freedom. Among the lecturers affected were Micere Mugo, Ooko Ombaka,
Michael Chege, Mukaru gang'a, Okoth Ogendo, Atieno Odhiambo, Anyang' yong'o
and Shadrack Gutto (Ibid.).
219
Later in June 1982, President Moi accused the lecturers of plotting to cause chaos
in the country and assisting in the establishment of another political party. He vowed to
root out plotters and agitators (Dailv Nation, 7 June 1982). During the same month, the
President's threat became a reality when a number of lecturers were picked up and later
imprisoned or detained. They included, Maina wa Kinyatti, a lecturer in History at
Kenyatta University, Kamonji Wachira, a geographer at. the same university, AI-amin
Mazrui, a linguist from the same university and Edward Oyugi, a psychology professor
from the same university. From Nairobi University, those affected included Willy
Mutunga (Law), George lkangi (Sociology) and Mukaru I ganga) (history). Apart
from Kinyatti who was jailed for being a member of an underground organization called
Mwakenya, the rest were detained. These lecturers were arrested violently and brutally,
often in the middle of the night, blindfolded and taken to Nyayo House* torture chambers
for interrogation. They were tortured while naked, denied food and kept incommunicado
(1 joka 2003: 1, 10-13; Bindra 2003: 18). This experience reminds one about the
crackdown on Mau Mau dissidents by the colonial authorities in October 1952. Again at
stake was not just the society's freedom but also the individual freedoms of the dons.
Following the coup attempt in 1982, the crackdown continued against lecturers
and students. For instance Titus Adungosi, Chairman of the newly formed Students'
Organization of airobi University (SONU) was arrested. He was sentenced to ten years
in prison where he died on 27 December, 1988 under mysterious circumstances (Ogot,
'1l1is is a tall building in Nairobi constructed in the 1980s. Situated along the city's Kenyaua Avenue, this
building houses important government departments including the Security Intelligence, the Nairobi
220
Op. Cit.: 199). Sixty-seven other students were held from August 1982 to February 1983.
Six more were jailed for five or six years (Ibid.).
In March 1986, the Mwakenya problem resurfaced as a socialist organization that
was fighting to liberate Kenya from neo-colonial oppression. Mwakenya is an acronym
for Muungano wa wazalendo wa Kuikomboa Kenya (Union of Nationalists for the
liberation of Kenya). It was a social subaltern movement and a tool for decolonization.
The movement published 'seditious' material including mzalendo (patriot) and
mpatanishi (reconciliator). Mwakenya, like the Mau Mau before it, was bound by oaths
of secrecy and subversion (Amnestv International, 1987: 5).
But besides Mwakenya, there was the December Twelfth Movement', which was
also linked to the university lecturers and students and which was credited for publishing
pambana (struggle). It is important to note that although principally organized by the
intelligentsia, the ideology of Mwakenya and the 'December Twelfth Movement' had a
significant base among the country's influential middle class-clerks, bankers and farmers
(Maren, 1987:209-229). Interestingly, the rural strongholds of Mwakenya were the same
areas that were the hub of the Mau Mau activity in the 1950s. These were the rich
farmlands ofNakuru and Nyeri. The farmers from these areas were the main sources of
funding for Mwakenya and they helped to smuggle arms into the country from
neighbouring Uganda (Africa ConfidentiaL 24 June, 1987).
In the course of 1986, Mwakenya announced in one of its publications that it had
moved to a new phase of struggle for decolonization when it pledged its intention to
engage in guerrilla warfare. A short time later, a railway clerk was charged with plotting
to sabotage a train. In a separate case, a Government Agricultural Officer, along with
Provincial Headquarters and a few govemment ministries.
221
two university graduates were jailed for attempting to derail a freight train (Daily Nation,
5 July 1986). In 1987, violent protests rocked the University of airobi after students'
representatives were denied passports to travel to Cuba to attend an international
students' conference. The government attributed the unrest to the Mwakenya subversion
and went ahead to crackdown on more lecturers and students. It was during this time that
student leader Wafula Buke was jailed for five years (Ogot, Op. Cit.: 200).
But the frequent detention of lecturers and students did not, however, deter those
who wanted to bring meaningful change in Kenya. Detention was itself an act of physical
and psychological violence but did the dons answer back their frustrations with similar
violence? Several university scholars churned out articles and books highlighting the
humiliating effects of bad governance thereby exacting psychological violence on the
Moi state. As early as 1980,history scholar Maina wa Kinyatti released his political
bombshell, Thunder from the Mountains (1980). In his book, Kinyatti translated into
English some of the Mau Mau war songs of the 1950s and highlighted the need to give
the people of Kenya their dignity and their land. Using this book as the basis, the author
encouraged the Kenyan people of the 1980s to embrace the courage and bravery of the
Mau Mau worriors so as to overcome oppression and neo colonialism under the Moi
regime.
By mid 1980s, another university scholar, Al-Amin Mazrui had published Kilio
Cha Haki, (Cry of Justice), (1985). Mazrui's play focused on the struggle between the
workers and their foreign oppressors. The struggle against oppression, was led by a
liberated woman Lanina who conscientized her fellow workers to gain courage and fight
for liberation. Indeed, from the book, one gets the impression that Mazrui had viewed the
222
Moi regime as a mere continuation of a bad colonial system that required urgent
dismantling. Through the characters of Lanina, Musa and Dewe, Mazrui encouraged the
citizens of Kenya to fight oppression. But even more impressive was the way Mazrui
developed the character of government prosecutors and policemen who like their colonial
counterparts, worked hard and ruthlessly to sustain an oppressive system
Three more authors highlighted the problems of independent Kenya and raised the
consciousness of the people under the Moi regime in the 1980s. First were A.S. Yahya
and David Mulwa in their piece Mkimbizi 1989 (translated as 'fugitive'). Here, potraying
the example of a school that had been founded on oppression and corruption, the authors
present a school head Katela, who had been hired by, Honourable Makeli of Mwandani
country to help the school grow into a university. But Katela hates corruption and
cheating. This creates conflict between Katela and Makali that results into the exposure
of the corrupt system. As university scholars, the authors used their play to explain how
deeply entrenched corruption was in Kenya. Further they seemed to say that informed
citizens such as Katela should defy their leaders in order to fight corruption and cheating.
Another author who exposed the problems of the Kenyan postcolony was
Professor Chacha N. Chacha in Wingu Jeuzi, 1987 (translated as Dark Cloud). His
leading character Magebo is an influential leader in a country that thrives on corruption
and hypocrisy. The book, through its characters condemns those who seize power
unfairly and who misuse the constitution for their own interests. Such leaders, the author
implies, cast a dark cloud on the destiny of many countries. It is this dark cloud that
citizens, especially those who are young in affected countries, should fight to neutralize
in order to achieve true decolonization. The history of the Kenyan post colony in the
223
1980's was the history of corruption, hypocrisy, detention, abuse of power, economic
mismanagement and political intolerance. Chacha's Magebo could easily have been
Kenya's Moi in the 1980s.
Once released from incarceration, prominent university scholars such as Shadrack
Guto, Kimani Gecau, Anyang' Nyongo', Micere Mugo and Ngugi wa Thiong'o fled the
country in order to escape political repression obtaining in post-independence Kenya.
The fleeing lecturers signified the partial defeat of the movement for decolonization, thus
indicating that psychological violence exacted on the state by the intellectuals had not
brought about decolonization. This disapproves Fanon's view that decolonization should
always adopt a violent path.
Within the 1980s, Ngugi produced some of the most critical literary works on
post-independence Africa. Using Kenya as an example, Ngugi interrogated the African
independence, through Detained (1981), when he graphically exposed the brutality of the
African government against its own citizens. This work gave shocking accounts of life in
Kenya's detention cells, where detainees such as Martin Shikuku and Ngugi himself were
denied food and other basic necessities in more or less similar ways the nationalists of the
1950s had ruthlessly and brutally been treated by the colonial authorities. Through this
work, and others like Devil on the Cross (1982), Writers in Politics (1982), Decolonizing
the Mind (1986), Ngugi demonstrated variously that despite the change of leadership,
Kenya had remained a colonial state. He, therefore advocated for a deliberate program
to free Kenya, if possible through force, in order to restore the dignity of the black man.
But the struggle for decolonization in Kenya was not confined to Mwakenya
activities alone. It was not even limited to Odinga and his supporters; neither was it a
224
phenomenon of the intellectuals alone. The ational Christian Council of Churches of
Kenya (NCCK) as well as the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) figured prominently in their
criticism of the Moi government (Ahluwalia. Op.Cit.: 179). They spoke out against
corruption and dictatorship within the Moi State. Apart from condemning detention
without trial, the church took a stand against the queuing proposals that were to be
applied in 1988 general elections, arguing that the requirement that voters line up behind
their preferred candidates compromised the privacy and security of the citizens. It also
intimidated many people who did not wish to be identified in the open with certain
candidates, to keep off from the election and thus undermine the democratic process.
Of special concern to LSK and NCCK were constitutional changes which were
initiated under the Moi state in 1989, giving sweeping powers to the President to interfere
with the judiciary. By the changes, the President was allowed to sack the Attorney-
General, the High court and Court of Appeal Judges without recourse to a tribunal. In
addition, new repressive mechanisms were introduced allowing the police to hold
suspects for up to 14 days before bringing them to court, as opposed to the previous
requirement of 24 hours (Ajulu, 1992:84). Those who, in LSK and NCCK, stuck out
their neck were many but they include such personalities as Mutava Musyimi, Alexander
Muge, David 1. Gitari, Timothy Njoya, Gibson Kamau Kuria, Kiraitu Murungi, Gitobu
Imanyara, Paul Muite and Martha Njoka. The above changes in the legal statues were
carefully tailored to secure the neo-colonial state.
But dictatorships often create discontent from within and without. The political
intolerance of Moi state attracted opposition from within the ruling party as new centres
of power began to emerge from 1982 onwards. Soon after the 1982 attempted coup,
225
information started filtering in that former Attoney-General and long serving confidant of
President Moi's, Charles M. ljonjo had been planning to capture the Presidency through
the buying of support from civil servants and parliamentarians. The matter, later
christened the 'traitor affair', was divulged by President Moi at a public rally in Kisii
during the month of May 1983 (Ogot, Op.Cit.: 1995; Ahluwalia, Op.Cit.: 173). It was
claimed that the traitor had sought the assistance of foreign governments to effect his
plans.
At the Commission of Inquiry set up by the government to probe jonjo, it
emerged that jonjo had worked out a two-pronged strategy for ousting President Moi
from power. He tried to get the majority among MPs to pass a vote of no confidence in
the President, and as well, he made attempts to influence KA U sub-branches and
branches to support him for Presidency (Miller Commission Report on ionio Inquiry,
1984). With the identification of the traitor, disloyal elements in the party were identified
and subsequently expelled. In all, fourteen associates of jo~o including, U. Kamotho,
former Minister for Higher Education, G.G. Kariuki, former Minister of State in the
Office of the President were thrown out of the party. In the military as well as the Civil
Service, suspected pro-Njonjo figures were purged. During the 1983 elections, state
apparatuses were used to make sure that those sympathetic to Njonjo were not re-elected.
Although the jonjo affair can hardly be termed as an effort within the
decolonization process, it is significant in two fundamental ways. It demonstrates that
when dictatorships reach their peaks, they begin collapsing from within as each of the
main players within the dictatorships strive to set up alternative centres of power. The
resultant situation is often useful and convenient for the operations of the revolutionary
226
forces of liberation. Thus. secondly, the Njonjo affair exposed the weaknesses in the Moi
state, thereby, giving hope and impetus to the on-going struggle for Kenya's liberation in
the 1980s.
The struggle against the Moi state also coalesced around powerful political
personalities who had been locked out of KA U but who could not be allowed to form
an opposition political party. The leading voice of this group was former Vice President
Oginga Odinga. Responding to the problems created by Kenya's neocolonial experience.
Odinga launched the Kenya Socialist Party in May 1982. At the launching ceremony in
London, he criticized the government for refusing to allow' political parties to function
Further, he lamented the rampant abuse of power by many African leaders arguing that in
order to consolidate their position, these leaders:
... proceed to stampede parties out of existence through
constant harassment and detention of opposition leaders.
Sooner rather than later, these one party systems became
non-party systems. The Presidents arrogate to themselves the
role of law-maker and law-giver. They rule by undeclared
decree. They set up cahoots of sycophants around themselves
and run court cabals which are united in only one intention:
the exploitation of broad masses ..... For the common man,
African governments are evidently more ruthless than colonial
regimes we struggled against (The Standard. May 21, 1982 p. 4).
True, Odinga's comments summarized the structure of the Moi state. The state had
legitimized unemployment, and the general exploitation of people yet it was not ready to
listen to dissenting voices. In concluding that African governments were more ruthless
than the colonial regimes Africans had fought against, Odinga confirmed our position in
this study that decolonization does not and did not end with the attainment of political
independence. As Frantz Fanon observed, decolonization was quite simply the replacing
of certain 'species' of men by another 'species' of men (1967:27). It was a change from
227
white colonialists to black imperialists. The pillars of repression and economic
exploitation of the people continued in Kenya even after formal independence had been
granted.
Following Odinga's observations, George Anyona, an ex-detainee from Kisii,
declared that, in fact, Kenya was a multiparty-society and that nothing had
constitutionally changed since the 1960 Lancaster House conference which mooted ou~ a
constitution for independent Kenya. Sensing trouble, and in view of the fact that Kenya
was a de jure multi-party society, President Moi went on a warpath. First, he declared
Odinga expelled from KANU and encouraged his supporters to follow him (The
Standard, l airobi, May 21 1982 p.l ). Second, the President ordered the detention of
George Anyona, Mwangi Murithi and Odinga's lawyer, John Khaminwa (Ahluwalia and
Stevees, 1986:93-115). Later in the year, Odinga's own son Raila was detained. Odinga
Oginga himselfwas put under house arrest.
In Kenya, the people close to President Moi enjoyed comfortable life. But to
make sure that such comfort was not interfered with by dissenting voices, Moi initiated a
constitutional move to transform Kenya into a de jure one party State. This development,
pushed through parliament on June 3, 1982, became law six days later (Ahluwalia,
1986: 136).With the new constitutional amendment, all prospective political parties
remained dissolved. Consequently, like the case was during the colonial days ,power in
the Moi state came to revolve around himself and a few of his supporters and 'tribesmen'.
The President commanded absolute powers similar to those held by the colonial
governors and he consistently used the provincial administration to intimidate and harass
his opponents ( Chemiati l.0,1999)
nx
Looking at Kenya's sad story, one is tempted to believe Fanon's observation that
African states did not require a bourgeois phase in their path to development (1967: 142).
Fanon made a scathing attack on political party dictatorships and argued that in the name
of the nation, parties preached peace and unity while the majority of people lived in
poverty, illiteracy and famine (1967: 133) President Moi himself is on record to have
invented what he called the Nyayo philosophy that preached love, peace and unity (Moi,
1986). In every formal and informal functions, Moi invoked these virtues with
unswerving passion. Yet the camouflage provided by the virtues of love, peace and unity
did not prevent-toe middle class bourgeoisie. which Moi headed, from engaging in corupt.•.
and pleasure seeking deals.
5.2.-1 Accomplishing A Critical Hurdle: Towards A Multi-Party Political Culture
The entire decade of the 1980s was a political as well as a social nightmare for
Kenya. As the Moi state became more and more intolerant of opposition, a number of
essential services began to collapse. Beginning with the education sector, distinguished
scholars began to flee the country, followed by doctors and other experts. A new system
of education, often referred to as the 8-4-4, was inaugurated without proper consultation
leading to massive wastage and unemployment. Corruption in high places increased as
the President's own appointees interfered with the judiciary and the operations of the
entire public sector. Government parastatals such as the Kenya Railways, the Kenya
Posts and Telecommunications Corporation started experiencing zero growth rates due to
looting by its chief executives. The health sector collapsed because of poor remuneration
for staff and lack of drugs. The communication infrastructure also collapsed.
In the agriculture sector, things moved from bad to worse as farmers could not get
loans to finance agriculture inputs. Yet in the wake of all these problems, the Moi state
successfully maintained a rubber-stamp parliament which drove the nation into
depression and hopelessness. Most members of parliament had been elected through
rigging and so they owed their allegiance to only one man - the President. In return to the
political support given to them by the President, ministers were expected to pledge
unswerving loyalty to the Head of State. President Moi, in one of his dictatorial
performances, was quoted as saying:
I would like ministers, assistant ministers and others to sing
like a parrot for where I put a full-stop, you put a full-
stop (The Weekly Review. 1984:4).
In such an atmosphere, the interests of the nation were not important. There was hence
all material for great combustion. It needed just one spark to set everything ablaze.
Thus, a turning point in the fortunes of the Moi state came in 1989 when the
Berlin Wall collapsed and Communism in Eastern Europe came down tumbling. Soon,
the Western European nations which had all along tolerated the Moi state now began to
change their attitudes towards Kenya. In their mind, Kenya had ceased to be a strategic
partner because Communism had collapsed. Furthermore, the dramatic collapse of one-
party communist regimes in Europe gave a fresh impetus to the decolonization movement
in Africa. Accordingly, in privacy and in public, Moi was asked by the West to
democratize by espousing a multi-party political culture. Essentially, the government
was asked to widen the political space. As the then British Overseas Development
Minister Linda Chalker later remarked:
We want to see multiparty democracy in Kenya;
we have been told that it may happen early next
230
year. That must happen in fact (Africa Confidential,
December 6, 1991).
A further boost to the decolonization movement was provided by the press. I ew
Magazines such as, I airobi Law Monthlv, Society, Finance and Beyond, and well
established newspapers such as the Dailv l ation and the Standard became the Wiyathis
of the pre-independence days by giving crucial support without which the Kenyan
dilemma would not have been known to many Kenyans and to the rest of the world. In
response, the government intimidated the reporters and editors of these magazines and
newspapers through unwarranted arrests. Some of the editors were jailed and
publications such as Societv and Bevond were finally proscribed.
However, between 1989 and 1991 the Moi State doubled its resistance to multi-
party 'democracy' and even went ahead to intensify the crackdown on and the detention
of those crusading for a new political dispensation in Kenya. During this time, the
decolonization movement in the country was spearheaded by veteran politicians who
included Oginga Odinga, George Nthenge, Masinde Muliro, George Anyona and Martin
Shikuku among others. Also outstanding in the struggle were prominent clergymen, such
as Henry Okullu, Bishop of Maseno South, David Gitari, Bishop of Mount Kenya
Diocese and Presbyterian cleric, Reverend Timothy Njoya, just to mention a few ..
It was a time when the clamour for change, had then focussed on the introduction
of multi-party politics and the radical review of the Constitution as necessary conditions
for expanding political space. On the New Year's Day in 1990, Njoya declared that it
was time Kenya espoused multi-party politics. He was supported by George Anyona and
Bishop Okullu. On his part, Okullu demanded the scrapping of Section 2A of the
231
Constitution which had made Kenya a single party state (Mpaka, 1997: 1-27).
Furthermore, the bishop called for the dissolution of the sixth parliament which he
regarded as illegitimate, arguing that Kenya required an urgent constitutional convention.
But the Moi State reacted angrily to this by insisting that a multi-party system would
trigger ethnic tensions in the country.
Meanwhile in February 1990, one of Mois most trusted ministers, Dr. Robert
Ouko was murdered in mysterious circumstances. This event was akin to the 1969
assassination of Tom Mboya. While the public knew all along that Mboya was
Kenyatta's confidant, they were surprised to learn that Mboyas assassination stemmed
from the fact that he had increasingly become a threat to the Kenyatta Presidency.
Similarly, the popularity of Robert Ouko both nationally and internationally seemed to
depress close allies of the Moi government to the extent that they undertook to eliminate
hi 01 so that he could not get a chance to get to the top of the Moi state
The murder of Ouko was significant in three days. First the assassination
enhanced domestic impetus towards reform. This was because, two, the subsequent
Commission oflnquiry in the murder, led by retired Scotland Yard detective, John Troon
came to reveal substantial improprieties in the official version of events surrounding the
murder and suggested that the murder was politically motivated (Africa Confidential, 31
May, 1991 p.5). Later, the inquiry named two trusted allies of Moi's as accomplices in
the muder. Industry Minister, Nicholas Biwott and Internal Security Chief, Hezekiah
Oyugi were the culprits. Thus, it became clear to those clamouring for change that the
Moi state had not only become intolerant to external opposition but it was also unable to
take challenges from loyal allies within the system. To some people, the state was hence
232
operating a! its weakest point because it was facing opposition from within and without.
Consequently, opposition figures felt that, following Oukos murder .. the already
weakened Moi state would easily collapse if sustained efforts to break it up continued.
Thirdly, and more importantly, the assassination of Ouko - a leader from the Luo
community - alienated the Luo support for the Moi State (Ibid.: 5). This worsened the
President's position as he had already lost the Kikuyu support.
Views expressed by the clergy captured the attention of the nation when two
former cabinet Ministers and KANU expellees, Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia raised
loud voices against the dictatorship of single-party political systems. As a follow-up to
their contestations, the two leaders asked for a license to hold a public rally in
Kamunkunji airobi to prove to the government that Kenyans were yearning for real
change and political pluralism. The license was not given. Instead, beginning June 1990,
the government carried out a major offensive against all those fighting for change.
/'
Together with Raila Odinga, Rubia and Matiba were arrested and detained (Ogot,
Op.Cir.: 241). For Matiba detention was a double blow because he was hit by a stroke
that completely destroyed his life and his political career. But frustrated by the
government insensitivity to their plight, thousands of people still turned up for the
'illegal' meeting on July ih, 1990, sparking widespread rioting in [ airobi as Police used
force to disperse the crowds. Several people were killed or injured Daily ation. July 8
and 9th, 1990). The struggle for the 'second liberation' had already turned violent.
Between January 1990 and December 1991, the political temperatures in Kenya
graduated to new heights. In an effort to endear itself to the people, the Moi state
undertook, to restore the security of tenure for the judges, Controller and Auditor General
as well as the Public Service Commissioners. Secondly, the Moi State conceded to the
demands for political pluralism when it approved the abolition .of the contentious Section
2A of the Kenya Constitution. In between these events, however. a number of things
happened within the movement for decolonization. In February 1991, Oginga Odinga's
efforts to register a new political party - the ational Democratic Party - was turned
down by the government. This forced Odinga to issue a manifesto for change entitled
'Our Stand' that among other things asked Kenyans to demand the change of government
through constitutional means (Nairobi Law Monthly, February 1991, p30).
In August 1991, a new political movement - the Forum for the Restoration of
Democracy (FORD) - was launched (Ogot, 1995:244). The movement brought together
perennial opponents of the Moi state including Oginga Odinga, Muliro, Shikuku,
lthenge, Ahmed Bamahriz and Philip Gachoka. FORD pledged to restore democracy,
human rights, multi-partyism, good governance, accountability, the rule of law and social
justice. Earl December 1991, FORD became a legal party when the KA ru government
bowed to pressure and approved a constitutional amendment that restored a multi-party
political culture. But the question that is rather disturbing is this: How do you restore
what was not in the first pl1ce there? Under what past political arrangement did Kenya
enjoy democracy and good governance') And at what time in history did the Kenyan
people lose this democracy and good governance? It seems to me that from the beginning
the vision for FORD was based on a false premise. The truth of the matter was that
Kenya was in dire need for the installation, not the restoration, of a new political culture.
ot surprisingly, as the 1992 general elections draw closer, FORD split along
ethnic and regional lives thereby giving the Moi state another life line (Kenya Times, 28
August 1992: 1-2). During this time, the Kikuyu electorate was patronized by two parties
- FORD Asili identified with Kenneth Matiba and the Democratic Party of Kenya
identified with the newly baptized opposition leader, former Vice-President and Kf\NL
defector, Mwai Kibaki. Sections of the Lulya and the entire Luo community remained in
another faction, FORD Kenya. This was a terrible betrayal of the decolonization
programme. In the much-awaited general election which was held on 29th, December
1992, KANU won by garnering 100 out of the possible 188 seats in parliament (The
Weeklv Review, January, S, 1993). The opposition was beaten, the Moi state was
secured and the decolonization proponents had no alternative but to go back to the
drawing board in order to bring about meaningful change in Kenya.
Franz Fanon is on record as having lamented that the heads of government in
post-independence Africa were the true traitors of the continent because they had the
habit of selling their countries to the most terrifying of all its enemies stupidity. He
)
commented that:
The tribalizing of the central authority it is certain, encourages
regionalist ideas and separation. All the decentralizing tendencies
spring up again, and triumph and the nation falls to pieces, broken
in bits (1967: 148).
The advent of pluralist political culture finally legitimized in December 1991 -
threatened to dismantle the Moi state. Accordingly, new methods were designed by Moi
to withstand the new political development. Within the pressure of multi-party politics,
highly inflammatory speeches were made by Maasai and Kalenjin leaders from the Rift
Valley. The leaders who included icholas Biwott (Kalenjin), Kipkalia Kones
(Kalenjin), George Saitoti (probably a Maasainized Kikuyu), William ole 1 timama
(Maasai), Wilson Leitich (Kalenjin) and Francis Lotodo (Kalenjin) among others asked
235
'foreign communities' in the Rift Valley region of Kenya to stop abusing the hospitality of
the indigenous people or quit the province (National Electoral Monitoring Unit, 1993).
Consequently, the leaders called for the establishment of a majimbo (federal) system of
government which they argued would preserve indigenous zones and resources for native
populations.
In a characteristic KADU spirit of the .19605, some KA U leaders attacked the
big tribes for undermining small ones (Human Rights Watch, 1997: 5). Targeted for
attack were members of the Luhya, Kikuyu, Luo and Kisii communities. In the end,
tribal clashes broke out causing the death of hundreds of people from these communities:
still, tens of thousands were also displaced (Ibid.: 36). Sick people, as well as school
children were in the end condemned to a life in unhygienic makeshift camps set up at
selected church compounds and market places. More painful was the fact that both the
young and the old were either widowed, orphaned or maimed through this deliberate
project of ethnic cleansing. It was evident that the great majority of ethnic victims came
from ethnic groups associated with political opposition. By 1993, the Human Ri£!hts
Watch estimated that 1500 people had died in clashes while some 300,000 were displaced
through state-sponsored terrorism (Ibid.: 36J.
Four things emerge from the clashes. First, Moi condoned clashes because he
knew multiparty politics would threaten his grip on power. Second, through clashes, he
could easily displace the Kikuyu and other communities who had acquired land in the
Rift Valley soon after independence and thus affect voting patterns in favour of KANU.
Indeed, there was the feeling that indigenous land in the province had been grabbed by
'foreigners'. Third, through clashes the Moi state sent across a clear message that
236
although it preached KANU's unitary system of government, the reality was that the
Kenyan President was still nostalgically attached to the Federal Constitution of the
KADU party which he once headed in the early 1960s. Like any other ordinary Kalenjin,
Moi hated the Kikuyu dominance of Keny<w's public life. Fourth, and most importantly,
political leaders in Africa, it seems to us, think and live ethnically, Perhaps at this stage,
itis important to revisit the pessimism of Frantz Fanon about the sustainability of newly
independent states in Africa. He says thus:
History teaches us that the battle against colonialism
does not run straight away along the lines of nationalism ....
The fight for democracy against the oppression of mankind
will slowly leave the confusion of nee-liberal universalism
to emerge.. It so happens that the unpreparedness of the
educated classes, the lack of practical links between them
and the mass of people,their laziness and let it be said,
their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will
give rise to tragic mishaps (1967119)
Indeed, both the Kenyatta and Moi states failed to seize decisive moments, thereby
leading the country into mishaps such as detentions, economic corruption, assassinations
and ethnic clashes. Fanon continues:
National consciousness, instead of being the all-embracing
crystallization of the innermost hopes of the whole people,
instead of being the immediate and most obvious result of the
mobilization of the people, will in any case only be an empty
shell, a crude and fragile travesty of what it might have been.
The faults that we find in it are quite sufficient explanation of
the facility with which when dealing with young independent
nations, the nation is passed over for the race and the tribe is
preferred for the state Qbid.).
Nothing could be more prophetic. Both under the Kenyatta and the Moi regimes, the
Kenyan state became highly tribalized. The country approached the 1992 first multiparty
elections highly divided along ethnic lines that Moi and KANU manipulated the resultant
137
situation to remain in power (Africa Confidential, 8 May 1992, Weeklv Telegraph June
1992).
The movement for change was conspicuously supported and encouraged by
policy statements from Western nations and the World Bank that in future financial
assistance would be linked to respect for human rights, transparency, accountability and
democratization (Oecalo, 1992: 7-36; Hyden and Bratton, 1992). Thus whatever the
opposition said had to be acceptable to a Western audience of patrons, benefactors, and
well-wishers. And this takes as back to the problematic of hegemony first articulated by
Gramsci but later domesticated by Spivak. Spivak's essay 'Can the Subaltern Speak?'
(J 988) - perhaps best demonstrates her concern for the complex problems which face
postcolonial voices in the so-called Third World. Spivak was obviously worried that post
colonial critics would ironically end up to reinscribe, co-opt and rehearse neo-colonial
imperatives of political domination, economic exploitation, and cultural erasure. In other
words, is the postcolonial critic unknowingly complicit in the tasks of imperialism?
There is little doubt that postcolonial critics in Kenya included but were not
limited to literary artists and political thinkers. Personalities such as Oginga Odinga and
a host of political critics of both in the Kenyatta and Moi states were actually subaltern
voices of resistance: they represented the suffering and dispossessed masses. However,
in coming up with Western-friendly ideas and programmes, these voices also confirmed
the dilemma which is captured in Spivak's writings. Socialized in Western culture and
values, can such voices possibly make a true representation of the subalterns? How could
this be possible when the lifestyle and values of the subaltern leadership were the same
values the subaltern movement aimed to dismantle?
238
The Kenyan experience was a characteristic case of Western hegemony and neo-
colonialism invading the opposition ranks and forcing the new political rnovernent to
confine itself to programmes which sustained Western metanarratives about social
progress. Disillusioned by this development, Kenya's foremost historian, B.A. Ogot,
comments:
These were the people (Western patrons) who could give them
(African oppositionists) fame and protection They had to
support neo-liberal policies of the Western governments in order to
earn recognition (Ogot. 1995:240).
of
Elsewhere, Ogot decried the lack of innovation on the side if those leaders who were
clamouring for the second liberation. From their writings and statements. published in
papers, journals and magazines, it was evident that Kenya's opposition leaders had
simply swallowed the whole Western political tradition, with human rights forming the
main principle behind their civil society (Ibid.: 240:241). Some like Odinga and Anyang'
Nyong 'o had only a few years back been Marxists (another Western variant of social
transformation) but were now supporting Western neo-liberalism. This was rather tragic
because by oscillating from one Western metanarrative to another, the leaders overlooked
the input of the African cultural values in bringing about meaningful change to their set
goal of decolonizing Kenya.
Consequently, the lack of political creativity in both the Kenyatta and Moi states
seemed also to be the disease of the opposition. As one person summarized the
opposition in Kenya:
They are all former KAl."\TUfunctionaries and they will be worse
off than Moi if they were allowed to take over government (Kisuya
0.1., 2000).
•
239
Both groups in the political process were hence preoccupied with chasing after
Eurocentric ideologies, values and forms of knowledge, only to miserably end up proving
the European stereotypes of African people that blacks were lazy, irresponsible and
unable to create anything of their own (Hegel, 1944:93:94). While toi's repression was
sustained by the all-embracing Western colonial political' and social structures, Odinga's
socialism was derived from the· universalizing European political thought called
Marxism. Both Odinga and Moi were therefore bitter enemies who were merely
contesting over the appropriateness of European ideologies in resolving the social
problems of Kenya. On their own, Odinga (along with his supporters in the opposition)
and Kenyatta or even Moi, had nothing to offer in terms of building a unique cultural and
political entity which carried a real African or, as it were, Kenyan identity.
The foregoing assessment captures the fundamental CrISIS facing the
decolonization of Africa, today. The Post-colonial theoretical prospectus invites scholars
to appreciate this reality by suggesting that true liberation should be found in the realm of
culture because it is only in that domain that formerly colonized others could dismantle
forms of knowledge authorized and authored by West. The process involves recognizing
the value and identity of cultural features of formally colonized others struggling against
European hegemony. However, notwithstanding the shortcomings in the struggle for
liberation in Kenya, the ultimate embracing of a multiparty political culture marked a
meaningful, though modest, step into the decolonization track. Multi-party politics still
~he capacity to expand the political as well as the cultural space that are crucial to
true decolonization. It seems to me that by the year 1992, the struggle against
}.to
colonialism, had not yet been won by the people of Kenya. Thus, the struggle had to
continue.
5.3 Conclusion
In this Chapter, we have outlined the workings of the Moi state. It has been
observed that in establishing his neo-colonial state, Kenyatta displaced Europeans and
embarked on a deliberate efforts to Kikuyuni:e Kenya's public sector. Similarly, on
taking over power, Moi pledged to follow' Kenyatta's footsteps, (translated in Kiswahili
as 'nyayos'). However, by following Kenyatta's footsteps, Moi was not going to retain
Kenyatta's Kikuyu supporters. Following footsteps meant using Kenyatta's methodology
in order to strengthen his own grip on power. Slowly but carefully, Moi began to de-
Kikuyuni:e the public sector, while at the same time Kalenjinizing the cabinet, civil
service and the military. In doing this, he maintained a methodological and structural
continuity with the Kenyatta state.
Once he was secure in power, Moi employed the services of political advisers
from his own ethnic community led by such powerful figures as icholas Biwott and
Henry Kosgey. These advisers determined the direction of the political process and the
fate of political opponents. Like the Kenyatta state, the Moi state was intolerant to
opposition. The new Moi neo-colonial state was sustained by brutal repression,
detention, as well as the political intimidation of perceived opponents. The state also
thrived on corruption, as well as on economic and social mismanagement. Unfortunately
for Moi, the end of the 'Cold War' forced him to espouse multi-party politics because the
Western nations (on whose support the neo-colonial state of Kenya depended) did not
find the country strategically viable any more.
2-l1
But the Moi state invented new methods of maintaining itself in power. State-
sponsored terrorism, often called tribal clashes, became Moi's new strategy to fight ofT
the opposition. Close allies of Moi's, most of them from his own Rift Valley Province
issued inflammatory statements asking 'foreigners' to leave the province. In this
onslaught, ethnic communities such as the Luo, Kikuyu and Luhya were targeted because
they were perceived to be anti-Moi. Citing Fanon, we have demonstrated, through the
Moi state, the inability of the nation-state in Africa to meet the expectations of the
people. It has not been lost on us that under the Moi regime, just like under the Kenyatta
state, the struggie for decolonization was undermined by the tendency to fight one
Western metanarrative by striving to substitute it by another Western grand-narrative.
Opposition figures in Kenya were victims of this tragedy. By 1992, most of the forces
involved in the decolonization process had been scattered, detained forced into exile,
intimidated and defeated. Kenya had not, strictly speaking, been decolonized.
evertheless, we have argued that the struggle against the Moi state, whether violent or
non-violent was the struggle for decolonization. In the next Chapter, we attempt a
summary of the findings of the study while at the same time making a couple of
conclusions.
H2
CHAPTER SIX
6.0 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Over the last five chapters, efforts have been made to interrogate Frantz Fanon in
the light of the Kenyan decolonization experience. In Chapter One, the main features of
the research project have been outlined. It has been pointed out that, in addition to
creating a permanent crisis of identity among the African people, imposition of colonial
rule in Kenya carried with it far-reaching social, political and economic implications.
The chapter has also demonstrated that British colonialism in Kenya embraced two
fundamental phases namely, the formal and the informal variants. Formal colonialism
begins around 1895 and ends in 1963. On the other hand, the symbolic withdrawal of the
Europeans from Kenya as a result of the granting of independence ushered in the era of
neo-colonialism. We have referred to this phase as representing the Africanization of
European colonialism.
With the installation of colonial rule, the colonial state was born. The state was
installed to fight societal antagonisms, to control the people and effect economic and
social policies. In many ways, the colonial state in Kenya domesticated most of the
values and contents of a modern Western state. Thus, the colonial state in Kenya was
also an instrument for propagating Western modernity together with its universalizing
and totalizing tendencies. 1t has been demonstrated too that under formal colonialism,
the colonial state worked side by side with a repressed 'nation'. Evidently, the colonial
state represents the material or the outer domain of the colonial society, but the nation
marks out the spiritual or the inner domain of the same society. In this case, the material
level was controlled by the Europeans but the spiritual by Africans. Nationalism in
2·r;
Kenya developed our of the spiritual domain which was sovereign to the Africans. At
independence, the political entity that was born was a hybrid of materiality and
spirituality. The struggle for independence derived its poetry from the spirituality of the
nation. But once independence had been won, the new leaders continued to rule using
the principles embraced in the materiality of the colonial state. This marked the birth of a
nation-state, together with its dilemmas.and its numerous crises of identity.
Because the entire research project revolves around the appropriation of Frantz
Fanon's thoughts to the Kenyan decolonization experience, a brief history of the thinker
has been attempted in Chapter One. Fundamentally, we have highlighted Fanon's
African roots, his early childhood in French Martinique, his experiences with French
colonialism, his participation in World War 11 and his ultimate migration, first to France
then later to Algeria. Furthermore. the brief history has illuminated the Western roots of
Fanon's thoughts. lndeed, the influence on Fanon by such Western scholars as Marx,
Lenin, Lacan, Maus, Satre and Hegel has also been underscored. Understanding the
influence of these Western thinkers has helped us not only to appreciate the various ways
in which Fanon interpreted colonialism, but also the strategies he advocated in order to
dismantle Western imperial domination. Fanon came to believe that with all its
brutalities, racism, forms of alienation and economic exploitation, colonialism had been
installed and maintained by violence. Consequently, he concluded, colonialism had to be
dismantled by counter-violence.
The literature review presented m Chapter One has demonstrated that vanous
works have so far been produced on the decolonization of Kenya. However, all the
works indicate that first, no effort has been undertaken to rethink the ideas of Frantz
Fanon within the context of Kenya's struggle against formal and informal colonialism in
Kenya. Second, most of the works seem to celebrate the end of decolonization as a result
of the granting of independence in 1963. Thus in terms of justification and significance,
our current research has addressed the above gaps. Furthermore, it has tried to subject
Fanon's ideas, which developed out of a French colonial system, ,to an alternative British
colonial framework in order to ascertain if his conclusions are applicable to all forms of'
colonial arrangements.
In Chapter two, we have made efforts to identify and address some of the major
zones of conflicts during the colonial period. Specifically, we have dealt with the land
problem, the administrative and military frontier, the European town, the educational
imbalance, the taxation and labour crisis as well as the calamity of political
marginalization Some of these zones of conflict, especially those dealing with taxation,
education and political marginalization were ignored in Fanon's analysis of Algeria.
However, in analyzing the Kenyan experience, we have gone beyond Fanon and
highlighted these important omissions. Generally, the Chapter has argued that the source
of conflict in colonial Kenya revolved around the resilience of the colonial authorities in
wanting to prove and maintain the African inferiority, on the one hand, and the struggle
by most African dispossessed groups to reject this prejudice, on the other. True, we have
shown that Africans did not take colonial oppression passively. Africans resisted
colonialism through the establishment of independent churches, through ethnic political
organizations, through demonstrations, through the press and through the trade union
movement. Colonialists responded to the African protests by intimidating the voices of
2-lS
dissension. In many ways, conflicts obtaining in the above signified some forms of
. violence from the colonizer and the colonized.
Chapter three focuses on the making of violence in colonial Kenya and pays
special attention to the Mau Mau era. Given that Frantz Fanon believed that violence was
a liberating force in any colonial situation, this Chapter is significant. We have
.dernonstrated that colonial violence carne from both the colonizer and the colonized.
However, we have also dismissed Fanon's view that the violence of the colonized
necessarily emanated from the colonizer's violence. This dichotomy overlooks the fact
that every human being regardless of race has an inherent potential to be violent. Thus. it
would be wrong to imagine that Africans lacked this inherent capacity to violence just as
it is untenable to think that the African counter-violence is the one whic.h had been
absorbed from the conquerors, internalized and released back to Europeans. Such logic
assumes that without European violence, there would be no violence among the African
people.
The chapter has also examined how the land alienation policies, and the
psychological abuses embraced in obscenities provided a conducive atmosphere for the
eventual outbreak of the Mau Mau movement. The fundamental aspects of European
violence and African counter-violence during the Mau Mau era have also been
highlighted with special emphasis on the destruction of property and loss of human lives.
However, while the Mau Mau espoused violence, moderate political figures such as
Kenyatta and Gichuru denounced the movement and declared their intentions to pursue
independence through peaceful means. We have attempted a Fanonian interpretation of
this by attributing the activities of the moderates to their Western socialization and their
2~G
reluctance to demolish structures of a system they so eagerly wanted to inherit. On this
point, Fanon refers to the likes of Gichuru, Kenyatta and Mathu as traitors who, by being
members of the bourgeoisie middle class, could not be entrusted with the responsibility of
decolonizing their respective communities and dismantling colonialism as well. It is in
the peasantry class that Fanon invested so much hope and expectations with regard to the
programme of deceolonization. 'This cadre, Fanon believed, was appropriate because it .
had not benefited from Westernization and colonization. Their memory of colonialism,
unlike the middle class, was a memory of brutality and misery.
Yet, the move by the moderates to negotiate with the colonizer raises critical
question marks about Fanon's generalized assumption that decolonization, was always a
violent process Indeed, it is true that the Mau Mau violence led to the murder of Chief
Waruhiu, Chief Nderi and even Chief Luka Wakahangara. It is also true that both the
Mau Mau and European violence destroyed lives and property. Europeans worked hard
to bombard Mau Mau hideouts while at the same time detaining, intimidating and
sentencing to death those captured alive or those suspected to be supporters of the
movement. But, even in the glaring face of this violence, it was the moderate political
personalities who finally negotiated for eventual independence- thereby, once more,
disapproving the view that decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. The struggle
for decolonization in Kenya was both violent and non-violent. Both strategies, though
aimed at decolonization, ended up without achieving that noble objective of freeing the
country from Western domination and exploitation. The violent forces were militarily
defeated while the non-violent factions were socialized to accept the Africanization of
European colonialism.
2~7
It has also been demonstrated in the chapter that the modernist binaries of for
instance, self/other, colonizer/colonized do not give us a fulfilling opportunity .to analyse
and understand colonial relations in Kenya Colonial Kenya was a diversity with some
Asians such as Makhan Singh fighting alongside Africans while some Africans including
chiefs like Nderi and Waruhiu throwing their sympathies behind Europeans. The path to
independence, it has been observed, was skillfully prepared to exclude violent factions
including Mau Mau warriors. In fact, as we have argued, Jomo Kenyatta almost missed
his seat at independence because the Europeans had falsely suspected him of being Mau
Mau. At independence, the British handed over power to political figures who had the
characteristics of a Western European man except for their skin colour. In this way, the
main pillars of colonialism were maintained beyond British rule in Kenya.
It cannot be emphasized enough that the attainment of political independence in
Kenya did not signal the end of colonialism. At independence, the colonial state simply
transformed itself into a neo-colonial political entity. Chapter Four has highlighted this
reality by focusing on the chief characteristics of the Kenyatta state. It has been observed
that, from 1963 onwards, Kenyatta replaced the colonial Governor and continued to base
his rule on the fundamental pillars which defined colonialism in its formal perspective. It
has been noted that during colonialism, the Governor favoured his fellow Europeans,
accorded them privileges and comforts which the Africans never enjoyed. The chapter
has demonstrated that under the Kenyatta State, the president transferred settler privileges
and comforts to members of his family and to several personalities from his own Kikuyu
ethnic community. Apart from enhancing Kikuyu appointments in the Civil Service, the
cabinet and the military, the President extended favours and allocated national resources
to his family, friends and ethnic community members.
Formal colonialism perpetuated poverty, landlessness, poor educational facilities
and political as well economic peripherization. Under hegemonic colonialism, the
Kenyatta state continued to perpetuate these ills. Furthermore, like its Euro-colonial
counterpart, Kenyatta's neo-colonial state was sustained by intimidation and harassment
of political opponents, assassinations and detention of opposition personalities. Thus, in
its neo-colonial disposition, the Kenyatta state violated individual and societal freedoms.
As a typical Hegelian Master, Jomo Kenyatta refused to recognize his bondsmen (the
colonized or is it the nee-colonized"). But instead of the bondsman espousing inactivity,
because of self-negation, as Hegel and Fanon would have expected, the Kenyan
bondsman, under Kenyatta's overlordship, fought against oppression in various ways.
Through leaders like Bildad Kaggia, Oginga Odinga, Jean Marie Seroney, Martin
Shikuku and J .M. Kariuki, the people of Kenya expressed their disaffection against the
neo-colonial state presided over by Jomo Kenyatta. Furthermore, literary scholars such
as, Abdulatif Abdalla, Grace Ogot, Okot p'Bitek, Taban Lo Liyong and Ngugi wa
Thiong'o, among others added their voices against the Kenyatta State. Yet just like the
colonial state before it, the Kenyatta State had been structured to withstand and defeat
popular opposition against it, through repression, intimidation and manipulation.
Consequently, upon his death in 1978, Kenyatta left behind a glaring legacy of a much
more strengthened neo-colonial state. Since nothing, except the skin colour of the
colonizer, had changed, Kenya remained under the yoke of colonialism and continued to
serve the interests of the Western imperial project.
Fundamentally, Chapter Five argues that when Daniel arap Moi took power after
the death of Kenyatta, he continued with the colonial tendencies which informed his
predecessor's state. This Chapter has outlined the chief elements of the 0.loi state and
demonsrated that while Kenyatta Kikuyunized Kenya's public life, Moi followed a similar
path when he undertook to Kalenjini:e the social institutions of neo-colonial Kenya. We. .
have demonstrated that Moi enlisted the services of advisers from his own ethnic
community including such politically inexperienced figures as Nicholas Biwott and
Henry Kosgey.
Apart from highlighting biases evident during the Moi rule, this chapter has also
brought to the fore, cases of political intolerance, economic mismanagement and land
grabbing. In addition, the chapter has pointed out the various aspects of the struggle
between the Moi state and the university students and lecturers; the Moi state and its own
internal rebels in KANU, the Moi state and the church, the Moi state and the Law Society
of Kenya and the Moi state and the political dissidents outside KANU. The repressive
policies of the system which legitimized torture, police brutality and detention without
trial and politically instigated ethnic clashes have been pointed out. It has, however, been
recognized that although various groups in Kenya fought hard to decolonize the country
by dismantling the basic structures of the Moi state, in the end, the state survived the
onslaught by manipulating and defeating the liberation forces. The problems of the
liberation forces in Kenya were compounded further when it became clear that most of
the members of the movement for change were unable to create any meaningful political
agenda beyond the Eurocentric tradition. It was a case of condemning one form of
Eurocentric variant of development and replacing with another Eurocentric alternative.
250
By 1992, when Kenya espoused a. multi-party political culture, true decol., iz, .• on
remained a mirage.
In his informative essay. 'The Pitfalls of National Consciousness' (already cited).
Frantz Fanon has demonstrated that the new nation-state in Africa would fail to meet the
expectations of its people. Obviously, the structures of both the Kenyatta and Moi states
represent a telling confirmation of Fanon's pessimism. However, like all socialist-
oriented personalities in Kenya. Fanon's socialist prescription for the deteriorating
African condition turned out to be yet another Western meta-discourse. The challenging
question is: should we in Africa always look to the West in order to obtain solutions to
our social problems? Can't we, on our own, be creative enough to solve our own
problems. Isn't it time the West began to borrow from us rather than us borrowing
unreasonably from the West? These and many other questions represent the moral spirit
behind the current research.
The research project was based on four fundamental premises. First, the study
proposed that Fanon's ideas on decolonization could adequately account for all the
intricate aspects of Kenya's colonial experience. Our research has pointed out a couple of
limitations in the Fanonian conclusions and argued that generalized assumptions could
hardly give satisfying analyses of such complex diversities as the Kenyan colonial
expert ence. For example, we have pointed out that Fanon's Western European
intellectual background influenced him to prescribe untenable European-based solutions
to the African condition. Fanon, for instance, condemned capitalism, wnich was a
European economic system, and advocated for socialism which was another European-
251
based social arrangement. But as we have argued, both socialist and capitalist regimes
were a gigantic failure in Africa.
Taking into account the unique. frican cultural situation. there is an urgent need
to generate new strategies for the continent's social transformation. Only through this
creative approach can Africa hope to achieve true and authentic decolonization.
Concerning Fanon's emancipatory capacity of violence, the study has raised a 'couple of
objections. For example it, has been observed that not all violence is cathartic and not all
violence is a reflection of inaction, despair or inferiority complex. However, the study
agrees that violence could still serve as a unifying force. Yet when one looks at the
moderate politicians who negotiated for Kenya's independence, one notices that these
personalities were united by their common hatred for political violence which again
weakens Fanon's standpoint.
Second. the study proposed that conflict in colonial Kenya revolved around issues
of social justice, political margainalization and exploitation. By giving examples of
several crises in the fields of land, education, taxation, the European town, racism,
political peripherization and labour, we confirmed the validity of this premise. However,
despite that confirmation, the study recognizes that every-day life in colonial Kenya was
not always centred on these issues alone. We have alluded to the fact that life in the
Kenya colony also embraced, eating habits, sexual attitudes, culture and many other
issues which scholars never have time to address as they write the history of Kenya. The
questions which linger on are: were all Kenyans interested in the struggle against
colonialism') Can we say that every black Kenyan wanted Europeans to go? Can we also
state that in the struggle against colonialism, each and every Kenyan wished to dismantle
252
both the Kenyatta and Moi states') The overall answer to these questions IS, Nol
Generalized conclusions about diverse entities such as Kenya's could be misleading to
scholars.
Third, it proposed that pervasive violence was occasioned by the fact that
violence was part and parcel of any society and was not therefore unique to colonial
Kenya. We have already signified that every human society regardless of its colour or
creed, could be violent depending on the crises confronting it. We have dismissed the
view that African violence in colonial Kenya was originated and controlled by
Europeans. Certainly, Africans were also capable of expressing their own violence in
their own \\i3):S without necessarily internalizing the violence from the external forces
Our first premise was therefore confirmed.
Fourth, the study proposed that, in Kenya, colonialism did not end with the
attainment of political independence In the spirit of the postmodernist and the
postcolonialist thinking, our study has gone beyond the 'great story', the 'obvious story'
we are used to. We have refused to adopt the tiresome story which equates independence
with decolonization or which views the Africanization of colonialism as being equivalent
to the end of the decolonization struggle. Quite strongly, this study views the period
between 1895 and 1992 as symbolizing a reveting struggle against colonial domination
in Kenya. Notably, both the Kenyatta and Moi states epitomize not only crucial stages of
imperial continuity in Kenya, but they also exemplify colonialism in its most intricate
composition.
Overall, this study has interpreted its data through the post-modernist and post-
colonialist theoretical categories of analysis. Through the post-modernist standpoint we
253
have been able to argue that colonialism was part: and parcel of the modernist project
. which had its cardinal objective, the inspiration to spread European modernity from the
center which is Europe to the peripheral which includes Africa and many non-white
zones of the world. Through modernization, the rest of the world has been subjected to
certain universalizing values and institutions that are only relevant in Europe but not at all
'in other parts of the world. . The postrnodernist thought questions these universal
parameters within the European cultural dispensation. Thus, when scholars like
Nietzsche and Heidegger questioned the dictatorship of modernity they had in mind the
hope that, within the European cultural fabric, there is diversity and difference which
needs to be celebrated.
On the other hand, the post-colonialist thinking represents a specific movement,
outside European modernity, against Eurocentric forms of knowledge which have come
to define the identity of the colonized people. Our post-colony begins soon after the
imposition of colonial rule in the 1890s and continues beyond the independence
watershed. Thus, formal colonialism and neo-colonialism are critical variants of and
stages of the post-colonial experience. As it has been argued, postcoloniali sm brings into
focus the need to dismantle structures and forms of knowledge authored and authorized
by the West. Postcolonialism is, therefore, a rebellion against the Western representation
of the Other and a deliberate effort by the Other to free themselves from such
representations. As we have noted, postcolonialism unlike postmodernism, has a sense of
agency upon which new structures could be established in order to restore a respectful
identity for the dispossessed subalterns of the colonial experience.
Thus, postcolonial ism has a liberation agenda. But it is not the sort of liberation
which the West would approve of It is not obviously the sort of liberation Kenya was
hoodwinked to celebrate about in 1963. It is a liberation that takes cognizance of the
peoples' diversities and differences. It is a liberation which fights inferiority complexes
and which restores the dignity of the colonized people. Indeed, it is a liberation which
does not privilege European culture and its structures. Given that our independence was
fake, because we still continued with the values and standards set by Europeans,
decolonization was never realized even after independence. The postcolonial theoretical
domain accounts for this intricate post-independent colonialism. Precisely, post
colonialism, as we have argued, represents a critical focus on colonialism both in its
formal and in its hegemonic phase. In brief, by employing both the postmodern and the
postcoionial devices, the current study represents a conscious effort to celebrate
intellectual diversity and difference that are crucial for the realization of true freedom,
and true liberation in human societies.
In conclusion, it needs to be observed that such a complicated and contradictory
personality as Frantz Fanon is not easy to study. At one time, he poses as a pure medical
doctor. At another, he is a political activist and social theoretician. We see Fanon
espousing European values and their prejudices against blacks. But later, we also notice
a Fanon who is struggling to defend the African people against European biases. Frantz
Fanon prescribes the grand narrative of socialism for Africa yet he articulates profound
pessimism about the viability of the new African nation-state. Consequently, bearing in
mind the enigmatic personality of Fanon, this study has made attempts to appropriate
255
only some of the man's ideas to the Kenyan decolonization process. This is because it is
not practical to handle the ideas of Fanon all at once.
256
7.0 SOURCES
7.1 Primary Sources
7.1.1 Annual Reports
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K A, Education Annual Report, 1925
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KN A, Education Annual Report, 1942
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OJ. March 18,2001
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258
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
01
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
OJ
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
OJ
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
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25Y
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