One-word take on Imperial Reckoning–The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya: Tough.
Sanitized summary: Reveals the abuse of the Kikuyu tribe (think Eburru) by colonial powers in the 1950s.
Scary: Imperial Reckoning brings first person accounts of detention camps, enslavement, starvation, sexual abuse, beatings, and death directed at the Kikuyu tribe in the 1950's by the British government (which lived in modern "denial" until very recently).
Too simple: Foreigners were in control of Kenya. The Mau Mau revolutionary movement, comprised mainly of the Kikuyu tribe, sought to reclaim the land and culture from 1952-59. All parties did violence to one another. The Kikuyu tribe was at war with itself, divided among loyalists and supporters of the resistance. Christian missionaries were used as tools of manipulation in the British "hearts and minds" campaign. The British lost. Kenya achieved independence and launched its independent democracy in 1963.
Caution: A very sensitive topic among all Kenyans, especially Kikuyu. Many Kikuyu don't talk of these times, even today. Some do.
A few excerpts:
- "In Africa, the British were going to bring light to the Dark Continent by transforming the so-called natives into progressive citizens, ready to take their place in the modern world…. With proper British guidance and tough paternalistic love, Africans could be made into progressive men and women…. This was cultural imperialism par excellence. This was the "White Man's Burden."
- "Though all indigenous groups were affected by British colonial rule in Kenya, none experienced a transformation as intense as the Kikuyu. This was the ethnic group most affected by the colonial government's policies of land alienation, or expropriation, and European settlement."
- “Colonial officials assumed that Africans needed agricultural experts to show them how to cultivate and herd efficiently, despite the fact that they had successfully managed their land and livestock for centuries before the British arrived.”
- "There is no record of how many people died as a result of torture, hard labor, sexual abuse, malnutrition, and starvation…we find that somewhere between 130,000 to 300,000 Kikuyu are unaccounted for."
- In the words of a emprisoned Kikuyu: "Detention was hell, it was meant to kill us. We only came out by the grace of God."
- "The treatment of Mau Mau suspects, with rare exception, was devoid of any humanity."
- "For many detainees, Christianity was ineffective in explaining what was happening to them and was, in fact, partly responsible for their condition" [imprisonment, brutality, slave labor…].
- "Nowhere does the beauty and rhythm of rural life in Kikuyuland betray the devastation that ravaged its people some fifty years ago."
- "The British had won a long, costly, and bloody battle against the Mau Mau, only to lose the war for Kenya."
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RESPONSE:
Imperialism is dangerous for sure.
RESPONSE:
Kara Hamblen
DCC Missionary to
Eburru/Naivasha, KenyaImperialism is dangerous for sure.
Does this book speak to other tribes, or just Kikuyu? I would be interested in that simply because to hear other tribes here talk about colonization, the Kikuyu sound like they had it good. Not the Mau Mau Warriors, but the Kikuyu in general.
After the British left, the Kikuyu were able to get the best land--in Central Province, they were the most educated as a result of being around the British so much. Three of the four presidents since independence have been Kikuyu. So, I wonder what the perspective would be from another tribe.
Colonization is something that has long lasting effects, and I believe one of the reasons Eburru is the way it is today is because of how the village has historically interacted with Wazungu (White peoples). Other places in Kenya that weren't so heavily influenced by the British are not the same as Eburru, even though the poverty level is roughly the same. It's very interesting to me.
"Much of the support and energy that comes from Wazungu to Eburru is expected to be held like that of a spoon, but it is only held as if by fork. It all goes away." ~ analogy by Francis
