[lbo-talk] Mau Mau and the bodysnatchers

[Joseph Wanzala]

The titles and presumably theses of these two books, that Empire in Kenya 
(or the rest of post-colonial Africaa for that matter) 'ended' is somewhat 
misleading. Jomo Kenyatta was not really a 'Mau Mau leader' though he was 
associated with them by dint of having inherited the mantle of Harry Thuku 
and his anti-colonialist East African Association. Kenyatta, from his days 
at the London School of Economics where he studied under British 
anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and formed close associations with 
members of the Fabian Society was from the start on a trajetory towards 
becoming the leader of the post-colonial comprador elite. Indeed, many of 
the Leaders of the Kenta Land and Freedom Army (aka 'Mau Mau') such as 
Bildad Kaggia and Pio Gama Pinto ( a Kenyan of Goan origin who as it happens 
was assasinated on the same day as his friend Malcom X) were marginalized or 
assasinated after independence. I'm sure that these books provide some 
useful historical data, but I am dubious about their overall contribution to 
the nature of the colonial project and its relationship to the current state 
of affairs in Kenya.

Joe W.


>From: uvj at vsnl.com
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Mau Mau and the bodysnatchers
>Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 21:18:26 +0500
>
>Economist.com
>
>British colonial history
>
>Mau Mau and the bodysnatchers
>
>Dec 29th 2004
>
>How not to run an empire
>
>Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire
>By David Anderson
>Norton; 320 pages; $25.95.
>Weidenfeld & Nicolson; £20
>
>Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of the End of Empire in Kenya
>By Caroline Elkins
>Henry Holt; 496 pages; $27.50. Published in Britain as "Britain's Gulag"; 
>Jonathan Cape; £20
>
>THE common image of the Mau Mau fighter is hard to erase: dirty, sullen and 
>intransigent, with hair matted into dreadlocks from his months on the run 
>in Kenya's equatorial forests. From the start, Mau Mau was cast as a 
>throwback from a dark and primitive past, with its blood oaths and its 
>disembowellings. Not since the Black Hole of Calcutta did a single phrase 
>so instantly conjure up the forces of evil that Britain's civilising 
>mission abroad was supposed to be doing its best to overcome. Elspeth 
>Huxley, the white settlers' literary spokesman, wrote in 1957 that Mau Mau 
>was the “yell from the swamp”.
>http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3518628
>
>
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk