When the British arrived in our country, they didn’t find any minerals to exploit, so they turned Kenya into a settler colony. They dispossessed our forefathers their ancestral land to pave the way for a capitalist system. In capitalism, labour is essential yet the white settlers who were brought by the colonial goverment had none, because our forefathers refused to toil on land that had been stolen from them.
To solve this problem, the colonial government devised a coercive plan, they imposed taxes (hut tax & poll tax) on our forefathers. So the only way to earn money needed to pay these taxes was to work on the settlers farms.
Unfortunately our forefathers were paid very low wages and that was by design, because according to Lord Delemare, they (white settlers) had to pay low wages in order to guarantee a steady and inexpensive supply of forced labour and the little much of what our forefathers earned was taken by local Munjivos (chiefs) in form of taxes - hut tax and poll tax. If you didn’t have money, the chief would confiscate your goat or cow.
Thus our forefathers were trapped in a carefully engineered vicious cycle, that stripped them of their land, their freedom, and ultimately forced them into the service of the very system (capitalism) that had taken everything from them.
And it is this oppresive system (colonial capitalism) that led or caused the Mau Mau Uprising. Infact Mau Mau freedom fighters didn’t refer to themselves as Mau Mau, rather they used to refer to themselves as KLFA - Kenya Land and Freedom Army.
Wrong. The British arrived in Kenya mainly to find a way into Uganda and find the source of the river Nile in the interior lands. They had a fairly decent time at Mombasa, where the Portuguese had already landed.. but when they arrived into the mungich kingdom, they decided to hang around for a while.
This is more accurate history.. the rest has been exaggerated or twisted by JKF over the last 6 decades.
Zii, Mau Mau Uprising was real, and it’s the Mau Mau armed revolutionary struggle that forced the British colonial government to the negotiating table.
Ask yourself, why the state of emergency lasted for 8 years? And why after the state of emergency was lifted, the process of handing over power to Africans by the British colonial govt started immediately?
Its good you brought this up.
Its a perfect example of some of Kenya colonial history the former colonizers demanded be totally excluded from the education system.
Not only colonial govt, but also Kenyatta and Moi’s govt didn’t want our history written and taught from our forefathers point of view. Ndio maana great writers like Ngugi wa Thiongo and Maina wa Kinyatti walikuwa wanashikwa na the respective regimes.
Anyway, tukiwa campo, there was one Lec who used to tell us…
“To know thine history, is to know thyself. Because you (pointing at us students) are trapped in history, and history is trapped in you.”
