sign in sign up
<<
Home , Mau Mau Uprising

VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS

A Mau Mau Mirror: Revising the British Imperialist Self-Image Eleanor Hobhouse

"e recent High Court case brought by three elderly Kenyans against the British government for abuses su!ered under the colonial government’s suppression of the Mau Mau Rebellion has shone a light on the British concept of Empire. Following last year’s release of the Hanslope papers, revelations regarding the colonial administration’s culpability compel us to re-examine the notion of the British Imperialist. "is essay looks at the process by which the British Imperialist self-image was shielded from the brutal realities of colonial rule and what the future holds for British Imperialism, speci%cally in its relations with .

Introduction !e Macmillan version of the “White Man’s Burden” has proved its longevity, !e Empire remains a source of great whereby the achievements of Western pride for the British, as demonstrated civilization were magnanimously in the words chosen by Prime Minister bestowed on the colonies: “the pushing David Cameron for a 2011 speech. forwards of the frontiers of knowledge, Appealing to British tenacity and the applying of science to the service strength, as epitomized in the British of human needs, in the expanding Imperial past, he recalled, “Britain never of food production, in the speeding had the biggest population, the largest and multiplying of the means of land mass, the richest resources—but we communication, and perhaps above had the spirit.” 1 all and more than anything else in the spread of education.”2 !is paternalistic !e factors that informed this attitude continues to characterize contemporary imperialist self-image are Britain’s relations with the British varied and include both moral (racist and Commonwealth. paternalistic attitudes) and economic and political elements. Some #fty years since !is vision of imperialism, however, Britain withdrew from its colonies in Sub- “draws its power from a remarkable Saharan Africa, each of these elements national ability to airbrush and disregard has undergone dramatic change--most our past” and has met a serious challenge signi#cantly a global revision of racial in the form of the recent High Court attitudes and the emergence of universal ruling allowing three elderly Kenyans human rights as a legal concept. !e to sue the British Government for Empire, however, is still upheld as the abuses they su"ered during the colonial zenith of British civilization. government’s brutal suppression of the

101 BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Mau Mau Rebellion.3 !e details of the as infantile. !is was a paternalistic case and the Foreign and Commonwealth world-view, typi#ed by Lennox-Boyd’s O:ce’s release of the Hanslope papers, expression of pride following a visit to which demonstrate the violent reality of the colony in 1952, “the Europeans’ sense Britain’s last days in Kenya, and, most of their responsibility to their African signi#cantly, the complicity of the British fellow citizens.”4 government in these acts, have revealed some very uncomfortable truths and “Englishmen in the past had been used forced a re-examination of our imperialist to thinking that their empire was based past. !e question now becomes, what on a wider and higher morality than impact will the ruling of the High Court the morality of national self-interest, or and the opening of the Foreign O:ce power.”5 Fundamental to the Victorian archives have on the future of British concept of “Empire” was that it was open Imperialism and the British self-image? to all—free trade lay at the heart of the Imperialist vision and in this way the In response to the disclosures of the Victorian Imperialists provided a moral Hanslope papers, I intend to explore the justi#cation for their expansionism; they process by which British Imperialists, were running the world, but for the sake both then and now, have attempted to of all who would use it. square their concept of Empire and self with a reality that is no longer possible Perhaps the most telling contemporary to deny. !e Mau Mau trial demands a portrait of British Imperialism was the long-overdue revision of the Imperialist one espoused by Baring’s own father, self-image. What remains to be seen are the First Earl of Cromer, who insisted the implications these revisions may have that “relations with whatsoever races are on British relations with Kenya. brought under [the colonizer’s] control must be politically and economically Contemporary British Imperialist Self- sound and morally defensible.”6 Indeed, Image he describes this as the “keystone of the Imperial Arch,” going on to state: “if once !ough the Imperialist self-image we have to draw the sword, not merely was governed by various factors, the to suppress some local e"ervescence, but most signi#cant determinant was an to overcome a general upheaval of subject inherent sense of racial superiority that races goaded to action either by deliberate underpinned the primary notion of a oppression, which is highly improbable, civilizing mission. Western society was or by unintentional misgovernment, not simply more civilized but more which is far more conceivable, the sword evolved and it was the Imperialists’ duty to will assuredly be powerless to defend us bestow the hard-won bene#ts of Western for long, and the days of our Imperial rule civilization on the savage populations of will be numbered.”7 Asia and Africa, which were characterized

102 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS

It is ironic that it was the Earl’s and supporting Africans who wished to son who became the author of the oppose, by constitutional means, British “deliberate oppression”, of which he colonial rule.”11 !e Africa Bureau was so disbelieving, though it proved precipitated the concerted e"orts of an accurate prediction that this ‘use particular Labour MPs, most notably of the sword’ would invoke the end of Barbara Castle and , the Empire. Indeed, it was the 1959 which culminated in 1954 with the Hola Camp incident that provoked the establishment of the “Movement for decisive Commons debate, which saw Colonial Freedom”. , himself a Conservative Imperialist, declare “that Britain had no !e contemporary British Imperialist right to an empire if it could not show self-image was evolving but this was moral leadership of a higher order.”8,9 juxtaposed with the very un-liberal policies implemented in Kenya during the Despite popular claims to a laudable, suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion. A and altruistic ideology, as Albert “policy-lag” existed between the shifting Memmi concisely articulated in his current of public opinion in Britain and work !e Colonizer and the Colonized, the attitudes held and then projected by “Colonization is, above all, economic the largely conservative colonial o:cials and political exploitation…the mere in Kenya clinging to an antiquated existence of the colonizer creates concept of Empire. oppression.”10 With the dawn of a new era of international diplomacy following We must, however, recognize the the Second World War, the fundamental distinction between the British contradiction between this intellectual Imperialist, as characterized by the position and the more brutal reality was Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of increasingly acknowledged by a more African A"airs, !omas Askwith, who liberal public, both at home and on the resisted some of the more brutal aspects world stage. of the process, and the white settler community whom the colonial In the wake of the Second World War government served. During the period of and the Atlantic Charter, the saw a “State Emergency” (1952-1960), one such shift in the nature of British anti-colonial community that made up a signi#cant organization as a visible and vocal part of the colonial government helped minority made clear their disgust at the implement Emergency Regulations. !is continued British colonial occupation. group represented the old vanguard of !is shift in attitude was demonstrated antiquated, racialist British Imperialism, by the formation, in 1952, of the Africa a consequence of their immediate Bureau by the Reverend Guthrie Michael confrontation with the day-to-day Scott, which brought together a “group of realities of colonial rule. !is conservatism diverse individuals interested in advising was exacerbated by the threat that the

103 BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS liberalist attitude represented to their barred from the UK over allegations of society, , and way of life. As fraud.13 the decade progressed, this distinction became more entrenched and culminated “Creating Slaves and Monsters” in the ultimate “betrayal” of the settler community by the British Government in "e Reality of British Imperialism in Kenya: the acquiescence to Kenyan Independence Response to the Uprising and majority rule. !e was, fundamentally, Rather than superseding the traditional an engine of economic gain and, in Imperialist self-image, the increasingly response to the boom in demand liberal imperialist view was co-opted into during the Second World War, Kenyan the conventional narrative, according agricultural production was transformed to which, Britain characteristically into a pro#table venture. A venture, that demonstrated “an enlightened and was, however, kept almost entirely under sympathetic response to the aspirations of settler control--with legislation from colonial populations…[and a] digni#ed London encouraging land-alienation understanding that Britain’s role must of the African population to satisfy change with .”12 In this way land and labor demands. Moreover, the traditional narrative was able to the white settler community numbered accommodate a changing imperialist approximately 80,000, similar to the size attitude by retrospectively imagining a of the British colonial community in India, historic acknowledgment of the rights a country three times the size of Kenya.14 of the native population, existent within !e represented a the paternalistic framework founded, as very real threat to the colonial economy we have examined, on a notion of racial and community. As a result of mounting superiority that was not swept away as pressure from the settlers, the Colonial rapidly as we might like to imagine. administration was compelled to declare a (from October !e retention of this paternalistic 1952 to ), which awarded attitude, as perceived by the Kenyan the administration unilateral powers and government at least, has ensured that impunity from the European Convention the “special relationship” between the of Human Rights, to which Britain was, UK and its former colony has proved very recently, a party. In essence, the move “an uncomfortable legacy”--a tension licensed “the colonial government [to that culminated in the 2003 prevention treat]…Mau Mau detainees as prisoners of Training Unit Kenya of war.”15 operations (active since 1964) in response to apparent imperialist intervention by !is position was formalized in the the UK government after the Kenyan establishment of a War Council in Minister for Transport, Murungaru, was Kenya, allowing the government to

104 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS execute wartime strategy, including allegiance of well over a million Kikuyu detention without trial. !is policy was and to achieve this goal, launched a further justi#ed by the inherent racialism full-scale “assault against the Mau Mau that underpinned colonial rule. Colonial population.”17 rulers deemed the Africans and Asians not yet deserving of the same rights and !e show-trial, beginning in December freedoms associated with a post-war 1952, of the six most prominent detainees concept of international citizenship as from the Jock Scott Operation, which they were not yet “civilized people” . featured a bribed judge “who apparently had no qualms about selling his verdict !e morning following the signing long before the trial began” and a make- of the order establishing the State of shift courthouse in a remote outreach, Emergency, the colonial administration was similarly designed to placate the launched , which settler community but did nothing to saw the mass arrest of 180 prominent improve the security situation.18 On #gures associated with the Mau Mau the #rst night of adjournment, January movement, most notably . 24, 1953, the Ruck family was hacked !e operation was designed to decapitate to pieces in their beds, which marked a the movement; instead, it radicalized sea change in colonial attitudes towards it as “leadership passed into the hands the Uprising. Any hopes of a brief, non- of younger men, the same men, who violent military campaign were resolutely for months had been pushing Kenyatta dismissed with a double-pronged attack and others to adopt a more radical, launched by the Mau Mau insurgents. revolutionary course” and created, in First, a large and well-organized group of Kenyatta, a powerful and unifying Mau Mau guerrillas successfully executed symbol.16 An escalation of a raid on Naivasha police station, seizing followed, starting with the brutal murder a substantial supply of arms and freeing of the prominent loyalist chief Nderi and close to two hundred Mau Mau suspects subsequently a series of gruesome attacks in the process; hours later the Lari on the settler community. massacre occurred.

!e ensuing outcry from the settlers !e second stage of military operations provoked the government to install #ve followed with the arrival of General battalions of British troops in the country Sir , who spearheaded and to begin the #rst wave of Kikuyu targeted campaigns to drive out and deportations, which sought to contain eliminate the loyalist forces that had the Kikuyu population. According to 9ed to the forests. On 24 April 1953, this practice all Kikuyu living outside of the administration launched Operation the reserves were “repatriated” to Kikuyu Anvil, which saw purged of districts in the . Baring 20,000 Mau Mau suspects, who were had undertaken to break the Mau Mau taken to Langata prison, and a further

105 BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

30,000, who were deported to detention and even exterminat[ing] the Kikuyu camps. population.”23 It was these “wired-in work camps” that saw the greatest proportion With the mass deportations of Kikuyu of the estimated 50,000 deaths during began also the process of “screening”, the period of detainment, as a result of which was designed to extract hunger, disease and abuse, “with children “information from the Mau Mau under 10 comprising approximately half suspects and, as the Emergency wore on, of that number.”24 to persuade him or her to confess Mau Mau a:liations.”19 !is process grew Attitudes Towards the Mau Mau increasingly barbaric during the course of the counter-insurgency and its practices In light of the bare facts of British colonial form the principle grounds for claims policy during the last stages of the British of reparative damages by the Mau Mau Empire in Kenya, it is hard to imagine claimants. It was during this process the process of justi#cation that must that Jane Mara was brutally raped with have underwritten the administration’s a heated glass bottle and Ndiki Mutwiwa approach. We must look to the concept of Mutua and Paulo Nzili were castrated by racial hierarchy inherent to Imperialism Home Guards.20 and the attitudes within the colonial administration towards the Mau Mau. Even the Pipeline Programme, originally conceived of as “rehabilitation” and “re- A paternalistic worldview helped to education” that would see a “detainee’s justify the imperialist mission but it movement down the Pipeline [of also entrenched racialism. As Alfred detention centers] and eventual transfer Memmi explains, “Accepting his role as to an open camp in his or her home a colonizer, the colonialist accepts the district,” was used as a means of exacting blame implied by that role…the more the further punishment on the Mau Mau usurped [colonized] is downtrodden, the community.21 Many compared the use more the usurper [colonizer] triumphs of forced communal labor “to the slave and, thereafter, con#rms his guilt and labour policies of the !ird Reich.”22 establishe[s] his condemnation…[which pushes him] to wish the disappearance Despite the military war between the of the usurped.”25 As a consequence, British security forces and the Mau Mau he begins a process of dehumanization, guerrillas reaching its #nale as early as which transforms the natives, in the late 1954, the State of Emergency was eyes of the colonizer, from a “sly-boots, not lifted until January 1960, allowing a lazybones and a thief ” to “beasts of for the Baring administration’s campaign burden”.26 of abuse to come full circle. !e Pipeline Programme proved the ultimate !e Mau Mau were dehumanized both means of “punish[ing] debilitat[ing], in the minds of the British colonial

106 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS administration and the community they of the white communities in Kenya and, served. It was, however, the distinctive more particularly, Rhodesia. For many in quality of Mau Mau “oathing ceremonies” these communities, they had ceased to be that “transformed the virulent racism colonizers during the process of nation- that had been the cornerstone of settler building, and, though they remained racial attitudes for over half a century “more British than the British” , had into something even more lethal.”27,28 become “proud of being Rhodesian… Articulated by Governor Baring, the [and of] our country…which we loved minds of the Mau Mau had been “degraded and cherished.”31,32 For many of the white by savage ceremonies” and thus actions Kenyans, including those that remain against them were not only prudent, even today, this was their country, built by but also just: “!e British colonizers their hands (and a little sweat from the continuously de#ned themselves and their African population). Mau Mau antagonists as polar opposites. How better to save Britain’s civilization in When unpacking the British colonizer’s Kenya than to eradicate the elements who attitudes toward the Mau Mau, we must threatened the colony’s very foundation? address a key psychological factor: the Like the Jews in , the Mau mentality of a minority facing a rising Mau had few defenders…Detaining these tide of resentment and violence—a subhuman creatures amounted not only to community under siege. !e Ruck family saving Africans from themselves but also murders, in January of 1953, marked a to preservation of liberal democracy.”29,30 turning point in the settler community’s Such arguments had been presented attitude to the Mau Mau insurgency. before, most recently by Stalin’s Soviet !e attack, graphically recorded and Union, but now the British government widely publicized by the Kenyan and found themselves in the peculiar position British media, captivated the settler of using these same arguments in their community, not least as a result of battle to preserve British . the role played in the murders by the Ruck family’s trusted family servants, We must also recognize that the large whose now savage behavior stood in expatriate community did not consider stark contrast to their formerly devoted themselves British settlers but Kenyans, service. !e settler community, conscious and the Mau Mau insurgency was a of their vulnerability--largely settled threat to their society, community and on remote farms--feared for their lives. nation. !e psychological process of Many formed armed vigilante groups, “dis-association from the self ” implicit barricading women and children in their in the role of colonizer may explain, if homes; no one was deemed safe from not excuse, the settler attitude towards the Mau Mau threat and this “ushered the Mau Mau insurgents, but we in a critical change in the settlers’ must not ignore the reality of the very already racist hierarchical segregation of particularly nationalistic consciousness humanity. !ere was a shift in language

107 BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS and belief, from simply white supremacy community and the colonial government to one that was overtly eliminationist.”33 acting in Kenya, actions were not couched One settler was reported by Blundell to in terms of guilt or responsibility at the have remarked, “Michael, you’ll never time of the uprising: “!eir crimes in the cure this problem, you’ll never cure it. You screening centres, police stations, and put the troops into the [Kikuyu] villages Home Guard posts were not crimes as far and you shoot 50,000 0f them, women as they were concerned: Mau Mau forced and children.”34 them to #ght violence with violence.”38 According to a member of the Kenya For the Mau Mau (most notably those Police Reserve, “[!e Emergency] was a driven to squatting on white-settler state of anarchy, in which the book did lands, and amongst whom the practice not work. It was as simple as that.”39 of ‘oathing’ originated), the stripping of !e reprehensible actions of the British their livelihood, cultural identity, and colonial government were painted into dignity, had left them little alternative the Imperialist narrative as unfortunate, to violence. As Memmi put it, “Only but necessary, consequences of wartime complete liquidation of colonization strategy. permits the colonized to be free…the liquidation of colonization is nothing but Moreover, “the #nal lasting image of a prelude to complete liberation, to self- Britain’s moral war in the empire was recovery.”35 !ere was no longer room for not going to be revealed by thorough compromise, for “this new man begins investigation into the , murder, and his life as a man at the end of it…he has starvation of Kikuyu men, women, and seen so many dying men that he prefers children.”40 Instead, with the critical shift victory to survival.”36 Moreover, for those in colonial policy heralded by the Hola who had not come to this conclusion on Camp incident and the move towards their own terms, the of 97 decolonization culminating in formation Kenyan loyalists on 26 March 1953 , made of the independent Kenyan Republic supporting the Mau Mau expedient. For in 1964, demands for an independent both sides, then, it was a matter of “them investigation began to subside. or us.”37 !e suppression of the Mau Mau Preserving the Self-Image: An Exercise in rebellion was quickly transformed Creative (Re)Writing into a heroic e"ort on the part of the colonial administration to maintain From the outset, the colonial government stability whilst preparations were made vehemently denied any wrongdoing for the secure self-governance of the in Kenya, and when the wrongdoing colony—a goal that had been planned was undeniable, Governor Baring and from the very inception of the Empire. Colonial Secretary Lyttleton pleaded In adopting this perspective, the careful mitigating circumstances. For the settler reconstruction of the British Imperialist

108 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS enabled “decolonization [to become] not or, where the mud has stuck, have been a symptom of defeat and decline but a dismissed as an unfortunate but inevitable crowning achievement of British rule.”41 “reward” for our e"orts overseas:45 We are reminded of Memmi’s Usurper, who, unable to accept his illegitimate Take up the White Man’s burden— role, “endeavours to falsify history… Send forth the best ye breed— rewrites laws…[and] would extinguish Go send your sons to exile memories—anything to succeed in To serve your captives’ need… transforming his usurpation into Take up the White Man’s burden— legitimacy.”42 And reap his old reward: !e blame of those ye better !rough a careful redaction of history, !e hate of those ye guard46 the benevolent imperialist was preserved and the stage set for a continuation into As Anderson notes, “!e British empire, the post-colonial era of the paternalistic so the story goes, brought progress to a relations that characterized British primitive and savage world. Education, colonial attitudes. For many, “Britain hospitals and improved health, steamships, never left the country” —an estimated railways, and the telegraph—these were six million acres of Kenyan land remains the tools of empire, brought to colonised in the hands of British settlers, after only peoples by the gift of commerce and 1.2 million acres were eventually re- good British government.”47 What this distributed to Kenyan landowners under portrait fails to mention is the systematic the Settlement Transfer Fund Scheme, exploitation and inherent racism on which wound up in 1971.43 Indeed, which this “benevolent empire” was built, “political independence in Africa did not as well as the violence and coercion by mean economic liberation for the people which it was sustained. and that the blood-sucking vampire… Empire…[remains] intact.”44 Perhaps this perception is testament to British patriotism and the innate desire "e Future of British Imperialism: "e “not to give up the correspondence Implications of the Hanslope Files between reality and self-image in order to be a ‘civilized’ society.”48 Certainly, What is remarkable is the success of this the argument for the portrait’s durability imaginative re-drafting of our colonial #nding its origins in patriotism is past, most particularly this conceivably substantiated by the pride we take in the darkest period. Even when individuals favorable comparisons this redacted vision such as Emily Hobhouse (during the allows us to make with other European Boer War) and Barbara Castle (in Kenya) powers. Certainly, France and Belgium’s made public the “seamier side” of our “baser motives” for both colonization colonial history, these indiscretions have and decolonization are gleefully upheld been wiped from the collective memory, as the root causes behind the Algerian

109 BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS and Belgian Congo catastrophes. !e very real consequences of the cleavages Hanslope papers, however, reveal the these policies inspired within the Kikuyu British imperialist to be no di"erent from community. !e e"ects were manifest any other: “Perhaps the most far-reaching in the violence surrounding the 2007 implication of the high court’s decision elections, in which issues of ethnicity, [then] could be not that it will result in and speci#cally the Kikuyu political more claims for damages; but that those constituency, played a central role.50 claims will throw such harsh light upon a period of Britain’s recent history that that !e 150,000 documents released as part history will need to be rewritten.”49 of the Hanslope disclosure make denial of the British government’s culpability By taking ownership of the atrocities in these atrocities impossible. !ey enacted by the colonial government, the implicate the British government in the paternalistic framework, which forms further crime of attempting to deny the the backbone of the “special relationship” Kikuyu their own history. Crucially, the between Kenya and Britain, begins to #les also point to revelations concerning crumble—built, as it is, on the ultimate the process of colonial dismantling across notion of British benevolence. !e the whole of the Britain’s vast empire, Hanslope #les and the High Court case opening the door for similar claims have opened a new chapter in post- originating in other corners of the British colonial relations, but it remains to be Commonwealth. With the stark facts seen whether a new dynamic will emerge of British Imperialism’s more sinister that encourages a lateral rather than aspects now in the public domain, how hierarchical exchange, and, in this event, can we persist in o"ering this period in whether Kenya, against the backdrop our history up as an example of laudable of historical relations, will be willing to civility and paternalistic benevolence? recognize this shift—particularly as any As Memmi observed, “colonization can substantive acknowledgement on the part only dis#gure the colonizer” —whatever of the British government (for instance, the legal implications of the Mau Mau the redistribution of British owned land) hearing, it has provided a mirror in is a legal and political impossibility. which this dis#guration can no longer be concealed.51 Conclusion !ough legally contested, the election in In Kenya, the long-term cultural and March of (son of Jomo political consequences of British colonial Kenyatta) to the Kenyan presidency policy toward the Mau Mau have not promises further complications for yet fully emerged. Certainly, in addition Kenyan-British relations not simply in to the approximately 50,000 deaths and Uhuru’s personal connection to the Mau the trauma su"ered by individuals subject Mau, but as a result of his indictment to detention and abuse, there are the by the International Criminal Court for

110 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS

his alleged role in the program of ethnic Notes violence that followed the 2007 election. During the election campaign, both 1. David Cameron, “Keynote Speech,” Uhuru and his running mate, William Conservative Party Conference 2011, Ruto, were skillful in capitalizing on Manchester, October 5, 2011, http:// Kenya’s painful colonial history, tapping www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/ oct/05/david-cameron-conservative- into the deep well of anti-British and party-speech. anti-Western sentiment by accusing 2. , “Wind of Change” “‘foreign powers’ of being behind the (speech), South African Parliament, I.C.C. prosecutions [with] ‘Reclaiming February 3, 1960. Recorded speech in sovereignty’ bec[oming] a much-used full, BBC archives, http://www.bbc. phrase, code for throwing o" the colonial co.uk/archive/apartheid/7203.shtml. yoke.”52 Any sanctions brought by the 3. George Monbiot, “Deny the British British in response to Uhuru’s election empire’s crimes? No we ignore will likely be viewed in this light, thus the them,” "e Guardian, April 23, legacy of British Imperialism, preserved 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british- in the British consciousness, proves to be empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities. diplomatic poison. !e question remains, 4. "e Times, Jan. 22, 1952. will self-re9ection and a revision of the 5. Bernard Porter, A Lion’s Share: A History cherished image of Empire, on the part of of British Imperialism 1850 to the Present, the British, be enough to change Kenyan (Harlow: Pearson, 2012), 235. attitudes? With the increasing in9uence 6. Evelyn Baring, “!e Government of of China in Africa, Britain will have to Subject Races,” "e Edinburgh Review, hope contrition is enough. ( January 1908): 6. 7. Ibid., 6-7 8. !e Hola incident involved the fatal beatings of 11 detainees and the serious, permanent injury of a further 77, for their refusal to work. !e Commons debate on July 27, 1959, lead by Labour Having graduated from Oxford University MP, Barbara Castle, highlighted the with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and racial bias of British colonial policy and "eology, Eleanor Hobhouse went on to in harnessing public outrage towards complete a Graduate Diploma in Law. the incident and convinced parliament that the Empire had become a political After working with various not-for-pro%t liability, thus encouraging the initial organizations, including the National processes of British decolonization. Council for (Liberty), 9. David Anderson, Histories Of "e she returned to tertiary education and is Hanged: "e In Kenya And "e currently completing a Master of Arts in End Of Empire (New York: Norton & International Relations and International Company Inc., 2005), 327. Economics at SAIS, with a concentration in 10. Albert Memmi, "e Colonizer and African Studies. the Colonized (London: Earthscan 111 BOLOGNA CENTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Publications Ltd, 1965), 193. a curse on the oath-taker and their 11. , Imperial Reckoning: "e family). !e oath itself involved various Untold Story of Britain’s in Kenya tribal and ritualistic elements, including (New York: Henry Holt, 2005), 99. animal sacri#ce. 12. John Darwin, “!e Late Colonial State 28. Sartre, “Preface,” 47. at War: Insurgency Emergency and 29. "e Times, December 17, 1952. Terror,” in Decolonization and it’s Impact: 30. Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 89-97 A Comparative Approach to the End of the 31. Ian Smith, Bitter Harvest: "e Memories Colonial Empires, ed. Martin Shipway of Africa’s Most Controversial Leader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008), (London: John Blake Publishing, Ltd, 189. 2008), 1. 13. Charles Hornsby, Kenya: A History of the 32. Ibid., 414. British Empire (New York: I.B. Tauris & 33. Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 48. Co. Ltd, 2012), 729. 34. Sir , as cited in Elkins, 14. Numbering 89,015 according to the Imperial Reckoning, 42. Census of India, 1881 35. Memmi, "e Colonizer and the Colonized, 15. Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 97. 195. 16. Ibid., 36. 36. Sartre, “Preface,” 20. 17. Ibid., 55. 37. Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 95. 18. Ibid., 40. 38. Ibid., 89. 19. Ibid., 63. 39. Rhoderick Macloed, (brother of Ian 20. David Anderson, “Mau Mau in the Macloed and member of the Kenya High Court and the ‘Lost’ British Police Reserve) as cited in Elkins, Empire Archives: Colonial conspiracy Imperial Reckoning, 87. of Bureaucratic Bungle?” "e Journal of 40. Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 363. Imperial and Commonwealth History 39:5 41. Darwin, “!e Late Colonial State at (2011): 706. War”, 188. 21. Elkins, Imperial Reckoning, 109 42. Memmi, "e Colonizer and the Colonized, 22. Ibid., 117. 96. 23. Ibid., 152. 43. Vulture Hunter, “Uhuru Kenyatta’s 24. Caroline Elkins, “Alchemy of Evidence: possible presidency, the British threat Mau Mau, the British Empire, and the of sanctions, and Kenyan’s perpetual High Court of Justice”, "e Journal of hope for redemption from beyond,” Imperial Commonwealth History 39:5 MAVulture: Striving for Truth, March, (2011): 738. 10, 2013, http://mavulture.com/uhuru- 25. Memmi, "e Colonizer and the Colonized, kenyattas-presidency-british-threat- 95-97. sanctions-kenyans-perpetual-hope- 26. Jean Paul Sartre, “Preface” in "e redemption/. Wretched of the Earth by Fanon, trans. 44. Peter Kimani, “Share land, Not Constance Farrington (New York: Power”, "e Guardian, February Grove Press, 1963), 14. 13, 2008, http://www.guardian. 27. All Mau Mau initiates were required to co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/13/ take a secret oath of unity, which bound sharelandnotpower. them to the struggle against the colonial 45. David Anderson, “It’s not just Kenya. powers (breaking the oath invoked Squaring up to the seamier side of

112 VOLUME 16 | REVISIONS

empire is long overdue,” "e Guardian, July 25, 2011, http://www.guardian. co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/25/ kenya-empire-mau-mau-britain. 46. Rudyard Kipling, "e White Man’s Burden, 1899. 47. Anderson, “It’s not just Kenya.” 48. Jan Philip Reemtsma, “On War Crimes,” in Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century, ed. Omer Bartev, Atina Grossman, and Mary Nolan (New York: New Press, 2002), 10. 49. Ian Cobain, “!e Mau Mau may rewrite the history of the British empire,” "e Guardian, October 28, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/2012/oct/28/mau-mau- rewrite-history-british-empire. 50. Daniel Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, and Decolonisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 219. 51. Memmi, "e Colonizer and the Colonized, 191. 52. Michael Wrong, “Indictee for President!”, New York Times, March 11, 2013, http://latitude.blogs.nytimes. com/2013/03/11/being-prosecuted- by-the-i-c-c-helped-uhuru-kenyattas- chances-in-kenyas-election/.

113