Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2014 Mau Mau crucible of war: Statehood, national identity and politics in postcolonial Kenya Nicholas Kariuki Githuku Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Githuku, Nicholas Kariuki, "Mau Mau crucible of war: Statehood, national identity and politics in postcolonial Kenya" (2014). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 5677. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/5677 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. 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MAU MAU CRUCIBLE OF WAR: STATEHOOD, NATIONAL IDENTITY AND POLITICS IN POSTCOLONIAL KENYA by Nicholas Kariuki Githuku Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Approved by Dr. Robert Maxon, Committee Chairperson Dr. Joseph Hodge Dr. Robert Blobaum Dr. Jeremia Njeru Dr. Tamba M’bayo Department of History Morgantown, West Virginia 2014 Keywords: war, statehood, stateness, security, mentalité, national identity, psychosociological anxieties Copyright 2014 Nicholas Kariuki Githuku Abstract The postcolonial African state has been the subject of extensive study and scrutiny by various scholars of great repute such as Colin Legum, Crawford Young, Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Pierre Englebert and Jean- François Bayart to name but a few. Crawford Young’s work is especially interesting because of the manner in which he treats the process of state formation. Crawford Young traces the process to the early beginning of European colonization and focuses on the legacy of the colonial state after independence. Colonial appendages of old European states were, for some metropolises, no longer economically viable or sustainable and/or consistent with new post-world War I and II principles such as the right of all peoples to self- determination and decolonization, and were, thus, abandoned. Overall, however, perhaps because of the simplicity of the process of state formation in Africa through European agency, the everyday realities of the nature of the African state and lived experiences remain rather elusive still. Nevertheless, this body of work that has benefitted disproportionately from the contribution of political scientists cannot be underestimated. At the same time though, the manner in which this process has been approached by such authors employs methodological perspectives in political science that overlook or undermine attempts at determining the manner in which the making, or unmaking, and evolution of post-colonial African states is viewed and contested from below. Historians employing empirical information based on archival evidence can make such a bottom-up analysis that is cognizant of popular views or dissent affecting the political evolution of these states possible. While there have been a few country-specific studies, there’s room for more scrutiny of how African states have evolved since independence paying closer attention to popular forces from below. This study demonstrates that the late colonial experience in Kenya was the foetal crucible of the postcolonial state. It does this with specific reference to the Mau Mau war. This follows from the argument that the Mau Mau decade was Kenya’s defining moment marked by widespread societal rupture embodied by the Mau Mau conflict. This war represented a caesura in which Kenya’s future was contested between competing imperial and indigenous ideological constructions of the state: colonial liberal and conservative, and indigenous dissent borne of an existential struggle for survival. The study examines these ideological strands, but focuses more acutely on the basic convictions and moral thought or subliminal ideology of Mau Mau while, at the same time, touching on both its immediate and long-term practical (land, labour, institutional and political) policy implications. Lastly, it is an analytical catalogue of the legacy of Mau Mau dissent in post-independent Kenya. As such, it is an analysis of its bequest to the present and, thus, considers the war as an unresolved philosophical conflict. By so doing, this study suggests a lineage of political demands or grievance and socioeconomic struggle in Kenya today couched on the basic need for survival, which harks back to the Mau Mau political dissent and war. Dedication To Wangai, Wendo and Josie, for their remarkable patience, moral support and their enduring love. iii Acknowledgements This study would not have been possible without the continued moral and financial support from Eberly College of Art and Sciences and the Department of History at West Virginia University. More specifically, I have the chair of the department, Dr. Elizabeth Fones-Wolf and the Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. Joseph Hodge, for providing financial support that ensured multiple visits to crucial archival holdings to gather information in farflung places. The UK National Archives, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, Churchill Archives Centre (Cambridge), Rhodes House in Oxford, the Jomo Kenyatta Memorial Library at the University of Nairobi and the Kenya National Archives were scrupulously searched, studied and utilized thus making this work possible. I also wish to thank the British Institute in Eastern Africa for enabling me to make a vital last visit to the British National Archives and the Kenya National Archives in 2013 through its postgraduate Research Grant. Most special thanks go to my academic supervisor, Dr. Robert Maxon, for his patient guidance and superb direction backed by many years of experience studying East Africa and Kenya in particular. It was a great honor and pleasure to have worked and brought this work to fruition under his supervision. iv Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. viii Foreign Words ............................................................................................................................................. xii Abbreviations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….ix Preamble ..................................................................................................................................................... xiv Chapter I - Inside the Mau Mau Mind: “Returning the Imperial” Gaze in Centennial Perspective .............. 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Mau Mau War: Backwards, Going Forward .............................................................................................. 7 Crucible of War: The Quest for a Holistic Mau Mau Present .................................................................... 8 A Centennial Perspective: Getting Inside the Mau Mau Mind ............................................................... 10 Previous Mau Mau Portraits ................................................................................................................... 17 The National and Imperial British Backdrop ........................................................................................... 19 Vortex of Historical Continuities: Mau Mau Minds ................................................................................ 22 New Historical Sources, New Histories ................................................................................................... 25 Subliminal Ideology against Criminal Foundations of the Colonial State ............................................... 27 Wars Make States ................................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter II – White Man’s Land: The Colonial Foundations and Legal Architecture of the Kenyan State .. 38 Colonial Sinews of State Power: The Criminal Loss of Naboth’s Vineyard, Labor and his Monetization48 Chapter III – Colonial Rupture: African Experiential Anxiety of Transformation in Time, Space and Place, 1900-1951 ................................................................................................................................................... 66 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................