The origin of the name Mau Mau is as mysterious as the details of its oath-taking ritual. The Mau Mau was an oath-binding rogue militia that resorted to aggressive means of voicing their grievances to the colonialists during the 1950s. The movement employed tactics that included guerrilla warfare, spying, execution, and oaths to pursue their cause;the return of African lands to the local Agikuyu people. The Mau Mau epitomized the struggle of Africans to free themselves from the gripping jaws of the British Empire, which primarily cared for the interests of the British Crown. In their quest to fight for what was rightfully theirs, the Mau Mau treated any collaborator, supporter, or sympathizer of the white man as a traitor worthy of elimination. Some local chiefs fell victim and were executed in the most horrendous ways prescribed by the oath. This essay seeks to shed light on the local African people who suffered at the hands of the Mau Mau due to their allegiance to the British government in Kenya.
Home Guards
The African Home Guard was a wing of the police formed to identify and root
out Mau Mau fighters alongside the King’s African Rifles, volunteer settlers,
and the Kenya Police Force. Frequent attacks on loyalists and white settlers
necessitated the formation of this combatant counter-rebel unit. Armed with
rifles, spears, and machetes, the group, consisting of local men familiar with
the terrain, tracked down those accused of being Mau Mau gang members. Guarding
chiefs and other government officials formed part of their job, especially when
they were not interrogating and hunting down Mau Mau warriors. Supporting the
colonial government didn’t go unpunished, as deep rancor brewed between the two
parties,each baying for the other’s blood. Mau Mau fighters retaliated by
setting ablaze crops belonging to the Home Guards, attacking them and their
families, and stealing whatever belonged to them. This cycle of violence
persisted until around 1963, but the strife between families of former Home
Guards and those of former Mau Mau fighters remains prevalent.
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| Agikuyu Home Guards .Credits:©IWM MAU 726 |
Chief Waruhiu Wa Ikung'u
The advent of the government’s war against the Mau Mau was stirred by the murder of the loyal Senior Chief, Waruhiu Ikung'u—or so it was thought. Waruhiu was born in Kiambu and was educated by the American Gospel Missionary Society. He was a devout Christian who soon found favor with the colonial government and was made Senior Chief. However, due to the agitation between European settlers and his local people,most of whom had been pushed to reserves,Waruhiu found himself between a rock and a hard place. Although he made it clear that self-rule could not be attained through violence, Waruhiu did not support the oppressive means and policies by which the Europeans acquired lands and demeaned Africans. Waruhiu’s murder sparked a series of events that eventually led to the loss of many lives. Two suspects were hanged in connection with the murder of the Senior Chief, although the entire judicial matter surrounding the incident was riddled with half-baked evidence and contradictory statements. Sir Evelyn Baring, the then Governor of Kenya, declared a state of emergency in October 1952. This marked the beginning of the Mau Mau uprising and the subsequent demonization of the movement by the colonial government. It is believed that the murder of this key figure was orchestrated by European settlers who sought to acquire the White Highlands without opposition and to detain African leaders.
The Lari Massacre
In March 1953, in Lari village, a horrendous event occurred that forever changed the relations between its residents and the Mau Mau. Over 300 people were massacred, either butchered, burned, or both. The act was in response to the support for the relocation of the local people from Tigoni to Lari by Chief Luka wa Kahangara and the deep resentment for spies, loyalists, and collaborators. For maximum vengeance and to blur any chance of pity, Mau Mau fighters from distant locations were chosen to execute the task. Two chiefs, Ikenya Charles and Makimei wa Kuria, managed to escape after being tipped off, but most locals within their jurisdiction suffered the full wrath of the vicious Mau Mau. By the time law enforcers arrived at the crime scene, it was littered with bodies and burnt houses. The British government used the massacre to push their propaganda, leading to the mass execution of local Africans, with official records stating that at least 400 locals lost their lives in retaliation by the colonialists. Indeed, this was a massacre! By the end of the state of emergency, at least 5,000 Africans had been rounded up, taken to concentration camps, and executed.
"Everything that could happen did happen. Allegations about beatings and violence were widespread. Basically, you could get away with murder. It was systematic"
David Anderson, Professor of African Politics at Oxford University
A day after the Lari incident, Mau Mau fighters broke into a police outpost in Naivasha, killed three police officers, freed 173 comrades, and made away with 25 submachine guns and 9,000 rounds of ammunition.
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| An Anti-Mau Mau poster. Credits:©The African Information Services(Kenya)1952 |
The Kenya Human Rights Commission estimates the total death toll at 90,000 Kenyans,a huge price that had to be paid for freedom and sovereignty. Embedded with the belief that anyone who sided with the colonialists was a traitor, the Mau Mau killed approximately 1,800 Kenyans. To the white population in and outside Kenya, this was more of a ‘White Imperialism’ versus ‘Black Savagery’ than a fight by the people to be free from the shackles of an oppressive regime.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss,the abyss gazes also into you.” ― Friedrich W. Nietzsche
References
- Anderson, D. M. (2005). Histories of the hanged: The dirty war in Kenya and the end of empire. W.W. Norton & Company.
- Nietzsche, F. (2003). Beyond good and evil: Prelude to a philosophy of the future (J. Norman, Trans.), p. 68. Penguin Books. (Original work published 1886)
- BBC News. (2013, October 23). Mau Mau uprising: Bloody history of Kenya conflict. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12997138
- Smith, J. (1953, March 31). The Lari Massacre: A grim chapter in Kenya's history. The Times, p. 7.