Talk:Mau Mau Uprising

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[edit] Comments on early drafts

Damn! Who WROTE this stuff? There seems to be an overemphasis on the violence and brutality of the Mau-Mau -- and, indeed, they were violent and brutal. Yet, there is virtually no information provided on what prompted such violence. What about the deprivation and degradation of the Kikuyu under British rule? What about how the British mistreated Kenyans, seized their land, causing desperate deprivation -- and the scandal that ensued when the government tried to cover up reports that British soldiers had castrated Kikuyu men using pliers? Hey, how's that for brutal?

Like it or not, the Mau-Mau were freedom fighters (at least initially), trying to free themselves from British rule. But, gee, you sure wouldn't really know that from reading this. This article definitely needs a major rewrite. There needs to be some balance. deeceevoice 17:32, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sure; thanks for noting the one-sidedness of the coverage, and feel free to add material to balance it, if you have the time; we should seek a neutral point of view, of course. Articles rarely start off perfectly balanced -- it doesn't (necessarily) mean the authors-so-far have deliberately and nefariously been trying to paint a one-sided picture; we should assume good faith. — Matt 17:44, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't know how much of all the garbage about cannibalism, bestiality, etc., is true. It sounds like a lot of racist propaganda. In some of the reading I've done, it seems a lot of this was simply rubbish cooked up by white colonialists. There is absolutely no real explanation in this piece WHY the Kikuyu rebelled, what their grievances were. White settlers hardly lived "alongside" Kenyans. Kenyans were robbed of their land, forced to the brink of starvation, conscripted into military service and then subsequently discriminated against and denied even the most basic human rights in their own country. There is no attempt to put the Mau-Mau in the context of a struggle for national liberation from a brutal, oppressive, white, minority, colonial regime. Theirs was a righteous struggle -- that ultimately resulted in Kenyan independence and the ascension of Jomo Kenyatta (originally arrested with others accused of having dealings with the Mau-Mau and convicted in a British kangaroo court and then imprisoned). Kenya was very much like apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia in terms of the power relationships under British colonial rule: black oppression and deprivation, white privilege and prosperty.

The Mau-Mau were the vanguard in the struggle against such injustice. And this entry does them a grave disservice. It should be trashed and begun again.deeceevoice 22:22, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid it shouldn't. I don't know a great deal about the Mau Mau, but I have heard at least two POVs, both the "dead-goat-humping savages" line and the "noble, righteous, freedom-fighters" epithet. (Both may be true as far as I know!) However, Wikipedia -- as I'm sure you're aware -- is NPOV. This means that we must document all the different major points of view on the Mau Mau, even if we disagree with them or find them repugnant. You've noted that this article fails to document one POV, and I agree; let's try and fix it. However, it would be a mistake to blank it and start again, as you suggest; there's a lot of useful factual information here, for a start, and even biased material is useful in the sense that it documents a point of view. We just need to reword it for neutrality. — Matt 00:40, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have completed an extensive edit of the article. Comments would be appreciated. Unless someone speaks up, I'll take down the biased view marker. I don't know if I'm the only one who has noticed this, but the entire page also needs to be moved to "Mau Mau Uprising" and "Mau Mau" should be a redirect. BanyanTree 12:48, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have removed the npov marker and requested that this page be moved to Mau Mau Uprising. BanyanTree 20:20, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

(from WP:RM)

[edit] Mau Mau → Mau Mau Uprising

  • The article, even from its initial stub, stated "The Mau Mau Rebellion", and has been revised and edited as an article about the revolt rather than a participant in the revolt. For over a year the article has begun "The Mau Mau Uprising was" without anyone removing the boldface from "Uprising". The article is clearly on the wrong page. (Mau Mau Uprising is currently a redirect to the Mau Mau page, which describes the Uprising.) Cheers, BanyanTree 23:10, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Possible good references

The Economist highlights these two books that discuss this conflict:

  • Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire By David Anderson ISBN: 0393059863
  • Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of the End of Empire in Kenya By Caroline Elkins ISBN: 0805076530

--Confuzion 21:48, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've added them into an References section in the article. BanyanTree 01:13, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article appeared on the Internet the other day. [1] gathima 19:00, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I, too, think you need to take into account Elkins and Anderson's work mentioned above, and not just leave them as a reference. Elkins, for instance, mentions that almost 1 million persons were interned in concentration camps and the euphemistically named "enclosed villages"- why does your article not mention this? This review of her book mentions that aspect: http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/030572.html

This review of both books reports in further detail on Anderson's investigation into British policy and the name contemporary British officials gave the tortures, the gestapo. All of this is extremely significant in that it happened very shortly after WWII, yet very few are aware of its magnitude.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n05/port01_.html

This is a wiki. If you have information that should be added, then you should be the one to add it. I look forward to your contributions. - BanyanTree 01:56, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Article is fine to me

Why does Deeceevoice automatically brand an article that is critical of black people is 'racist crap'. I have lived in Kenya and I can comment on the basis of some knowledge, rather than solely on the basis of a shared ethnicity. It is clear that both sides in this 'Uprising' used tactics and methods they do not bear scrutiny. However, it is important to realise that a solitary incident does note make an habitual practice. Furthermore, we should be wary of some stories that may well have been promulgated as the result of propaganda (by either side). I am concerened that a recent revision states that the British got most of their information by torture, that they used torture chambers in Nairobi, that the white settlers tortured their black workers for information and sport. Where is the evidence for this, other than apocryphal stories. There was mistreatment of Mau Mau detainees by the British. That is a matter of record, but the only torture chambers I know of in Nairobi are the ones built after independence. Robert 56

As as been mentioned below, Deeceevoice was commenting on an earlier revision of the page. Allegations of torture are nearly always controversial, so we should directly cite sources for this information. &mdash; Matt <small>Crypto</small> 10:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if the article has been updated since the comments made by deeceevoice, but the article I read on Jan 3 was a perfectly balanced description of the Mau Mau Revolt. I spent a few months in Kenya; in the Aberdares and Mt. Kenya region I researched the Mau Mau Revolt. It is true that not all the information is included in the article (i.e. Africans fighting in WWI and WWII were promised land and other rights) but you must remember this is only an encyclopedia giving a basic description of the entire event. A book with multiple volumes could be written about the Mau Mau Revolt and still miss important details, this is why the reader is expected to do research if they want more information. This article is accurate, the Mau Mau acted very much like savages, and many accounts talk about this. I personally have seen what Africans can do to a goat before they eat it, or while they eat it. I'm sure bestiality is uncommon in Kenya but I can guarantee it happens. Deeceevoice, please do not tell other people they are wrong, especially when you don't know what you are talking about.

The comments at the top of the page are from a draft that richly deserved the NPOV tag on it, imo. See this old revision to get a sense of what the early criticism was about. deeceevoice has commented on how the article has changed on my talk page. I know nothing about the World War info you mentioned. It would be great if you inserted it into the article. BanyanTree 05:56, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
sorry to be a drag but i'm a little uneasy about the NPOV of the article, largely the section entitled 'Political and social concessions by the British'. the language characterising the settlers is rather emotive.

It's easy enough to find out the state of the article when I first disparaged it by checking the article's edit history. It was a miserable piece of abjectly racist crap in September, but has been greatly improved by BanyanTree in the months since. And you want to talk about "savages"? And I suppose the British castrating the Kikuyu with pliers was "civilized"? deeceevoice 12:01, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

By 1953, almost half of all Kikuyus had no land claims at all. The results were worsening poverty, starvation, unemployment and overpopulation.

How did having no land claims lead to overpopulation?

[edit] Thanks again

I know I thanked you on your talk page a long time ago, but I recently crossed this article again, Banyan, and impressed by how far it's come -- head and shoulders above the previous, racist crap. Thanks again. Well done. :-D deeceevoice 11:57, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your a nutcase! Take some valium ok! The article was good originally! Too bad your mau mau's lost! (68.227.211.175 00:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC))

You're totally right. Maybe someday the British empire will collapse and Kenya will become independent. Hey, wait a minute... - BanyanTree 00:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I am right. The british empire didn't 'collapse'. Not from war anyway. Hello?! (68.227.211.175 02:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)) (Romanyankee)

The nature of the Mau Ma uprising was not necessarily anti-colonial in nature guys.... it was mainly the result of economic grievances, whilst the political sphere of the uprising was generally limited. The Mau Mau fighters did commit atrocities to their opponents, this should be in no doubt, but the British actions were on occassion equally barbaric, just with the guise of legitimate, civilised behaviour. As a result of such events at Hola Camp, the Empire became embarrassing and in part, this can be seen to lead to Kenya's independence...

[edit] Lari report

There is a likelyhood someone could come across a report written by a dutch socialist immediately after Lari massacre. If someone could find her work, it would form a good bases to those who would want to write about the Lari stuff. I haven't however found her name, but this is a good begining

[edit] Additional Reading

I highly recommend the book "Something of Value" by Robert Ruark (1955). It is a fabulously written novel which paints the Mau Mau Uprising exactly as it was; a response of a variety of different interest groups to colonisation. It is neither here nor there; the book demonstrates clear understanding of the situation from someone who, clearly, experienced the events themselves. It is a novel, but is so rich that it feels perfectly true. 203.173.151.51 09:36, 13 December 2005

An article in the Guardian by George Monbiot (The Turks haven't learned the British way of denying past atrocities) compares the way the Turkish government deals with its past with the way the British deal with their past genocides. Quote:

Thrown off their best land and deprived of political rights, the Kikuyu started to organise—some of them violently—against colonial rule. The British responded by driving up to 320,000 of them into concentration camps. Most of the remainder—more than a million—were held in “enclosed villages”. Prisoners were questioned with the help of “slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging until death, pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight, and burning eardrums with lit cigarettes.” British soldiers used a “metal castrating instrument” to cut off testicles and fingers. “By the time I cut his balls off,” one settler boasted, “he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket.” The soldiers were told they could shoot anyone they liked “provided they were black.” Elkins’s evidence suggests that more than 100,000 Kikuyu were either killed or died of disease and starvation in the camps. David Anderson documents the hanging of 1,090 suspected rebels: far more than the French executed in Algeria. Thousands more were summarily executed by soldiers, who claimed they had “failed to halt” when challenged.

But the average British subject has no idea that such atrocities ever happened, while in Turkey everybody knows what has happened to the Armenians. —Babelfisch 08:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. This article needs to be expanded dramatically. Every American knows about the My Lai Massacre. How many in the UK know about the Hola Massacre? And that's just one example of British atrocity in Kenya. --Cultural Freedom talk 09:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right about that- though I think it as much stems from a confused and problematic sense of identity as a deliberate attempt to forget on the part of everyday people. 'Britain' in some ways is ceasing to exist, and the history of the state of Britain- including Scotland and Wales, not just England- along with it. Regional identities such as with the growing expressions of Scottishness or Englishness are taking over and people (perhaps would like to) forget the whole empire ever happened. I don't think they have any monopoly over selective interpretation of their periods of shameful behaviour, isn't 'Thanksgiving' called 'The National Day of mourning' by native americans because of the Metacomet/wampanoag massacres? That might not be an appropriate example so I apologise if I've got my facts wrong, but you take my point. The Mau Mau's activities will inevitably be positive for some and negative for others, and both sides will pick the aspects that reinforce their opinion whilst ignoring inconvenient truths. I think more African history should be taught in Britain to reflect the rounded historical facts of British empire. Atillashardermate 12:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

PS- I agree that people should be taught more about things like the Hola massacre- and crucially what the reaction was at home, not to condemn their nation as some kind of pantomime villain; to see the whole picture of the past

[edit] Origin of Phrase

" Mau Mau " is an adverbial phrase in the Kikuyu language meaning "to eat ravenously, like a hyena". It was the name of a gang of Kikuyu thugs who terrorised the Kiambu area in about 1890.

Do you have a good reference for this? Many people have added alternate etymologies, but nobody seems to be able to add a citation so nothing can be confirmed. - BT 19:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It occurs in a Kikuyu- English dictionary, possibly published by the Oxford University Press. In about 1970. Native speakers will probably say the same.

I googled two dictionaries that might fit this description. I don't suppose that you still have access to the dictionary and can provide the ISBN? I'm quite willing to start putting refs or demanding refs for each of the bulleted etymologies. - BT 13:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

No it isn't. I'm a native Kikuyu born and bred. There is no such word in the Kikuyu language. Doesn't matter what dictionaries written by the English say, though I don't know where the word came from. 196.216.68.146 11:22, 14 May 2007 (UTC) Ken T.G.Benson had the help of several native speakers of Kikuyu when compiling his Dictionary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 10:00, August 30, 2007 (UTC) Those writing in 2007 are unlikely to remember Kiambu in 1890. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.209.191 (talk) 11:24, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tendentious tone

Obviously this issue creates great passion, but a more obviously NPOV needs to be regained. The use of Elkins and Anderson is commendable, so long as it is understood that their research is not from a NPOV. The use of words such as "concentration camp" as a description of a detention camp is not neutral. Dismissing the atavistic elements of mau mau practice as preposterous is not neutral either. This whole article needs to be be re-worked and a lot more firm historical referencing done.Pabailie 15:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The camps in which the Kikuyu were interned perfectly fit the definition of "concentration camp". There is no point in avoiding the phrase simply because it has negative connotations GreatGodOm 09:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Maintaining NPOV does not mean resorting to euphemisms. 'Concentration camp' is a historically apt description.24.184.136.137 02:23, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Casualty figures

The figure of 60 government casualty figures is so obviously wrong that I have removed it. The figures are well known and available from a host of sources.

The oathing practices of the Mau Mau are widely attested from many sources as well, although those sources tend to be pro-government. Nevertheless, the section on oathing is very weak and needs revising. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pabailie (talk • contribs) 13:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

If they are so well known, why don't you add them with a source? It's a wiki, after all. - BanyanTree 15:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I did and someone removed them. I shall try to put them on again, along with estimates for the numbers of security forces, although no-one seems to have kept reliable figures of the numbers of Army deployed; and it has recently emerged that Army casualty figures were not centrally recorded and may be inaccurate. Can I also caution people against a simplistic repetition of Caroline Elkins' figures - they are entirely conjectural, bases upon her own idiosyncratic reading of the census figures and her decision to include in her estimates all of those living in fortifies villages as political prisoners; a position that her critics have pointed out is simply incorrect. Pabailie 19:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello Pabailie, I think I'm the culprit for the removal. If you have reliable sources of the losses, by all means, don't be afraid to put them, but please mention the source (or the sources, if you have more than one), also putting the number of the page if it's a book. As for Elkins' figures, if you've got sources criticizing the numbers, lke a book review, you can also add it in the proper section that discusses the casualties, but always remember to source, per WP:V.--Aldux 20:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, the figures are added in, so are the footnote references; I haved edited out most of the emotive, non neautral language of this article, and will to add in a number of citations / footnotes, when i get some time.Pabailie 01:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of casualties, does anyone else find it amusing that the number of rebel dead is sourced to a report from the "Government of Kenya, 1960", pre-independence, which is obviously the colonial administration? - BanyanTree 09:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Casualties and Camps.

John Blacker reckons that the excess death toll is approx. 50, 000. I've added a reference to that effect. The figure from the Corfield report is inadequate even on its own terms; it does not include deaths in detention camps, nor the 1,090 executions during the Emergency.

The use of fortifed villages in the article is weasel wording. Elkins and others rightly distingush the punitive camps which were, quite simply, large prisons, from the emergency villages into which the Kikuyu civilian population was herded. The emergency villages were often new settlements, purpose-built for detention and supervision. The confinement of the Kikuyu civilian population in these villages restricted their access to farmland and clean water, which led to massive malnutrition. Elkins points this out, and Blacker's figures suggest that most of the victims were children. If, as the wikipedia article on concentration camps says, a concentration camp is a 'large detention center created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic [my emphasis] or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war', the Emergency villages were concentration camps.

The main article needs a section on both the Emergency villages and the detention camps. The detention camps are vital to the story, since this is where most of the atrocities were committed; the Emergency villages are essential because this is almost certainly where most civilian deaths occurred. (Hythlodayeus 20:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC))


[edit] Atrocities

The article just mentioned British atrocities. I felt this was betraying a NPOV so I also added some stuff about Mau Mau atrocities. Led125

Someone has added some stuff on the retaliation for the Lari Massacre. Please add that elesewhere. It has nothing to do with MAU MAU atrocities. (Add it in BRITISH atrocities).


Hi, I take it you undid my edit of the Lari massacre.

I reverted your edit for the following reasons: the second Lari massacre is directly relevant to the first, since it was a direct response to it; since the second massacre was an immediate reaction to the first, the events are best explained and understood by considering them together (most books handle them together, see Anderson 2005, for example); finally, because the paragraph as, it read , implied that the total number of casualties of the massacre was 120 (the official figure -released by the colonial administration- was 74; admittedly this could be wrong). Readers of wikipedia will presumably realise that the second Lari massacre was not a Mau Mau atrocity, since it is explicitly stated to be the work of colonial forces.

I note that you did not transfer the material on the second Lari massacre to 'British Atrocities', so it is easy to wonder if you meant it to disappear altogether.

Hythlodayeus 00:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't remove it. Someone else did that. I have now transfered it to the British atrocities section (I also added European settlers and black loyalists because they fought for the British but were not actually British). I hope this solves any disagreements. Led125

[edit] Recent changes and rewrite

I altered some stuff on the article, and a person essentially undid it, completely ignoring why I had made the changes. The virtual undo was made on the basis of a one line explanation of POV - yet none of the changes I made are substantial with that respect. I merely cite scholarly sources like historians Mark Curtis, Caroline Elkins and David Anderson. The person has also completely ignored my reasons for making one particular change, an important one, namely the removal of the Pumwani 'shallow graves' in the section on Mau Mau atrocities. The reason for my removing that, as I thought was perfectly clear from my comment when I made the edit, was becuase on the cited page of Anderson's book, p.185, THERE IS NO MENTION OF SHALLOW GRAVES WHATSOEVER. I didn't simply correct the page number because when I went to the index to look up all mentions of Pumwani, ON NONE OF THE PAGES REFERENCED WITH RESPECT TO PUMWANI WAS ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER. According to the index of Anderson's book, Pumwani gets a mention on pages 39, 220 and 352; ON NONE OF THESE PAGES IS THERE ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER OF SHALLOW GRAVES. Maybe it is somewhere else in the book, perhaps someone can find the correct page. For the moment, as far as I am concerned, the quote has just been made up. The person has also changed back some things only to introduce grammatical errors. I just can't see what's going on here: I've made no controversial changes, merely made the text less disjointed to read, and added some new citations from Mark Curtis, Caroline Elkins and David Anderson - all respected historians. I'm going to undo the undo, please can someone explain what I am supposed to have done wrong. Regards, User: 217.43.43.145 11:15, 10 October 2007

I removed the picture for the movie The Oath, since it was the wrong one, of a 2005 movie about the war in Chechnya by Khassan Baiev. Couldnt find any accurate picture. Scratchy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.253.62.253 (talk) 19:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Personal recollection

This was at the top of the article page but makes more sense here. Lisiate (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Imperial War Museum sound archive #30268.

Key words: Africa history/20th Century conflicts/Kenya/Mau Mau/terrorism/freedom fighters/colonial rule/Mt Kenya White Highlands/Mt Kenya Crown Forest.

In the hope it is of interest to historical research, The Imperial War Museum (London) recently recorded my recollections of 18 months in the Mt Kenya forest back in 1955/56 as a 17-year-old fighting the Mau Mau gangs above Nanyuki, Meru and Embu. I had been farming at around 8,900 feet on the edge of that forest when the request came from the Kenya authorities to report to Nairobi and collect my jungle outfit, Bren gun and Patchett machine carbines. I was then named Tracker Team Leader 12 (later Tracker 6 and finally Tracker 1) and given about 20 non-Mau Mau tribe askaris, mostly Kipsigis and Samburu and Kamba for continuous forest patrols.

The recordings extend over about 6 hours on 5 CDs archived as #30268. The Sound Archive telephone number at the Imperial War Museum is +44 20 7416 5365. Best contact would be Richard McDonough on rmcdonough@iwm.org.uk

With kind regards.

Tim Symonds [email removed to avoid spam - Lisiate (talk)]