Thread by @gathara

Looking at this and responses to it, seems clear Kenyans need an education on ukoloni, the tactics and aims of the KLFA (including its charter) as well as those of other anti-colonial movements in the country, and the bait-and-switch that got us "independence" instead of freedom.

https://twitter.com/bonifacemwangi/status/1378440624140124161

British characterization of the KLFA as atavistic "Mau Mau" (a term rejected by JM Kariuki as "a title of abuse and ridicule"), violent savages without political thoughts, was propaganda to justify the horrible abuses and legitimize their chosen custodians of the colonial state.

Thus, 70 years later, we ignorantly speak of "Mau Mau" as only interested in land but not wider questions of political governance and equality. Few Kenyans today know of the Riigi and the Kenya Parliament they set up in the forest, or their hopes, visions, debates and writings.

We have been conditioned to dehumanize the folks who took up arms and the many who supported their cause, to imagine them as the British did - as unthinking, desperate, violent and ignorant. The colonial state deeply fears their memory which is why they were proscribed till 2003.

BTW, what the Brits did in 1950s Kenya resonates across time and geography. It is relevant for understanding what the US is doing today in Guantanamo. The dehumanization, torture, isolation in camps, requirement for confession, echoes the "Pipeline".
middleeastmonitor.com/20210404-guant…