ODE TO THE MAU- MAU

Oh noble tribe of Kikuyu, I salute you
Your bravery have shone like a beacon for Afrikan Liberation
Out of your midst emerged a great warrior
We resisted the imperialistic plunders
Yes, his name is Jomo Kenyatta, the backbone of the Mau- Mau
Who journeyed to the heights of Mount Kenya
Oh Mau Mau, you forced the world to pay attention
To the atrocities of colonialism
Oh Mau- Mau you destroyed the oppressors who raped your nation
You dealt with the uncle toms who betrayed the revolution
Your warriors will forever remain a shining symbol of Afrikan resistance
The sadistic colonial system could have never conquered you
Your spirit was too strong for them to overcome
May the Kikuyu be righteous and never accept anything less than full freedom
May you be united in your struggle to rebuild Alkebulan
May you be blessed for the sacrifice that you expended
to upend the mind-benders of the global superpowers
The spear of the nation is burning
The tide is turning
Do you see it growing?
Do you see it spreading?
Where are you heading?
have you forgotten the mother that raised you
That nursed when others wanted to hearse you
No more groveling in the SCENTED mud of the oppressors praise
Now is the time to raise ourselves in the Divine image
Never give up the revolution
Never give up hope
Dreadlock Attack, no turning back
May your spirit continue to destroy ignoble regimes that lean towards brutal sadistic means to perpetuate the New World Order of hate
Freedom or Death, power to the people
NYABINGHI POWER

by Ras Tyehimba


Found this interesting: http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=20.msg212#msg212

We had two kinds of freedom struggle one was advocating the non-violent and the other was for armed rebellion,both had noble ideals.Both mistrusted each other.So although I understand your opinion,Papa Daad, I say let us leave it to the scholars to decipher the past and reconcile it for us,while we look to the bright unified future in mind as one community.

Papa D,

Kenyatta's "condemnation" of Mau Mau was merely to spite the white men - you sure didn't expect him to plead guilty to petty crimes he didn't commit did you? This man was a master of similes, proverbs and coded messages that only those with wisdom could understand. He almost always made the white man expose his dimwittedness.........................................

The Roots of the Fig Tree

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936990,00.html

The eyes of all Africa were on Nyasaland last week, but Kenya had its own special reason for feeling the tension. Back in the news was the dreaded name of Jomo Kenyatta, "Burning Spear," the idol of the Mau Mau—and the man who put him there was the very same witness who helped put him in prison back in 1953.

Star Witness Rawson Mbogwa Macharia, a frail little Kikuyu shopkeeper, testified six years ago that Kenyatta himself had given him the Mau Mau oath, that he had been stripped naked and made to walk seven times through an arch of banana leaves and to drink human blood. Last spring, hoping for money, Macharia made the rounds of Nairobi newspapers showing a letter to him from Kenya's attorney general written before the trial. In return for his testimony, the letter said, the government would reward Macharia with a round-trip air ride to England, a two-year college course in public administration, protection for his family when he was away, and a government job when he got home.

The Kenya government did indeed keep its promise, at a total cost of £1,500, but nothing seemed to satisfy Macharia. Found unfit for one job, he huffily turned down another. A beer shop the government helped him to open flopped. Blaming all his troubles on the government, Macharia decided on revenge. In November he signed an affidavit for People's Convention Party Leader Tom Mboya charging that the Kenya government had paid him to lie.

£29 a Month. The government, insisting that it had paid him only to testify, not to lie, promptly put Macharia on trial for signing a false affidavit. In its own defense it argued that some sort of inducement was necessary to get testimony, since 36 potential witnesses against Kenyatta had been murdered.*

Once again the prosecution was up against Kenyatta's flamboyant old defense counsel, Denis Nowell Pritt, Q.C., this time representing Macharia. He would bring forth evidence, said Pritt, that would make him ashamed of being English. At one point he melodramatically exclaimed; "I think I may be physically ill."

When the prosecutor produced an unpublished manuscript in which Macharia accused Kenyatta of being "the 100% leader of the Communist Party in Africa" and a man who had his own private Gestapo to kill enemies, Macharia insisted that the government had paid him £29 a month to write such lies. Finally Pritt called Kenyatta himself.

"I Told My People . . ." As a precaution against a Nairobi mob demonstrating in Kenyatta's favor, the court was moved to Kitale, 200 miles to the north. Kenyatta's seven-year sentence to "hard labor" is being spent as cook to six other Mau Mau leaders, and with a year off for good behavior, he is scheduled to be freed next month. Last week Kenyatta appeared in court in dapper leather jacket and carrying a silver-embossed ebony cane that was a gift of his followers. Whistling through a hole in his front teeth, he testified that he had never given anyone the Mau Mau oath. On the contrary, he had tried to stop the Mau Mau, but his own arrest had unleashed the bloody uprisings. Like Archbishop Makarios on Cyprus, he disowned but failed to condemn terror. "I did as much as I could," said he. "I told my people to let the Mau Mau disappear like the roots of the fig tree." In the streets of Kitale, crowds cheered his every appearance, and Kenya's nationalist leaders, led by Tom Mboya, came to pay him homage. In Nairobi a nervous government seized 34 nationalists, banned an extremist white-settler newspaper as well as Tom Mboya's Uhuru (Freedom), which has been playing up Kenyatta as a national hero. The government insists that Kenyatta's simile was not meant to be innocent: the roots of the fig tree seem to disappear only because they go so deep.


* A captured Mau Mau document vowed that those who tried "our leader" should be tied with sinews taken from their own ribs, and that "who assists the whites he must be castrated. We must take out his eyes and then hold him for seven days and then we will cut his head off and see if the whites can bring him back to life

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Njau ya Mbogo,

Njau ya Mbogo
Kenyatta's support, or role in Mau Mau, if there was any, was never spelt out. I have to agree with Papa Daad that the glorification of Kenyatta is a romanticization by those who did not understand the hierarchichal order of the movevement. The only contribution that Kenyatta made to Mau Mau was being its catalyst during Operation Anvil. But everything stops there. His trial was like a whisle that the orleady organized fighters were waiting for to begin fighting.

While it would have been expedient for him to deny his link in teh movement during the trial and subsequent incaceration, he did nothing to mend fences with former fighters after he took over the leadership of the country. In fact the only thing we see in him is demonization, contempt and neglect of the former fighters. This might be one of the reasons why he parted ways with Bildad Kaggia, who was actively involved in the movement.

Anyone who tries to put Kenyatta at the helm of Mau Mau struggle distorts history. Kenyatta was a pretender to the throne.

In the USA can you accuse MLK jr of not fighting for civil liberties and heap all praise to black panthers? Well both had a contribution to the civil rights struggle.Although some of you will not get it but there is an analogous scenario!

Ngii Ndune
The problem here is the distinction between the Nationalist movements and armed struggle. Unlike the Nationalist political movements, Mau Mau was an armed struggle. The only thing that Kenyatta did to Mau Mau was to marginalize its veterans. The distortion we are talking about is giving Kenyatta credit for something he did not do or believe in.

quote:

Originally posted by sajini:
.......
The problem here is the distinction between the Nationalist movements and armed struggle. Unlike the Nationalist political movements, Mau Mau was an armed struggle. The only thing that Kenyatta did to Mau Mau was to marginalize its veterans. The distortion we are talking about is giving Kenyatta credit for something he did not do or believe in.........

Sajini,
Your message above sounds contradictory to me. While you point to the two distinct separate but equal wings of the struggle, it beats logic to claim at the same time that Mau Mau was something Kenyatta "did not believe in". Am sure you know that given the barbarism and sheer demonisation vested upon our noble fighters by the British; branding them terrorists and even potraying the whole Gema community as sub-human savages, armed struggle alone would not have earned us Independence period. We were on the verge of extamination my friend, and somebody had to rise above the mud and beat the Mbeberu in his own game. Am proud of Kenyatta and am even more proud of Kimathi and all others. You can't take anything away from either of them. Calling Kenyatta a pretender to the throne (whatever that means) is a despicable insult. Try to tell South Africans that about their Mandela.

Now the beef that everyone seems to have is how the spoils were shared. I believe we can be able to separate the two issues, give critisism and credit duely. Did everyone get what they deserved? Absolutely not. Did some people get more than they deserved? Sure. Did some traitors get rewarded while some heroes got denied? Unfortunetly Yes, this is what hurts most.

On Kaggia

While I could name a few that I personally believe were short-changed (Kimathi's family e.t.c),Bildad Kaggia is at the bottom of my list. His ideological differences with Kenyatta and his blatant approach to issues guaranteed him of nothing less (or should I say more) than what he got.
Appointed deputy minister of education in 1963, a socialist to the core, he fell out with Kenyatta and got a sack setting up a lifelong duel between the two. From heading the controversial communist-funded Lumumba Institute where plans to overthrow Kenyatta were hatched to being the only high ranking Kikuyu in Odinga's KPU, I don't think you expected different results. While he could be one of them, to me he doesn't epitomize those who were denied their share. He threw away meat and took the bones. His choice.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835944,00.html

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Njau ya Mbogo,

Sajini,
How can you deny a movement that had its clarion call as 'Freedom and Land' a nationalistic status?
Papa Daad,
Inform me what I would find there.