When I arrived in Kenya, I knew shamefully little about Kenyan history, politics, geography, and culture. Bad geographer, bad geographer! (Notice one hand slapping the other.) And now, after living here for five weeks, I know just a tiny smidge more than shamefully little. Since I am absolutely powerless to the pull of the purchase in bookstores, I found myself at the BookStop in Yaya Center chatting with the owner about which history I should read. He lifted a tome called Kenya: A History that he insisted was obligatory reading. But I demurred: let me dip my toe into Kenyan history with something a bit…. uh… smaller? Never fear, I didn’t leave the shop empty-handed. I picked up the Pulitzer Prize winning history by Caroline Elkins that details the brutal period at the end of British reign in Kenya, titled Britain’s Gulag.
Let me start by telling you that I don’t read Holocaust books and I don’t watch Holocaust movies. I just don’t go there. My grandparents were German refugees and I can’t handle it. I don’t feel like a better person watching humans do terrible things to other humans, in the context of the Holocaust or any other situation. I also don’t want that era in my family’s history to define me. So, by my own choice, it has been a long time since I read anything as horrifying as Elkins’ book.
Elkins’ main premise is that this period, called “The Emergency,” (1952-ish to 1963) when the British were routing out Mau Mau oathtakers from the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya, was as systematic, as horrifying, and as violent as any terrible genocide the world has known. Responding to the Mau Mau uprising, the British developed a “pipeline” of camps wherein men and women with Mau Mau sympathies (or those who simply didn’t side with the British, there could be no middle ground) would be detained, robbed, questioned, shamed, tortured in every gruesome way, killed, raped, and exposed to extreme famine, disease, and unsanitary conditions. If these Mau Mau detainees renounced their oath, they might be transferred to less-strict camps. If they stayed committed to Mau Mau or increased their devotion, they would be transferred up the pipeline to harder camps. (It wasn’t as simple as renouncing an oath, however. If an individual did renounce to save him or herself, he or she might face death from Mau Mau compatriots. It was basically a lose-lose for a suspected Mau Mau person.) Even when people were “released,” it was into Kikuyu reserves where their land had been confiscated and enforced hard labor was required. Basically, at times it resembled the camp system that the Nazis developed, against which the British had just fought a major war. Then the Brits turned around and instituted a similar kind of camp system in Kenya. (There is also mention of a camp system in Malaya, but I know even less about that.) Needless to say, this has been a hard and yet necessary book to read.
I think Elkins is responding to a general sentiment that the British weren’t that bad in Kenya. I mean, they weren’t as despicable leaders as the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge. And hey, maybe Kenya is even better off than other post-colonial places because of the legacy of British rule. But this book basically says: let’s put any of these cutsie British ideas aside once and for all. The British were brutal colonial leaders, as brutal, as vicious, as any of ‘em out there, willing to stop at nothing to hold on to their colonial territory.
Well, we all know how that turned out. The Brits lost Kenya.
Nerd Geographer Alert: The weird thing is, I have yet to see anything on the landscape that commemorates these Mau Mau fighters who suffered mightily at the hands of the British. For example, we live right near Dagoretti Corner. And in the book, there is a significant camp at Dagoretti. I tried to find out where the camp actually was. Is there any remnant? Is there anything marking the place with its historical significance? Not that I’ve seen.
The first time I experienced this kind of landscape commemoration absence was in China. It was 1998 and I had gone to China with a friend as a post-high school graduation trip. I knew desperately little about China, basically had only seen the footage of “tank man” at Tiananmen Square. In fact, I think that protest might be my first political memory. So when we got to Tiananmen Square and there was NOTHING to memorialize the people who died in the 1989 protests (and then my Chinese government tour guide had the gall to say that no one died in 1989 in the square… which I found out later, actually may be technically true because everyone who died was just outside the square), I was just stunned. The whole square just vibrated to me with the absence of voices. The place had meaning to me, but it was paved over, covered up, and negated rather than addressed. I had to get outta there.
I wonder how many places here, in Kenya, memorialize the British brutality. I’ve looked around to find any traces, but haven’t found them yet. Anyone who knows something more about this.. I’m all ears. Did the British destroy the physical camps, like they set fire to so many of the records that chronicle their maniacal control over Kenya? I haven’t quite finished Elkins’ book, but I hope she tells me.
As my mom repeats, moving to Kenya has sure stretched my understanding of the world in new and unpredictable ways. This is surely just the beginning.
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