Who were the Mau Mau in Kenya?

Answer 1

The "Mau Mau" were insurgents who fought against British colonial rule in 1950s Kenya: the exact derivation, and even precise meaning, of the term "Mau Mau" is contested. What is pretty certain, however, is that the leadership of the movement regarded it as the military wing of the Central Committee of the Kenya African Union: members called themselves the "Kenya Land and Freedom Army"(KLFA). Some believe "Mau Mau" was an anagram of "Uma! Uma!" - "Get out! Get out"; others think the term may have been an acronym of the Swahili "Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Muafrika Apate Uhuru" - "Let the foreigner leave, let the African regain freedom."

The Mau Mau was Kikuyu dominated, and mainly active in the Aberdare and Mount Kenya Forest areas. That stated, just as many Kikuyu opposed the Mau Mau as supported them: many Kikuyu served in the various government forces who fought the Mau Mau - eg Kings African Rifles (6 battalions), the Kenya Police, and the "Kikuyu Guard" (30,000 strong).

The Mau Mau insurgency (or as it has variously been called "rebellion", "emergency", "uprising", "revolt", "war" etc) was complex: part "Jacquerie", or peasant uprising, demanding land reform; part social/ cultural movement asserting black African identity; part nationalist rebellion demanding self-determination for black Kenyans, and part just a plain old fashioned demand for fairness and justice in the face of a dominant, and extremely racist, white colonial elite. Others assert that it was really just an intra-Kikuyu "civil war" which, inevitably, "overspilled" and caused "collateral damage". The campaign lasted from 1952 to about 1956/7, although Mau Mau cells were still active even after Kenyan independence in 1963.

The exact significance and importance of the Mau Mau is also contested - some argue that Mau Mau activities delayed full independence because of the fears engendered about the likely stability of a Kenyan state in which such a movement existed. The contrary view is that it heightened awareness of the gross inequalities of white rule in Kenya, and made the British authorities more inclined to consider seriously the legitimate aspirations of Kenyan nationalists.

The modern revisionist view tends to regard the Mau Mau as part of the mainstream of legitimate national liberation movements active against the colonial powers of the post World War Two era.

The Mau Mau period was characterised by extreme brutality - atrocities were committed by both sides. The RAF bombed forest areas where Mau Mau groups operated; summary trials and executions of Mau Mau were frequent (over 1,000 hangings; usually public, employing mobile gallows), and torture and abuse of Mau Mau suspects was severe. Of the 11,000+ Mau Mau dead probably a third died in captivity - of starvation, disease, or as a result of torture/ abuse.

On the other hand, to put this in context, it should be noted that Mau Mau actions were often directed at civilians, and were always atrocious - the overwhelming majority of the approx 2,500 killed by them were black Kenyans, often women and children, usually hacked to death with machetes. This does not, of course, legitimise the worst atrocities of the British authorities, but does, to some extent, make them more explicable - it was a dirty little war fought in a corner of the British Empire where almost Medieval norms pertained.

The Mau Mau was a "secret society" demanding "oaths" of its adherents; the superstitions of usually illiterate peasants were exploited ruthlessly in order to ensure group loyalty, and coercion of an extreme form was used to "silence" Kikuyu, Embu and Meru people who were less than enthusiastic about "the cause" - thousands "disappeared", and have never been properly accounted for! This partly explains the reluctance of many educated Kenyans today to support revisionist historians' assertions that the Mau Mau conducted a legitimate campaign of national liberation against colonial oppression.

It was never as simple as that: some assert the Mau Mau were really more of a "throwback" to pre-colonial times; an outbreak of a certain strand of Kikuyu "exceptionalism" and aggressive self-assertion, attempting to ensure that certain ancient "tribal" interest groups held the upper hand in a post independence Kenya.