The Women Who Fought The Mau-Mau

The Women Who Fought The Mau-Mau

The Mau-Mau uprising is a truly instructive and painful chapter of Kenyan history. The roots of the conflict are in decades of British colonial rule. The main reason was the country question. The British actively promoted the resettlement of their citizens to Kenya. The best and fruitful soils (the so-called "white highlands") were the local population - especially the Kikuyu - expropriated and European settlers were awarded. Many Kikuyu lost their land and were forced to work for barren wages as a farm worker on foreign farms, which led to impoverishment. There were a lot of abuses, such as political disease. Africans had virtually no say in colonial administration. Then there were economic restrictions. The authorities issued laws that violated the rights of African landowners and banned them the cultivation of certain crops (for example, coffee reserved exclusively European plantations). The cultural pressure did not stop. The spread of mission schools and Christianity Undergrub of traditional faiths and customs. Under these circumstances, the Mau-Mau movement was built among the Kikuyu (as well as relatives of adjacent groups, the EMBU and MERU) in the early 1950s. She was initially a secret organization. The participants swore traditional ides who strengthened their solidarity and obliged them to the goal. The participants of the movement often called themselves under different names (for example "Muingi" - "Movement" or "Muigwithania" - "Understanding"), and the nickname "Mau Mau" was given a theory by random: with a police raczia called Someone an anagram of the words "uma-uma" ("out here!"). Until 1952, the dissatisfaction escalated to armed resistance. The rebels led to guerrilla war and handles colonial officials, European settlers and Africans who considered them as collaborators (for example, chiefs or landowners, which were faithful to the authorities). In response, the British authorities imposed the state of emergency on 10 October 1952. A brutal campaign began to suggest the uprising. There were mass arrests. Whole ethnic groups were suspected. They would be brought into an internal camp, with horrible conditions, and many were tortured during the interrogations. Historians even compare these camps with the Gulag. A policy of "village formation" was implemented, people were forcibly driven into special settlements to cut them from supporting rebels. For example, in 1954, the operation of Anvil took place: Security forces lined Nairobi, searched houses and thousands of people were arrested and brought in stock. The Royal Air Force led bombing on the forests in which the rebels hidden. From residents (including Kikuyu), which supported the colonial administration and participated in criminal action, so-called "Home Guards" were formed (later in "Kikuyu Guards"). Also from former rebels who had broken their oath, so-called pseudo gangs were created. One of the most brutal episodes was the massacre of Lari in the night of the 25th to March 26, 1953: Rebels drove about 120 Kikuyu loyalists (including women and children) in huts and burned them with lively Body. On the other hand, British armed forces also committed atrocities - for example soldiers of King's African Rifles killed about 20 unarmed people in June 1953 in Chuka. A turning point came in October 1956 when the British took one of the main leaders, Dedan Kimathi, captured. Thereafter, the large resisted stabbed gradually, although individual groups remained active for some time. The state of emergency was officially lifted in 1960. What meaning did the uprising? Although the uprising was knocked down, he played a significant role in Kenyan history. He opened the brutality and vulnerability of the colonial system. The conflict radicalized the population, strengthened the national consciousness and finally urged Britain to accelerate the decolonization process. Kenya acquired independence in 1963. Interestingly, one of the leader of the movement, Jomo Kenyatta, later the first prime minister and president of the country became. In today's Kenya, the participants of the Mau-Mau uprising officially apply as hero of independence struggle. However, historians continue to explore the details. For example, the release of archives in recent years has launched new insights into the extent of repression, which led to the victims to trials and compensation payments. At this time - the time of the uprising - the white women handled to the weapons. 'Your firearms were always at night or day in the immediate vicinity of their hands.' The Scots and the daily Express described settler houses as' lonely farms' and told stories of white women who learned the shooting Proof of the everyday griminess of the situation '. There were always reports on clothes, hairstyles and domestic routines, although they described the use of firearms. The Belfast newsletter was amazed by a woman who made attackers to speech while 'only a nightgown wore'. The daily post It was found that revolver had become 'and as part of the handbags of many women were like their powder cans'. This is one of the most fascinating and unnecessary questions about Kenya Emergency (1952-1960). The contradictory figure of armed white settlers - at the same time housewife / mother on the farm and participant in armed self-defense - is a prime example of how gender roles are bending in a colonial crisis. A few aspects explaining this double role is the fear as a driving force. Although the Mau-Mau killed a total of only 32 European civilians - the vast majority of victims were Africans (over 1,800), which were considered "collaborators". But the few spectacular murders at settler families - such as the murder of the family JUMM including six-year-old son in January 1953 - put the small white minority in panic. The government encouraged the arming of the settlers. The colonial administration expressly called the settlers to arm to arm and form vigilant groups to protect their farms. Women handed them to everything they found, and partly built regular fortresses on their farms. Many also contributed to the Kenya Police Reserve or the Kenya Regiment (a territorial unit of white settlers). What did it mean to be "domestic and violent" at the same time? That's the core of the question, and here is the actual tension: 1. The domestic role was politically charged. In racist settler ideology, the white woman stood for the "civilization", the home, the race - the Mau-Mau propaganda stylized her as protective bolds whose rape or murder would be the worst at all (The fear of sexual violence through black men was an old, already in 1926 in lawfully cast motif). The woman was the symbol of what should be defended. 2. Violence became the "expansion of the household" by defending the farm - ie her home - armed, was framed by force as a natural extension of the maternal protection function. She did not defend "the state", but "her home". This made the violence acceptable for the settler company because it remained in the context of the domestic role. 3. At the same time she broke the gender border, because the armed woman was the ideal of passive, protective white - she became active, killed potentially, controlled Africans with the weapon. This was a contradiction that the settler company was only held by pointing violence as "extraordinary self-defense" and not as a permanent change in the role. 4. The downside is that the violence has been externalized. Structurally, the white settlers did the armed self-defense themselves, but the systematic, brutal violence was delegated to African auxiliary troops (the 25,000 man strong Kikuyu Home Guard) - the terror against their own Population committed. So the picture of the "pure" white woman remained largely intact, while the dirtiest work was upgraded to others. This double role was possible because the crisis radicalized the settler logic: the home was no longer only private space, but front line of the colonial war. The woman became the "warrior of the home", whose violence was legitimized as defense of race, possession and civilization. Historically, this is a classic pattern of colonial and crisis-related societies, as gender boundaries are exceeded, but immediately returned to the context of the "natural" role - the domestic woman and the armed defender were two sides of the same Colonial figure, not your contrast. https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/kenya-emergency https://www.thecollector.com/mau-mau-rebellion/ https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/mau_mau_uprising https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/mau_mau_uprising https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/05/mau-m26.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230907202516/https://www.academia.edu/14155653 https://web.archive.org/web/20230907202516/https://www.academia.edu/14155653 https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/kenya-emergency https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/women-who-fought-mau-mau