Mau Mau

Paper Summary:

This paper examines several different viewpoints of the Mau Mau revolutionary movement in Kenya. The author considers outlooks of the colonial powers toward the Mau Mau and also strives to determine what is myth and what was reality regarding the Mau Mau's actions. The paper illustrates how opinions of the Mau Mau starkly contrasted depending on an individual's political outlook. The paper includes a brief literature review which further evaluates these differing outlooks.

Outline:
Introduction
Brief History
Mau Mau Myth vs. Reality
Contrasting Views of the Mau Mau in First Years of Emergency
View #1: Extremists
View #2: Liberal Paternalists
A Third Viewpoint
A Fourth View
The Differences over the Mau Mau Roots and Myth
European View after the Emergency
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"MAU MAU MYTH VS. REALITY: How much of what has been written is myth, and how much is truth, regarding the Mau Mau? Dane Kennedy writes in The International Journal of African Historical Studies (Kennedy 1992) that the Mau Mau movement became "encrusted by layers of political myth." Kennedy asserts that authors Carl G. Rosberg and John Nottingham (The Myth of "Mau Mau") "smashed the hitherto reigning myth" of the Mau Mau movement. Kennedy believes that the "earliest and most potent political myth" about the Mau Mau resulted from "the highly influential colonialist view of the Kikuyu revolt as a pathological reaction to the pressures of modernization" (243). Kennedy points out that the Kikuyu (he spells it "Gikuyu") culture had many elements, including Christians, traditionalists, landowners and tenants, squatters in the white highlands and taxi drivers in Nairobi. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Clough, Marshall S. 1998. Mau Mau Memoirs: History, Memory, and Politics. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
• Edgerton, Robert B. 1989. Mau Mau: An African Crucible. New York: The Free Press.
• Elkins, Caroline. 2005. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story Of Britain's Gulag In Kenya. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
• Kennedy, Dane. 1992. Constructing the Colonial Myth of Mau Mau. The International Journal Of African Historical Studies 25 (2): 241-260.
• Lonsdale, John. 1990. Mau Maus of the Mind: Making Mau Mau and Remaking Kenya. The Journal of African History 31 (3): 393-421.

More papers on Mau Mau:

• Analytical Essay # 128536 : "The Mau Mau Uprising"
• Term Paper # 88936 : "Kenya and the Mau Mau Revolt "
• Analytical Essay # 131370 : "The Kikuyu and the Mau Mau"

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