By Kiundu Waweru
Yesterday, Kenyans celebrated Mashujaa Day, which was previously marked as Kenyatta Day.
The focus was on those who fought for freedom, ranging from the early resistance to the Mau Mau insurgence in the 1950s.
However, few Kenyans know that Jomo Kenyatta, the founding president, strongly denounced Mau Mau and its activities.
General Ndungu Gicheru says the ideals they fought for as the Mau Mau were forgotten as soon as the country gained indepence. Photo: George Mulala/ Standard |
This evidence lies in a transcript of tape recordings made by Kenya Broadcasting Service, now Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, of Kenyatta’s Press conference with the international press on April 11, 1961.This was at Maralal, where he was being held in restriction after he was transferred from Lodwar.
The transcript is preserved at the Kenya National Archives and in a series of questions, the journalists put the soon to be Kenya’s first Prime Minister to task about the Mau Mau.
An unidentified journalist asks him: “How do you give Mau Mau its place in history and its contribution to an eventual Kenya independence?” Kenyatta answered: “Well, that will be decidedÉ I think its place in history will be decided by historians.”
At this point, Kenyatta seems not to support or oppose Mau Mau activities. There follows a series of other questions, mostly on the land issue.
Another journalist shoots: “Mr Kenyatta, are you prepared at this time to condemn the excesses of the oathing of Mau Mau?”
In answer, Kenyatta says in many public meetings, he had condemned and denounced “the whole thing connected with that violence.”
And on this, Kenyatta is asked why the oathing continued despite his many statements opposing it, yet people held him in great respect.
Respect the queen
In answer, Kenyatta cites Britain, the birth country of the journalist who had asked him the question.
He says many people there respect Her Majesty the Queen but nevertheless, “gangsters — all those how do you call themÉare there but this does not mean that Her Majesty is responsible for what they are doing.”
In the next question, Kenyatta is at pains to explain a statement he had earlier made during the trial that “Mau Mau should disappear like the roots of the wild fig tree.” The fig tree was, and still is, highly respected by the Kikuyu, who holed it sacred.
He says: “The root goes so deep it disappears and no air can get to the roots, therefore let this thing disappear and no body will seek it again.”
In later years most of the freedom fighters died poor, as Kenyatta’s Government completely ignored them.
Cleary an emotive issue now and then, the journalists in Kenyatta’s first press conference in eight years since 1952, did not relent. The interview goes on to other issues, including land, the Lancaster House Conference among others, before the Mau Mau issue resurfaces.
Q: Would you like to make an unequivocal denunciation of Mau Mau?
A: How many times am I going to do this? Did you not read, and if you have not read it, you ought to read a copy of my speech at Kapenguria, and again at Kitale trial of Rawson Macharia.
Q: You are denouncing it, then?
A: I have denounced it so many times!
Q: Would you like to do it again?
A: In which form?
Q: (Several journalists together) To us, here and now.
dWell, I have told you that I do not believe in violence. I am non-violent. How much can I do?
However, it is difficult to say outright that Kenyatta believed what Mau Mau was doing was wrong.
Kenyatta was an official of the Kenya African Union, whose hardcore elements are believed to have been the first members of Mau Mau.
KAU was itself an offshoot of the Kikuyu Central Association, which banned due to its radical nature and involvement in subversive activities.
Mau Mau sprung up and gained roots in the late 1940s, less than a decade before the State of Emergency was declared in 1952.
Kenyatta was also under intense pressure by the Government to denounce the movement.
