Tag: Lauren Brown

Dedan Kimathi: 63 years of injustice

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Dedan Kimathi

Lauren Brown

As the world shakes under the weight of the Black Lives Matter movement, many are turning to black history to understand the roots of the ingrained racism plaguing modern society.

Britain has a dark, racist history buried beneath the sanitized stories of empire perpetuated through the historical narrative and further via the curriculum presented to its school children.

One such history is that of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya – a violent and controversial part of both Kenyan and British history. In reaction to the violence of the rebellion, the British colonial government created a system of detention camps which saw the incarceration of some 80,000 Kikuyu people in Kenya.[1] Within the camp system detainees were aggressively interrogated, thousands were subjected to horrific abuse and several inmates lost their lives.  Many Kikuyu still face the repercussions of the uprising to this very day.

Encapsulated within the history of the Mau Mau rebellion is the story of Dedan Kimathi, the self-titled field marshal of the anti-colonial forest fighters. He was executed by the British after a short career of anti-British ‘terrorism’. Continue reading “Dedan Kimathi: 63 years of injustice” →

The Mau Mau Detention Camps: Rehabilitation, Propaganda, Memory

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment
The Mau Mau Memorial erected in Nairobi in 2015. Image – Daily Nation.

Lauren Brown
University of Dundee

Kenya’s Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1964) was plagued with violence. The rebellion was the result of discontent with British colonial rule. When the British had arrived in Kenya, they stole land from the native population; among them, the Kikuyu people suffered most from this. As living conditions grew harder for the Kikuyu under British occupation, they began an aggressive campaign to fight back against British colonial forces.  To quell the rising violence and anti-colonial sentiment, the British created a system of detention camps to incarcerate thousands of the Kikuyu population. In these camps, prisoners were tortured, abused, and, in some cases, murdered.  

The events that transpired in these camps have long been hidden away from popular historical narrative though finally, the repercussions of this are reaching the British government. Continue reading “The Mau Mau Detention Camps: Rehabilitation, Propaganda, Memory” →