Draft:The Role Of Women in Mau Mau Liberation Movement In Kenya

The struggle for independence and self rule in Kenya was a long journey occasioned with myriads of challenges and strong opposition from all corners. The pioneers of the liberation movements were faced with threats on their lives while many others actually lost their lives fighting for a just course of liberation of the Kenyan people from the colonial rule. This paper examines the roles played by women, men and Children in the liberation struggles of the Mau Mau Movement on Kenya through the period commencing 1947 – 1960. Through a critical review of literature available on the liberation movement and descriptive technique of research methodology, I have put together the conceptual paper to refute the argument that the liberation movement was inconsequential. The liberation movements in Kenya like any other nation that was under colonial rule seeking emancipation and self rule found its roots in social systems consisting people with a common goal, in this case liberation. There are many theories that can be used to explain the formation of formidable forces that were later established to become liberation movements in history. These include theories such as the social movement theory. Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist or undo a social change. Social movements quite simply characterize important agents of a historically specific societal transformation. The concept designates a specific class of collective phenomena which embraces three aspects: solidarity, conflict and a transcendence of the limits of compatibility with an existing social system (Melucci, 1997). The Kenyan liberation movement, Mau Mau, has often been misunderstood in the West where it is either ignored as a revolutionary force or misrepresented as a primitive, “tribal” movement seen in isolation from its historical and political context (Durrani, 1986, 2006). The study on the roles of gender in the liberation struggle either jointly or separately is imperative for a better understanding of what the roles entailed and their practical implications on our society today. This paper therefore, examines the contribution of Men, women and Children in the Mau Mau, a militant and political African nationalist movement active in Kenya during the late 1940s. This paper also counters the argument that liberation movements are inconsequential by examining the Mau Mau movement in the context of Kenya’s struggle for liberation from colonial rule in the 1950’s. It also seeks to add valuable insights to scholarly works in the field of African studies by an in-depth outlook on the role and implication of the men, women and children in the Liberation Movement. 4 The Mau Mau; A military and political organization The Mau Mau was a militant African nationalist movement active in Kenya during the late 1940s whose main aim was to remove British rule and European settlers from the country. It began as an underground organization spreading its agenda secretly among Africans. This underground militia group waged its guerilla war from the thick bushes of Central Province making it very hard for the colonialists to flush them out. Its initial membership was predominantly Kikuyu even though with time, other Kenyans joined in. Among the strategies the Mau Mau movement employed included the assassination of the British settlers along with their African collaborators. As a poor man's army, they got their resources either through coercion or theft. They would force the Africans for example, to contribute resources. Mau Mau set up organizational network which was based at Mathare Valley, a working class residential area in Nairobi. Since the largest concentration of workers was in Nairobi, communications and organizational networks reaching all parts of the country were organized from here. Workers of various nationalities were recruited from here. There were close links between the militant trade unions and the central command of Mau Mau. The advanced workers recruited in Nairobi acted not only as cadres in the city but they helped to set up powerful links with the peasants. The first Mau-Mau operations, in 1949, were directed against the Africans who collaborated with the Colony, the so-called loyalists. Deaths were brutal, showing the typical mutilations of ritual slaughters. Violence grew next year, mainly in the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru regions. Attacks to farms were performed mostly around Mount Kenya and Aberdares, the two demarcations were the Mau-Mau had their headquarters. Meanwhile, in Nairobi, the sympathizers gathered funds, ammunition and information for the guerrilla. After the declaration of the Emergency in October 1952, the stage of armed resistance began in earnest. The guerrilla forces established their new military headquarters in the forests from where the armed battles were planned and executed. This military need made itself felt at the level of organization as well. Many small and large guerrilla units had entered the forests and waged battles against the enemy in their local areas. Mau Mau recognized the need to co-ordinate the activities of these different fighting units and to form an umbrella military organization that could control the overall strategy of warfare in the face of a well-armed and equipped enemy. The Mau Mau administered oaths to the movements followers as a cultural symbol of the solidarity that bound Kikuyu men, women and children together in their opposition to the colonial government. But they were also feared, as the taboos that traditionally surrounded the breaking of oaths were still very much current. Those who took the Mau Mau oaths were taught that their violation would be instantly lethal, and in practice it was indeed so: not because of the 5 wrath of Ngai, but because of bloody reprisals by the Mau Mau themselves, for whom refusing to take the oath was the same as siding with the colonial regime. Ideology The three basic foundations which guided Mau Mau were: anti-colonialism, anti-neo-colonialism and a proletarian world outlook in the struggle against capitalism, but with a unity of workers and peasants and all those who were not allied to the colonialists. The class stand of Mau Mau was clear right from the beginning. The enemy was not seen in terms of the color of one's skin. Indeed, black home guard collaborators with colonialism were a prime target of revolutionary wrath. Kimathi explained in a letter he wrote from his headquarters in Nyandarwa in 1953, “the poor are the Mau Mau.” Poverty can be stopped, he explained, but not by bombs and weapons.

Mau Mau gave its reasons for its fight in the reply sent to the Kenya Colonial Government in February 1954: We are fighting for our lands - the Kenya Highlands which were stolen from the Africans by the Crown. Before we come out of the forest, the British Government must grant Kenya full independence under African leadership, and also hand over all the alienated lands to Kenya African Government which will redistribute the land to its citizens. If we do not get land and freedom now, we will continue to fight till the Government yields or the last drop of blood of our last fighter is spilt. (Barnett and Njama, 1966, pp. 350-352). Barbara Slaughter (1999) explains the land grievance that forced the people of Kenya to take up arms: By the end of the Second World War, 3,000 European settlers owned 43,000 square kilometers of the most fertile land, only 6per cent of which they cultivated. The African population of 5.25million occupied, without ownership rights, less than 135,000square Kilometers of the poorest land. On the “native reserves” much of the land was unsuitable for agriculture. These ideologies formed the foundation of the Liberation movements cause and therefore, exerting a lot of pressure on the natives to gather resources and structure movements geared towards forcing the European settlers and colonial rulers out of the country. The men and women took up the role and call to the struggle and joined the Mau Mau movement secretly. Women and children were also required to take the oaths because they too had access to knowledge concerning Mau Mau guerrilla fighters. By 1956, Mau Mau had been squashed. Most of the civilian sympathizers had been rounded up into camps, and the guerrilla force was slowly being forced out of the forest. Heavy stress was laid on unity and conformity within the movement and the ideal was to unity the Kikuyu people through a "rebirth," a solemn initiation into a newly defined movement. 6 Role of gender in the liberation struggles of the Mau Mau in Kenya. The role played by gender in the liberation struggles of the Mau Mau is not adequately documented yet, but scholars and researchers continue in this quest to find substantial primary and secondary data in regards to the roles. However, there has been a tendency with most researchers skewing their studies towards the role of Men militants and their role in guerilla warfare and therefore, downplaying the role of women and children. Representation of Women’s Role in Mau Mau The contribution of women in the revolutions in the male-dominated societies took many forms, mostly support roles. Mau Mau history in Kenya has more often than not tended to privilege male voices and heroes, a practice that has resulted in sidelining of female participants in this war. Both fictional narratives and memoirs about Mau Mau war have been presented mostly from a point of view of the male character that in most cases is privileged as a participant in the war, or as having been affected by the war in various ways. Even when female characters are inserted in such narratives, they are only visible in luminal spaces, mainly being credited with minimal importance and accomplishments (Cora Presely 1992: 123). Women’s activities in the Mau Mau war can generally be said to have been kept in the shadow of men’s accomplishments. Jean O’Barr argues that in firsthand accounts of the Mau Mau war, and in Kenyan fiction, women only emerge as supporting characters in a play. Women of all ages and all walks of life participated in the Mau Mau war. Grandmothers - old, old women were very involved. No one would suspect a grandmother. Walking sticks in hand, they would take all kinds of things into the forest. These women knew they wanted their land back and their freedom. Many women were involved in finding support for Mau Mau both locally and internationally. The women in the camps were being beaten up, raped, harassed, and overworked at the forced communal labor. Yet, they made sure that all the gardens were weeded and growing food. This was done by women alone. Believe me, and I don't say this because I am a Kikuyu woman, Kikuyu women are very tough. Even when men came back, women knew that they could survive on their own. The family continued intact through all of the problems. One really remarkable thing that Mau Mau women did was to continue to educate their children. Women would collect money and do all they could to smuggle the brightest children out of Kenya to study overseas. They would smuggle them through Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt. The women did so with the hope that their children would come home to be the future leaders of their government. Women also contributed 7 the services of their children. From the age of ten children took the oath, while younger ones were "sealed" with the sign of the cross dedicating them to the struggle. The patterns and characteristics of militancy by the women Singing and dancing were important components of their rituals. The Kikuyu women ululated high-pitched cries and blew whistles that served as signals to other women. Sometimes they physically assaulted him, destroyed his hut .The sanctioning device, whether it be the guturamira ng'ania, and contained a strong obscene element reminiscent of some of our all-male sporting groups where scatological talk, sexual insults and horseplay prevail. Kikuyu women exposed their genitals and buttocks to the offender. These exhibitions, which revealed an impudent effrontery, especially when used against government dignitaries, were meant to embarrass the offender by showing the women's contempt and utter lack of respect. A strong element in these tactics is the 'status degradation ceremony' [Garfinkel 1956:420-24]. Women's indignation over an offence against a woman or women was exhibited in a public ceremony designed to ridicule and shame the offender who had broken important women's values. He would be vilified and cast out from the community of law-abiding people until he displayed contrition. The use in all three cases of the powerful weapon of public humiliation is probably a common strategy in situations of conflict where one party has a decided advantage over the other in terms of power and sheer physical strength. New Roles for Women Domestic strife and social reorganisation The Mau Mau movement often instigated cold war in the home. This was particularly acute where only one of the spouses supported Mau Mau, as an initiate was expected to execute Mau Mau tasks without informing or consulting their spouse. Even money was considered unclean if it had come from somebody who had not taken the oath [Gitahi 1984]. Where a woman had risen to such a position of authority that the movement's activities interfered with her domestic duties, or where a mother had fled to the forest, other Mau Mau women would help in her home as much as possible, beyond which her husband had to cope as best he could. If a man objected to his wife's involvement, he risked being regarded as an enemy of the movement, a crime which carried a death penalty [Gitahi 1984; Wachira 1984]. In this regard, it could be argued that female membership of Mau Mau to some extent resulted in the subordination of domestic subservience to the liberation struggle. The demands of the movement entailed extensive social reorganisation: women had to adopt new roles, form new social networks and develop new bases of group control as dictated by the movement. The collective care of the homesteads of women who had fled to the forest was one new feature, and it was said that, "if you were a Mau Mau woman going for Mau Mau journeys other women would dig your shamba co-operatively" [Ndungi 1984]. The Mau Mau woman in 8 the villages would perform all the necessary tasks and where necessary raise money to keep the family well supplied. A homestead would only "get lost" if it belonged to an anti-Mau Mau woman who had died at the hands of Mau Mau or was unable to cope with the tasks because of illness or some other reason [Gitahi 1984]. During the liberation struggle this exclusive Mau Mau women's collective replaced the traditional Ngwatio system. Case Study 1: Role of Gender- women in the Liberation Struggle. The role of women which has been inadequately documented in books in also brought out through case studies of individual outstanding cases of women participation in the struggle for liberation. Even the colonial government acknowledged that many women held "influential positions" in the Mau Mau cells Wanjiru was appointed judge in Nakuru's Mau Mau Courts which passed sentences on anti-Mau Mau crimes, some of which carried death sentences. Mau Mau rule No. 19 stated that women should not be informed about killings, though Wanjiru's position as judge indicates that with the changing roles of women this was no longer strictly observed, thus illustrating a shift in the male perspective of women. These changes are graphically illustrated by the emergence of a small number of women who acted as executioners. Those women, such as Wambui (referred to as Kamuirigo), were seen to represent a new category of women who having undergone the worst of the hair-raising ordeals of Mau Mau could not revert to domestic subservience. Wambui had been an ardent forest guerilla and when her husband was killed she refused to remarry. I was told, "She could not be ruled. She knew everything. Her hands had become very light and she could easily kill a useless husband" [Gitahi, 1984]. With each Mau Mau errand, supporters at worst risked being killed by the government troops, or, if they escaped death, being arrested and detained or repatriated. Neither were they safe from Mau Mau if they contravened any of the many regulations. Wanjiru for example, was repatriated to Muguga (her parents' place of origin). This did not kill her spirit however, and she joined the local Mau Mau support groups which recruited new guerillas for the Ndeiya Forest. Although by 1956 the freedom fighters had been militarily defeated, they were undaunted in their quest for independence. At the end of the Emergency (1960) Wanjiru returned to Nakuru and took a new oath, the Kenya Land Freedom Army (KLFA) oath. KLFA was an exclusive vigilante organisation consisting of Mau Mau diehards in the White Highlands and the Central Province [Tamarkin 1973; Kanogo 1980:392-423], who swore to revive the forest struggle should the decolonisation process undermine Mau Mau ideals. They were especially concerned with the retrieval of the stolen lands which they hoped to redistribute to ex-freedom fighters, exsquatters and other landless people. 9 While keeping a close watch on political developments, KLFA continued to conduct selective oath ceremonies and to accumulate more rifles and ammunition. Wanjiru was in charge of the safekeeping of some of these weapons and ammunition, though once again she was caught and this time she was detained in Lamu, a far-off island where dangerous political prisoners were held. Wanjiru's contribution to the struggle was outstanding, but other women also sacrificed long hours and suffered extreme hardship in the struggle for the country's liberation. Women seized the opportunity to fight both their own traditions and colonialism, forces which hitherto relegated them to an inferior and exploited position. Using traditional symbolic rituals coupled with sheer determination and commitment, women made a breakthrough in the political arena. Although elements of historical stereotypes remained strong, in some areas women made drastic breaks with tradition, especially in their military participation. As forest guerillas and as civilian supporters of Mau Mau, women proved to be dedicated and competent, and men were obliged to acknowledge the contribution of women in the liberation struggle. What, then, is the significance of all this to the Kenyan woman today? Does she seek to emulate the female guerillas, does the spirit of the Mau Mau women inspire her? The impact of Mau Mau on the Kenyan woman today Because Mau Mau was largely a grass roots Kikuyu movement that drew its supporters from poor peasants, urban proletarians, squatters and the unemployed, its achievements seem to be more widely acknowledged among the same category of people. The bravery of the Mau Mau women, idealised and eulogised in the various Mau Mau songs [Maina-wa-Kinyatti 1980], is a great inspiration to village women and the struggling urban poor, especially among those Kikuyu who lived through the Mau Mau ordeal. Various women's organizations - especially those involving self-help, business or financial projects - are inspired by the tenacity of the Mau Mau women. Wanjiru is a leader among the Nyakinyua women's group which plays a political-cumcommercial role in Nakuru, influencing the purchase of land and the acquisition of property among its members. Role of Children