Kenya S War Of Independence

Kenya's War of Independence restores Kenyas stolen history to its rightful place, stripped of colonial interpretations. In this expanded and revised version of his 1986 booklet, Kimaathi, Mau Mau's First Prime Minister of Kenya, Durrani covers Mau Maus resistance to colonialism and neo-colonialism and reflects on its ideology, organisation and achievements. He sees Mau Mau in the larger context of Kenyas war of independence and looks at the influence of organised, radical trade unions as the engine of resistance, linking economic with political demands of working people. Additional chapters document the post-independence resistance by the underground December Twelve Movement-Mwakenya. Durrani captures the dynamism of transition from colonialism to neo-colonialism: Imperialism replaced colonialism, African elites replaced White Settlers, neo-colonial government replaced colonial government. Resistance changed from the War of Independence to War of Economic Independence. Worker and peasant resistance is evident once again. History is on the march.

It is due to the success of the trade union movement in the national liberation movement that the colonial government suppressed prominent trade unions and attacked TU leaders like Makhan Singh, Fred Kubai, Pio Gama Pinto and Bildad Kaggia. It also passed on colonial laws to the independent Kenya government so as to ensure that future trade unions were forced to take the non-radical approach to meet worker needs. They thus created imperialist-oriented and led trade unions that bedevil working class politics to this day. There are valuable lessons to be learnt from the history of the militant trade unions in Kenya and also from understanding how colonialism and imperialism enforced changes that made the trade unions ineffective after independence. The selections in this book recall relevant events in the history of the militant trade union movement in Kenya and record the contribution that the trade union movement made to Mau Mau and to Kenyas war of independence. The Kenya Resists Series covers different aspects of resistance by people of Kenya to colonialism and imperialism. It reproduces material from books, unpublished reports, research and oral or visual testimonies. The three aspects chosen for the first three publications in the Series Mau Mau, Trade Unions and Peoples Resistance make up the three pillars of resistance of the people of Kenya.

The colonial experience in Kenya has been documented in many places, but most often it is about the colonial administrators and the politicians, rarely has this documentation been about ordinary people and the dilemmas they faced. This book is mainly about one family and their experiences of the war of independence. It portrays individual and family dilemmas, thus giving the war concrete faces. Normal human relationships between husband and wife, father and child and neighbor with neighbor are explored. The overriding theme throughout the book is the love and mercy of God as it works out in the lives of ordinary people. Every reader will find something to think about whether familiar with the situation or not. Mary Muchiri is an associate professor of English at Taylor University, Indiana, USA. She has a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Lancaster, UK and has written mainly on writing as an academic field. She is interested in research, in Christian higher education, and women's affairs.

Since independence from Great Britain in 1963, Kenya has survived five decades as a functioning nation-state, holding regular elections; its borders and political system intact and avoiding open war with its neighbours and military rule internally. It has been a favoured site for Western aid, trade, investment and tourism and has remained a close security partner for Western governments. However, Kenya's successive governments have failed to achieve adequate living conditions for most of its citizens; violence, corruption and tribalism have been ever-present, and its politics have failed to transcend its history. The decisions of the early years of independence and the acts of its leaders in the decades since have changed the country's path in unpredictable ways, but key themes of conflicts remain: over land, money, power, economic policy, national autonomy and the distribution of resources between classes and communities.While the country's political institutions have remained stable, the nation has changed, its population increasing nearly five-fold in five decades. But the economic and political elite's struggle for state resources and the exploitation of ethnicity for political purposes still threaten the country's existence. Today, Kenyans are arguing over many of the issues that divided them 50 years ago. The new constitution promulgated in 2010 provides an opportunity for national renewal, but it must confront a heavy legacy of history. This book reveals that history.

Based on previously inaccessible material from international archives, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence examines the relationship between emerging human rights concepts after 1945 and repressive British and French actions against anticolonial movements in Africa.

Independence! -- Struggle for the state, 1964-1965 -- Multi-party, but not democracy, 1966-1969 -- 'Golden years', 1970-1974 -- Rigor mortis, 1975-1978 -- Too many cooks, 1978-1983 -- Heavy footsteps, 1984-1989 -- A second liberation? 1990-1992 -- Conflict and change, 1993-1997 -- Unnatural succession, 1998-2002 -- Back to the future, 2003-2008 -- Cold war and compromise, 2008-2011.

In this text, a group of Kenyan historians provide an analysis of the history of the 30 years since Kenya's independence in 1963. The first three chapters examine the transformation of the political arena from the period after World War II to the Mau Mau Emergency and the period leading up to independence. There follows a section on Pax Kenyatta, when Jomo Kenyatta remained the pivotal agency in the postcolonial transformation. The chapters on the Moi era look to the recent past, as well as forward to the future as Kenya tries to develop its democratic procedures.

In this book the author examines the efforts of the colonial regime to shape the process of decolonization in Kenya from the end of World War II until independence in 1963, focusing on the conflict between the state's two imperatives-promoting economic development and establishing and maintaining control. Dr. Gordon reviews the different political