Mau Mau Demand Reparations from Britain for Colonial Crimes

• Published in: Capitalism, nature, socialism nature, socialism, 2009-06, Vol.20 (2), p.102-105
• Main Author: Brownhill, Leigh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anti-colonialism; British Empire; Campaigns; Colonialism; Community relations; Crime; Freedom; Independence movements; Inequality; Kenya; Kikuyu; Mau Mau; Payments; Political history; Postcolonial societies; Reparations; Revolt; Social Problems; United Kingdom; War crimes
• ISSN: 1045-5752; 1548-3290
• DOI: 10.1080/10455750902941128

As part of a special journal entitled Capitalism Nature Socialism. In the article it showed that the Mau Mau reparation case highlights both the atrocities suffered by Kenyans struggling for freedom in the 1950s and the long lasting impacts of the socio-economic structures that the British left in place when they finally ceded control over the country in 1963. Women endured the worst of the atrocities meted out meted out by the British soldiers and their settler and Home guard allies. This is especially clear one we take into account the British policy of land privatization implemented in 1954. These enclosures dispossessed many Mau Mau men and all women. Grossly unequal redistribution of land divested not only tens of thousands of people of their interests in land but all of their subsequent generations, who have inherited the poverty imposed by the British in their anti Mau Mau land policy. If reparations are to promote justice, they must incorporate social reparations that address the vast social problems rooted in the inequalities constructed during the colonial era. Another reason for including social-along with individual reparations concerns the very goals of the Mau Mau struggle. The militants of the Kenya Land Freedom Army and their wide network of supporters did not fight for individual gain. They fought for land for all, freedom for all, and right for all. K. Ngo