'Yours in struggle for Majimbo'. Nationalism and the party politics of decolonization in Kenya, 1955-64

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 2005, Pages

  Anderson, David M ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 17844399398     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0022009405054571     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. For recent commentaries on the need to break through the meta-narrative of nationalism, see Marshall Clough, Mau Mau Memoirs. History, Memory and Politics (Boulder, CO and London 1998); John Lonsdale, 'KAU's Cultures. Imaginations of Community and Constructions of Leadership in Kenya after the Second World War', Journal of African Cultural Studies, 13 (2000), 107-24
2. Gary Wasserman, Politics of Decolonization. Kenya, Europeans and the Land Issue 1960-1965 (Cambridge 1976)
3. and Robert Holland, European Decolonization 1918-1981. An Introductory Survey (Basingstoke 1985)
4. Donald Rothchild, Racial Bargaining in Independent Kenya (London 1973)
5. and Keith Kyle, The Politics of the Independence of Kenya (Basingstoke 1999)
6. B.A. Ogot, 'The Decisive Years' in B.A. Ogot and W.R. Ochieng' (eds), Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, 1940-1993 (London, Nairobi and Athens, OH 1995), and for more radical nationalist views, see Peter Anyang Nyong'o, 'State and Society in Kenya. Disintegration of Nationalist Coalitions and the Rise of Presidential Authoritarianism 1963-78', African Affairs, 88 (1989), 229-52
7. M. Ngunyi, 'Resuscitating the Majimbo Project. The Politics of Deconstructing the Unitary State in Africa' in A. Olukoshi and L. Laasko (eds), Challenges to the Nation-State in Africa (Uppsala 1996); Herve Maupeu, 'Etat Kenyan et conflits ethniques dans la Rift Valley (1991-93)', Studia Africana, no. 5 (1994), 37-46
8. Marcel Rutten, Alamin Mazrui and Francois Grignon (eds), Out for the Count. The 1997 General Elections and Prospects for Democracy in Kenya (Kampala 2001)
9. John O. Oucho, Undercurrents of Ethnic Conflict in Kenya (Leiden 2002)
10. Ogot, 'The Decisive Years', op. cit., 48
11. Andrew Morton, Moi - the Making of an African Statesman (London 1998), 87-8
12. Kyle, The Politics of the Independence of Kenya, op. cit., 77
13. Simiyu Wandibba, Masinde Muliro. A Biography (Nairobi 1966), 14
14. Ogot, 'The Decisive Years', op. cit., 61, for the quotation; Wandibba, Masinde Muliro, op. cit., 15-17, for context
15. East African Standard, 22 April 1960, for an account of the meeting. Kalenjin political identity had first begun to take shape in the 1940s, in the form of the Kalenjin Union, established as an organization for ex-servicemen, and then through the activities of Kalenjin students at the Alliance High School and at Makerere College. See Benjamin E. Kipkorir, The Marakwet of Kenya (Nairobi 1982)
16. Claire Medard, 'Stratégies territoriales. Territoire ethnique et territoire étatique au Kenya' (Colloque Politiques des territoires, Bordeaux, October 1994), 13-15
17. Cherry Gertzel, The Politics of Independent Kenya 1963-68 (Nairobi 1967), 9-10; Morton, Moi, op. cit., 93-4
18. Wasserman, Politics of Decolonization, op. cit., 75-104
19. Hughes, East Africa, op. cit., 131-4
20. and Rothchild, Racial Bargaining, op. cit., for the analysis; Ogot, 'The Decisive Years', op. cit., 63, for the quotation
21. George Bennett and Carl Rosberg, The Kenyatta Election 1960-61 (Oxford 1961)
22. Michael Blundell, So Rough a Wind (London 1964), 298-9
23. Michael Blundell, A Love Affair with the Sun. A Memoir of Seventy Years in Kenya (Nairobi 1994), 116
24. Donald Rothchild, 'Majimbo Schemes in Kenya and Uganda' in Jeffrey Butler and A.A. Castagno (eds), Boston University Papers on Africa. Transition in African Politics (New York, Washington, DC and London 1967), 291-310
25. Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru, op. cit., 229, confirms that this was the decision taken
26. Claire Medard, 'Les conflits "ethniques" au Kenya. Une question de votes ou de terres?', Afrique contemporaine, no. 180 (1996), 62-74
27. Claire Medard, 'Dispositifs electoraux et nationalismes ethniques. Reflexions sur quelques stratégies territoriales du régime kenyan', Politique africaine, no. 70 (1998), 32-40
28. Keen's comments deliberately took up earlier assertions by Ronald Ngala that 'the adoption of an orthodox Westminster pattern for Kenya would inevitably result in placing absolute power in the hands of a dictator'. The statement was made in February 1962, and is quoted by Rothchild, 'Majimbo Schemes', op. cit., 294
29. Reported in the Daily Nation, 6 May 1963, and quoted in Clyde Sanger and John Nottingham, 'The Kenya General Election of 1963', Journal of Modern African Studies, 2 (1964), 16
30. Sanger and Nottingham, 'The Kenya General Election of 1963', op. cit., for a summary, and PRO CO 822/3166 for the full results
31. The phrase is Kyle's, 'The Politics of Independence in Kenya', Contemporary British History, 11 (1997)
32. These comments, and the final paragraph, summarize David M. Anderson, 'Le Declin et la chute de la KANU. La recomposition des parties politiques dans la succession de Moi', Politique africaine, no. 90 (June 2003), 37-55, and 'Kenya's Elections 2002 - The Dawning of a New Era?', African Affairs, 102 (2003), 331-42
33. For a clear statement on this from a current Cabinet minister, see Kiraitu Murungi, 'Ethnicity and Multi-partyism in Kenya', reprinted in Kivutha Kibwana (ed.), Constitutional Law and Politics in Africa. A Case Study of Kenya (Nairobi 1998), 434-5, and originally published as Kenya Human Rights Commission, Thoughts in Democracy Series, Issue III (Nairobi, 1995)