Hadithi hii ni ya ukweli. Ni vitendo ambavyo wengi wetu tunavijua, kwani vilitendeka hapa kwetu. Watu wengi watakaoisoma hadithi yenyewe pegine watapajua mahali ambapo pametajwa. Ingawa hivyo, hii si hadithi ya mahali pamoja, ni hadithi ya yale yaliyotendeka kote nchini Kenya, na hasa katika jimbo la kati la nci hii yetu.
Hadithi yenyewe ilianza mwaka wa 1948 wakati Meja Blue na vijana wenzake walipotoka vita vya pili vya dunia na kurudi hapa Kenya. Meja Blue, na wengine wote ambao majina yao yametajwa hapa si watu wa kweli. Ni mfano tu wa watu wengi waliohusika nay ale yaliyotendeka.
Miaka kumi iliyofuata, yaani kutoka mwaka wa 1948 mpaka mwaka wa 1958, Meja Blue, Mumbi na watu wengine, waliandika historia ya Kenya katika orodha ya historia ya vitendo vya ushujaa vya wanadamu kote duniani. Ingawa hivyo hakuna ajuaye majina ya wengi wao, habari za vitendo vyao na hata makaburi yao yako wapi. Hata hivyo, uhuru tulio nao ulipatikana kwa damu na maisha yao. Kitabu hiki ni kumbu kumbu lao. Ningetaka kiwe kikiwajulisha watoto wetu, na watoto wa watoto wetu, taabu zilizowapata baba na babu zao katika juhudi zao za kupigania uhuru.
Wote waliotoa maisha yao kwa ajili ya uhuru wetu nawapa shukrani kwa moyo wote. Isingalikuwa wao, pengine hata nisingekuwa na uhuru wa kuliandika kitabu hiki. Mungu azirehemu roho zao milele.
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Mvua ilizidi kunyesha. Maji ya mvua yalichukua mchanga na kufanya maji ya mito kuwa na rangi nyekundu kama damu iliyokuwa ikimwagika katika nchi nzima. Mabondeni maji yalitapakaa pote. Vyura nao wakajaa mitoni na visimani, na kufanya mashindano ya makelele kila jioni. Huko mashambani majani yalimea. Kwingineko hata mahindi, maharagwe na viazi vyote vilimea vyenyewe. Hakuna mtu aliyeruhusiwa kupanda chochote mashambani ili Mau Mau wasiende wakakitumia chakula kile, lakini hata hivyo, vyakula mbalimbali vilimea na kukua kati ya majani mengine.
Wanawake na wanaume walizidi kufanya kazi ya “Gitati” yaani kazi ya lazima kwa kila mtu. Kazi yenyewe hailuwa ya maana. Ilikuwa kuwaadhibu watu ili wageuze nia zao. Kila jioni saa kumi na moja watu wote walikusanyika nje ya kituo cha askari walinzi, na kuhubiriwa ubaya wa Mau Mau. Siku nyingine, wakuu wa serikali walikuja kuwaambia watu kuacha matata. D.O. mmoja aliwaambia watu wasipofanya hivyo atawakata vichwa vyao. Mwingine aliwaambia atawahamisha wote. Wahubiri wa injili waliwaambia watu kwamba wataangamia wasipoacha Mau Mau.
Ingawa watu wote waliwaambia watu kuacha Mau Mau, hakuna hata mmoja aliyewauliza watu kwa nini wanapigana, wala kusema kama vita vikiisha aerikali ingefanya nini juu ya ubaguzi, na ukosefu wa mashamba. Serikali iliamini kwamba Mau Mau ni watu waliojigeuza wakawa wanyama na hawakuwa na chochote cha halali walichopigania. Lakini watu wote, hata watoto wadogo, walijua walichotaka. Walitaka uhuru; walitaka mishahara sawa kwa kazi sawa; walitaka kusiwe na ubaguzi wa rangi.
Vita viliendelea. Nyumba za watu zilichomwa moto. Vijiji vilijengwa. Vikundi mbali mbali vya kupigana na Mau Mau viliundwa, watu wengi waliuawa, wengine walihamishwa, wengine wakafungwa, na wengine wakachukuliwa mpaka msituni na Mau Mau. Bila shaka mambo yalichafuka sana nchini mwote. Ingawa hivyo ma-chifu, na wafanya biashara wengine, walitajirika sana.
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Jumatano siku moja, watu wote wa kijiji cha Ngaini waliamka asubuhi mapema na kukuta kijiji chote kimejaa askari wa K.A.R. polisi, na askari wa ulinzi. Hakuna mtu aliyekubaliwa kutoka nje ya nyumba alimolala.
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Baada tu ya dakika tatu au nne, mapigano yalikoma ghafula kama yalivyoanza. Waliletwa hapo mbele yao, huku watu wakijionea na macho yao, waume watatu ambao walikuwa wamekwisha kufa. Wote walivalia makoti meusi machafu, na nywele zao zilisukwa kama za wanawake. Kila mmoja alikutwa na bunduki ya kujitengenezea, na chombo kidogo begani walichotia chakula. Walilazwa chini hapo mbele ya watu na wote wakaulizwa kwenda kuwaona.
Pamoja na waume hao, waliletwa Mahinda na mke wake, wote wawili wakiwa na pingu mikononi mwao. Ni nyumbani kwao hao Mau Mau walimokuwa wakitoka walipouawa … Sheria ilikuwa imepitishwa kwamba yeyote angepatikana akienda wala akiwa pamoja na Mau Mau ni lazima atanyongwa.
… Mumbi aliwatazama vijana hao watatu waliokuwa wamekufa, na mara akakumbuka marehemu mpenzi wake Maciira.
“Kwa nini wakafa? Na ni watu wangapi watakaokufa kabla ya kupata uhuru au tutakufa sisi sote?” akajiuliza moyoni. Hakuwa na la kusema, na kama watu wengine, alinyamaza kimya. Hakuna mtu aliyesema lolote kwa muda mrefu, lakini wote waliwatazama vijana hao na Mahinda na mke wake. Waliwasikitikia na jambo hili liliwafanya kuichukia serikali ya mzungu zaidi.
Baada ya dakika labda kumi hivi, D.O. alifika mbele ya kundi la watu huku akifuatiwa na chifu na askari wa K.A.R. Wote walivalia nguo za kivita na kila mmoja wao alikuwa na bunduki
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“Ninyi nyote mnawaona hawa watu. Hawa ni Mau Mau, na Mau Mau ni adui wenu. Mau Mau ni wanyama si watu. Ni wao wamewaleteeni taabu hii na mtaendelea kuwa nazo mpaka mtakapowalaani, na kuwatoa kwa vikundi vya serikali ...
Najua kuna watu kati yenu, kama mzee huyu na bibi yake, ambao wanazidi kuwapatia chakula magaidi. Watu kama hawa ni adui zenu, na serikali haitawaruhusu wao kuishi pamoja na watu wengine. Ni lazima wahamishwe na hamtawaona tena. Kama mtu mwingine yeyote akipatikana akiwapatia magaidi chakula, ni lazima nay eye atahamishwa”
D.O. alinyamaza kidogo na kutazama nyuso za watu. Wote walionyesha chuki, hasira na msiba. Kwao hao si wanyama. Walikuwa ni watoto wao, mashujaa waliotoa mioyo yao kwa nchi yao.
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Wote walikuwa wamenyamaza kama kwamba hawakutaka kusikia maneno ya D.O. Wengine wao walikuwa wakimlaani na kuilaani serikali ambayo haikusikiliza Waafriak lakini iliwasikilaza wazungu wa mashamba ambao walitaka Waafrika wawe watumwa wao. Wao ndio waliokuwa adui za watu na wao ambo walileta taabu walizokuwa nazo.
Nakala kutoka kitabu cha “Kaburi Bila Msalaba” kilichoandikwa na marehemu P.M. Kareithi na kutolewa kwa mara ya kwanza mnamo mwaka wa 1969
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Looking back to the start of my research in the summer of 1995, I had no idea that nearly ten years later I would write a book about wide-scale destruction in colonial Kenya and Britain’s vigorous attempts to cover it up. I was a Havard graduate student during those early days and had become fascinated with the history of the Mau Mau uprising, a movement launched by Kenya’s largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, who had been pushed off part of their land in the process of colonization.
From the start of the war in October 1952, tales of Mau Mau savagery spread wildly among the white settlers in the colony and at home in Britain. Mau Mau was portrayed as a barbaric, anti-European, and anti-Christian sect that had reverted to tactics of primitive terror to interrupt British civilizing mission in Kenya …
While the Mau Mau insurgents claimed they were fighting for ithaka na wiyathi, or land and freedom, few people in the Western world took seriously the demands of these so-called savages. The Mau Mau were said to be criminals or gangsters bent on terrorizing the local European population, and certainly not freedom fighters.
The British mounted two parallel responses to the rebellion. The first was in the remote mountain forests of Kenya, where security forces engaged in a drawn-out offensive against some twenty thousand Mau Mau guerrilla insurgents. In difficult forest terrain it took over two years and twenty thousand members of Britain’s military forces, supported by the Royal Air Force, to gain control over the Mau Mau insurgents, who were armed largely with homemade weapons and who had no military or financial support from outside Kenya.
The second and lengthier campaign was directed against a much larger civilian enemy. The British and their African loyalist supporters targeted some 1.5 million Kikuyus who were believed to have taken the Mau Mau oath and had pledged themselves to fight for land and freedom. The battlefield for this war was not the forests but a vast system of detention camps, where colonial officials reportedly held some eighty thousand Kikuyu insurgents.
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Certainly, the Mau Mau war was a fierce struggle that left blood on the hands of all involved. But in considering the history of this war, we must also consider the issue of scope and scale. On the dreadful balance sheet of atrocities committed during Mau Mau, the murders perpetrated by Mau Mau adherents were quite small in number when compared to those committed by the forces of the British colonial rule. Officially, fewer than one hundred Europeans, including settlers, were killed and some eighteen hundred loyalists died at the hands of Mau Mau. In contrast, the British reported that more than eleven thousand Mau Mau were killed in action, though the empirical and demographic evidence I unearthed calls into serious question the validity of this figure.
I now believe there was in late colonial Kenya a murderous campaign to eliminate Kikuyu people, a campaign that left tens of thousands, perhaps hundred of thousands, dead. Mau Mau has been portrayed as one of the most savage and barbaric uprisings of the twentieth century. But in this book I ask we reconsider this accepted orthodoxy and examine the crimes perpetrated by colonial forces against Mau Mau, and the considerable measures that British colonial government undertook to conceal them.
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Excerpt from the preface of ‘Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya’ by Caroline Elkins
There is no other better way to spend Madaraka day than to revisit our freedom history.
Hope you had a good one.
