Michela Wrong

In the shadow of Mau Mau

When the Kenyan human rights campaigner, Maina Kiai, recently addressed the House of Commons, his list of policy recommendations probably surprised many MPs.

issue 27 March 2010

When the Kenyan human rights campaigner, Maina Kiai, recently addressed the House of Commons, his list of policy recommendations probably surprised many MPs. Be tough on Kenya’s fractious government, he urged. Crack down on British companies which bribe African politicians. And it was well past time, he added, that Britain made a formal apology for Mau Mau.

A chasm yawns between the soft-focus memories of a former colonial master and the less happy recollections of the colonised. Never more so than with Mau Mau, the 1950s uprising against white rule which traumatised the Kikuyu community, the country’s biggest tribe, eventually paving the way for independence. Anyone puzzled by the chorus of contemptuous snorts that sounded when Gordon Brown gave a misjudged speech calling for a celebration of the British empire should read this book.

At 72, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o has reached the age for memoirs, and Dreams in a Time of War is a far more substantial affair than the slim volume recently published by Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe, the continent’s other literary colossus.

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