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Orientation for
East Africa Program |  |
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Orientation for
East Africa Program | |
A.The myth arose and persisted of the productive white farm, suggesting that the wealth of the colony rested on the high productivity of white-owned farms; but in fact the productivity of the white farm rested largely on subsidies to white farmers from funds extracted from black farmers, and on underpayment of black labor. The products of white farms rode on the railways at subsidized prices while transportation for things raised mostly by Africans was left more expensive.
B.The city of Nairobi and areas nearby were developed for white farmers (an overseer class for black labor, often). The city was established where the railroad builders paused while they worked on an elevator to take trains down into the Great Rift Valley. No city had existed there before colonial times. C.Areas near Lake Victoria (Nyanza, populated by Luo people, sedentary agriculturalists) were treated as "labor reserves" – that is, they were left underdeveloped, with hut tax payable in cash to put squeeze on men to go work for whites, imposing a double burden on the women left behind. The myth was that low wages to Africans were good for them. They didn't need more, because they were supported by the produce of their farms at home. They were underemployed and lazy at home, so teaching them habits of hard work was good. And they worked for “target wages” (bride-price was the usual argument), so if you paid them more, they just quit sooner and went home to “buy a new bride,” getting less learning of good habits. |
Luo homestead, Lake Victoria in background |
D.Maasai areas were divided by the railroad. Since it was thought intolerable by whites that the Maasai should be on both sides of the railroad, and therefore have to cross back and forth over an area seen as largely for the whites, the Maasai were moved to just one side, losing (to whites who wanted it as ranches) the land on the other side. They are the group which lost to white colonists the largest amount of land, although other groups seem to resent the loss of land more and are later more active in trying to regain it. In 2004, however, a lease extracted from the Maasai in colonial times expired, and Maasai demonstrated to evict white farmers and take the land back for themselves. The Kenyan government refused to do so. [see BBC story here]
E.The governing principle of the colony rested on racial hierarchy, from "Europeans" at the top through gradations of skin color (Arabs, Indians) down to Africans at the bottom of the heap – with laws and privileges depending on race. Hence, numbers of Swahili (of mixed Arabic and African blood, but treated as Africans) declined as all who could manage it passed themselves off as pure-blooded Arabs, getting more privileges in the process. (The process was reversed at Kenyan independence, when it paid to represent yourself as African rather than as Arab.)
F.The infrastructure was (mis)developed – aimed to promote export, not to link with other African countries, and not even to produce an integrated internal economy. In common with almost all African colonies, railroads went only from interior of country to the port, to carry (largely raw-material) exports out of the country and (largely manufactured goods) imports back in. There was little linking of one part of the country with another for a better internal economy.
G.Politics was restricted to whites; blacks organized and agitated but were largely ignored as legitimate participants, though sometimes whites were appointed to protect African interests.
George Bennett, Kenya: A Political History, The Colonial Period
Colin Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya (strongly written radical interpretation of the political economy of Kenya during colonialism and immediately after)
Elspeth Huxley, White Man's Country, 2 vols. (a fascinating biography of Lord Delamere, one of the more famous and more picturesque of the white settlers, and a leader of the colonists)
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A thoroughly excellent video about the Kenya Colony from a thoroughly Africanist point of view: White man's country [videorecording] / Anthony David Productions, Inc. ; a film by Anthony Howarth and David Koff, Van Nuys, CA : Distributed by Bellwether Group, c1979
White Mischief -- a true-life murder mystery set in 1930s Kenyan highlands and showing the dissolute life of the white overseer class there; available as a book and as a feature film directed by Michael Radford based on the novel by James Fox with Greta Scacchi, Joss Ackland and Charles Dance. Review of the film. Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendo in Afrika), a 2001 film about a German Jewish family who settles in 1930s Kenya, won an Oscar, very authentic in its use of languages, including German, Swahili, and English with each used appropriately for the setting, none merely to cater to the audience. Isaac Dinesen (Karen Blixen), Out of Africa (heavily romanticized memoirs of a life in colonial Kenya), but be sure to read as well Ngugi wa Thiong'o's criticism of this work in his [is it?] Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary and read as well Isak Dinesen, a biography of Karen Blixen by Judith Thurman. If you have seen the movie, you have heard more from the biography than from the original memoirs by Dinesen.
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Beryl Markham, West with the Night, and other works. A Kenyan aviatrix who knew Karen Blixen and stayed at her home. She made history in 1936 when she was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from East to West. A page about her is linked here. Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya's foremost novelist), The River Between (novel about the conflict between traditional beliefs and Christianity, with Female Genital Mutilation figuring strongly in the story); Petals of Blood (a murder mystery giving a radical interpretation of colonialism in Kenya and the Kenyatta years) Elspeth Huxley, The flame trees of Thika; memories of an African childhood (a young white girl grows up on a farm in Kenya – a very popular book, and available on video, since a few years ago there was a long series on PBS based on it.) |  |
