Daniel Branch

The politics of control in Kenya: Understanding the bureaucratic-executive state, 1952–78

Colonial rule in Kenya witnessed the emergence of a profoundly unbalanced institutional landscape. With all capacity resided in a strong prefectural provincial administration, political parties remained underdeveloped. The co-option of sympathetic African elites during the colonial twilight into the bureaucracy, the legislature and the private property-based economy meant that the allies of colonialism and representatives of transnational capital were able to reap the benefits of independence. In the late colonial period these elites not only attained the means of production, they also assumed the political and institutional capacity to reproduce their dominance. The post-colonial state must therefore be seen as a representation of the interests protected and promoted during the latter years of colonial rule. Under Jomo Kenyatta, the post-colonial state represented a ‘pact-of-domination’ between transnational capital, the elite and the executive. The ability of this coalition to reproduce itself over time lay in its capacity to demobilise popular forces, especially those elements of the nationalist movement that questioned both the social and economic cleavages of the post-colonial state. Whilst Kenya may have experienced changes to both the executive and legislature, the structure of the state itself has demonstrated remarkable continuity.

Footprints in the Sand: British Colonial Counterinsurgency and the War in Iraq

Recent attempts to revive counterinsurgency strategies for use in Afghanistan and Iraq have been marked by a determination to learn lessons from history. Using the case of the campaign against the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya of 1952—60, this article considers the reasons for this engagement with the past and the issues that have emerged as a consequence. The article disputes the lessons from British colonial history that have been learned by military planners, most obviously the characterization of nonmilitary forms of British counterinsurgency as nonviolent. Although it contests some of these supposed precedents for successful counterinsurgency in British military history, the article also identifies more generalizable elements of the Kenyan case. Particular emphasis is given to the effects on the nature of counterinsurgency, a reliance on locally recruited allies, and the decentralization of command.

Violence, decolonisation and the Cold War in Kenya's north-eastern province, 1963–1978

The paper explores the extent to which other domestic political matters and post-colonial ties to Britain shaped the Kenyan Governments actions in northern Kenya between independence in 1963 and the death of President Jomo Kenyatta in 1978. The paper has a particular emphasis on the Shifta War of 1963–1967. Disputes between rival nationalist leaders at independence and doubts about the loyalty of the armed forces meant Kenyatta concentrated on protecting his regime from the threat of coups and other challenges than he was with using violence to extend state authority in north-eastern Kenya. That same calculation meant Kenyatta looked to Britain for support, in particular in the form of military backing for his government in the event of a coup or invasion from Somalia. The paper argues that the compromises made between British and Kenyan actors allow us to understand the particular nature of the Kenyan states actions in north-eastern province over this period.

Allies at the End of Empire—Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945–76

ABSTRACT The wars of decolonization fought by European colonial powers after 1945 had their origins in the fraught history of imperial domination, but were framed and shaped by the emerging politics of the Cold War. Militia recruited from amongst the local population was a common feature in all the counter-insurgencies mounted against armed nationalist risings in this period. Styled here as ‘loyalists’, these militia fought against nationalists. Loyalist histories have often been obscured by nationalist narratives, but their experience was varied and illuminates the deeper ambiguities of the decolonization story, some loyalists being subjected to vengeful violence at liberation, others actually claiming the victory for themselves and seizing control of the emergent state, while others still maintained a role as fighting units into the Cold War. This introductory essay discusses the categorization of these ‘irregular auxiliary’ forces that constituted the armed element of loyalism after 1945, and introduces seven case studies from five European colonialisms—Portugal (Angola), the Netherlands (Indonesia), France (Algeria), Belgium (Congo) and Britain (Cyprus, Kenya and southern Arabia).

Tabitha Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–50 . Oxford: James Currey (pb £16.95 – 0 8214 1568 9); Athens, OH: Ohio University Press (pb

Golden Harvests with eager anticipation, but then finding it not very helpful for understanding compound life in general. Maloka comes to the same conclusion but argues that resistance and accommodation to missionary efforts was itself an aspect of worker agency. In examining ‘death, dying and mourning’, after a thorough look at illness, accidents and accident rates, Maloka points up the pathetic levels of compensation paid by the mines. He then turns to Basotho worker representations of death and dying itself. On the one hand, he uncovers an ‘invisible’ struggle by miners to assert their humanity against mine authorities by asserting customary respect for the dead. On the other hand, both traditional Basotho and Christian converts demonstrated a remarkably stoical acceptance of the price paid in death and injury for the symbolic rewards of mine work. Maloka calls this a ‘koata-coping strategy’ and points to the way it limited militant action. The final chapter examines the coping strategies of women in Basutoland itself, creating beershops and brothels, even at this early stage. Maloka also discusses in detail the feckless efforts of local and colonial authorities to cope with these developments. Here it is that botekatse (uncontrollable women) enter his story, both defiant and pathetic at the same time. Openly defying the patriarchal structures of Basotho society, these women provided sexual and other services for migrants, loving them while also robbing them, accommodating precisely to the tough koata style that enabled the miners’ conceptions of themselves as men. In conclusion, this book is a useful regional contribution to our widening knowledge of the migrant labour system in South Africa and how its consequences for rural life vary depending on local circumstances. Maloka claims to have made a contribution to theoretical debate in social history but this seems less convincing to me. Finally, I would have appreciated more discussion of who made up ‘the Basotho elite’, their relations to missionaries and chiefs, and their world which the migrants so decisively rejected. The return of the migrants surely affected not only ordinary families but also the lives of ‘respectable’ Basotho in ways that Maloka leaves entirely undiscussed. An historical discussion of changing relations between migrants and ‘respectables’ would surely have been a timely intervention at this particular juncture in the story of Lesotho.