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The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

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Flakking the Mau Mau Catchers

Stephen Howe Version of record first published: 08 Nov 2011

To cite this article: Stephen Howe (2011): Flakking the Mau Mau Catchers, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 39:5, 695-697 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2011.629089

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The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History Vol. 39, No. 5, December 2011, pp. 695 697

MAU MAU JUDGEMENT Flakking the Mau Mau Catchers

Stephen Howe
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There are few instances, in contemporary British, British-imperial, or Commonwealth history, of historians work clearly and directly reshaping the course of history itself, or having an obvious major impact on legal or political systems. Perhaps the most prominent among the few exceptions has been that of Henry Reynolds, whose research so powerfully inuenced crucial legal decisions on native title in Australia and, more broadly, has made so profound an impression on the ways in which Aboriginal affairs are viewed in Australias public sphere. Britains, and its former colonies, multiple memory wars over aspects of the imperial past have in general interacted little with legislative or judicial processescertainly when compared, say, with France, where parliamentary or judicial acts and decisions have several times sought to mandate particular views of the history of empire. Even the employment of historians as expert witnesses in major court cases has been uncommon in Britain, except when (as most prominently with the David Irving libel trial in 2000) historical writing has itself been the main subject of the legal contest. Ndiku Mutua and 4 Others v. the Foreign and Commonwealth Ofce and the roles of David Anderson, Huw Bennett, and Caroline Elkins as expert witnesses in that case are thus immensely important departures from a long established pattern. Whatever the outcome of the substantive case for damages and apologies which will now soon ensue, the judgement of July 2011 promises to open a new era in Britains dealings with its late-imperial history, legally, politically, and historiographically. We are thus delighted to publish in this issue of JICH the extended reections of all three expert witnesses on the case and its wider signicance. As Anderson, Bennett, and Elkins all underline here that signicance extends well beyond the history of the 1950s Kenyan Emergency. As a result of this case, and the historians unrelenting efforts, the Foreign Ofce has been forced to reveal the existence of a vast archive of previously undisclosed colonial administration les from former UK territories across the world. These migrated archives, as HMG peculiarly describes themrather as if the les had decided of their own volition to y North in winterwill undoubtedly prompt reappraisal of many aspects of Britains withdrawal
Correspondence to: Email: stephen@vardihowe.com ISSN 0308-6534 print/1743-9329 online/11/0506953 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2011.629089 # 2011 Taylor & Francis

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from empire. There seems little doubt that this will include episodes and policies of ofcial violence and repression in Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus, and elsewhere, as well as in Kenya itself. We may speculate that light will also be shed on such other dark corners of the decolonisation story as alleged British manipulation of electoral processes, or covert attempts to inuence particular colonial politicians and parties, in various territories. Potentially, almost every part of the narrative of decolonisation, indeed much of this Journals sphere of interest, will have to be rewritten. At the same time, we should perhaps beware of fetishising secret documents and assuming they will magically transform our understanding of the subject. As Elkins notes in her article below, press reports of the case sometimes displayed an inability to distinguish between the newly declassied documents, and ofcial papers that had been released to the National Archives decades ago under the standard 30-year rule. In many cases, it was the latter that proved most sensational and most damaging to the British governments position. This should serve as a warning to contemporary historians that the key challenge they face is sometimes not so much ofcial secrecy as an inability or unwillingness to grasp the signicance of what is already in the public domain. Important parts of this rewriting have indeed, it should be recalled, long been in train. The contributions of David Anderson, Huw Bennett, and Caroline Elkins long precede their roles as expert witnesses to the Court. The Mutua case itself would not have been possible without their previous researches over many years. These in turn are parts of a much larger collective effort in uncovering and rethinking Kenyas late-colonial history, in which the roles of such scholars as Daniel Branch, Michael Cowen, Gavin Kitching, Derek Peterson, David Throup, and perhaps above all John Lonsdale (to pluck out just a few names among many) have been central. Nor should the parts played by historians from Kenya itself be neglected. The established, unequal patterns of global publication and publicity may mean that the contributions of such gures as the late Atieno Odhiambo, Tabitha Kanogo, Bethwell Ogot, or indeedin their intensely polemical veinof Maina wa Kinyatti and Ngugi wa Thiongo have received less than their due. Elsewhere, we have had important new ndings and a renewed attention to the role of British ofcial violence and, indeed, repression and atrocity in imperial history, from Matthew Hughess work on the 1930s Palestine revolt, through Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbons broader analysis of Britains dirty wars in his Imperial Endgame, to Richard Gotts trenchant survey of eighteenth- to nineteenth-century imperial wars and revolts or Richard Draytons sharp critique of the way in which, in his view, the dominant currents in imperial history writing have long neglected or suppressed such themes. Recent revelations about abuse and torture by British forces in Iraq can only reinforce the search for historical patterns of British-imperial state abuse. Nor is this only a colonial story, as other recent disclosures relating to the Bad Nenndorf interrogation centrewhere, allegedly, rst Nazi and then Communist suspects were, in 19451947, maltreated in ways very similar to some of the tales from Kenyasuggest. If only to pre-empt some predictable objections, it should perhaps be underlined that in JICHs focus, in this issue and, no doubt, in future on British misdeeds,

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The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

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there is no intention of implying that Britains record of imperial violence was uniquely or exceptionally wicked. Nor do we wish to forget the violence and atrocities committed by Mau Mau or other anti-colonial guerrillas, or, for instance, the degree to which the Kenyan Emergency was, among other things, a Kikuyu civil war. Nonetheless, further investigation and exposure of the dark side of imperial Britains historical record is not only justiable but imperative, on ethical and political no less than scholarly grounds. When Philip Murphy and the present writer assumed the editorship of this Journal, we stressed in our inaugural Editorial just how dynamic and fast-changing was the world of imperial and colonial history. The hidden stories of imperial violence form perhaps the most urgent, if often deeply troubling, facet of that dynamism.

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