Harry Thuku

Harry Thuku (1895-1970) was born in Kenya into the Kikuyu ethnic group, one of the groups that lost the largest amount of land to white settlers during the British takeover of Kenya. In 1921 Thuku founded the East African Association, the first multi-ethnic political organization in East Africa. It campaigned against the "kipande" system of pass controls, and the forced labour of women and girls. [The "Kipande" was an identity document which featured basic personal details, fingerprints, and an employment history. The Native Registration Amendment Ordinance of 1920 made it compulsory for African males above the age of 15. The effect of its adoption was radically to restrict the mobility of Africans, it was therefore extremely unpopular. See further Anderson 2000: 464-5.] [ By the early 1920s, women and girls were being conscripted in increasing numbers, for both public - often, digging roads and trenches - and private - often, working on white-owned plantations - work. Since this removed them from their families, and exposed them to assault, it was deeply unpopular. Churchill had issued a memorandum forbidding forced labour in 1921, but, apparently, the practice had continued.] His interest in the difficulties faced by women meant that, unusually for the time, he was able to involve a number of women in his organisation.

Thuku was arrested in connection with his political activities on 14 March 1922. On the two following days, there were demonstrations to protest his arrest. The first demonstration, on the 15th, passed off peacefully, dispersing after a public prayer for Thuku's safety. [See Wipper 1989:313] On the morning of the 16th, a crowd of 7-8,000 of his supporters gathered around the Nairobi police station to demand his release from detention. The police eventually opened fire on the demonstrators, killing at least 25 of them. [See Lonsdale 2004 for the number of casualties.] White civilians joined in the shooting, and may have shot some of the protesters in the back. [See Lonsdale 2004 for white civilian participation, and Thuku 1970: 33 for the claim that white civilians shot protesters in the back.] [The Times (Saturday, 18 March 1922), p. 10. The White Paper issued by the British Government put the number of dead at 21 ("The Times" (Saturday, 27 May 1922), p. 9.)] Thuku was exiled, without charge or trial, to the Northern Frontier Province of Kenya. He was given permission to return to Kiambu in January 1931. ["The Times" (Thursday, 8 January 1931), p. 11.]

He remained politically active in the 1930s and 1940s - he founded both the Kikuyu Provincial Association in 1935, and the Kenya African Study Union, the precursor of KAU, in 1944 - before finally devoting himself to farming full time. Notable success as a coffee-farmer followed; Lonsdale reports that in 1959 he was the first African board member of the Kenya Planters Coffee Union.

He was strongly opposed to the Mau Mau movement. On 12 December 1952 he broadcast to the nation, saying that "To-day we, the Kikuyu, stand ashamed and looked upon as hopeless people in the eyes of other races and before the Government. Why? Because of the crimes perpetrated by Mau Mau and because the Kikuyu have made themselves Mau Mau." [ Thuku's apparent premise was false: not all, or even most, of the Kikuyu had taken the Mau Mau oaths. By this time, Thuku was ultra-conservative: KPA members were required to take an oath "to be loyal to His Majesty the King of Great Britain and the established government and...to do nothing which is not constitutional according to British traditions or do anything which is calculated to disturb the peace, good order and government" (see Maloba 1998: 50). At the time, these regulations, innocent enough in themselves, were unacceptable to most of Thuku's former colleagues and supporters. It unclear, therefore, how seriously his denunciation would have been taken.] On 28 January 1954 he joined twenty two other Kikuyu leaders at Kabete in subscribing to an appeal to the people to renounce and denounce Mau Mau. ["The Times" (Saturday, 13 December 1952), p. 6. "The Times" (Friday, 29 January 1954), p. 8.]

After independence, a street in Nairobi was named for him. He died in 1970.

Notes

Sources

*David Anderson (2000), "Master and Servant in Colonial Kenya", "Journal of African History", 41:459-485.
*Thuku, Harry. "Harry Thuku: An Autobiography." Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1970.
* [http://testam.greenwood.com/doc.aspx?fileID=OXCOLAFR&chapterID=OXCOLAFR-1939&path=/aae/encyclopedias/greenwood/&sys=aae Harry Thuku explains why he formed a political movement for all East Africans.]
*John Lonsdale (2004), [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/75842 "Thuku, Harry"] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press.
*Wunyabari Maloba (1998), "Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt". Bloomington: Indiana university Press ISBN 0253211662.
*Carl Rosberg and John Nottingham (1966), "The Myth of 'Mau Mau': nationalism in Kenya". New York: Praeger.
*Audrey Wipper (1989), "Kikuyu Women and the Harry Thuku Disturbances: Some Uniformities of Female Militancy", "Africa: Journal of the International African Institute", 59.3: 300-337.