Speech at the Kenya African Union Meeting at Nyeri, July 26, 1952
... I want you to know the purpose of K.A.U. It is the biggest purpose the African has.
It involves every African in Kenya and it is their mouthpiece which asks for freedom.
K.A.U. is you and you are the K.A.U. If we unite now, each and every one of us, and each
tribe to another, we will cause the implementation in this country of that which the
European calls democracy. True democracy has no colour distinction. It does not choose
between black and white. We are here in this tremendous gathering under the K.A.U. flag to
find which road leads us from darkness into democracy. In order to find it we Africans
must first achieve the right to elect our own representatives. That is surely the first
principle of democracy. We are the only race in Kenya which does not elect its own
representatives in the Legislature and we are going to set about to rectify this
situation. We feel we are dominated by a handful of others who refuse to be just. God said
this is our land. Land in which we are to flourish as a people. We are not worried that
other races are here with us in our country, but we insist that we are the leaders here,
and what we want we insist we get. We want our cattle to get fat on our land so that our
children grow up in prosperity; we do not want that fat removed to feed others. He who has
ears should now hear that K.A.U. claims this land as its own gift from God and I wish
those who arc black, white or brown at this meeting to know this. K.A.U. speaks in
daylight. He who calls us the Mau Mau is not truthful. We do not know this thing Mau
Mau. We want to prosper as a nation, and as a nation we demand equality, that is equal
pay for equal work. Whether it is a chief, headman or labourer be needs in these days
increased salary. He needs a salary that compares with a salary of a European who does
equal work. We will never get our freedom unless we succeed in this issue. We do not want
equal pay for equal work tomorrow-we want it right now. Those who profess to be just must
realize that this is the foundation of justice. It has never been known in history that a
country prospers without equality. We despise bribery and corruption, those two words that
the European repeatedly refers to. Bribery and corruption is prevalent in this country,
but I am not surprised. As long as a people are held down, corruption is sure to rise and
the only answer to this is a policy of equality. If we work together as one, we must
succeed.
Our country today is in a bad state for its land is full of fools-and fools in a
country delay the independence of its people. K.A.U. seeks to remedy this situation and I
tell you now it despises thieving, robbery and murder for these practices ruin our
country. I say this because if one man steals, or two men steal, there are people sitting
close by lapping up information, who say the whole tribe is bad because a theft has been
committed. Those people are wrecking our chances of advancement. They will prevent us
getting freedom. If I have my own way, let me tell you I would butcher the criminal, and
there are more criminals than one in more senses than one. The policeman must arrest an
offender, a man who is purely an offender, but lie must not go about picking up people
with a small horn of liquor in their hands and march them in procession with his fellow
policemen to Government and say he has got a Mau Mau amongst the Kikuyu people. The
plain clothes man who hides in the hedges must, I demand, get the truth of our words
before be flies to Government to present them with false information. I ask this of them
who arc in the meeting to take heed of my words and do their work properly and justly. . .
.
. . . Do not be scared of the few policemen under those trees who are holding their
rifles high in the air for you to see. Their job is to seize criminals, and we shall save
them a duty today. I will never ask you to be subversive but I ask you to be united, for
the day of Independence is the day of complete unity and if we unite completely tomorrow,
our independence will come tomorrow. This is the day for you to work bard for your
country, it is not words but deeds that count and the deeds I ask for come from your
pockets. The biggest subscribers to K.A.U. are in this order. First, Thomson's Falls
branch, second, Elburgon branch and third Gatundu branch. Do you, in Nyeri branch, want to
beat them? Then let us see your deeds come forth.
I want to touch on a number of points, and I ask you for the hundredth time to keep
quiet whilst I do this. We want self-government, but this we will never get if we drink
beer. It is harming our country and making people fools and encouraging crime. It is also
taking all our money. Prosperity is a prerequisite of independence and, more important,
the beer we are drinking is harmful to our birthrate. You sleep with a woman for nothing
if you drink beer. It causes your bones to weaken and if you want to increase the
population of the Kikuyu you must stop drinking.
. . . K.A.U. is not a fighting union that uses fists and weapons. If any of you here
think that force is good, I do not agree with you: remember the old saying that he who is
hit with a rungu returns, but he who is bit with justice never comes back. I do not want
people to accuse us falsely-that we steal and that we are Mau Mau. I pray to you
that we join hands for freedom and freedom means abolishing criminality. Beer harms us and
those who drink it do us harm and they may be the so-called Mau Mau. Whatever
grievances we have, let us air them here in the open. The criminal does not ,want freedom
and land-he wants to line his own pocket. Let us therefore demand our rights justly. The
British Government has discussed the land problem in Kenya and we hope to have a Royal
Commission to this country to look into the land problem very shortly. When this Royal
Commission comes, let us show it that we are a good peaceful people and not thieves and
robbers.
Source:
from F. D. Cornfield, The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau, Sessional Paper No. 5
of 1959-1960 (Nairobi: 1960), pp. 301-308.
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© Paul Halsall, July 1998
