BRITAIN'S GULAG: BRUTAL END OF EMPIRE IN KENYA BY CAROLINE ELKINS

I read this book last year and had put it away and forgot about it. Stumbled upon it by accident in my so called home library. Its quite a heavy read and not for the faint hearted or those who choose to leave in denial.



I always thought the Kenyan education system is faulty but having read this book, i now know the history i was taught about my country is full of half baked lies and truths. The imperialists were made out to be sometime bad people, maybe a bit confused and disorganised in their bid to civilise us savages, but somehow their hearts were always in the right place. At least that's the message I got.



After the 1st few chapters, i remember calling my then boyfriend (he'd recommended it) and asking, "what the fuck is this?" After a prolonged silence he asked, "what's wrong?" Thinking back he probably thought he'd erred against me and was in for some bollocking. lol. Poor 'chap' he never did like confrontations and i can be quite hot tempered and opinionated (sometimes), well maybe most of the time as he'd most likely point out. Anyhoo i digress.



What i was reading had nothing whatsoever to do with what i thought i knew about Kenyan history. Quite the opposite actually. The Mau Mau were just fighting for what is/was rightly ours and were not the evils they were made out to be. Yes they took mumu (blood oath) which simply meant that they pledged their allegiance and death was a small price to pay. No they did not go around hacking people to death willy nilly because they were on some drug induced euphoria. Anyway won't bore you with nitty gritty but here's an excerpt from the back cover;



Britain fought in the 2nd world war to save the world from fascism. But just a few years after the defeat Hitler came the mau mau uprising in Kenya - a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response Of Britain's colonial govt. was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population, nearly 1.5 million, in camps or villages ringed with barbed wire and portray them as sub-human savages.



From 1952 to 1960 possibly over 100 thousand people died from the combined effect of exhaustion, disease, starvation and systematic physical brutality.



Until now these events have remained untold, largely because the British govt. in Kenya destroyed most of the files. For the last 8yrs Elkins has conducted exhaustive research to piece together the story, unearthing reams of documents and interviewing several hundred Kikuyu survivors.



Britain's Gulag reveals what happened inside Kenya's detention camps, as well as the efforts to conceal the truth. Now, for the first time, we can understand the full savagery of the Mau Mau war and the ruthless determination with which Britain sought to control its regime.