Abstract
This chapter considers Kenyatta in Britain during World War II; surveillance and the strategies for liberation by radical Pan Africanists in London and how these affected Kenyatta; moving from a preference for armed revolt to mass nationalism under the leadership of radical nationalists, and why; Pan Africanism and radical Pan Africanists.; the British Labour Party and changes in its post-war colonial policy; Kenyatta’s decision to return to Kenya after more than fifteen years in the UK; reaction by white settlers and the colonial government.
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Notes
- 1.
Malcolm Linfield, “Jomo Kenyatta,” Longshot, 5, p. 3.
- 2.
Delf, Jomo Kenyatta, pp. 114–115.
- 3.
Linfield,, “Jomo Kenyatta,” p. 3.
- 4.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Letter from Maj. Gen. Sir Vernon Kell to Chief Constable of West Sussex, April 23, 1940.
- 5.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Letter from Chief Constable to Maj. Gen. Sir Vernon Kell, May 3, 1940.
- 6.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Letter from Chief Constable to Maj. Gen. Sir Vernon Kell, May 3, 1940.
- 7.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Memo from Chief Constable to MI5, January 2, 1941.
- 8.
Linfield, “Jomo Kenyatta,” p. 3.
- 9.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Report from the Chief Constable to MI5 on Kenyatta, February 25, 1941.
- 10.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Report on Kenyatta by the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police on November 12, 1941, to the MI5.
- 11.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Invitation to Kenyatta from British Ministry of Information, January 21, 1941.
- 12.
Linfield, “Jomo Kenyatta,” p. 3.
- 13.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Appendix ‘A’, Jomo Kenyatta (Summary report).
- 14.
Barraclough, An Introduction, p. 154.
- 15.
P. Olisanwuche Esedebe, Pan Africanism: The Idea and Movement, 1776–1991, 2nd edn, (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1994), p. 127.
- 16.
There is considerable divergence of opinion in scholarship regarding the individual, or individuals, responsible for making the initial and decisive proposal for the Pan African Conference of 1945. See, for example, Hooker, Black Revolutionary; Murray-Brown, Kenyatta; Esedebe, Pan Africanism.
- 17.
Makonnen and King, Pan Africanism from Within, p. 163.
- 18.
James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, p. 76.
- 19.
Hooker, Black Revolutionary, p. 86.
- 20.
George Shepperson and St. Clare Drake, “The Fifth Pan African Conference, 1945 and the All African People’s Congress, 1958,” Contributions in Black Studies, 8, 5, 1986, p. 4.
- 21.
Hakim Adi, “George Padmore and the 1945 Manchester Pan African Congress,” in George Padmore: Pan African Revolutionary, eds Fitzroy Baptiste and Rupert Lewis (Kingston, Jamaica; Miami, FL: Ian Randle Publishers, 2009), p. 87. Arthur Creech-Jones, as Colonial Secretary, voiced Britain’s irritation at criticisms of its colonial policy from both the Soviet Union and the USA, in a speech to the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society in London, in October 1946. “We are still the butt of a good deal of fierce criticism, because we have not paraded before the world the constructive purposes of our administration. Consequently, there is still a great feeling that we adhere to the old ideas of privilege and domination and that the nature of British Imperialism has not changed. Every night you hear from Moscow some criticism as to how we carry our responsibilities. But this comes also from the United States … There you have an emotional undercurrent which seems deep in American life and which no amount of rational argument appears able to eradicate. Recently responsible men in American public life have characterized Britain as an Imperial Power pursuing her own Imperial ends and little actuated by the purpose of winning freedom and building up the social life of the peoples of the territories. Unfortunately this view is shared too by those of Negro descent in the United States. We must face this fact, which tends to imperil relations between the great nations and poison good will.” This speech was published in East Africa and Rhodesia, October 31, 1946.
- 22.
Esedebe, Pan Africanism, p. 120.
- 23.
Hooker, Black Revolutionary, p. 98.
- 24.
TNA, CO 968/164/5, Colonial Policy—Pan African Congress.
- 25.
TNA, CO 968/164/5, Caption from the Manchester Guardian, October 15, 1945.
- 26.
TNA, CO 968/164/5, Peter Abrahams’ article published in The New Leader, October 20, 1945.
- 27.
George Padmore, “Pan African Conference Opens October 15 in London,” Chicago Defender. October 6, 1945, p. 1.
- 28.
George Padmore, “Determined to be Free; Hint of Force,” Chicago Defender. October 27, 1945, p. 1.
- 29.
George Padmore, “DuBois Demands Colonial Liberty at Press Conference,” Chicago Defender, November 17, 1945, p. 13.
- 30.
W.E.B. DuBois, “The Winds of Time,” Chicago Defender, December 22, 1945, p. 13.
- 31.
TNA, MEPO 38/91, Report by the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, December 9, 1945.
- 32.
Chicago Defender, June 8, 1946, p. 13.
- 33.
George Padmore (ed.), History of the Pan African Congress (London: Hammersmith Bookshop, 1947).
- 34.
See TNA, CO 968/164/5, Pan African Congress.
- 35.
These organizations were: Pan African Federation; IASB; Negro Welfare Centre; Negro Association; KCA; African Progressive Association, London; Coloured Workers’ Association; Sierra Leone Section, African Youth League; Friends of Africa Freedom Society; Coloured Peoples Association, Edinburgh; United Committee of Coloured and Colonial Peoples Association; African Union, Glasgow University; Association of Students of African Descent, Dublin; and West African Students Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
- 36.
TNA, MEPO 38/91, Report by the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, November 8, 1945.
- 37.
TNA, MEPO 38/91, Report by the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, November 8, 1945.
- 38.
TNA, MEPO 38/91, Report by the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, November 8, 1945.
- 39.
TNA, MEPO 38/91, Report by the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, November 8, 1945.
- 40.
TNA, CO 986/164/5, Pan African Congress.
- 41.
TNA, CO 986/164/5, Pan African Congress.
- 42.
See TNA, KV 2/1788, Jomo Kenyatta; Appendix ‘A’ (Summary report), “he attended the fifth Pan-African Congress in October, 1945. He made a speech in which he alleged that lands had been taken away from Africans in Kenya and the Kipande system introduced, while many Africans were away fighting in the 1914–18 war. Allegations of cheating over wages by employers, of forced labour and lack of educational facilities were made. As a result of this speech a resolution was passed calling upon the Secretary of State to put into practice at once the principles of the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter, to abolish racial and other discriminatory laws, particularly Kipande, and the system of equal citizenship to be introduced forthwith, to introduce freedom of speech, press, association and assembly, to introduce compulsory free education, state medical service, health and welfare services, to grant Africans the right to elect and to be elected to Legislative Council, Municipal and other Councils, and to abolish forced labour and to introduce the principle of equal pay for equal work.”
- 43.
Robinson, Black Marxism, p. 383.
- 44.
James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, p. 71. A clear inference to be drawn from reading James’ classic text, Black Jacobins, is that “The San Domingo revolution had been inspired by the French revolution, had developed side by side with it, and had enormous influence upon the course of that revolution. The book therefore constantly implied that the African revolution would be similarly contingent upon the socialist revolution in Europe. It did not envisage an independent movement of Africans as being able to succeed in face of the enormous military power that a stable imperialist government would be able to bring to bear. This has been contradicted by the experience of the Ghana revolution, but conversely reinforced during the same period by the experience of the revolt in Kenya,” pp. 68–69.
- 45.
James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, p. 71.
- 46.
One of the resolutions on strategy stated, “The delegates of the Fifth Pan African Congress believe in peace … Yet if the Western world is still determined to rule mankind by force, then Africans, as a last resort, may have to appeal to force in order to achieve Freedom, even if force destroys them and the world.”
- 47.
Esedebe, Pan Africanism, p. 145.
- 48.
Esedebe, Pan Africanism, p. 144.
- 49.
Hooker, Black Revolutionary, p. 97. Also see Padmore, History of the Pan African Congress. pp. 6–7. “We also call upon the intellectuals and professional classes of the Colonies to awaken to their responsibilities. By fighting for trade union rights, the right to form co-operatives, freedom of the press, assembly, demonstrations and strike, freedom to print and read the literature which is necessary for the education of the masses, you will be using the only means by which your liberties will be won and maintained. Today there is only one road to effective action—the organization of the masses. And in that organization the educated Colonials must join.”
- 50.
James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, p. 150.
- 51.
James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, p. 71.
- 52.
James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution, p. 72.
- 53.
See TNA, MEPO 38/91, Report by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, November 8, 1945. Also see Hakim Adi, “Pan Africanism in Britain: Background to the 1945 Manchester Congress,” in The 1945 Manchester Pan African Congress Revisited, eds. Hakim Adi and Marika Sherwood (London; Port of Spain: New Beacon Books, 1995).
- 54.
Fitzroy Baptiste, “The African Conference of Governors and Indigenous Collaborators, 1947–1948: Strategy to Blunt the 1945 Manchester Pan African Congress,” in George Padmore: Pan African Revolutionary, eds. Fitzroy Baptiste and Rupert Lewis (Kingston, Jamaica; Miami, FL: Ian Randle Publishers, 2009), p. 38.
- 55.
Arthur Skeffington, “The British Labour Party’s Colonial Policy,” Socialist International Information, 4, 42, 1954, p. 747.
- 56.
Skeffington, “The British Labour Party’s Colonial Policy,” p. 748.
- 57.
Arthur Skeffington, “The British Labour Party’s Colonial Policy,” p. 750.
- 58.
Skeffington, “The British Labour Party’s Colonial Policy,” p. 751.
- 59.
“British Labour Party’s Policy on Colonial Affairs.” Socialist International Information, 4, 37. September 1954, p. 660.
- 60.
“British Labour Party’s Policy on Colonial Affairs,” p. 660.
- 61.
“British Labour Party’s Policy on Colonial Affairs,” p. 663.
- 62.
Baptiste, “The African Conference of Governors,” p. 38.
- 63.
East Africa and Rhodesia, October 21, 1943, p. 117.
- 64.
East Africa and Rhodesia, October 21, 1943, p. 117.
- 65.
Baptiste, “The African Conference of Governors,” p. 41.
- 66.
Arthur Creech-Jones, cited in Baptiste, “The African Conference of Governors,” p. 46.
- 67.
Lord Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood, 1929), p. 617. Elsewhere in the book, Lugard affirmed the economic imperative behind colonial conquest. “The partition of Africa was, as we all recognize, due primarily to the economic necessity of increasing supplies of the raw materials and food to meet the needs of the industrialized nations of Europe.” p. 613. What did Africans get out of the colonial enterprise? “In all these cases,” Lugard stated, “a higher civilisation was brought into contact with barbarism, with the inevitable result, as history teaches, that boundaries were enlarged in the effort to protect the weak from tyranny of the strong, to extend the rule of justice and liberty, to protect traders, settlers, missions, and to check anarchy and bloodshed on our frontiers, even though territorial expansion was not desired … Nor must we ignore the very real desire of the people of this country to assist in the suppression of slavery and barbarous practices.” p. 613. And how was exploitation of Africa’s resources part of the “dual mandate”? Why should this be seen as a service to humanity and civilisation? Principally due to the fact, “these products lay wasted and ungarnered in Africa because the natives did not know their use and value. Millions of tons of oil nuts, for instance, grew wild without labour of man, and lay rotting in the forests. Who can deny the right of the hungry people of Europe to utilize the wasted bounties of nature, or that the task of developing these areas was, as Mr. Chamberlain expressed it, a ‘trust for civilisation’ and for the benefit of mankind? Europe benefited by the wonderful increase in the amenities of life for the mass of her people which followed the opening up of Africa in the nineteenth century. Africa benefited by the influx of manufactured goods, and by the substitution of law and order for the methods of barbarism,” p. 615.
- 68.
Creech-Jones, cited in Baptiste, “The African Conference of Governors,” p. 52.
- 69.
Delf, Jomo Kenyatta, p. 121.
- 70.
TNA, KV 2/1788, Memo from Director of Intelligence, Kenya, July 10, 1946.
- 71.
Murray-Brown, Kenyatta, p. 220.
- 72.
Makonnen and King, Pan Africanism from Within, p. 169.
- 73.
Arnold. Kenyatta and the Politics of Kenya, p. 32. Some of these British values, were covered in great detail in the article, “What, in Essence, Is the British Empire?” by L.S. Amery (former Colonial Secretary), published in East Africa and Rhodesia, November 18, 1943, pp. 194–197.
- 74.
nnArnold, Kenyatta and the Politics of Kenya, p. 32.
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Maloba, W.O. (2018). Pan Africanism: Discussions on Strategy for Liberation, Marriage, and Surveillance. In: Kenyatta and Britain. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50895-5_4
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