‘Truth be Told’: Some Problems with Historical Revisionism in Kenya

Historical revisionism is equally appealing to state and non-state actors during periods of intense socio-political change, especially following civil conflict, when the need for unification is paramount. This applies to Kenya as it struggles to come to terms with the post-electoral crisis of 2007/08. The need to redress state-orchestrated amnesia about Mau Mau and the struggle for independence is also important; encouraged by first president Jomo Kenyatta, ostensibly in the interests of national unity, the trend was continued by his successor. Since Mau Mau was unbanned in 2003, and a lawsuit was brought by veterans with the support of a human rights group against the British government in 2009, there has been an upsurge in public memorialisation and debate about the liberation movement in Kenya. This has been accompanied by increasing calls for ‘true’ history to be written. Veterans have persuaded the state to support a project on rewriting Kenya history, which links to efforts to commemorate heroes and broaden official definitions of heroism to include a wide range of ethnic communities and rebel leaders from different periods of anti-colonial resistance. These themes are reflected in two new history exhibitions developed by National Museums of Kenya (NMK), and in the local media, which has done more to popularise these histories and commemorative initiatives than any scholarly texts. This article draws on research interviews and the literature on resistance, social memory and patriotic nationalism to problematise and analyse these developments, within the context of constitutional change.