Hi Selma I have jumped many posts to reply to yours on the Mau Mau. Mau Mau was definitely an indigenous war against colonial rule as well as against white settler hegemony in Kenya. The colonial Government at the time was in hock with the settlers although the British Government had made it clear, much earlier that, African (or native) interests were paramount in the Colony.
A key Goan name supporting this fight against Kenyan colonialism was Pio Gama Pinto who later paid with his life in 1965. I hope to complete 'A Life and a Cause: a Biography of Pio Gama Pinto' reasonably soon in which I will spell out the complexities of the situation including the implications of the Cold War. There were other Asians who strongly supported the African cause in Kenya at the time including Makan Singh, Fitz de Souza, Pran Lal Seth etc. But it is true that many Asians in Kenya sat on the fence regarding African anti-colonial aspirations even though they could anticipate African rule in Kenya in the light of Indian independence in 1947 and MacMillan's speech on the Wind of Change regarding British colonial rule. It was the speed of political change in African countries that was perhaps not quite anticipated. Although I was still at school during the well reported Emergency that used British troops, fighter aircraft etc to destroy Mau Mau in the forests and the surrounding areas, I recall my strong anti white settler feelings at the time and my particular detestation of the South African apartheid oriented settlers who not only wanted to hold on to perpetuity the stolen African lands, referred to as the White Highlands, but also wanted to hang on to Kenya as a segregated replicated version of racialised South Africa of the time. They were adamant that the Africans could never rule a country like Kenya at the time and they were strongly anti Indian/Asian too. Incidentally this was also around the time of the White Australia policy that I also utterly detested and had written about subsequently on Goanet. Many of us were also pretty cognisant of the awful racism against blacks in the USA at the time. We noted this in the papers, magazines and cinemas on Pathe News. Without a doubt, informed people would be celebrating the powerful rejection of colonialism by Mau Mau (a derogatory European label incidentally) instead of the more applicable term, the Resistance Land Army against colonial rule when all other peaceful approaches over decades had been exhausted in Kenya. History is finally being written that projects a truer version of events of the time than the colonial version by the rulers of the time. Cornel PS Regret written in haste! --- Carvalho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Dear Mervyn, > Just out of curiosity, why do the Kenyans celebrate > Mau Mau? Wasn't it a rather unpleasant part of their > history. I am trying to gather some information on > this and am particularly interested in the role > Goans might have played and where their sympathies > lay.