Talk:Mau Mau rebellion

Liberal Propaganda (formerly Marxist propaganda)

'A feature of all settler societies during the colonial period was the ability of European settlers to obtain for themselves a disproportionate share in land ownership.'

It is reasonable to assess the behavior of both sides after a 60-year interval. But we don't need a lecture on the evils of imperialism. Valetude (talk) 08:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

It is simply a statement of fact, not a lecture. Why did you opt to smear it with Marxist propaganda instead of liberal propaganda? How would liberal propaganda have looked? LudicrousTripe (talk) 19:15, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

"'A feature of all settler societies during the colonial period was the ability of European settlers to obtain for themselves a disproportionate share in land ownership.'" This is merely a statement of fact, and it is an issue in the politics and economics of Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, and other countries as well as Kenya. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrSativa (talk • contribs) 03:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

There's no real advantage to calling a reference to land ownership "liberal propaganda" as opposed to "Marxist propaganda," as Marx's theories about capital included land as a means of production.

I'd even dispute the term "propaganda" in this context - the British pretty clearly moved into Kenya and kicked native Kenyans off of land their families had owned for generations. The internecine violence among the Kikuyu and the violence against Europeans and Asians by the Mau Mau was terrible (as was the retaliation by the colonial government and the British armed forces), but it was pretty clearly a case in which people were taking their land back. You can't paint colonialism up pretty, guys. loupgarous (talk) 23:13, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

"the British pretty clearly moved into Kenya and kicked native Kenyans off of land their families had owned for generations" Interesting and what is the evidence for that statement?--41.151.235.106 (talk) 22:02, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

The entire definition of a "settler colony" is that the colonizers indeed possess large tracts of land from the native populations. I am very curious to know what the initial author of this post imagined a "non-propagandist" narrative could be, given the wealth of records that indicate that British landholders were in fact the biggest landholders in pre-independence Kenya. I would also question the pursuit of an "objective" knowledge. No knowledge is capable of being 'neutral' every truth claim involves making decisions (indeed, political decisions) about what gets included and what does not. Usually, the side with more power is able to hold up the myth of such a neutrality. Skw27 (talk) 04:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Well-informed Editor Required

The pendulum has swung. Reading through all the posts, I noticed something very interesting. Many of the earlier ones accuse the article of a strong bias toward British colonialism, while most of the later ones condemn it for being anti-British. Unless the posters read different sections of the article, obviously a great deal of editing was done in the interim; far too much, in my view, because it is unacceptably anti-British now. A wise and well-informed editor is needed to roll back some of the changes and place the article off-limits to future editing. Treplag (talk) 17:51, 2 April 2014 (UTC)Treplag

Treplag, just how is this article unacceptably anti-British? Are the statements about British acts in Kenya unsourced? Is there original research? Weasel-wording? I'm not being rhetorical with these questions - if there are valid concerns with the article content, that's one thing.

However, colonialism was only good for the colonizers, by and large. Any objective account of this episode in history must, if it is to be acceptably objective by our standards, must tell the truth without regard to the feelings of either side in the conflict. While I'm as Anglophile as the next American, I also recognize that periods in American and British history involved brutal acts toward people on lands our peoples decided to take for their own, and any objective narration of these episodes in our nations' history will include telling some ugly truths.

Some of the statements about "settlers" ought to be revisited to determine whether or not the term's being used in an emotionally-loaded manner WP:TERRORIST, because in African English, "settler" seems to carry some emotional weight - but it does so for some very good reasons - from the standpoint of people whose ancestors were in Africa (or America) before the settlers arrived. This article is about an ugly period in history, and having used it for research in something else I was writing, I was struck by how informative it was and how completely it informed the reader of what happened in Kenya during the uprising and afterward.

I think it'd be nice if before we started editing, we reached a consensus over whether changes are needed and whether anyone who wants to make these changes can defend the need for changes logically. It would be odd if this article didn't come off as anti-British in some ways, because it is a complete account of a time and place where just about every repressive act used to subdue people was used. The catalogue of "war crimes" is depressingly thorough.

Please come up with some examples from the article (quoted text from the article, please) of how you feel this article is "unacceptably anti-British," and we can move on from there. loupgarous (talk) 23:45, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The fact is that everybody was being unacceptably over-British !

The young Queen was to be impressed and everybody was impressed with the young Queen, very much so.

There was, in fact, terror that part of the young Queen's Empire would go.

That force, yet noble in its intent of historical Empirical continuance, created blind and abberative behaviour which made, indeed, toward excess.--Laurencebeck (talk) 00:12, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I notice none of these quotes are in the present article. And I see - now - that Treplag's post is dated April of this year. So apparently the problem was addressed. I apologize for any offense I may have committed, I sincerely misunderstood the article's current status. It's a great article, and if everyone's content with it after the objectionable changes were deleted, perhaps we ought to talk to someone about removing the request for help at the head of the article.

As it is, editors reading the article are going to think (in the absence of any recorded consensus in the talk page) that Wikipedia's still calling for help in making the article more objective. The only changes I'd make are to fix some very minor issues with correct English diction. There are words like "metropole" which I don't think are proper English usage (I invite anyone who thinks different to correct me). But as far as content's concerned, it's a very good, solid article and doesn't contain detectable bias at this point. Congratulations! loupgarous (talk) 00:27, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

This article reads like propaganda - Pov phraseaology abounds: " Not for the first time,[76] the British instead relied on the purported insights of the ethnopsychiatrist; with Mau Mau, it would fall to Dr. John Colin Carothers to perform the desired analysis." I corrected some of it, but the majority remains. Zezen (talk) 02:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Is this account of Kenyan history considered as really credible on Wikipedia? Oh my goodness.

Is this account of Kenyan history considered as credible? I learned more truth from my undergraduate college education than I did from this Wikipedia account of this episode in Kenyan history; and there is so much more to these people's history than this one episode. Oh my, I was shocked that Wikipedia allows this account of history to be the one that people from all around the world who are learning about Kenyan history have to actually read and believe is true. lol. This is just fascinating to me as a history nerd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:E:C00:6C2:9156:B2A:46FF:CA29 (talk) 06:06, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear History Nerd, It fair takes your breath away, doesn't it? Not just this article but tens of thousands of Wikipedia pages, where the anger and accusations rage like forest fire, and the truth makes no appearance. Makes you wonder about all written history, doesn't it? Postmodern theory declares that all writing is merely opinion, and therefore all writings are equal. I don't think so. I believe truth is possible and obtainable but that truth will always be objectionable to partisan parties. They will call it a lie if they dislike what actually occurred. History is about what happened. Moral judgements about those events belong elsewhere 121.44.165.78 (talk) 08:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC).