Talk:Mau Mau rebellion

Another example that English Wikipedia is hopelessly euro-centric

I'm an African in Africa and have been reading this and other African history pages and their corresponding Talk Pages. I could contribute but after looking at the lengthy arguments and edit wars in the Talk Pages, it's probably not worth the time. It's obvious the overwhelming majority of African history editors are of European descent.

Internet access is frequently cited as a reason for low African participation on Wikipedia but I don't think that's the case. Some of Africa's largest countries like Nigeria and Kenya have the same internet penetration as some Latin American countries. In absolute numbers, Kenya and Nigeria have more people regularly accessing the internet than European countries such as Belgium, Switzerland etc. People are probably put off by 1)European languages and 2)the futility of having to argue about African history with mobs of Europeans.

I think it's a massive tragedy that 99% of the "credible sources" in this Mau Mau article are of European descent. And it shows. I looked at the Dedan Kimathi page and the man is referred to in such infantalizing, comical terms as some "character". I had a glance at the Hamitic page and it gives prominence at the top of the page to unscientific Stormfront-ish stuff that is hugely insulting to black Africans. There is a draft biography of the Kenyan tech entrepreneur Njeri Rionge Draft:Njeri_Rionge but someone likely sitting in New York has rejected it insinuating she isn't notable enough for Kenyans unless there is some kind of forensic audit of her interviews with Forbes and BBC (never mind that 99.9999% of entrepreneurs on planet earth will never be considered important enough to warrant interviews with both news organisations).

The only reason the Holocaust is written with such sensitivity and reverence is because only a portion of Western Europeans were Nazis. Colonization however sucked in the whole of Western Europe so its Wikipedia history is reduced to "contentious", "matter of debate", and packed full of false equivalencies like "both sides committed crimes" etc. The massacre of millions of Congolese by Belgians is classified as a "debatable genocide" (it's genocide status is not Euro-approved yet) with Africans routinely urged to "get over it."

This Mau Mau article even makes the amusing conclusion that "the conflict is now often regarded in academic circles as an intra-Kikuyu civil war" which is clearly a poor attempt at minimizing European culpability ("often" according to who? what are the demographics of the scholars who view it that way? when did someone do an opinion poll of the Kikuyu people to conclude this?). Predictably, the sources of that claim are persons of European descent. That's why (and as is evident from the widespread bias on English Wikipedia), I'm hugely skeptical of any African history written by European descended persons given that the overwhelming majority did not even consider Africans as actual human beings until fairly recently. Wake me up when 99% of sources in a European history wikipedia article are Africans.

My suggestion to any Africans who will read this is if you must contribute to Wikipedia, focus on the African language wikipedias e.g. Swahili Wikipedia, Yoruba Wikipedia, Amharic Wikipedia, Lingala Wikipedia, Luganda Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia etc. I don't think African history should be written with an overemphasis on European reading, European approval and European sources as it is in the English Wikipedia. We can give our European friends sufficient breathing space to relish in their "glorious history" as we focus on teaching our children the truth about our own history and our own heroes (not just the Euro-vetted ones). 105.161.188.160 (talk) 22:09, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Moving goalposts

Tim, why do you describe the category you removed as incorrect? Gob Lofa (talk) 19:18, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The real question is why you added it. Tim! (talk) 09:33, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

That ought to be obvious from the source. Gob Lofa (talk) 15:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Merge Capture of General China

Capture of General China is a two sentence article, describing one incident of relatively minor overall significance. It can be easily merged into this article . Bad Dryer (talk) 19:11, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Women

The section on "women in the rebellion" reads like a screed right out of Feminist Studies Central. "The female body would continue to carry powerful political significance through the independence movement." Ridiculous! Orthotox (talk) 17:59, 9 July 2016 (UTC)