Download or read book Majimbo in Kenya s Past written by Robert M. Maxon and published by Cambria African Studies. This book was released on 2017 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advocacy for federalism in Kenya emerged amidst World War II and its aftermath. The rapidly changing political, economic, and social environment in Great Britain and British colonies in Africa formed the background for uncertainty and concern for the future among Kenya's European settler minority. Federalism's appeal came forth among a portion of the European community and some of the colonial rulers who were concerned about a post-war world that seemed certain to bring far reaching changes in Britain's most important East African dependency. These included democratization, the extension of civil liberties, increased economic opportunities for the African majority, and social integration leading to eventual decolonization. European anxiety as to the impact of such changes on their privileged political, economic and social status produced advocacy for majimbo or a federal system of governance between 1940 and 1960. This advocacy for federalism emerged in a colonial political system defined by a racially differentiated electorate with separate representative systems and voting by racially defined groups. The European minority in Kenya enjoyed pride of place in 1945, but demands for greater political participation from the larger Asian and African communities and the British government's support for a sharing of power among Kenya's racial group placed Kenya's Europeans on the defensive. The declaration of a state of Emergency in Kenya in October 1952 and the outbreak of the Mau Mau war/rebellion added to European concerns and uncertainties that provided powerful fuel for federalist ideas throughout the rest of the decade. For example, the political reforms pushed by the British government and the colonial state in response to the war/rebellion provoked enhanced calls for federalism among the vocal minority among the European community. Federalism remains a controversial topic in Kenyan history and in contemporary Kenya. In the current century, federal advocacy has been viewed by scholars and public as responsible for outbreaks of pre- and post-election violence. The movers and motives of federal advocates is also a subject that provokes strong opinions as they have often been viewed as racists or tribalists. It is thus important to examine and analyze the movers of majimbo, their motives, the shape and substance of their schemes, and the reasons for their lack of success in moving late colonial Kenya to adopt a federal system. This book demonstrates that the decade of the 1950s was the high water point for federalism in Kenyan history. Finally, it is critical to closely review that decade's federalist advocacy in light of Kenya's adoption of a federal scheme of governance with the 2010 constitution. This is the first detailed study of federalism in Kenya during the 1940s and 1950s that provides important grounding and background for the understanding of the later emergence of majimbo in the independence era (1961-1963) and later. The book identifies the movers of federalism during the period of study as well as providing in-depth analysis of the political parties they used to promote provincial autonomy and evolution plans. These include the Federal Independence Party, the Progressive Local Government Party, and the United Party. The analysis reveals that the movers backed majimbo as a defensive mechanism. They hoped it would serve as a means of protecting and perpetuating white privilege in terms of political dominance, segregated schools and public facilities, and, most of all, exclusive European control of a large portion of the colony's productive farm land, the white highlands. Majimbo in Kenya's Past is an important book for African studies, history, and politics.
Download or read book Kenyas Past as Prologue written by Marie-Aude Fouere and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the run-up to Kenyas 2013 general elections, crucial political and civic questions were raised. Could past mistakes, especially political and ethnic-related violence, be avoided this time round? Would the spectre of the 2007 post-electoral violence positively or negatively affect debates and voting? How would politicians, electoral bodies such as the IEBC, the Kenyan civil society, and the international community weigh in on the elections? More generally, would the 2013 elections bear witness to the building up of an electoral culture in Kenya, characterized by free and fair elections, or would it show that voting is still weakened by political malpractices, partisan opinions and emotional reactions? Would Kenyas past be inescapable or would it prepare the scene for a new political order? Kenyas Past as Prologue adopts a multidisciplinary perspective mainly built upon field-based ethnography and a selection of case studies to answer these questions. Under the leadership of the French Institute for Research in Africa (Institut francais de recherche en Afrique, IFRA), political scientists, historians and anthropologists explore various aspects of the electoral process to contribute in-depth analyses of the last elections. They highlight the structural factors underlying election and voting in Kenya including the political system, culture and political transition. They also interrogate the short-term trends and issues that influence the new political order. The book provides insight into specific case studies, situations and contexts, thus bringing nuances and diversity into focus to better assess Kenyas evolving electoral democracy.
Download or read book Decolonization Independence in Kenya 1940 93 written by Bethwell A. Ogot and published by Ohio State University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a sharply observed assessment of the history of the last half century by a distinguished group of historians of Kenya. At the same time the book is a courageous reflection in the dilemmas of African nationhood. Professor B. A. Ogot says: "The main purpose of the book is to show that decolonization does not only mean the transfer of alien power to sovereign nationhood; it must also entail the liberation of the worlds of spirit and culture, as well as economics and politics. "The book also raises a more fundamental question, that is: How much independence is available to any state, national economy or culture in today's world? It asks how far are Africa's miseries linked to the colonial past and to the process of decolonization? "In particular the book raises the basic question of how far Kenya is avoidably neo-colonial? And what does neo-colonial dependence mean? The book answers these questions by discussing the dynamic between the politics of decolonization, the social history of class formation and the economics of dependence. The book ends with a provocative epilogue discussing the transformation of the post-colonial state from a single-party to a multi-party system."
Download or read book Kenya After 50 written by Michael Mwenda Kithinji and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the journey that Kenya has travelled as a nation since its independence on December 12, 1963. It seeks to advance understanding of the country's major milestones in the postcolonial period, the challenges and the lessons that can be learned from this experience, and the future prospects.
Download or read book Power and the Presidency in Kenya written by Anaïs Angelo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first study to use Jomo Kenyatta's political biography and presidency as a basis for examining the colonial and postcolonial history of Kenya.
Download or read book I Say to You written by Gabrielle Lynch and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-09-26 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2007 a disputed election in Kenya erupted into a two-month political crisis that led to the deaths of more than a thousand people and the displacement of almost seven hundred thousand. Much of the violence fell along ethnic lines, the principal perpetrators of which were the Kalenjin, who lashed out at other communities in the Rift Valley. What makes this episode remarkable compared to many other instances of ethnic violence is that the Kalenjin community is a recent construct: the group has only existed since the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on rich archival research and vivid oral testimony, I Say to You is a timely analysis of the creation, development, political relevance, and popular appeal of the Kalenjin identity as well as its violent potential. Uncovering the Kalenjin’s roots, Gabrielle Lynch examines the ways in which ethnic groups are socially constructed and renegotiated over time. She demonstrates how historical narratives of collective achievement, migration, injustice, and persecution constantly evolve. As a consequence, ethnic identities help politicians mobilize support and help ordinary people lay claim to space, power, and wealth. This kind of ethnic politics, Lynch reveals, encourages a sense of ethnic difference and competition, which can spiral into violent confrontation and retribution.
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Kenyan History written by Wanjala S. Nasong'o and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-25 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume covers Kenya’s history, society, culture, economics, politics, and environment from precolonial times through the first years of independence. The book comprises twenty-one chapters divided into two parts. Part I focuses on the long precolonial moment, detailing the nature of precolonial Kenyan societies and their economics, politics, gender dynamics, and social organization. Part II examines Kenyan societies’ encounters with British colonialism, critically outlining the impact and implications of these encounters. The volume concludes with an examination of political consolidation after the country’s attainment of political independence and the subsequent foundations for political authoritarianism.
Download or read book A Tapestry of African Histories written by Nicholas K. Githuku and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Tapestry of African Histories: With Longer Times and Wider Geopolitics, contributors demonstrate that African historians are neither comfortable nor content with studying continental or global geopolitical, social, and economic events across the superficial divide of time as if they were disparate or disconnected. Instead, the chapters within the volume reevaluate African history through a geopolitically transcendent lens that brings African countries into conversation with other pertinent histories both within and outside of the continent. The collection analyzes the pre- and post-colonial eras within African countries such as Kenya, Malawi, and Sudan, examining major historical figures and events, struggles for independence and stability, contemporary urban settlements, social and economic development, as well as constitutional, legal, and human rights issues that began in the colonial era and persist to this day.
Download or read book The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo written by Jeroen Dewulf and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo presents the history of the nation's forgotten Dutch slave community and free Dutch-speaking African Americans from seventeenth-century New Amsterdam to nineteenth-century New York and New Jersey. It also develops a provocative new interpretation of one of America's most intriguing black folkloric traditions, Pinkster. Jeroen Dewulf rejects the usual interpretation of this celebration of a "slave king" as a form of carnival. Instead, he shows that it is a ritual rooted in mutual-aid and slave brotherhood traditions. By placing these traditions in an Atlantic context, Dewulf identifies striking parallels to royal election rituals in slave communities elsewhere in the Americas, and he traces these rituals to the ancient Kingdom of Kongo and the impact of Portuguese culture in West-Central Africa. Dewulf's focus on the social capital of slaves follows the mutual aid to seventeenth-century Manhattan. He suggests a much stronger impact of Manhattan's first slave community on the development of African American identity in New York and New Jersey than hitherto assumed. While the earliest works on slave culture in a North American context concentrated on an assumed process of assimilation according to European standards, later studies pointed out the need to look for indigenous African continuities. The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo suggests the necessity for an increased focus on the substantial contact that many Africans had with European--primarily Portuguese--cultures before they were shipped as slaves to the Americas. The book has already garnered honors as the winner of the Richard O. Collins Award in African Studies, the New Netherland Institute Hendricks Award, and the Clague and Carol Van Slyke Prize.
Download or read book From Divided Pasts to Cohesive Futures written by Hiroyuki Hino and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an insightful yet readable study of the paths - and challenges - to social cohesion in Africa, by experienced historians, economists and political scientists.
Download or read book Divide and Rule written by Binaifer Nowrojee and published by Human Rights Watch. This book was released on 1993 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Effects on the violence
Download or read book Searching for a New Kenya written by Stephanie Diepeveen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-06 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining public discussion in urban Kenya, both in-person and online, this book sheds light on the role public discussion plays in politics and how social media affects political movements, providing timely insights into everyday politics in Africa's digital age.
Download or read book Kenya s Independence Constitution written by Robert M. Maxon and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Background to constitution-making and decolonization -- Pressures for a new constitution : Kenya, 1960-61 -- Majimbo takes center stage -- The battle for Majimbo : Lancaster House II -- Making the constitution, April-December 1962 -- Completing the constitution, December 1962-April 1963 -- The 1963 election and setting a date for independence -- Change the constitution part 1, April-September 1963 -- Change the constitution part 2 : Lancaster House III and Kenya's independence constitution, September-December 1963 -- Constitution-making : Uhuru na Majimbo.
Download or read book The Illusion of Power written by G. G. Kariuki and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 2001 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kariki's political participation dates from 1952, when he pledged an oath to the allegiance of the Gikuyu tribe, the Mau Mau movement and the cause of African unity. Post-independence, he gradually progressed to being a political insider, serving in the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) and the Kenyan Government. In 1983 he was expelled from KANU - the only political party. It is from this outsider-perspective, and in this climate of fear and uncertainty, without the desired freedom of association and access to political colleagues of the period of struggle, that he nevertheless here recounts his experiences of half a century in politics. He holds the belief that political evolution is inexorable; and that knowledge about, and reflection on the past is the only way of preventing the tragedy of yet another generation repeating that which they condemned in their predecessors.
Download or read book Not Yet Uhuru written by Oginga Odinga and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on 1995 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Kenya written by Maurice Odhiambo Makoloo and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minorities and indigenous peoples in Kenya feel excluded from the economic and political life of the state. They are poorer than the rest of Kenya's population, their rights are not respected and they are rarely included in development of other participatory planning processes. This report discusses the abuse of ethnicity in Kenyan policies, arguing that ethnicity is a card all too often used by Kenyan politicians to favour certain communities over others in the share of the nation's wealth. Kenya: Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Diversity exposes these concerns in detail via the analysis of budgetary expenditure in the poor Turkana region, which is dominated by the minority Turkana people, and in the richer Nyeri region, home of Kenya's current President. The author, Maurice Odhiambo Makoloo, calls for immediate action to address the inequalities and marginalization of communities, as a way of ensuring that Kenya remains free of major conflict. It calls for disaggregated data - by ethnicity and gender - and a new Constitution to devolve power away from the centre, so that minority and indigenous peoples stand to benefit from current and new development programmes.The report argues that Kenya's diversity should be its strength and need not be a threat to national unity. Suppressing and denying ethnic diversity is the quickest route to inter-ethnic conflict and claims of succession. The report calls for urgent action.
Download or read book The Contested Lands of Laikipia written by Marie Ladekjær Gravesen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-11-16 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore the violence and conflict that lead up to the land invasions prior to Kenya's 2017 general election. The Contested Lands of Laikipia tells how, and why, land claims and ethnic categories became increasingly politicized here over the past century.