"Mau Mau are Angels … Sent by Haile Selassie": A Kenyan War in Jamaica. (October 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Osborne, Myles
• Is Part Of: Comparative studies in society and history. Volume 62:Number 4(2020:Oct.)
• Page Start: 714
• Page End: 744
• Publication Date: 2020-10
• Subjects: Mau Mau, -- Jamaica, -- Kenya, -- pan-Africanism, -- transnationalism, -- Marcus Garvey, -- Rastafari, -- Jomo Kenyatta, -- Black Power; Social sciences -- Periodicals; History -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1017/S0010417520000262
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0010-4175

Abstract

Abstract: This article traces the impact of Kenya's Mau Mau uprising in Jamaica during the 1950s. Jamaican responses to Mau Mau varied dramatically by class: for members of the middle and upper classes, Mau Mau represented the worst of potential visions for a route to black liberation. But for marginalized Jamaicans in poorer areas, and especially Rastafari, Mau Mau was inspirational and represented an alternative method for procuring genuine freedom and independence. For these people, Mau Mau epitomized a different strand of pan-Africanism that had most in common with the ideas of Marcus Garvey. It was most closely aligned with, and was the forerunner of, Walter Rodney, Stokely Carmichael, and Black Power in the Caribbean. Theirs was a more radical, violent, and black-focused vision that ran alongside and sometimes over more traditional views. Placing Mau Mau in the Jamaican context reveals these additional levels of intellectual thought that are invisible without its presence. It also forces us to rethink the ways we periodize pan-Africanism and consider how pan-African linkages operated in the absence of direct contact between different regions.