Backward in Kenya
Immediately after hi4 arrival in England on Sunday, Mr. E. R. St. A. Davies, Chief Native Commissioner in Kenya, hastened to point out that reports of the activities of the anti- European secret society known as Mau Mau have been greatly exaggerated: Mr. E. W. Mathu, a representative of the Kenya African Union, has even expressed a doubt about the very exis- tence of an organisation of that name. But the undoubted fact is that there have been outbreaks of crime, chiefly among members of the Kikuyu tribe, in Nairobi and in various up-country areas; and these outbreaks have been sufficiently serious to call for a special session of the Legislature and to send Mr. Davies and Mr. John Whyatt, the Kenya Member for Law and Order, to London to confer with the Colonial Secretary. Mau Mau itself, in the very nature of the case, is elusive and difficult to pin down. Nothing much is known about it, except that the ejection of Europeans from Kenya is among its objects and intimidation. of Africans among its methods. But it is beyond doubt that it has caused fear and tension in Kenya and that it represents a return to the dark—a reversion to the atmosphere, the oaths and taboos and the bloodthirsty excitements of a less civilised, though still quite recent, time. Even the most enthusiastic and unpractical of the numerous advocates of more political powers for Africans is unlikely to mistake it for a movement of liberation and enlightenment. But at the same time the warnings of the experts against elevating it to the false status of wholesale terrorism must be heeded. A violent white reaction, inspired also by fear of the dark, could do untold damage.
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