Echoes From a Distant Land (31 page)

Jelani moved into a hut in Likoni, a ferry ride and long walk from the office of the Transport and Allied Workers' Union. His main job was to compile the union's newsletter, the
Kenya Worker
, from material prepared by Chege Muthuri. At other times he folded pamphlets and ran errands. His wages were small, but enough to survive.

He also tried to understand the aims of the Transport and Allied Workers' Union — and indeed those of the union movement in general. He couldn't see how the union could possibly make the improvements to pay and working conditions that they promised. From Jelani's perspective, and he kept his opinions to himself, the entire movement was powerless to alter the present situation where the government and employers had complete control. This impression, however, was challenged some months later.

During 1950, Mombasa's industrial unrest escalated to unprecedented levels. Workers and strike-breakers fought in the warehouses and factories on an almost daily basis. The situation was nearly as bad in Nairobi, where a large group of squatters from the farms around the neighbouring towns swarmed onto the lawns of Government House in Nairobi to demonstrate against the settlers' harsh employment conditions. A bloody battle ensued. The Governor promised to investigate the protestors' claims, but did nothing.

Finally, a general strike was called, and three-quarters of Mombasa's twenty thousand workers walked off their jobs. The strikers came from all the crafts and industries and were joined by domestic workers. The city came to a standstill and widespread rural protests arose in sympathy.

Jelani was with Chege Muthuri at the head of a march through the centre of Mombasa when the strikers faced police lines four deep. The officers carried batons held across their chests. In the rear were others mounted on horseback.

Muthuri leaned close to Jelani's ear. ‘Go,' he said.

‘What?'

‘I said, go. You will be needed at the office if I get arrested.'

‘But …'

‘And if I get arrested, you will find me for your orders.'

A whistle sounded from deep in the police ranks.

‘Go!' Muthuri said, pushing Jelani away as he and the leaders at the head of the march roared defiantly, and surged towards the oncoming baton charge.

Jelani ran into an alley and climbed onto the roof of a building facing the street to watch the battle.

He watched as the batons rained onto the leading rows. The horsemen pressed their panicked mounts into the ranks while lashing out with long thick canes.

 

In the aftermath, four hundred people, including many union leaders, were arrested and thrown in gaol without charges being laid.

Jelani eventually found Muthuri in the old gaol.

‘How did you get here?' Muthuri asked when Jelani stood on the other side of the barred gate. Behind him were scores of men milling in the open compound.

‘Everyone likes a little tea money.'

‘Hmmph … Now this is what you must do,' he said and rattled off a string of instructions.

‘But I know nothing about unions,' Jelani protested.

‘There's no one else, Karura. Everyone's in here. Do what you can and report to me. Save your tea money and ask for Sergeant Obare — he's one of us. Keep the newsletter going, whatever you do. If we can't keep the members aware of what's happening, we're finished.'

The detentions didn't stop the union members' actions. They rallied again, and again the police retaliated with vigour, this time killing three and severely injuring thirty others.

An uneasy peace simmered through the doldrums — the weeks between the
kusi
and
kazkusi
trade winds when not a breath of air
stirred the long tendrils of bougainvillea in the trees above Jelani's office. From the membership network came a constant string of complaints against employers, which Jelani duly noted. Women and children were being forced to work in difficult or dangerous situations; domestic servants were physically and sometimes sexually abused; local chiefs exploited their position of authority to extract free labour from their communities; administrative police extorted money or livestock from impoverished squatters. It took a groundswell of outrage to compel the normally placid Africans to complain to the authorities, but when they did, it came with a flood of pent-up fury. When these protests failed, and they often did, they had nowhere else to turn, except to the union.

As instructed by Muthuri, Jelani reported all in the
Kenya Worker.

 

While the industrial campaign raged in the cities, another group had appeared in Kikuyuland and was building a reputation for helping the oppressed. They had no name, but Muthuri thought they might be potential rivals to the union and told Jelani to go to Nairobi to find out more.

A member brought a man to the lean-to in Bazaar Street that served as a union office. He was a Kikuyu squatter-labourer from the rolling hills below Mt Kenya; he seemed a little awed by his visit to the city.

Jelani asked him about the group.

‘They are called The Movement, and they have been helping many of us squatters up there near Kirinyaga,' he said.

‘And how have they helped you?'

‘In Naro Moru where I stay, there is a farm owned by a man called Botha. He has many, many squatters working his farm. It is big. He works us very hard. Too much. When we complain, he beats us and threatens to chase us away. But these people, The Movement, they listen to us. They say we must join them and they will help us. So we join. Then they come to Naro Moru.'

‘What did they say to this Botha?' Jelani asked.

‘They say nothing. They did not meet him.'

‘Then how did they help you?'

‘They burned down his house.'

Jelani returned to Mombasa knowing little about the new group who appeared more like vigilantes than negotiators. They did, however, also sound capable of attracting supporters who might otherwise turn to the unions.

It wasn't an ignorant Kikuyu farmer who presented the most compelling argument that something strange was happening out in the rural areas surrounding Mt Kenya, but a district officer.

Jelani stumbled upon the DO's comments among documents given to him in Nairobi by a disgruntled office clerk. They were closed files detailing numbers of Africans employed in the districts by the administration and so were of interest to Jelani. The comments came in a footnote to the DO's annual report to his boss, the District Commissioner.

He wrote that local white farmers had complained about suspicious livestock losses soon after rejecting petitions from their workers for better pay and conditions. The whites expressed concern about what they called a secret society formed from mainly young Kikuyu men intent on stirring up trouble among their squatter-labourers. This society argued that the squatters' problems could only be solved by expelling all whites from the fertile highlands — the traditional home of the Kikuyu people. It was a step too far.

The District Officer suggested to the DC that he might ask the white farming community to become more aware of their resident squatters' concerns and take some time to understand their point of view. He said that too many were inclined to bully their workers into submission and that they quite often chose to use a fist of iron rather than a helping hand.

The DO said there were many names for the secret society including The Movement, the Freedom Struggle Association and, more ominously, the Land and Freedom Army. However, he thought the most commonly used name was Mau Mau.

Jelani flipped from the report to a file note where he found the District Commissioner's succinct and dismissive comment:
Noted.

On his next visit to the Mombasa gaol, he raised the matter with Chege Muthuri, who nodded his understanding, but said no more. On a second occasion he brushed Jelani's concerns aside, saying the stories about the group who promised land reform and an end to the white's domination were merely wishful thinking on the part of ignorant farmers.

‘They would rather invent a mysterious saviour than to join the union's ranks and fight for better conditions,' he said. ‘Ignore them.'

 

Muthuri and the other leaders were released after a prolonged industrial campaign. Eventually it was the whites — farmers and factory owners in the main — who demanded they be released: their businesses were suffering.

Jelani was rewarded for his conscientious work by being given the job of editor of an expanded newspaper —
Uhuru
, or
Freedom.
Muthuri said it would be the backbone of the new independence movement.

Jelani was flattered, but thought it unimaginable that a small newspaper could halt the whites' changes to the African way of life.

As part of his induction to his new role, Jelani accompanied Muthuri to the Rift Valley town of Nakuru where the union secretary planned to hold the first of a series of meetings with his members. He wanted Jelani there to take notes. Thereafter, he would continue on a whistle-stop tour to Kisumu. Jelani would return to the Mombasa office to write up the meetings for the next edition of
Uhuru.

They sat in the second-class carriage, Muthuri at the window, as the train climbed towards the Mau escarpment, north of Nairobi. Muthuri talked about his plans for the coming months. He said he wanted to spend more time away from the coast.

‘This is where we will begin our big push,' he said, pointing out the window at the rolling hills around Limuru. ‘Here in Kikuyuland, and it is the Wakikuyu who will be our warriors in the battles ahead.'

Jelani followed his gesture. Food gardens climbed the slopes of red volcanic soil to tea and coffee plantations along the ridges. It was late
morning and Kikuyu farmers dotted the landscape tending their plots — or more likely, the acres of the white land owners. It was an outlook similar to that from his home on the slopes of Mt Kenya.

‘That is why I'm moving my office to Nairobi,' Muthuri added, then turned to peer out the window as the train snaked its way along the contours into the next valley. Here another patchwork quilt of crops coloured the hillside. Cassava, maize, chick peas, beans, sorghum. The squatters grew everything they could, but not the cash crops — coffee, tea and wheat — that were the exclusive preserve of the whites.

Shortly after passing through the village of Kikuyu, the train driver tooted as the line crossed the road through Sigona Country Club, where groups of golfers strolled the green fairways hitting then foolishly following little white balls. Black boys carried their heavy golf bags.

Here and there were thatched villages sitting in the folds of the land or down on the flat beside a stream.

The train clattered across culverts covering the leaping waters of streams that dashed down to the tributaries of the Mathare or Nairobi rivers, depending upon what side of the watershed the tracks were situated.

‘I've been thinking, Karura,' Muthuri said after some time. ‘I would like you to move to our Nairobi office too. I will need your help as our work there increases. The union has a small bungalow among the railway workers' huts. Do you know the place? It's near the Nairobi station.'

‘Yes, I had a place there years ago.'

‘It's a small place, but enough for you and your wife.'

‘I'd like that, Chege. But I have no wife.'

‘Good. That's good. A wife could become a problem.'

Jelani would have liked to ask why, but his boss continued.

‘When you get back to Mombasa, pack your things and come back to Nairobi as soon as you can. There is much to do.' He glanced at Jelani. ‘Yes, we need more people in Nairobi these days. Can you drive a car?'

‘No.'

‘Hmm … Well, I think we should give you some lessons in these things.'

Jelani was excited about learning to drive, but tried to remain casual. There were weightier matters to discuss.

Muthuri continued: ‘I want you at Nakuru as I have invited a fellow called Kenyatta to join me. Have you heard of him?'

Jelani thought he had, but couldn't recall the context. He shook his head.

‘Kenyatta …' Muthuri said derisively. ‘What kind of name is that, ah? And Jomo — they say it means
burning spear
. I've never heard of it. But he is making a big name for himself. He is popular with we Kikuyu; and he has some connections with the Maasai. I'm not sure, but I think he lived in Narok for some time. Anyway, I want him to address the meeting. And I want you to speak to as many people as you can afterwards. I want to know what people think of him. If he can make an impact on these simple fellows up in Nakuru, I might invite him to join our movement.'

 

The town of Nakuru spread east from the railway station through a dusty stretch of flat country dotted with Indian trade stores, farming equipment suppliers, horse traders and stock and station agents, into a sweep of lush grass that climbed past a number of large farms and ranches to the top of the Great Rift Valley. There the eye could travel for forty miles before it again met the same level of the land on the far side.

Below the railway line Nakuru fell away through a series of squalid little huts and
dukas
to the lake and its enormous flocks of flamingos and water birds. Not more than two hundred yards from the line was the produce market's array of local eating places that offered Jelani's favourite meal —
nyama choma
— and a slab-top table to sit at while eating it.

Jelani did just that the first time he had a free hour and was soon in conversation with another customer — an older Kikuyu man — also enjoying the barbecued meat.

‘Mombasa,' Jelani told him, when asked where he lived.

‘So far from home,' the man said, shaking his head in sympathy. As a brother Kikuyu, he recognised the difficulty of leaving the homeland.