It is a more dramatic story than the truth of blunders by British PM Winston Churchill, allegations of war crimes and the role of trade unionists and KAU.

Kuna watu hapa watakumaliza ukisema hivyo. I have always told people that the Mau Mau thingy was a waste of time, resources and lives. Useless struggle. Other than unknowingly setting up the Hola massacre and subsequent recognition by the british parliament of atrocities being metted on the native population by sir evelyn baring gava - it served no purpose! everything could have been sorted out politically as it was finally done! The former colonial masters were handing out independence like free cakes. there a period of time between June and August 1960 that so many countries got their independence. a waste of lives! but the narrative has been perpetuated about these heros who killed about 70 wazungus and thousands of africans. I feel nothing but pity for them and their misdirected efforts.

But I always suspected this when I was in school... after the mau mau narrative (that tulipigania uhuru) there was a trip to england by Legco to write a constitution and I was wondering... if we beat these people - why were they allowing our heros to come to their homeland? why were our heros going to enemy territory? kumbe... it would all make sense later.

"Officially the number of Mau Mau and other rebels killed was 11,000, including 1,090 convicts hanged by the British administration. Just 32 white settlers were killed in the eight years of emergency.
However, unofficial figures suggest a much larger number were killed in the counter-insurgency campaign.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has said 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the crackdown, and 160,000 were detained in appalling conditions.
David Anderson, professor of African Politics at Oxford University, says he estimates the death toll in the conflict to have been as high as 25,000."

I think hindsight is 20-20 and with hindsight everyone is a genius. The worst thing is that some settlers still stayed, the ones who left were replaced by black ones and so - nothing really changed. Of course some of the settlers would have never left their nice malaria free highlands (http://www.siliconafrica.com/mosquito-fraternity/)

As in most wars, there were many atrocities by both sides. Mau Mau tried to force every person to be on their side; the colonialists did the same. BTW, most people didn't apply to be homeguards, they were forced to.

The other side was accused not just of killing and maiming, but torture, rape, looting

I refuse to call them thugs. They were not. They just fought for what they believed in

Mau mau led by Kimathi Washiuri were terrorists period.

Cutting innocent peoples tongues and opening their bowels ati for the sake of our freedoms.

a matter of dates... of course depending on whose tongues you are cutting and bowels you are opening! if you did that to mzungus it would be terrorism pre-independence and patriotism post-independence if they were mwafrika's then... it's terrorism pre and post independence.

Upto very recently, South Africa's ANC was listed as a terrorist organisation by the west. Armed struggle against oppressors cannot be all easy soldier for soldier war

Add them to your list of terrorist groups alongside FRELIMO, RENAMO, MPLA,SWAPO, SPLA...

Even Madiba was a terrorist

Something went wrong with our education system. Honestly some of the comments here are shocking.

1. How do you guys forget that in British imperialism was accompanied by sheer brute force. Winston Churchill remarked in 1908 after a raid on africans that "It looks like a butchery. If the H. of C. gets hold of it, all our plans in E.A.P. will be under a cloud. Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenceless people on such an enormous scale"

2. British rule was about forceful land grabbing, forced labour and concentration camps called native villages. Until 1950 by statute african employees were to be publicly flogged by the white settles because they thought africans were like children and needed to be treated as such. It took the World war II for africans to understand the colonisers were after all human and they died from wounds.

3.When you call Maumau thugs, what about the British settlers in Hola camp they clubbed africans to death, castrated them and burnt them alive. Between 1952 to 1956 they hang 1,015 africans. There were mass trials of upto 50 men with numbers around their necks and most were led to the gallows in groups of 10 to 20 men together. In the words of Labour MP Barbara Castle the entire system of justice in kenya had "Nazi" attitude towards africans. What wrong with you people?

4.The Mau mau thugs as you call them were in the forest for 4 years without external support before they were defeated. Lincoln bombers dropped 6 million bombs on these defenceless "thugs". Despite all the bombings and being chased around the forest these guys had the time to primitively reverse engineer and make home made guns. That is the only technological innovation attempted by africans in the field of modern war. Have we invented an ugali making machine in the 50+ years of peace?

5. The British were very effective in propaganda that's why the mau mau rebellion morphed from a nationalist uprising into a kikuyu civil war. Caroline Elkins explores this in Imperial Reckoning, Henry Holt and Company, NY, 2005. She says:
Like most wars, Mau Mau was as much about propaganda as it was about reality...Equally powerful as the photographs distributed by the Colonial Office was the language used to describe the Mau Mau...the "white" and "enlightened" forces of British colonialism were in stark contradistinction to the "dark," "evil," "foul," "secretive," and "degraded" Mau Mau. These descriptions spilled over into the Kenyan and British press, where the sensationalist accounts juxtaposed white heroism with African, or Mau Mau terrorism and savagery.

6.You may believe the propaganda just as the The New York Times reported that the Mau Mau movement was a result of the frustrations of a savage people neither mentally nor economically able to adjust itself to the swift pace of civilization but have some decency to believe in your self-determination to write your african story and tell your children that once upon a time the British had brutally ruled kenya for many years and the people of an occupied nation desired independence. There were some who believed in eating and breeding peacefully there were some who wanted political reconciliation and some who believed that blood and terror would send the British away. Teach them that all nations(including Britain) are where they are because of self-determination and it never comes easy. As always history is written by the victors.

7. All in all the uncle Toms won and their grand kids are now keyboard warriors enjoying the fruits of independence calling fellow africans thugs who delayed independence. As always in war those who survive are the real winners.

well said. ....but don't catch feelings keyboard warriors and armchair punditry are wazuas forte