Land, Freedom and Fiction: History and Ideology in Kenya

by Visualisation Creatrice, Stephen Clingman (Foreword by)

Overview

This now classic work examines the contrasting ways in which the Mau Mau struggle for land and independence in Kenya was mirrored, and usually distorted, by successive generations of English and white Kenyan authors, as well as by indigenous Kenyan novelists. Against the turbulent background of the Mau Mau Uprising, Dr Maughan-Brown explores the relationship between history, literary creation and the myths that societies cultivate. Spanning the breadth of colonial and post-colonial African literature, his subjects range from the colonialist authors Robert Ruark and Elspeth Huxley to the post-independence novels of Meja Mwangi and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Maughan-Brown's book is invaluable on many levels. He presents a concise account of the uprising and its place in Kenyan identity, and significantly increases our understanding of settler attitudes and the role of literature within colonial ideology. Land, Freedom and Fiction succeeds in showing the subtle insights a materialist approach can bring to the study of literature, ideology and society. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786990112
Publisher:	Zed Books
Publication date:	06/15/2017
Series:	African Culture Archive
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	812 KB

About the Author

Professor David Maughan-Brown is the former Deputy Vice Chancellor of York St John University. Brought up in East Africa and educated in South Africa, he previously lectured in the Department of English at the University of Natal

Read an Excerpt

Land, Freedom and Fiction

History and Ideology in Kenya

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By David Maughan-Brown

Zed Books Ltd

Copyright © 1985 David Maughan-Brown
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78699-011-2

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

'Mau Mau' was an armed struggle waged by the Gikuyu peasantry against the British colonial forces from 1952–56. 'Mau Mau' is also the term which, perhaps more than any other, still signifies for many whites the 'atavism' and 'primitivism' of 'darkest Africa'. This can be attributed in part to the voluminous writings about 'Mau Mau', both fictional and 'non-fictional', produced during the Emergency by Kenyan colonial settlers and their sympathisers. After Kenya's independence in 1963, 'Mau Mau' became the object of historical research by academic historians of a variety of persuasions; it remained a constant theme for fiction and drama, now written by black authors; and a number of its participants wrote autobiographies. The result is a body of texts which provides a unique field for a study of the relationship between 'histoiy' and 'literature'.

The fiction about 'Mau Mau' has been produced by three clearly distinguishable groups of authors, writing within thirty years of one another, in works whose production was determined by markedly differing social and economic conditions. These were, firstly, the 'colonialist' authors such as Huxley and Ruark, writing during the 1950s and early 1960s, whose novels can be seen to have been produced within British colonial ideology in its Kenya settler variant Secondly, a group of writers such as Fazakerley, producing fiction from within the liberal ideology of a section of the dominant bloc of the metropolis during the same period. And, thirdly, black writers producing fiction from within the dominant ideology of post-independence Kenya in the decade after independence. The three groups of novels reveal noteworthy divergences between the ideologies within which they were produced (and Ngugi's publication of Petals of Blood in 1977 displayed a fourth, entirely different – this time socialist – determining ideology for consideration). This makes the literature about 'Mau Mau' an excellent site for a study of the relationship between fiction and ideology.

Analysis of the codes employed in the fiction written about 'Mau Mau' makes it clear that colonial fiction is a potent propaganda instrument. It is, moreover, one which has been extensively used during colonial liberation struggles to win support for colonial regimes against those involved in the struggle. The Zimbabwe experience provides considerable further evidence of this and makes it clear that this book is dealing with an area of contemporary culture which is of immediate relevance to Southern Africa, in particular, in the 1980s.

Choosing to write about the literature about 'Mau Mau' has the advantage of making the selection of what falls within the field comparatively simple. Thus, to take the fiction, Ruark's Uhuru will be discussed, in spite of its being set in the immediately post-independence period, because a large part of the novel is taken up with accounts of the early years of the Emergency, and black political activity is depicted in the novel as a resurgence of 'Mau Mau'. Leonard Kibera's Voices in the Dark, on the other hand, is not admissible because, although two of its main protagonists are ex-forest fighters, now beggars, who reminisce about the war in the forests, it is set some years after independence and is primarily a critique of neo-colonial Kenya and could not be said to be about 'Mau Mau'. But, by the same token, restricting discussion to the literature specifically about 'Mau Mau' means that in the interests of consistency and thematic unity, when we come to Ngugi it is only on the early novels that discussion can focus. So the later novels and drama, important and interesting as they are, can only be mentioned in passing.

The unusually explicit convergence between 'politico-ideological' discourses and 'literary' (representational, 'imaginative') discourses which the works written about 'Mau Mau' reveal brings into focus a number of problems which are of central concern not only to literary criticism but also to the broader field of cultural studies. In the process, the literature of 'Mau Mau' offers a wide range of examples of the practice of 'embedding' in literature, in Hayden White's words, 'that form of verbal composition which, in order to distinguish it from logical demonstration on the one side and from pure fiction on the other, we call by the name discourse.' White makes two important points about discourse that are worth noting at this stage. Firstly, 'all discourse constitutes the objects which it pretends only to describe realistically and to analyse objectively' – it would be difficult to find a better example of this than is provided by the discourse about 'Mau Mau'. Secondly, discourse is both interpretive and pre-interpretive: '... it is always as much about the nature of interpretation itself as it is about the subject matter which is the manifest occasion of its own elaboration'. One of the problems brought into focus in this study is the methodological problem which arises from the recognition of the blurring of the boundaries between discourses with formally distinct theoretical objects and procedures.

The central organising principle of this book is the examination of the relationship between fiction and ideology in the novels about 'Mau Mau'. This will necessitate a definition of what is meant by 'ideology' and an account of the general relationship between ideology and literature. The main concern of the remainder of this introduction will be to discuss the theory of ideology on which my analysis is based, and to give an account of the critical method I have adopted in the attempt to relate the various ideologies, once identified, to the literature in such a way as to produce a certain provisional understanding not only of the literature (i.e. the conditions and modes of its signification) but also of the 'Mau Mau' movement and the Kenyan colonial phenomenon in general.

The literary-critical method in terms of which I will be examining the fiction concerns itself primarily with the conditions under which a work is produced and the necessities it reveals. It will clearly be essential to examine in some detail the historical conjunctures to which the fiction relates and within which it was produced. Before an account can be given of the way the fiction about 'Mau Mau' embodies the various myths which underpinned colonial settler ideology, it will be necessary to establish, as far as possible, exactly where ascertainable historical 'fact' ends and the myth-constructing enterprise of colonial ideology begins.

This chapter will accordingly be followed by a chapter giving a historical account of 'Mau Mau' (based largely on secondary sources) and an account of the interpretations placed on the movement by various discourses of history. When I started to research this topic I could find no adequately comprehensive or reliable chapter-length account of the movement, so I hope that this book will do something towards filling that gap. This will lead into my third chapter, which will offer an account of colonial settler race ideology and its metropolitan affiliations (on which the colonial ideology of the history of 'Mau Mau' was based), which will clear the way for an examination of the fiction of Ruark, Huxley, and a number of other colonialist novelists in Chapter 4. Chapter 5, which will conclude the 'colonial' section of the book, will examine the novels about 'Mau Mau' produced by writers operating from within the 'liberal' ideology of the metropolis.

The second part of this book examines fiction written by Kenyan authors after independence: this will again necessitate a preliminary chapter aimed at establishing a model of neo-colonial Kenya which will make it possible to deal coherently with the complexities of socio-economic and cultural-ideological determination silently at work upon the production of the fiction. This will be followed by a chapter on the novelists Mwangi, Wachira and Mangua and a chapter on Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Ngugi merits a chapter to himself not only because Petals of Blood reveals that the problematic within which it was produced has broken decisively from that in which the earlier novels were produced, but also because Ngugi is the major novelist of the continuing Kenyan struggle for Land and Freedom (now freedom from the indirect, but often equally oppressive, dominance of neo-colonialism). He could thus legitimately claim to be the direct successor to those who collectively composed and sang the 'Mau Mau' Patriotic Songs (collected and edited by Maina wa Kinyatti in Thunder from the Mountains) as part of the cultural expression of their struggle for Land and Freedom. The Ngugi of Petals of Blood is distinguishable from the writers of the other novels to be examined by virtue of being the only one who would subscribe to Cabra's assertion: '... national liberation exists only when the national productive forces have been completely freed from every kind of foreign domination'.

Ideology

In turning to the formulation of a definition of ideology adequate to the needs of my analysis of this fiction, it is important to stress from the outset that no attempt is being made here to settle on a definition of ideology with claims to universal validity – which is not to say that I do not think that the definition arrived at here could not be usefully applied in the general analysis of fiction. The field I have chosen to study is a very specific and regional one, determined by a specific set of material and ideological conditions, and produced at a specific historical conjuncture. Any definition of ideology which will be useful to a materialist analysis of the works in that field must be formulated with those specificities in mind: to attempt to hit on a universally applicable definition of ideology would be to think in idealist rather than materialist categories.

My definition of ideology is based largely, if with considerable qualification, on Althusser's work on the theory of ideology. That work has been the subject of such heated dispute that it is difficult to adopt Althusserian terminology without taking some cognisance of the various arguments and counterarguments. At the same time it would obviously be foolhardy – even if one felt so inclined – to embroil oneself in the (often surreptitiously sectarian) debate over Althusser in a book which is not about the theory of ideology but about Kenyan literature and history. Moreover, authors like Fredric Jameson, in The Political Unconscious, give evidence of the rich possibilities of Althusserian theory, methods based on selective appropriations of Althusserian theory. Jameson's careful traversal of the dogmatic either/or-ishness of much of the debate provides an example which considerably diminishes the need for an exhaustive justification of the retention of elements of Althusser's theory in the elaboration of a materialist critical methodology more eclectic than that normally countenanced by either sect in the pro/anti-Althusser debate.

The sine qua non of a Marxist approach to ideology is that ideas must be treated, to borrow a formulation from Stuart Hall, 'in terms of their historical roots, the classes which subscribe to them, the specific conjunctures in which they arise, their effectivity in winning the consent of the dominated classes to the way the world is defined and understood by the dominant classes'. Thus Jorge Larrain's conclusion is not particularly helpful: 'For ideology to be present the two conditions which Marx laid down should be satisfied: the objective concealment of contradictions and the interest of the dominant class.' In the first place, an analysis of 'Mau Mau' reveals that the different groups of forest fighters had their own (what can only be adequately termed) ideologies, supported by bodies of myths and arising from contradictions in the social formation, and that while these were often in conflict with each other they by no means always served the interests of the dominant class. In the second place, such a definition contributes nothing towards telling us how the ideology conceals the contradictions.

As a general definition Althusser's formulation in For Marx seems more promising: '... an ideology is a system (with its own logic and rigour) of representations (images, myths, ideas, or concepts, depending on the case) endowed with a historical existence and role within a given society'. This both allows space for non-dominant ideologies, and maintains a balance between a stress on the historical origins of ideology and a stress on its constitutive cultural social role, which is necessary if an overly functionalist view is to be avoided. Another formulation in the same essay, which also circumvents the narrow counter-posing of 'true' and 'false' consciousness, with its conspiracy theory overtones, offers considerable possibilities:

Ideology, then, is the expression of the relation between men and their 'world', that is, the (overdetermined) unity of the real relation and the imaginary relation between them and their real conditions of existence. In ideology the real relation is inevitably invested in the imaginary relation, a relation that expresses a will (conservative, conformist, reformist or revolutionary), a hope or a nostalgia, rather than describing a reality.

Here, in relation to Kenya, one finds a formulation which allows for a succinct delineation both of the dominant colonial ideology – which, as will be seen, expressed a combination of regressive nostalgia and absolute will to power – and of the variations in the ideologies of the dominated, which ranged in expression from revolutionary through reformist wills to the dependent inarticulacy of mere 'hopes'. Moreover, Althusser's development of the concept of 'interpellation does assist us in establishing how ideology conceals contradictions, as will be seen.

Althusser's most systematic account of ideology is found in his essay 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses' where he argues that the essential function of ideology is to guarantee, for the dominant class, the reproduction of the relations of production. It does this by means of the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) – the family ISA, the educational ISA, the trade union ISA, the cultural ISA etc. – which reinforce the work of the repressive apparatus (the police, the courts, the prisons) by, for example, ensuring the reproduction in the labour force of its 'voluntary' submission to the rules of the established order.

Althusser argues that ideology is not simply a body of ideas but has a material existence: because 'an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. This existence is material.' He breaks with the orthodox Marxist position of arguing ideology as false consciousness, a false representation of people's real conditions of existence, by arguing that 'it is not their real conditions of existence, their real world, that 'men' 'represent to themselves' in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of existence which is represented to them there'. Ideology can thus be defined as a ' "representation" of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.'

Finally, and perhaps most crucially, Althusser theorises ideology as functioning through a process of 'interpellation' or hailing (naming/calling/summonsing) whereby the assent of subjects is sought to the propositions of ideology. This involves demands made on the individual for the recognition of 'obviousnesses' relating to his or her 'place' and 'identity' as a subject. The interpellation comes to each individual in the form of a direct, if often implicit, appeal: 'You "are" such and such aren't you?' – 'Therefore such and such is right, isn't it?' Althusser argues that 'all ideology has the function (which defines it) of "constituting" concrete individuals as subjects', a function which it performs through interpellation. Subjects for Althusser are constituted by and through ideology and have no existence outside its operations.

Althusser's work on the theory of ideology has been criticised on a number of grounds. Where the details of ISAs essay are concerned, dispute has focused, for example, on the claim that the ideological apparatuses are state apparatuses; on the assertion of the existence of separate 'levels'; and on Althusser's claim to break with the notion of false consciousness. More generally, Althusser's philosophical methods and general theoretical position are accused of being anti-experience, of being idealist, and of being functionalist. This leads to the main set of charges on the sheet: Althusser's categories are static; the ISAs essay takes no account of the class struggle; Althusserianism is 'ideological police action': 'It is only in our own time that Stalinism has been given its true, rigorous and totally coherent theoretical expression. This is the Althusserian orrery.'

There can be no doubt that, even if the accusations of 'ideological police action' are hysterical (Jameson speaks much more plausibly of Althusser's 'coded battle waged within the framework of the French Communist Party against Stalinism'), many of the criticisms of Althusser's theory do have considerable substance in their own right, as partial clarifications of areas of conceptual difficulty, and in areas, moreover, which are pertinent to the subject of this book.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Land, Freedom and Fiction by David Maughan-Brown. Copyright © 1985 David Maughan-Brown. Excerpted by permission of Zed Books Ltd.
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Table of Contents

• Preface and Acknowledgements
  
• 1. Introduction
  
• 2. 'Mau Mau' as a Historical Phenomenon
  
• 3. Kenyan Colonial Settler Ideology
  
• 4. Nothing of Value: Colonial Fiction About 'Mau Mau'
  
• 5. 'Plus ca Chamge...': Liberal Fiction from the Metropolis
  
• 6. Economy, Politics and Ideology in Post-Independence Kenya
  
• 7. Novels of the 'Freedom'
  
• 8. Not Yet the Freedom
  
• Bibliography