Concrete and Clay

December the 12th is Jamhuri day, celebrating Kenyan Independence.

In 1952, led by the inspirational presence of Dedan Kimaathi, and after having vowed never to cut their hair or beards until the English were expelled, 35,000 Kenyans threatened to overthrow an overwhelming imperial army in Kenya during the Mau Mau revolution. With his gifted oratorial skills and intuitive knowledge of hunting paths and the bush, Dedan Kimaathi was able to seemingly appear in three places at the same time, instilling great fear into the imperial authorities and spreading his revolution like wildfire. Only by resorting to carpet bombing, bribery, water poisoning and concentration camp opening was it possible for the English to quell the rebellion. Kimaathi was sold up the river by one of his followers and arrested and later executed by British authorities who used all their powers of propaganda to cover up and distort events so that the rebellion seemed insignificant.

Kenya eventually gained independence 9 years later, and Dedan Kimaathi was largely forgotten by British-engineered history. However, today his memory lives on in Kenya and around the world.

During the 1950s, pictures of Kimaathi and his Mau Mau followers with long matted hair and beards in the press found their way to London and Jamaica, and Rastafarians adopted these "dread locks" as symbols of resistance and struggle that flourish to this day.

"Poverty can be stopped; but not by bombs and weapons." Dedan Kimaathi, 1952

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