Mau Mau’s Children: The Making of Kenya’s Postcolonial Elite

5. Entering an Economic Elite

98 5 En­ ter­ ing an Eco­ nomic Elite The post­ co­ lo­ nial elite that ­ emerged in the 1960s was not ­ Kenya’s first. His­ tor­ i­ cally, a small cadre of Ken­ yans from two earlier gen­ er­ a­ tions had com­ posed an emer­ gent elite dur­ ing the co­ lo­ nial era that an­ tic­ i­ pated, at least in part, the path­ way to eco­ nomic pros­ per­ ity that ­ opened up to my stu­ dents and oth­ ers of their co­ hort as they began their ca­ reers. In its ear­ li­ est it­ er­ a­ tion, that elite began with the at­ tain­ ment of lit­ er­ acy­ through mis­ sion ­ schools, which sup­ plied the only ed­ u­ ca­ tion avail­ able. These Ath­ omi (read­ ers) hoped to use their ed­ u­ ca­ tion and their as­ so­ ci­ a­ tion with mis­ sion­ ar­ ies to nego­ tiate with co­ lo­ nial au­ thor­ ities an ex­ emp­ tion from tax­ a­ tion and ­ forced labor but es­ pe­ cially to gain ac­ cess to mis­ sion land or to open ­ spaces not yet cul­ ti­ vated in newly de­ mar­ cated re­ serves.1 At Nyeri, the Gi­ kuyu Ath­ omi also ­ called them­ selves Ba­ ragu (wealthy men): “It sig­ naled young ­ converts’ hopes that their la­ bors at the mis­ sion would en­ ti­ tle them to the prom­ i­ nence that ­ wealth would bring.”2 The first in­ itia­ tive that Ath­ omi pur­ sued was to se­ cure land at a time when mis­ sions, govern­ ment, and white set­ tlers were ex­ pro­ pri­ at­ ing it for their own use. For the land­ less and the land poor, from which many of the first Ath­ omi were drawn, this was im­ per­ a­ tive for the con­ tin­ u­ a­ tion of sub­ sis­ tence farm­ ing and “to ­ achieve the old Gi­ kuyu goal of re­ spect­ able adult­ hood.”3 How­ ever, Ath­ omi also ­ looked be­ yond land for ­ wealth and pros­ per­ ity. The co­ lo­ nial econ­ omy had intro­ duced wages, and with the ­ Athomis’ new com­ pe­ tence in lit­ er­ acy, they took up em­ ploy­ ment in such new oc­ cu­ pa­ tions as teach­ ers, inter­ pret­ ers, ­ clerks, and other govern­ ment po­ si­ tions. As David K. Le­ o­ nard ­ pointed out, this gave them an ex­ cel­ lent “drought-free, ­ steady and eas­ ily trad­ able in­ come.”4 At the be­ gin­ ning of the co­ lo­ nial era and, for many Ken­ yans, con­ tin­ u­ ing for its en­ tire du­ ra­ tion, wage labor was a bur­ den. Peas­ ant farm­ ers were ­ driven an­ nu­ ally to be­ come mi­ grant wage la­ bor­ ers in Ken­ yan towns or on ­ white-settler Entering an Economic Elite 99 farms in order to earn the cash nec­ es­ sary to pay their ­ yearly tax. Wages were low and their small farms fre­ quently had to sub­ si­ dize them with food and other basic es­ sen­ tials of life while they were away fill­ ing their labor ­ contract. ­ Clearly the pur­ pose of this ­ system was to ­ create a res­ er­ voir of cheap labor for the co­ lo­ nial econ­ omy ­ rather than to pro­ vide Ken­ yans with ­ wealth-creating op­ por­ tu­ nities. But the po­ si­ tions now taken by Ath­ omi were dif­ fer­ ent: they ­ earned pro­ fes­ sional sal­ a­ ries, and pro­ mo­ tions and ad­ vance­ ment to even bet­ ter jobs were pos­ sible. In a re­ ver­ sal of the di­ rec­ tion to what had taken place among mi­ grant la­ bor­ ers, their wages ­ flowed back to their farms, pro­ vid­ ing in­ come for such in­ no­ va­ tions as im­ prov­ ing their herds with the intro­ duc­ tion of grade cat­ tle, ex­ pand­ ing their farm­ ing ­ acreage, and intro­ duc­ ing cash crops. The emerg­ ing elite often en­ tered the com­ mer­ cial ­ sphere as well. Gavin Kitch­ ing cap­ tured this new eco­ nomic di­ rec­ tion well in the case stud­ ies he pre­ sented in Class and Eco­ nomic ­ Change in Kenya. In the eigh­ teen cases he cited, a sig­ nif­i­ cant num­ ber fit the fol­ low­ ing pat­ tern: after...