Harry Thuku

Harry Thuku (* 1895 ; † 1970 ) was a Kenyan politician who actively helped shape the political opposition to British colonial rule in the 1920s . After his imprisonment in 1922, he became a symbol and hero of the early anti-colonial resistance movements. Later he moved away from viewpoints critical of the colonial era, and as a successful farmer he spoke out firmly against the Mau Mau movement .

Childhood and youth

Harry Thuku was born to a wealthy Kikuyu family. He was one of the first students at a mission school in Kenya. He attended the mission school in Kambui and was cared for by a missionary in the hope that he would later enter the church service himself. At the age of 16 he left the mission and worked in Nairobi for the Standard Bank of South Africa. In the same year he was convicted of embezzlement and imprisoned for two years.

After his release, Thuku began working for The Leader of British East Africa newspaper in 1914 . This activity not only broadened his political horizons, but also immensely improved his English skills.

First political activities

In 1918, Thuku began working as a telephone operator in the financial administration. During this time he met a number of Indian politicians who campaigned for the rights of Indians in the protectorate. He also met a number of educated Africans in Nairobi who shared his reservations about the exclusion of Africans from colonial society. Together with them, Thuku founded the Young Kikuyu Association in 1921 , which was renamed the East African Association shortly afterwards .

The organization turned against the high taxation of Africans and stood up against the Kipande system. In 1921, Thuku sent a complaint to the British Prime Minister over the telephone at his workplace about the treatment of Africans in the colony. In March 1922, Thuku was arrested and sentenced to a period of exile.

Thuku as the figurehead of the anti-colonial movement

During the time of his exile, which he spent in northern Kenya, Thuku became the hero of the political organizations that were subsequently founded. The Kikuyu Central Association , which pursued goals similar to Thuku in the East African Association , stylized Thuku as a martyr figure in whose name the struggle for a decent life for Africans in the colony was continued. Each issue of a Kikuyu-language magazine commemorated his struggle, the tradition of which must be carried on.

literature

• Harry Thuku. An Autobiography, with Assistance from Kenneth King, Nairobi 1970.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Kipande system obliged all Africans from the age of 16 to put a metal can around their necks, in which there was a piece of paper that gave information about the working days of the person concerned.