Table Of ContentFROM THE REVOLUTION
FROM THE REVOLUTION
Three militants from the
Karigo Muchai, Ngugi Kabiro
& Mohamed Mathu
tell their stories
Taped and edited by Donald Barnett
Illustrated by Selma Waldman
Published by Daraja Press
https://darajapress.com
In association with
Zand Graphics Ltd, Kenya
© 2022 Daraja Press
The publisher encourages the use and distribution of materials from this text
so long as it is not for commercial purposes
The essays contained here were first published by
the Liberation Support Movement Information Centre (LSM)
to whom we acknowledge our thanks for permission to reproduce them.
Cover design: Kate McDonnell
Illustrations: Selma Waldman
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Life histories from the revolution : three militants from the Kenya land and
Freedom Army / Karigo Muchai, Ngugi Kabiro, & Mohamed Mathu tell their
stories ; taped and edited by Donald Barnett ; illustrated by Selma Waldman.
Names: Barnett, Don, 1930-1975, editor. | Container of (work): Muchai, Karigo,
1914- Hardcore. | Container of (work): Kabiro, Ngugi, 1929- Man in the middle.
| Container of (work): Mathu, Mohamed. Urban guerrilla.
Description: All three works were published separately in the 1970s by LSM
Information Center.
Identifiers: Canadiana 2021032354X | ISBN 9781990263132 (softcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Muchai, Karigo, 1914- | LCSH: Kabiro, Ngugi, 1929- | LCSH: Mathu,
Mohamed. | LCSH: Mau Mau. | LCSH: Kenya—History—Mau Mau Emergency,
1952-1960. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.
Classification: LCC DT433.576.A2 L54 2022 | DDC 322.4/20922—dc23
To all Kenyans who fought for freedom
and to all those who are engaged in that struggle today.
Introduction by Firoze Manji ..................................................vii
Foreword by Donald Barnett ...................................................ix
Maps ..............................................................xi, xii, 25, 162
The Hardcore: The Story of Karigo Muchai
Introduction: Kenya: Two Paths Ahead ..........................................2
Karigo wa Muchai ............................................................ 10
The Batuni Oath .............................................................. 16
Lari Massacre ................................................................ 21
In the Forest .................................................................24
Kilimani Camp ...............................................................35
Mackinnon Road .............................................................47
Manyani .....................................................................52
Lodwar ......................................................................56
Rift Valley Camps .............................................................62
Hola .........................................................................69
Return to Kiambaa ...........................................................84
Man in the Middle: The Story of Ngugi Kabiro
Introduction .................................................................88
Part 1 ........................................................................90
Ngugi Kabiro ................................................................. 91
May This Oath Kill Me .......................................................102
Tightening the Noose .........................................................111
Part 2 .......................................................................120
State of Emergency ...........................................................121
A Good Friend of Mine ....................................................... 134
My Confession .............................................................. 153
The Urban Guerrilla: The Story of Mohamed Mathu
Introduction ................................................................164
A Decision to Struggle ........................................................170
The Urban Guerrillas ........................................................ 199
In the Detention Camps ......................................................222
Appendix: From the East Africa Standard ..................................... 251
Glossary ....................................................................256
Introduction to
Life Histories from the Revolution
History is as much about the future as it is about the past. Without an
appreciation of history, it is not possible to conceptualize what the future
could be, informed by the past, but not imprisoned by it. To contribute
to reflections about what has been, is now and what could be tomorrow,
Daraja Press wishes to make available books such as this one.
In 1960, Don Barnett went to Kenya with his family. There he conducted
a number of interviews with militants of the Kenya Land and Freedom
Army (the so-called Mau Mau), including an extensive interview with
Karari Njama that was subsequently published in 1966 by Monthly
Review as Mau Mau From Within: An Analysis of Kenya’s Peasant Revolt
and republished in 2021 by Daraja Press as Mau Mau: The Story of the
Kenya Land and Freedom Army from Within. In 1968, Don founded the
Liberation Support Movement Information Centre (LSM), aimed at
enabling freedom fighters to speak about their experiences. The LSM
subsequently published a series of pamphlets entitled Life Histories from
the Revolution based on recordings made by Don that include interviews
with cadres from MPLA in Angola, SWAPO in Namibia, and ANC from
South Africa.
LSM published interviews that Don had conducted in Kenya with three
militants from the Kenya Land and Freedom Army: Karigo Muchai,
Ngugi Kabiro and Mohamed Mathu (the latter had in fact introduced
Don to Karari Njama). Members of LSM maintained an archive of many
of these publications and recordings. Daraja Press was fortunate to have
made contact with them (thanks to Ole Gjerstad) and was provided with
copies of the the pamphlets from the Kenyan militants.
Daraja Press has brought together here the complete text (and illus-
trations) of the stories of the three militants from the Kenya Land and
Freedom Army as means of enabling a new generation of activists in
Kenya – and beyond – to get a sense of the struggles, sacrifices and
achievements of those who contributed to the struggle for national
freedom and for human emancipation against the brutality of British
colonial rule. These are moving stories, devoid of romance and modest
in recounting their heroism.
Just as Mau Mau: The Story of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army from
Within enables a young generation of Kenyans to understand the heroic
struggles for freedom, so this collection will, as Kamoji Wachiira put it
in his introduction to that book, “serve a new generation of militants to
gain not only a deeper understanding of Kenya’s revolutionary history
but also to reflect on what lessons may be drawn for our continuing
struggle to achieve true independence and freedom.”
Firoze Manji
Publisher, Daraja Press
January 2022
The hardcore
FOREWORD
The vast majority of peasants and workers in the super-exploited hinter-
land of the imperialist system are illiterate. It is part of their oppres-
sion. They comprise almost half of the world’s population, some 75% of
the population in the “free world”, and the emiserated broad base from
which all contemporary anti-imperialist revolutions draw their essential
moral and material strength. These are the masses who, under the lead-
ership of revolutionary vanguards, are making modern history. Yet, due
largely to the chains of their enforced illiteracy, these makers of history
rarely have the opportunity to document their own experiences within
it. Their “backwardness” condemns them to literary silence as well as to
poverty, disease and a short life.
One of our objectives in launching this series of Life Histories from
the Revolution is to provide a medium through which individual members
of these classes-in-motion within the revolution can speak. We also
believe it important that they be heard by those of us who comprise impe-
rialism’s privileged and literate metropolitan minority. Their recounted
lives throw our own into sharp relief, while at the same time they offer
us fresh perspectives on the processes of repression and revolution from
a unique vantage point: from below. Their life stories provide us with a
window into the qualitative – as distinct from the merely statistical and
quantitative – aspects of class conflict, thus enabling us to better under-
stand and weigh the various factors at work in transforming oppressed
masses into revolutionary classes. Again, their remembered life experi-
ences can provide us with significant insights into the dialectical rela-
tionships between material and subjective conditions which shape the
revolutionary situation, embrace the revolutionary transformation of
individuals and classes alike, and move humanity forward toward a new
international social formation.
Not all of the individuals whose life histories are included in this
series are illiterate peasants or workers. Some are educated defectors
from petty bourgeois classes who have joined the revolution and identi-
iixx
