David Lovatt Smith's Book

Fifty-three years after the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru (GEMA) communities rose up against the British colonial rulers over land alienation in what is now Central and Nairobi provinces of Kenya, writer David Lovatt Smith has released yet another account on the period of the uprising as “a personal contribution to the better understanding and interpretation of a critical phase of Great Britain's administration of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya.” He says this “period forms a microcosm of the challenges that faced Britain during the height of her imperial role.” Smith, who has been associated with Kenya and her people for more than 50 years, says his desire to produce a more factual history was, in large part, prompted by the recent upsurge of books and films on the Mau Mau, which, by their distortion of the truth and events, have appalled those who lived and worked in Kenya at the time.

Much of the recent work has been based on the writings and utterances of those who lay claim to being 'experts' on the subject but whose credentials and experience, on closer inspection, are often as limited as those who seek to replicate them. These compounded flaws have led, not only to a systematic deformation of the colonial period by misrepresenting the history, but also to a denigration of the British governance of Kenya, especially during the Mau Mau period. In his research for the book, from the origins of the British presence in East Africa, through the European farming settlement era, to the illegal insurrection that developed into Mau Mau, Smith draws heavily on eye-witness and first hand accounts, complemented by his own experience. In the course of writing this book, says the author of Mau Mau: My enemy, my friend, he has received support and encouragement from more than 200 contemporaries who served in Kenya in one capacity or another, some of whom have contributed freely to this book.

The book, he says, is written with the express purpose of introducing a modicum of hard evidence into the history of Kenya's colonial period. It not only seeks to provide the reader with an overview of the wider, historical, geographical and evolutionary context of the period but also endeavours to clarify the record to enable the reader to judge for himself or herself, the reasons why Britain reluctantly took on the development of eastern Africa and the effects the colonial phase had on the Black population, leading to the transfer of power and the consequential independent sovereign state. The origins and nature of the threat posed by Mau Mau and its devastating effects, are considered in detail as are the reasons why the conflict ended in a victory for none, other than the supremacy of law that engenders order, virtue and morality.

Those who served in Kenya during the colonial period may purchase the book for £11.00 (plus p&p £2 in UK, £5.50 overseas) if ordered direct from author Smith, Swanmore, Church Road, Herstmonceux, East Sussex BN27 1RJ, U.K. Tel. 01323 833660 email < lovattsmith@amboseli.org >

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