The Kenya Resistance Archives restore history

Abstract

This article examines how activists established intellectual ‘liberated areas’ by preserving and making available documents on the history of resistance in Kenya. Historical records of resistance to imperialism which had been meticulously kept by the Mau Mau, including its own library in the forest, were destroyed by the British while records kept by the British colonial administration of their own actions were burnt, deleted and dumped in the Indian Ocean. Other records were sent to London and were hidden for years. The British practice of destroying and distorting information was passed on to the government of Kenya after independence. The official history of Kenya ignores or downplays resistance to capitalism and imperialism by its people. The Kenya Resistance Archives have been rescued, collected and established by political activists, thus providing a lesson that it is possible for librarians, archivists and information scientists to remain true to their professional values if they take on the additional dimension of activism and work outside the capitalist framework.