Talk:Caroline Elkins

Untitled

I was there during the time of Mau Mau

I was there during the time of Mau Mau and spent nearly two years stationed in the South Nyeri Kikuyu Reserve. I was recruited as a young Police Inspector, like many others, from Britain in mid 1953. Our instructions were clear: To protect the Kikuyu people and free them from the Mau Mau threat.

If we are to have truth in history it is vital that the writings under the heading “Criticism” be recognized and accepted. Elkin’s writings are flawed. The truth is that Mau Mau was not the Kikuyu Tribe but an aberration of it. It was a civil war within the tribe. The civil war was caused by forced recruitment with oath taking ceremonies that imposed the choice: submit or die a horrible death. Oathing was recruiting to MM. The people were outraged at this miss-use and distortion of Kikuyu ceremony. Even more so was their outrage at the terrible slaughter and mutilation of men, women and children including babys. It is inconceivable that the Mau Mau are now the heroes and little is said of their thousands of victims.

It seems that this type of book has an avid reader audience. but it comes at a cost. It is sad that the Mau Mau who committed thousands of appallingly brutal murders now become heroes. The rest of the Kikuyu Tribe who suffered so much, have it said of them that it was their own fault. So it goes on. The statistics are unbelievable, in fact they are just that: unbelievable. The only statistic that was grossly under stated was the number of murders committed by Mau Mau.

Unlike today, there was a colonial power to go to the rescue of a people in trouble such as the Kikuyu. The story line apparently requires the vilification and demonizing of the European men who fought Mau Mau. They lived in primitive and dangerous conditions and had to deal with many horrific situations. It may be safe to do this, fifty or more years after the events when most are not around. However they do not deserve this libel for the sake of a best seller. For some, the horror of the situation spilt over into their own behavior and prosecutions resulted.

Much is made of the fortified villages. They were not prisons and they were very necessary in the saving of life. Kikuyu do not live in villages. Their houses are scattered on each individual plot of farming land, putting the people in great danger. Initially the Mau Mau engaged in large scale, well armed, frontal attacks. They then adopted that very effective terrorist technique of working in small groups and silently arriving in the night, slaughtering their victims and slipping away. Bethwell Ogot description of the awful crimes committed by Mau Mau is exactly right. I experienced all of that and more.

Each morning for months on end I set out to deal with these murders. I lost count of how many but if I said 100 I would not be exaggerating. This was repeated in many other police areas. The number of murders dropped dramatically when people moved into fortified villages. These were not prisons. There were no warders. They were protected by their own people who were issued with firearms by the government. Thus the Kikuyu people moved from victim status to defensive and then offensive.

It is said that the government engaged in a propaganda campaign. They didn’t need to. The press found more than enough atrocities to report on without going far from their base. Most that were further away did not make it into the newspapers. Many of these news items can be found on line but remember that they are only a small part of the whole. The propaganda angle must be connected to the habit of writers copying each other and quoting the same attacks over and over. That also deceived people into thinking that this was all that happened.

The Detention Centres were in fact Prisoner of War Camps. The rituals and oathing of the Kikuyu were so powerful that many who wanted no part of Mau Mau believed that they were deeply committed to activate and prove their oath by killing close family members or employers. The consequence of them being drawn into militant Mau Mau would be catastrophic. Their detention saved their lives and that of thousands of others. However, they would certainly have a strong feeling of grievance as a result. Detained also were those that, although clearly guilty, escaped the law courts because of traumatized and frightened witnesses.

Thanks for this. I find it more valuable than anglophobe propaganda by a leftist-liberal neobigot like Elkins --91.125.85.112 (talk) 13:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your first-hand account! Jomo Kenyatta the first president of Kenya said words to this effect: The best thing you can do with the Mau Mau is stand on its neck and hit it with a stick until it ceases to move. After Independence Jomo held a parade for the Mau Mau "freedom-fighters" and those that didn't immediately return to their villages were either arrested or hunted down and killed.

Elkins is part of the African Studies cash-bonanza in the US that is currently engaged in manufacturing hero-stories in Africa that correlate with their preconceived notions of the world. I'm afraid History comes second to that. 2001:8003:70F5:2400:A817:E16E:6C34:7BF5 (talk) 03:57, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Untitled

Editors please use this page to discuss controversies about the Caroline Elkins' views and not engage in a revert war.

Elkins will not respond to her many critics, so how can a proper debate happen? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.53.136 (talk) 06:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The wikipedia entry on Elkins is not a place to debate or rebut criticism. It is a place to state verifiable facts - not opinions of critics or admirers. -- Thaths 14:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

"This is a place to state verifiable facts - not opinions of critics or admirers". The problem is that in Elkins case she has asserted as verifiable fact that which others dispute!

So there is a healthy debate happening in the media about whether those are facts or fabrications. The public sphere seems to me an admirable place for that debate to happen. The wikipedia pages are not, and should not be a place to try and convict or try and exonerate the subject in-absentia. It is so very easy to edit wikipedia articles to agree with one's point of view. Establishing real truth takes a lot longer. Thaths (talk) 20:24, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Content, not more one-liners critical of the subject

The 'Criticism of Elkins' work' section is becoming a collection of one-liners critical of Elkins' work and links to adverse reviews. Any author and book have reviewers praising them and panning them. Please let us try and not use these sections to provide a list positive and negative reviews. IMO, there is currently adequate information provided in this section to show that there is both positive and negative press surrounding Elkins' work.

Could we, instead, have more content about the Subject, please? -- Thaths 19:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Is that you, Caroline? 63.215.27.199 19:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The criticism section is poor. The cliams of Elkins' critics are simply repeated near-verbatim. I'd like to see some balance. -- This unsigned comment was made by Hythlodayeus

I know next to nothing about her work, but this article assembles criticisms which, taken together, leave her reputation in tatters and make other people (Pullizer committee, Niall Ferguson) look silly. Wouldn't it be fair if someone dug out an answer to her critics? I presume one exists. Jagdfeld (talk) 21:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Bordering on defamation

The 'criticism' section of this page defies belief. Here is a professor of history in Harvard University who writes a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of British policy in Kenya in the 1950s concluding that it was, for want of a better word, barbaric. This conclusion offends nationalistically-minded British people so they orchestrate a campaign against this historian. Not a single historian who has examined Elkins's evidence has been asked for his/her opinion. Instead people who have no expertise in this area are used in this article to discredit this quite superb, if harrowing, history. Bad form (to put it very mildly). Dunlavin Green (talk) 23:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Dunlavin, you evidently do not know what you are talking about. Elkins is not taken serious anymore among africanists, as a scholar. People who have no expertise in the subject may still be charmed by her propaganda; the near unanimous opinion of the academic community is not. The Wikipedia entry correctly renders this - not more. Alexander Eichener, 26 June 2009

That claim might have some validity if the article didn't mostly quote opinion pices from london based authors.©Geni 18:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Eichener, it is you who evidently does not know what you are talking about. You also breached wikipedia policy by editing my comments and managed somehow not to be banned. You make claims against the reputation of an internationally respected professor at Harvard that she is "not taken seriously" and you have no support for this opinion; you just blurted it out. The article, as the above user notes, is based on the opinions of nationalistically-minded British writers who cannot abide the idea that maybe the white man's burden was in fact the black man's burden. There is no attempt at neutrality, at balance. And you - you - expect to be taken seriously? The criticism section of this article is so fundamentally in breach of wikipedia's Biographies of living persons that it defies belief that it is still in existence. A bit like your views, to be honest. Dunlavin Green (talk) 01:15, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this page near defamation, very one sided, and also completely out of date. Elkins was awarded tenure at Harvard University in 2009; clearly indication that plenty of people take her seriously. I would suggest that a broad range of historians be consulted in updating this page. You might begin by contacting some of her colleagues in the Harvard history department--Lizabeth Cohen, Emmanuel Akyeampong, Evelyn Higginbotham, Walter Johnson, and David Armitage. K2telemark (talk) 13:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music, Harvard University. —Preceding unsigned comment added by K2telemark (talk • contribs) 12:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Why? Do they add their support to her bodgy data? 2001:8003:70F5:2400:A817:E16E:6C34:7BF5 (talk) 04:26, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

This article is now most odd. ALL criticisms have been removed (even those referencing peer reviewed articles) but it is still apparently biased, in the absence of any criticisms. Bizarre! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.91.223 (talk) 20:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms (once again)

A recent perspective on Elkins’ work is provided in:- “Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya”.

Daniel Branch, Cambridge University Press. 2009. xiv-xv. “Elkins repeated claims of torture in detention camps, similar to those found in the voluminous number of memoirs written by Mau Mau veterans. However, she went further than even those authors by arguing Britain had overseen an “incipient genocide“ that claimed the lives of “perhaps hundreds of thousands”. Such allegations garnered much attention, and the book received a Pulitzer Prize in 2006. Among academics, the book has been less well received. The methodology behind some of the most contentious claims has been called into question. Moreover, respected figures from within the fields of Imperial and African history have fiercely criticised Elkins’ arguments”. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.93.134 (talk) 10:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Who are these seemingly eternally elusive "respected figures"? As so often before the criticisms of her work appear to revolve around opposition to the fact that she has firmly, and squarely, blamed British colonialism for what happened in Kenya. There is no rational argument against her argument. She merely committed the "crime" of not dressing up her findings for a British audience. This campaign is getting tiresome. 86.44.43.208 (talk) 20:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Nope, her 'crime' was bad History:

Respected Sources: You could start with John Lonsdale (whom Elkins describes as 'the most gifted scholar I know')

Basically she:

1) Presented only one-side of the subject matter.

2) Based her conclusions on anecdotal sources.

3) Concocted figurative data that defied commonsense (and subsequently drew unbelievable conclusions from that).

4) Demonstrably holds a biased view commensurate with the dominant ideology pervading African Studies in the US.

Graduate students in History know better than that ... and yet as pointed out: Harvard Professor / Pulitzer Prize winner (the committee extolling amongst other things her 'accuracy' :) ) ... hmmm ... I'll leave it at that! 2001:8003:70F5:2400:A817:E16E:6C34:7BF5 (talk) 06:13, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Elkins' 32

Elkins mentions the 32 Europeans killed by the Mau Mau but does not mention the much larger numbers of Asians and Africans killed by the Mau Mau. I remember looking at a photo of an African burned to death by the Mau Mau. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.180.34.206 (talk) 11:09, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on the Mau Mau Uprising estimates that 50,000 African civilians

were killed by the Mau Mau. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.113.118 (talk) 13:04, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

controversy

I see some of these issues have been touched already, but it is my opinion, that wheather Elkins has been discredited or not by some of her opinions or work, that does not change the information she found in national archives. Im not sure why the tagline that ' controversial issues' may be located on this page appears, when I dont see anything controversial in any of the items as there is not debate on her biography about her work on her page. Are we going to tag every Nazi concentration camp article in the same manner? The content is controversail to whom? I find it very odd, that some one for example, would find Anne Franks diary and then say, we can not talk about her expereinces or someone else can not talk about her expereinces becasue the person who reported it was discredited by academia, historically, academia has been wrong on many things.. look at some of the ideas on Darwinism, and the fact that some of the people that have discredited some of her work are African historians means what? The argument, really should be about the person and not the information she found in the national archives. Some people doubt the inforamtion that is choronicled by Jewish people in some of the concentration camps too, the Nazis and other general citizens that claim that the numbers of people killed were exagerrated, usually that happens when systematic killings happen so it is expected that some will dispute her findings. Some people have discredited Darwin but Darwinism is still taught in schools. There are some topics in this world that are not confortable...but lets not pretend that nothing happened just becasue you dont like the author. That is the real the controversy in thie topic - the otomology. It seems like double standards.

MsTingaK (talk) 01:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Criticism of Elkins' work

Given the more recent releases of information this section could probably do with a reassessment.©Geni 17:48, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

The Mau Mau torture hearings in the UK and it's outcome

This section should not be included unless it can be directly linked to the subject. I would recommend its removal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.193.11.45 (talk) 09:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. The criticism section has claims made about the veracity of the subject's work. If there are recent developments which show that the abuses alleged in the subject's work is being argued in court and being accepted by the UK government, it is very relevant to the subject and her work. Thaths (talk) 21:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Neutrality assessment

Can a few who are neutral(ish) give me an opinion on whether the criticism section is now POV free? OK to remove the tag? I've sourced to where Elkins has briefly responded—you can download that article for free via the link in the article or go here. FlutteringCarp (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Caroline Elkins death tally is frankly unbelievable!

Caroline Elkins death tally of 300,000 is frankly absurd. She's basically inflated the offical figure and added a zero to it. As has been pointed out by others that figure is not reflected in census data and the entire male population of Kikuyu I quickly estimate to have been about 255,000 in 1950 (6,000,000(tot. pop.) / 2(~male) / 2(~18-65 age) * 0.17( 17% pop Kikuyu)). She is essentially saying that a population greater than the entire adult male population of the Kikuyu was wiped out. Insane!

But from someone more knowledgable on the subject (Mau Mau Wiki): "The senior British historian of Kenya, John Lonsdale, whom Elkins thanks profusely in her book as 'the most gifted scholar I know', warned her to place no reliance on anecdotal sources, and regards her statistical analysis—for which she cites him as one of three advisors—as 'frankly incredible'."

She ignored him as she knew, to invert a well known American Commentator: Feelings, not Facts are the new vogue on American Campuses.

2001:8003:70F5:2400:A817:E16E:6C34:7BF5 (talk) 03:14, 26 July 2022 (UTC)