 So, welcome everybody to this final session for the current academic term before Christmas of the Center for World Christianity here at SOAS. It's my great pleasure to be able to welcome the very reverent Dr. Evangelos Diani who is a priest of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa. So that's the African Orthodox Church serving for the Orthodox Church of Kenya and placed in Nairobi, I believe. So it's not just a pleasure to introduce him as somebody who knows the Orthodox Church and doctrine inside out but also because he has much experience in the teaching of theology, both practical and public, as well as development studies. So this is a almost a practical application of Christianity and certainly other offices too. So he will, we can talk about your various, your various services, public services and services to the church later perhaps, but you are also very well known in the world because you have so many offices and this is, you know, Orthodox colleges and you're in Kenya, you're, you are known also internationally and today you'll be talking about the links between the Orthodox Church and the Mao-Mao liberation movement. This is a topic which I studied in history. I've never looked at it from the vantage point of an event where the church would have been vital but so on the contrary it's known in the, mostly the Protestant missionary circles as an evil event and this is certainly something where we can get a historical perspective right. So I don't want to say so much more other than we, that I look forward to the coming introduction and discussion afterwards by Dr. Evangelos Diani. So I'll pass over the word to you and if you have anything to share then I can, I can share the screen with you. I don't know. One second. I can make you the co-host. There we are and you should have a little green button coming up at the bottom. Thank you very, very much for this very great privilege of being a discussant and present this afternoon for this renowned program as well as the presentations that have happened before. I know that I am the last one and hopefully I won't kill everybody with boredom with, with a lot of discussions especially that another Christmas is coming but allow me to first thank you Dr. Lars Lehmann for, for giving me this privilege to be part of the present, to be the main presenter today and also many thanks to a great friend and colleague Dr. Romina Istrati who has been a great friend and a very close one and also a collaborator in the different activities of that concerns our continent as well as faith. I, today I want to bring one, one item that is of very great importance to us all here in Kenya the Mao Mao liberation movement and how it affected the church that I belong to. That's the author of Church in Kenya from my, my research. Now why this, why, why is this important to me as a researcher from, from the time of independence when the British government and the government of Kenya you know the British government kind of gave you know Kenya go ahead to initiate a free country called Kenya and then the government of Kenya took over but since then these two governments have tried to distort history or erase the memory of the Mao Mao liberation movement. Unfortunately as George Santayana says that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This is what is happening very often in our country in that especially during the elections when we have you know two parties pulling, each pulling from their end. Sometimes we see post-election violence and I believe it's because we have a very selective memory when it comes to the Mao Mao. Now it is therefore wrong to not remember where one has come from for such could save their future and I believe for Kenya this is the truth that because we don't know most of the time the younger generation do not know where this country came from, how people suffered, how people had to go through a lot of challenges to to realize the freedom that we have today. Sometimes they do not know what they are doing when they are tormenting each other when they are fighting each other. Now while collective memory matters, memory is very individual therefore what I'm going to bring forward to you is a new version or a version that the Orthodox Church in Kenya believes to be their memory even when it is about the same issue of Mao Mao where many people have written. I bring to you today what the Orthodox believe. Nevertheless these individuals are influenced by groups for example the group that influences my thinking is that of the Orthodox coming from an Orthodox family having been a third generation Orthodox and my grandparents being in the Mao Mao war therefore for me I am already a participant in this already this research but also a researcher that notwithstanding the identity that memory offers a group or society also helps bring back their dignity and justice. For memory is not just about the past but also the present so when we bring back this event of history about the Mao Mao and what it has to do with our church it's also bringing out our dignity and our justice as the Orthodox Church as you will see later on because it is oppressive to not tell the history of a group. I naturally it's infringing on our rights when our history is not told because most often it is not told with this version that I'm going to tell you today especially now the role of the Orthodox Church informing the nation of Kenya and like that of the Mao Mao has been eliminated with time in Kenyan history. If you look at the textbooks that were teaching history in the past when I was in school the Orthodox Church the Mao Mao warriors the Mao Mao meritants were very important in that Kenyan history. Today the government have seriously eliminated this form of history and they created now a new form of history. Furthermore, while colonialism, freedom or liberties, politics, economics, peace, war and conflict, human rights, governance, labour and education have to some extent been discussed in relations to Mao Mao. A religion or theology or the church have not necessarily been pointed out as an important participant in this discussion of the Mao Mao. Now this research is a descriptive interpretive qualitative study and it is seeking to elucidate the place of the Orthodox Church in the 20th century liberation initiatives in Africa as well as expound on the effects of the liberation of the nation Kenya to this Orthodox Church. Now I collected data using one the literature and the historical texts that exist on the Mao and then did some interviews of 15 participants who are interviewed to bring the empirical knowledge of the present and to collaborate the past because the Orthodox have not been put in most of these past texts. Some texts have the Orthodox Church in the picture, some do not have it but I needed to bring the conversation of people and what they think today and the place of the Orthodox Church in all of this as well as all of these people are mainly first and second generation people who are born is Orthodox or from Orthodox families who are over 60 years and then I also had an overt observation because the participants were always aware of what I was doing and like I said earlier I'm an observer participant considering I'm a member of this same church. Now what is this Mao Mao liberation movement? Now before I come to that I will tell you what happened. Originally before the missionaries and the colonial masters came Kenya had only tribal king pins and you know every tribe had its own leadership model but almost every Kenyan nation was very welcoming to foreigners. The land was mainly owned communally so people are not really worried about somebody coming setting up their house starting their own thing here and as far as they ask for permission and the system of governance among most African societies the way people govern their religious way of life, their economics, their river, their way of educating their people, their culture, their normal way of life was one and the same. There was no distinction that that is governance, that is religion, that is economics, everything was mixed but when the British came and Christianity came that is after the scramble for Africa in Bahrain in 1885 the explorers were the first ones who came and the Christian missionaries, sometimes the Christian missionaries were also explorers and they started in the coastlines and then they came to the mainland because Kenya had very good weather excellent farming lands and good transportation. It was very good for all these people who came to to Kenya and there was very good relationship between the the British Christians explorers and the missionaries at the very beginning but then when imperialism became a thing that is when Kenya became a protectorate in 1885 the European civilization became a very big thing for those people who are from Britain who are living in Kenya and they started demonizing the African way of life, the African religiosity, the African way of doing economics, the African way of educating their children, their culture and everything was to go off out the window, the baby and the baby water so the Africans became squatters, their lands were taken, their property were owned by the imperial government and then labor laws started coming up that were very oppressive, there was a lot of tax payment now to the imperial government then the society started having social divisions which we didn't have before so there were people who were Indians, there were whites, the whites were the first class, second class were Indians, if you are a little bit light-skinned you are kind of a third class, if you are very dark you are kind of the fourth class and then racism kicked in, these were some things that were very foreign to the Africans although they belonged to different tribes they used to coexist together new governance systems, religion of course changed Christianity was the main religion, the way of doing economics changed because there was money now involved it was not about the trade anymore so a lot of things in a way changed but what was even more hurtful was the slavery that was happening, some people are sold out as slaves, a lot of people are sexually assaulted, others murdered, there was a lot of violence when you're working for white people and things started changing so it became it started very well but the journey became something else so then the Africans went to the second world war and from there they learned how to fight, how to have militant groups and then when they went in the war in Burma where the independence of India was being sought for in the 1940s again they learned that you can fight the colonial masters and these became a big thing so these Kenyan soldiers when they came back they started forming military groups because now they had military expertise from the Europeans and then the land of the Gorida tactics from their opponents in India and therefore they started the Mao Mao liberation movement, the Mao Mao liberation movement was to not, it was not the only thing that was going on because we had already a religious rebellion, we had the educational rebellion, we had trade rebellion and we had political rebellion the only thing is we didn't have a military group on the side of the Africans and that is how the Mao Mao was formed, it was formed out of two terms it's actually one word but if you say it in Kikuyu it is umma umma it means get out, get out and do it hurriedly so the idea of the Mao Mao was to push out the British out of Kenya as soon as they would manage to do that so they retreated to the forest they started attacking at night they made sure they left very gruesome murders that would terrify the British and their lawyers eventually killing over 2000 British and some Kenyan royal supporters with them it was fighting the British from several angles that helped bring an end to the colonialism and imperialism in Kenya these 12 of December we are now 58 years since these we got independence so why the Mao Mao insurgents there are many reasons one the natives were considered only good for labor so a lot of the education they got in school was about labor they were not taught how to to read for their own purposes they were taught how to read so that they can do better work etc took all the good lands and these lands belong to the Africans they wanted them back they wanted also to farm they were forced to pay taxes but only these taxes only benefited the white setra so the issue was not paying taxes the issue was it benefited the white set trust there was creation of divisive social classes like I mentioned a lot of oppressive laws that were good for the whites and not good for the locals there was a lot of extrajudicial killings a lot of murder a lot of rape torture starvation detention in the camps among other inhumane acts desire for freedom and human rights was what created these insurgents and for the fact that some African countries now are becoming independent and there was this Africanization fever of having Africans as leaders they need for local leadership that Africans can lead and they can take control also this was another thing that pushed them the power to make legal decisions nationally because the Africans had no legal power in anything and then also they had a radiant capable military power and national leaders and the desire for localized development all of these among others were the reasons that the Mauma insurgents started so the Mauma revolt and war helped show how torn Kenya was forcing local villagers to decide to physically fight trained soldiers with modern weapons it was the force of the Mauma the exerted on colonial regime that made the British listen to the Kenyan elites seeking for freedom and seeking for labor rights and political rights in both Nairobi and London where some of them were sent to do so and that this is why the Mauma were very important in helping push the other agendas of liberating Kenya now right before the Mauma was started the Orthodox Church was formed it was from in 1929 after a female genital mutilation issue that was circulating between the the the the Scottish missionaries and and the and some of them the English missionaries that why in central Kenya had an issue with they they had an issue with the FGM they wanted to shut it down but the Africans were like you have shut down so many of our cultures you have taken a lot of other things and this kind of broke the camel's back it was not the main issue but it became the main issue because that's how the Africans started having a voice that we have to keep up with our rituals we have to keep up with our circumcision rituals even if it's for girls because you are just saying this they didn't see it as a bad thing they saw it as you're telling us this because you have a problem with everything about our culture so so this became a very big issue and some people are kicked out of the church of the of the of the Presbyterian and the Anglican churches missionary churches in Kenya and at that juncture they formed their own church but also their own schools so the African Orthodox Church of Kenya was formed is a reaction now to the imperial rule and the institutions away from imperialism because now you can form churches before you could not form your own church now you can have your own schools before you are not allowed to have your own school and that became a way to show that the Africans can hold institutions and be leaders in them so they initiated local faith and schools away from censored institutions because the missionary schools were teaching mainly against the Africans and the African religiosity the African cultures and now all of this was not censored they were also teaching that the imperial government was a good government now the Africans had a chance to teach the opposite to teach reparation the church that would respect the locals as humans with their cultures and philosophies was formed out of the Orthodox Church the religious institution that would pray for and accommodate the national politics and freedom struggles now the the freedom fighters have their own church they have their own schools an African ally to to to to fight the battles that the Africans would not do because the the British government respected churches they respected schools now they could listen because those people who are leading the church who are leading the schools can be able to to to to speak on behalf of the Africans and that is how the Orthodox Church was formed but how was it related to the Maumau it was formed that there's the same reparated principles of Maumau only that it came before the Maumau officially recognized their movement and all their adherents of the African Orthodox Church joined or helped the Maumau fighters in their in their journeys in their their day to day life in fulfilling their issues how did the Orthodox help they provided them the most combatant most of the Maumau fighters belonged actually to the Orthodox Church those at home who are the spies those levels because a lot of them the combatant went to the to the forest but those were those people who are left at home were the spies that did the reconnaissance before enduring raids of the Maumau and then they gave a recognized religion to the Maumau they educated the Maumau families they created space to breed and recruit more adherents and fighters because within the schools and within the Orthodox churches that's how Maumau got their members the members especially women are the ones that transported food, weapons, medicine and messages for the Maumau without being detected by the British soldiers also it was proved that the Africans having an Orthodox Church having the Orthodox schools these were proved that the Africans could initiate govern and lead institutions on their own without the British and this gave gave morale to those people who wanted to take leadership positions and they also spoke for the afflicted and those massacred because within the church in the pulpit you can say whatever you want when you come out you have issues but you can say whatever you want in the pulpit nobody will stop you and at the same time this church gave refuge to the suffering and their grieves which were so many at that time now how did doing all of this for the Maumau affect the Orthodox Church in Kenya now on the positive side the Orthodox Church was the first to start private schools in Kenya which admitted everyone no matter their religious affiliation and educated them not just for labor reasons for the first time we had private schools in Kenya and for the first time the students were not screened from what religious affiliation or from what families they come from and what they agree with about culture what they don't disagree with which was happening with all the missionary schools if you didn't agree with the missionary statements then you would not be allowed again like I said all the the missionary schools then were about creating labor a labor force out of the African but now they have schools that can educate them to be bright people to be poor who know issues not for for for labor reasons but for education purposes and the Kikuyu Karinga education authority and the African Orthodox Church in western Kiambu Nairobi Riftivari we had many schools from the Karinga section and then the Kikui independent school association took over today by the African independent Persecoaster Church which cut itself away from the Orthodox in 1940s but then these their schools covered Muranga, Nyeri and Eastern Kiambu these schools were mainly built with local materials and school fees collected from the students but sometimes there was some money from the government the colonial government through the local native council because of the of the fact that the government had a responsibility to educate people the Orthodox Church schools also became a breeding ground for the liberation movement so that that was also a positive effect in regard to the liberation in Kenya they developed senior leaders of the nation like its school principals for example Peter Bio Koinange one of the first politicians renowned politician in Kenya and the very first president of Kenya was a principal in one of the Orthodox schools here in Kiambu in the outskirts of Nairobi the Orthodox Church also kept education as a cornerstone of their social services to to society to this very day because these schools and this way of doing education from that time is what the Orthodox still do today they offer a lot of subsidized education to students to come and study and also awards a lot of scholarships to Kenyans whether they are Orthodox or not to go study to study locally or abroad and this came from this time of the Mao Mao again the Africanization of leaders and self-sustenance had a major role in the Orthodox Church formation or in the in the past why because initially this independence it did not disconnect partnership of foreign clergy and aid for example the schools were created and built with local money local material given by parents and the student and out of the student's school fees but still the Orthodox Church would get money from the local government and when the Orthodox then today started their first schools they would also get money from abroad again the place of the church in liberation was realized through the Orthodox Church from that time in Kenya the religious leaders play a very vital role in Kenyan politics more so when they are disputes for example now everybody who wants to be to be in the presidential and you know political race next year they are visiting a lot of churches in Kenya because Africans are very religious you know they they attend churches so religious leaders have had a very very important role to play in Kenyan politics from that time of the Orthodox Church during the Mao Mao another thing is learning to cope with oppressive regimes Kenya since that time have had now through religious leaders guiding people calming them demonstrating to them that there is no need to fight you know oppressive regimes we have had a very oppressive regime in Kenya after the first president of Kenya died the one who took over for 23 years he did a very very bad job but it is the religious leaders that count the nations and when it was time to transit to a new system a new regime that went well only because of the religious leaders involvement with imprisonment of the first bishop of the Orthodox Church for eight years Bishop George Gaduna religious leaders have been shown that they can also fight for the liberation of their societies no matter the consequences in Kenya the religious leaders are not shy they do not try to point out what is wrong because from those days of the Orthodox Church being part of the Mao Mao they saw what happened although the only religion that was speaking was the Christian that is the Orthodox in those days today the Kenyans have learned how to be bolder in doing this the Orthodox Church also learned how to borrow substitute Pledgemen because when their leaders were imprisoned during the Mao Mao they got leaders from neighboring country of Uganda who helped initiate the Orthodox Church in western Kenya in the in the in the Nyanza region and Nandi regions that is mainly the western part of of Kenya and as well as the northern part of Kenya the Orthodox clergymen were also highly involved in the politics of of Nairobi after independence because at least four of the of the priests then Bishop George for the Moerori for the John they were in the local government they were elected leaders in the local government of Nairobi so the first local government the very first local government of Nairobi county had very strong Orthodox you know leaders in it and then Dr. Modiora who was a member also of the same area or became a member of parliament today many Orthodox clergy and their relatives are highly involved in the local politics a lot of them also holding positions in politics and governance because of these initiatives that happen in the Mao Mao when we go to the negative side the Orthodox Church senior most president Bishop George was in prison for eight years when he was in prison a lot of issues a lot of problems arose during that time of course his family suffered and that brought a lot of challenges also we didn't have other clergymen and he was the only clergyman in prison during the liberation of Kenya together in the famous Kapenguria six these are the the ones who are released later on and they were given you know they and then we were given independence and one of them was the first president of Kenya although he was part of them he's never mentioned actually when people write history also the Orthodox Church lost their schools and lands after they were declared illegal and shut down in november 1952 and january 1953 during the emergent accreditation to this very day we have not received those schools we lost hundreds of schools that we had started before the independence of Kenya and we lost them during the Mao Mao liberation therefore for the Orthodox the colonial ban in a way still exists because the government then and now have not returned our properties the Orthodox Church is also highly made up of poor families having lost their wealth their states other properties to the imperial government and their and their and their supporters and their supporters most of the Mao Mao veterans also got nothing out of the war the Orthodox schools were not considered as having good education therefore if you studied in an Orthodox school you would not transition to a college or university and you would not get a good job so this also made a lot of the Orthodox families suffer in a big way due to poverty the Orthodox Church today in Kenya is highly dependent on foreign aid although the Orthodox Church was started with very independent minds like the 17th century saying he who pays the piper calls the tune today we are highly dependent on foreign aid mainly from Greece from Cyprus you know from the US from Australia and and therefore we don't make a lot of our decisions because now we have to follow a lot of the decisions that are made elsewhere because we are dependent on these people only because a lot of our families are extremely poor to this very day most Orthodox families are not highly educated because of the fact that our schools were not offering good education in those days and therefore it's only the third and fourth generations that are only now getting university degrees and there is a lot of hope for the future and maybe the future wealth but at the moment that's when people are getting their degrees so it's going to take a lot of time for them to to get you know their space and the families were also separated due to the war to death and detention and most of them were never reunited others were separated due to taking because a lot of the Mao Mao you know families especially their their families that had lawyers on their side those families were separated for for good some of them have reconciled now we don't have those enemies at the moment but a lot of them were divided then the Mao Mao Royals and freedom fighters wives and daughters were raped and taken and married off by force to the imperial guards and chiefs and a lot of people lost their wives and their daughters some people don't know where their their wives and daughters went to and and some wives and daughters also don't know where their parents or their their husbands are and some don't even want to go back because of the shame of what happened and here we are many Orthodox adherents who are memed by the bombs and gunshots and torture that happen in those days and to this day they still carry those cars the silence or silent by experience all the rule is another thing that is a major issue as I started because the Orthodox have stayed off public Kenyan politics first due to the silencing of all in Kenya but also because of their bad experience of losing people and property when I give this to government today the Orthodox Church is not very upright you know if something happens in this nation people will not go out and say you know this is the Orthodox statement on that issue while the Anglicans the Roman Catholics maybe would give out a statement the Orthodox even when the issue has happened in our area most of the time we do not speak because of our very bad experiences in the past so we we we prefer silence at the same time our leadership is majorly Greek or from foreign lands and therefore most of the issues are not taken care of as we would expect so it was only after joining the National Council of Churches in Kenya in 2015 that the Orthodox Church in a way brought its political voice back because since then the Orthodox Church has seen in press conferences discussing issues that pertains the nation today the impact of Maumau to the nation was great but the fact that the British I say to have dropped over 50 million bombs in Kenya maybe they are not small you know big ones but small small ones but these for many of the people that they interviewed was something that scared them to this very very day and they feel that they were so much hated to being to to having bombs being brought into their nation and the massive detention camps were made to screen the locals producing dead through sanitary related diseases a lot of hunger a lot of forced division a lot of people died because they were executed a lot of mutilation a lot of torture electric shocks uh frogging a lot of sexual assault to women uh by by the British soldiers then and they are loyalists who are also said they were they were black white people because they were doing the same things that the black the white soldiers were also doing uh they formed a lot of psychological and physical harm that could only be considered crimes against humanity and unfortunately most of these people who went through this belong to the Orthodox Church a lot of deaths happened for example the parish that I'm serving right now that village has a very big graveyard now it's people are building over it and now people don't really care but they killed in 1954 they buried 3000 people there all of them Africans civil liberties were limited pushing the desire for human rights and democracy in Kenya to this very day that's a very positive impact but in those days those atrocities uh and crimes against humanity as would be considered today are things that impacted very negatively on the nation in conclusion what would I say freedom days memorials are part of what Emil Duquesne calls commemorative symbols and rituals that crystallizes the past and solidifies the unity of our people now there has been a deliberate attempt to erase the memory of the maumau liberation and with it any personalities institution and education materials related to this movement are eliminated now while this is happening while some have questioned maumau's importance to the winning of independence others have called for historical amnesia in the interest of national consensus because some people are not involved in this war considering that most people who took position in this you know maumau are from the central region and major equities in Kenya therefore some people don't want maumau to be to be something of importance and to be taught in schools others say it's actually not important because it's not the maumau who are there in the war it is the politicians who went to London and who spoke in parliament that won as the independence the Kenyans who experienced the maumau revolt and their families insist they will never forget unfortunately their stories are not told an amnesty and written so they die with them unfortunately writers have also noted that whether these are good arguments about teaching about the maumau or not they the issue is are they is it enough to run the slicing of history the hiding of history their historical amnesia or the birth of a liberated Kenya that remains an answer to this very moment the orthodox church continues to be unrecognized by the government of Kenya even historical books keep erasing it for the orthodox independence day in Kenya resurfaces all the memories of difficulties and losses as well as successes received during the maumau liberation unfortunately even worse the pain is worsened by the fact that the orthodox have no space to even say a prayer during the national celebration of the independence of Kenya a spot it had in the first presidency now taken by the Anglican and the Roman Catholics mainly because they are the ones who are given those spots in Kenya who are never on the Kenyan side during the liberation movement they were not part of the liberation movement but now they are the ones who always say prayers and every time most of the people I interviewed see them doing the prayer they some of them say they cry some of them are very angry by the fact that the people who supported the the British colonial masters are the ones who are in charge of the of the of the independent celebrations of the nation and not the people who fought for the independence itself even when war has remained to be one of the most written and compelling subjects in the study of memory the history of the anti-coronial rebellion was ragi silence in national debates in Kenya after the independence of Kenya and this defect continues to this very day the author of chart is among those who internally cling to the memory of the liberation movement for it is part of their story and such have always been sidelanes discouraged and unwelcome in the state institution of post-coronial Kenya and I think that's where I will end my presentation I hope that I have made my point in telling the story of the author of chart in Kenya and why we feel that the liberation movement has forgotten us and how our chart has been affected by all these experiences thank you very much thank you very much Dr Diani this was a to the force it was a not just a history lesson it was also something that tells us a lot about the the relationship between the colonial masters and the population I have questions but I would like to pass the word first to our audience and I can see a hand by Rumina Israti who's got a question to you thank you so much Lars thank you so much Father Diani was lovely lovely to be in this presentation obviously I had the privilege to you know have have to host your your paper previously in a in an edited volume so thank you so much I was really interesting to know more about the the actual period of the revolution and the Mao Mao movement and I'm wondering some of the the many of the references you you included in this presentation seem to be by foreign authors not all and I'm just wondering how many efforts have been made locally by local native authors and writers to write this history because I think if I if I read this correctly there is this ethnic antagonism I think of you know who was at the forefront of the revolution and we've seen some we've seen something similar with the Tigrayan with the role of the TPLF part in Ethiopia during the you know the colonial era you know to to to preserve you know the freedom of the country and now this history is now being questioned you know in the in the recent events that the TPLF has presented and demonized and so on and so I'm just wondering is there an ethnic competitiveness I guess or antagonism that that you know that that that is a hindrance to this to to writing this history I guess and then and then I guess the question is if that's always the case you know if there's is there even value in trying to write histories you know what I'm trying to say if if histories are always debated by these different religious ethnic tribal groups whatever it is not just in Africa but in other contexts of the world I come from Eastern Europe that has has been the case in our region as well um that means that history will always be contested right and I just wonder you know what is the solution to that what is the response how how would a historiographer respond to that I'm not in history so I'm sorry this this might be very ignorant on my part but I'd love to know more thank you thank you very much I think from from where I stand a lot of the Mau Mau liberation movement work is been done by a lot of British scholars and a lot of American scholars um a lot of them actually following the agenda of what the British government produces as monographs and documents you know and the statements sometimes once in a while there is a discovery of these so they are the contradicting document from these libraries and the collections but most of the time telling the British side of the story very few people are writing about the African side of this story and unfortunately the Mau Mau uh liberation movement happened in the central part of Kenya where the largest tribe the Kikuyus are in so again because they were subjected into going into war into fighting a lot of the these people who should write that side of the story are people who are not well educated then now when you interview them today that's when you get their perspective that's when you get their story then again we are in Africa where people keep their stories in memory they don't write them so they tell their children their children tell their grandchildren and they don't see the need to write why it's not our culture and so a lot of these have a lot of histories the right histories from our perspective as Africans is gone with our forefathers my grandparents for example were in the Mau Mau war but I I didn't have a lot of time with them when I was a grown-up because they died before I even grew up because out of those atrocities that happen in those days a lot of people didn't live long you know so so we didn't write that side of the story is there need for decolonizing this is there need to to writing this absolutely there should be because history is always has an angle for example today I gave a religious perspective of the Mau Mau I gave an orthodox perspective of the Mau Mau liberation movement yes it is not been written yes it's not been told this way but that's a story that exists that's a story that is there should we stay away from it no I think we should write it because people will read in future and then decide what they want to hear what they think they want to do I think I don't know we have Dr. Lehmann as a historian maybe we'll hear his perspective I mean this is a very intensely debated aspect of history especially the the colonization of history and especially yet the school of oriental and African studies you can imagine but I am keeping making my best effort not to say anything we have people until later we have Francis would like to say something and followed by Simon. Well thank you for the presentation I must admit that my first response to this is that it is not really very scientific that was my first response my second response is yes I know where you're coming from my background is Lithuanian and my parents came from a country which was taken over by the Russians they were serfs until the 1880s and industrialization came a treaty of Versailles all that sort of thing and my parents finished up in this country they didn't tell me about the history of Lithuania they felt it was right to start again to bury that past there was no appetite to speak about I mean for example Churchill hadn't supported the liberation of Lithuania in any way it was lost as a country so the very word Lithuania wasn't known when I was a kid I'm 76 I went to school and we adopted different names to fit in you know all of this side of it but I think also about the German friends I have including someone whose father was in the SS and was a slave in Russia he himself had joined the SS at 16 he didn't you know he was born out of wedlock and he didn't get involved in anything particularly nasty apparently according to his daughter but he was a slave in the Soviet Union until 1954 cheap labor I worked with the British Council I worked in cultural relations I worked and lived in Nigeria I remember meeting someone in Nigeria who said yes we could set up a company we could set up the manufacture of motor cars in Nigeria so long as it broke down the bits of work I needed to be done by the unskilled inexperienced Nigerians to small enough bits that each part could be quality controlled and when when you think I studied philosophy of education I notice I remember the way in which education started in this country through the Christians it wasn't a matter of offering education for nothing it was I mean the Christians did but the state was concerned about managing the institutions of the state and the institutions which provide the structure within which people can grow so my question is that to go back to my first response which is that what you're speaking sounds very much like propaganda and and all I can say to bring it to to a question is the Orthodox Church and to look at it with regard to Christianity I mean liberation theology fair enough I can I understand a little bit about liberation theology in your analysis there's nothing to do with social movements you speak about the Orthodox religion but and it's very easy to be to be against something the problem is to be for something and if you talk about Christianity you talk about essentially some movement for something you speak about the spies you speak about the atrocities of the Mao Mao you speak about the atrocities of the colonializers but where's the Christianity in anything you've said not at all to my mind female genital mutilation well you didn't tell us what was the Orthodox response to that were they just jumping on a bandwagon because of the Scottish and Presbyterians being so much against it that it offended local sensibilities the fact that they were against that these local sensibilities were not well I have said enough I mean I want to provoke you a little bit I want to provoke you a little bit because I think you need to be challenged I think there are too many people who are prepared to say oh yes yes yes you have your side of the story but you've got to speak your side of the story within a context of some discipline and there's no economic discipline there's nothing remarked about industrialization there's nothing spoken of with regard to the in which the local the Orthodox tradition valued the local tribes and honored them were that you you touched already on the point of lack of historical documentation before the colonizers came well that's pretty important for any study of history isn't it the fact that the fact that we as human beings want some sense of roots and identity doesn't necessarily justify us bigging up the importance of our place in history I mean if you look at Lithuania I mean what should I do say it was the Garden of Eden as in I could go on I've spoken too long already okay thank you very much Francis so this was a what would you say an antithesis um uh evangelus could I please ask you to come up with the synthesis yes uh Francis thank you very much uh for for for coming up with that is it propaganda of course uh in every situation there is always one side that says this is a story this is my story and the other side said that's propaganda maybe I should ask maybe the same question of all these British reports was that propaganda uh maybe that's what we asked as the Orthodox was what we called the Orthodox during the Mao Mao era no we were not in the beginning we were called the Karenga movement but then I had only a few minutes to bring all these issues together I couldn't put it forth but it we became only the Orthodox in 1946 we joined the Greek Orthodox in 1946 officially that's when we were received officially so we were not always the Karenga movement we were a local local African instituted church before that but then I had only 40 minutes to bring you and paint all these issues what I try to do is give the story that is not told from the other end because if I would tell you the story that you already know then what would be the point of me coming to see such a discussion then it wouldn't have been useful so I bring forth I bring forth the within the 40 minutes that I had the side that I know that has not been told in a paper it will be written better maybe I didn't present it better for you I'm sorry but it's not propaganda it's what the local people I interviewed and what is actually in historic books also thank you thank you Simon I can see your hand hello there thanks for a very interesting talk I'm not just a bit of declaring interest well partly my interest I'm last as one by my supervisor but not on Kenya is actually my parents used to live in Kenya in the late 50s and early 60s which was I think after the Malmo more or less after the Malmo was still around but not they drove through Abadir Forest once when we were pouring with rain but the closest they ever got to the Malmo the Malmo didn't do anything to the so you know the Malmo didn't do anything to them so yeah it's quite interesting because I mean looking at different perspectives is because my parents were expats not settlers now settlers were a bit different yeah and my mother was a little bit defensive about Kenya but I had to be careful what I said but she she did let slip sometimes the stories are sort of often petty ways of disrespect that people would be treated by you know often the settlers or people from who'd come from you know very humble backgrounds in the north of England and came to Kenya and some and suddenly they find they are you know something important they've got people beneath them and they would treat people with extreme disrespect and even people who are quite affluent they use the Asians also were treated uh treated disrespectfully is that there was a there was someone who's a very well paid civil servant in Nairobi who used to insist on on on the Asian shopkicking weighing eggs individually weighing eggs that's petty it's one petty racist stuff they used to go on all the time and it's not really surprising that there was trouble but um the one thing that's certainly my mother would stress on me because is is that you may think this is a bit of an old myth but um is it's how far well actually but this church and how far was it a kikuyu based organization how far was my male kikuyu is it is it's just a stereotype that he was supposed to kikuyu against everybody else or is it you know were there because the the British colonialists um like they always do would play different ethnic groups off against each other and um and a lot of the victim victims of other people were killed by my mother were not white people that's your very few um were mostly other other other black people from different ethnic groups and I know if there's a bit of a stereotype what what what you think and actually in particular interest this church was it was it a broad church with different ethnic groups or was it mainly kikuyu thank you very much for bringing actually a very very insightful question into this it was not just the kikuis but because the kikuis were the most in this region and they they also owned the very productive lands they were the most aggrieved in this whole situation we had merus we had um keriniagas we had embos most of the time they are not mentioned for example there were the the the the warriors that were in the mount kina forests that area is not mainly kikuyu it's only one side of it is kikuyu but mainly the merus and the the the the keriniagas the embos they are mainly there but because the kikuis were the loudest into all this and they they were also the ones who are in London for example pushing there were also lures in that whole thing but people don't see the lures they don't see the luyas they don't see the coastal region people they only see the kikuyus because they there is always this agenda that when you say it's just the kikuyus then the rest of the tribes in kina will not see the importance of the maomao they will see we are not part of the liberation movement therefore why would we want that to be our story because if it's our story then it progresses and it uplifts one tribe the kikuyus that is which are the majority people in the in kina they are the ones in leadership most of the time and they they they have taken most of the senior positions so if you if you speak about this then you are upgrading them therefore it helps actually silencing in silencing this this agenda of bringing this history out but the maomao was not just about the kikuyus unfortunately that's what is painted by a lot of historians yes they suffered the most but it's not just about them and the church was um how many were there many different groups in this church? Yes the the author of church like I mentioned already we had luyas we had luyas we had calingins we had nandis we had kikuyus we had merus we had embus yes it was a devast church but it was mainly based in Nairobi the central region around Mankinya region western kina rift valley but it was not in the north and in the in the coastal region it has only gone to those other areas much later yeah were there any ethnic groups which were particularly pro-british or or um uh indifferent? Oh yes a lot of kikuyus were on the british side that's why I said when we when the maomaos killed people they also killed their own brothers their own sisters their own relatives yes families were broken because one side is with the maomao one side is with the royalists whether they they plan to be on that side initially but because of the atrocities that were done to their brothers and sister then they decided to go to to the to the british side yeah they were on both side also we had a lot of indians that were with with the africans and some indians with the british so yes it was mixed everywhere it was not okay because the white the white highlands was the the best land and the whites yes yeah and they were very hardcore very uncompromising Simon I didn't know that you were a Kenyan apparently yes not only did my my parents were married in Tanzania and Moshe okay in India and they were there up until about 55 um I wasn't born I wasn't born there at all but um I actually did a genetic test recently apparently I like I was all the way back to Kenya I think it does for most of us um or east africa you know that's right we are african that that is yes you know this yes anyway so um I was if I can pose a question just a simple one actually how did the church start you you you did mention that it only became the known as the orthodox church in 1946 1946 yes officially yes how did it begin because that's something that I was actually quite intrigued by from the very beginning uh the the church started in that during now this when the african started wanting to rebel against the the british coronary masters they also they wanted to remain christian but they didn't want to be led by white clergymen in church so they wanted an african so they tried to bring up the subject it wasn't coming through of course later on some came but at that level now everybody who was there would not be an anodine curvic uh where you would work for the church but you wouldn't go to such positions so they wanted this uh and the fact that now the the the coronary masters especially the scottish missionaries who are actually it's like 10 minutes away from my house where they they they had this station they they fought the female genital mutilation they fought it from a medical perspective which was a good thing but unfortunately because they had restricted the africans from following any of their other cultures this culture stop this culture stop that culture stop that culture that is demonic that is evil that is a sin that is what when they did all of this then the africans rebelled and they said we will not stop now you have come too far you are separating us because the boys and girls were circumcised at the same time and for the kikuyu especially if a girl was not had not gone through circumcision then they would not be married so the african parents were like where do we take our daughters now what will happen to our daughters will they be outcast in society of course they didn't look at it the missionaries didn't look at it anthropologically or in any way it was just it's a medical thing the church will help stop anybody who is a follower of the church should not do this let's stop this and unfortunately it didn't stop because there are some africans say they won't and a few of them agreed to stop it that's when they were kicked out of the church so they started their own churches and they started their own schools and that's how this formation of what became the karenga movement the independent schools and churches became the orthodox church eventually how did we join the orthodox we joined the orthodox because in Uganda there was a similar group that was fighting the british you know religiosity because of the same same issues they want to be christians but they want leaders that are africans and when they joined hands one of them found a magazine when they were cleaning their master's house a magazine retake the african orthodox church and it belonged to the negro movement in the u.s the african americans then had initiated a mixture of the orthodox church the roman catholic church the anglican method researchers was a mixture of these churches and they were part of the reparation movement of the 1920s then marcas gavi and others so they they they had just ordained a south african bishop for the so another similar uh south african group and they are they wrote to him and he will he came to east africa as he was coming to uganda because uganda is land rocked so they they had to come to kinya and that's how the kinians found this african orthodox group and they became part of this they they set up a seminary in uganda and in kinya for almost two years each they taught some people the ones who passed well were made priests the others were made dickens and and from there then we we we call ourselves the african orthodox and then in the in the 1930s a greek orthodox family in campana uh wanted their child to be baptized they found an orthodox church they went there and then they said no you are wearing like an angrikan you are using some orthodox prayers you are using some prayers that we don't know you are not orthodox and then they had a debate with the priest and then they the priest asked then what is orthodox there was a greek orthodox priest in tanzania moshi so they he connected them there and then the ugandans then told the kinians that what you have is not really an orthodox church per se so they brought them into the greek orthodox eventury and we were received by the greek orthodox in 1946 officially that's how the the karenga movement changed into becoming an orthodox church it's very interesting i mean this is world christianity in action exactly this is i yes i actually um well one i i know uh i i'm not sure whether it's the karenga but there was a similar when i moved to london i was in the south of london brigston and there you have a church and i'm i'm sure that it belonged to this movement but anyway that's um i'm saying this as an outsider i but it brings back memories yes anyway so um romina would you like to say anything or ask anything okay well i'm i'm just i'm listening in and learning and um i'm just curious to know and this is another topic of debate how the relationships are now with the greek patrick i'm guessing in alexandra is that correct uh father fiani so how is is there a an effort to make uh the church uh autosophilus as you know we have seen with the european orthodox daha the church so in the oriental side the oriental orthodox side what what is the conversation because we know that in the eastern orthodox um we have the patrick gates and it's they're all equal that there is this um seniority i guess that you know amongst patrick gates so how does that relationship work out now and i know that the greek orthodox are not very good at understanding the importance of indigenizing the churches i think that's a big limitation when it comes to the greek orthodox church uh they have a presence in africa and they have tried to understand the local cultures i think they've made an effort i don't know how well that has happened but i think they haven't been as receptive to these calls for indigen indigenizing the churches which i think are absolutely essential uh you know and and need to be considered uh promptly because otherwise it just will will will be get more grievances and it will be you know unproductive for everyone the aim of the orthodox faith as far as as we know is to unite peoples across cultures and across geographies and across contexts right uh in in a shared faith in a shared dogmatic so i'm just wondering what are your thoughts on that and what is the church the the kenyan orthodox church doing in that perspective uh a very interesting question because we started there as an independent church a church that wanted africans to believe us but now for example in kenya we have four dioceses three of them are led by white people white people only one is african in fact we have only had since 1929 we have only had three kenyans ordained into positions of being bishops in the beginning yes the greek orthodox has the the tendency of ordaining and married clergymen into the episcopacy but later on even when we have so many kenyans who are not married they see not when they see they still select people who sometimes don't even speak english to come to kenya or they can speak english properly so that's that's a very interesting thing at the same time contextualization is absolutely important important in every church the reason christianity has been what it is is because it took the context of every place it went to sometimes in a big way sometimes in a lesser way but the reason that we are where we are is because of translations is because of contextualizing things and indigenizing things unfortunately even to this day the africans and the kenyans have a very big problem with the greek orthodox patria kids there because the patria gate of arieslandia is very ancient it cannot make us an independent church away from it secondly all our bishops still are coming from arieslandia so mainly from Greece and cyprus another thing is most of the bishops who come here in kenya because the kenyans have these very you know very energetic modes of pushing for their for their ribatties and stuff we have a lot of court cases between the clergy and lady and the hyrax because the hyrax do not understand the kenyan context most of the time and they want to do one thing and then and the priest and the lay people want to do another thing so this becomes a major issue another thing is for example a lot of africans and this is the truth you know the orthodox church has only had about three four hundred years only of unmarried bishops but today it is taken as if it is a very ancient tradition of having only unmarried bishops and a lot of africans are married marriage is a cornerstone of how we live some of our best clergy who can be bishops are married and now we have a problem because the patria kid cannot allow this to happen when the conversation is taken to the synod the patria for example is for it and a lot of the other bishops are not for it so it becomes a very big big problem so i don't know it's we are not doing well at all in this regard and you know father if any of I may add just in a conversational manner we we were discussing the importance of making faith relevant to the times and the needs of the people and and you know the family obviously is as an important fundamental foundational institution i think in most african nations i have worked in but generally orthodox societies across the world the family is very important and in Ethiopia for instance one of the critiques of unmarried bishops is that they're not connected to the problems of married couples so they tend to come from the ascetic background so they might have been monks nuns uh sorry nuns monks i haven't spoken english for a very long time menoko sad as we say in amharic it's much easier to speak in amharic so they might have been monastics that was the word i was looking for and then they transitioned to becoming bishops and so they haven't been you know the perception is that they haven't been connected to the marital problems and the issues that that everyday people are facing and and i know i know very well how strict the the church is about changing practices but i think one of the distorted perception is that the the church as an institution has been unchanging in time which is not the case because innovations have been made and canonical rules have changed and have been introduced in the times of its existence which has happened also in the Ethiopian orthodox diet or church so when we speak to clergy's they they're very you know hesitant to make changes but when so we start with with with some church history how the Ethiopian orthodox diet or church changed over time this is taught by local Ethiopian theologians and scholars and historians of course not myself um how those changes and canonical rules emerged and why they emerged in the times that they emerged and why they might not apply in current times and why we might need to reconsider them so i think i don't know if this might be helpful on your end but understanding that the the institution itself has been fluid and responsive and dynamic to the times it's been an organism that's that's the point of the faith in the church right being an organism and living living institution and maybe becoming a bit more um comfortable with change might help also in in that aspect i don't know what your thoughts would be on that that's that's the truth because we have always had things that don't change that is capitol tradition and things that have always changed the small traditions but unfortunately some people mix this up and they they think everything cannot be changed and at the same time history also shows that things have always been changing uh the other day we had uh about four years or now three and a half years ago uh our patriarchy for example reviewed the issue of having deconcesses women in the church and they agreed that we'll have them unfortunately after this decision because a lot of the the bishops are from Greece and Cyprus they were threatened from their own countries that they cannot have in dioceses that they are they're running um women is uh is decant in the churches so even uh even the seven women that had already been ordained into this ministry they were kind of stopped from serving because these bishops feared uh uh you know being censored in their countries at the same time they get money from Greece from Cyprus uh for their ministry for their mission so they couldn't um you know go on with it now it's at a standstill although we passed this it's not going on another one for example another example we do priests in the orthodox church are not allowed to remarry the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate already passed this as a resolution in the 90s that our clergy can remarry especially if they are young and they want to marry again they can marry uh and not stop because if you want to marry you you have to stop your priesthood that's the canonical stand but our Patriarchate passed this in the 90s but a lot of bishops even now do not agree with this why because they think is it's like a dogma they they take this as it is dogmatic well they are not dogmatic they are just practical matters being married being unmarried being divorced being you know a single person all of these are practical matters unfortunately because of these bishops also who who are very uh you know monastic and austere in their in their decisions uh sometimes we do not see the reality of the incarnated Christ in in our context and that harms our church in a big big way I don't know I tell people that for example I'm a champion of gender justice I'm the chair for gender justice for all the religions in Kenya and the people I tell people are Orthodox and they start laughing because we are the worst people in dealing with this issue within our church and here I am I'm a champion I'm pushing for it and I keep telling them I'm Orthodox and I don't think we will change in the next 100 or 200 years but we have to push for it the fact that we are censored the fact that we are pushed we cannot stop talking about it because that's the truth that's the reality absolutely thank you Father Sian thank you so much we now have Jesse Mungambi I don't know whether he can hear us it's maybe we have a moment when he can say hello to you but it's hello are you joining in yes very happy that you have managed to come in many others were not as lucky as you they they wrote to me and they said no so as the so as zoom system will not let us in but you managed to get through that's very nice thank you for letting me in thank you I really appreciate it yes and it's a great honor to see you here and of course we remember listening to your own contribution where you where you commented on the colonial period as well and anyway so we have if I'm having one eye on the on the clock and it's actually the time when we get traditionally end but but I would like to stay with all of you for the rest of the day that is perhaps not possible yes so I I all I can say is that I would like this conversation to continue in various ways and if you were here at the school of oriental and African studies University of London then you would have this conversation really going on the whole time in with various sides of the story and actually one thing that Francis mentioned is the is the the relative value of written history and this is I mean I'm saying this because I'm here in the department of history and we have this it's not a discussion actually it's we are in the stage where we're trying to integrate other types of history of course this eventually everything is we should see it not as written or oral history but actually recorded history because history becomes a tradition once we sorry a tool for the science of history once we make use of what is that that can be passed on and the oral tradition is of course we we have to we have to regard it in the same way as we see written sources we know that written sources change we have them even in the sacred writings even the bible is changed you know we have if we compare the earliest versions written versions of that with later versions we get differences and the same is true for the oral traditions so I I would like to continue this conversation as I said but the time is unfortunately expiring and if if there's anything that you would like to say at the very end Dr. Yannithan this is now the opportunity for you to perhaps say some final words thank you very much for the opportunity to be here and thank you also for joining us I know that it's a privilege for me to have had you for the questions for your insights even for for Professor Mogambi who was not able to to ask anything I know we are always with him we are very close and good friends so I'm sure he's a well made and maybe we can continue the discussion as you continue in London we can do it in Nairobi so thank you very much for the opportunity to be here many blessings from all of us and keep praying for us as we continue looking forward to the end of this scotch that is everywhere in the world indeed yes and then to your your church is celebrating Christmas in January no that's the or is it the following the no we follow the calendar it's the calendar so it's 25 of December actually yes it's the yes okay so in this case at the same time with us in Greece Father Yannithan I happen to be in Greece now and we'll be celebrating together lovely well have a blessed blessed time yes thank you very much and thank you to all of you and then also a word to all of you who are listening to this on the on the recorded version the youtube channel and the zoom link and you can write in you can send messages and if they don't go through to our speakers then I can pass them on so this is also meant to be a yes well it's become a piece of history now that it's recorded so yes so thank you very much and thank you for all the best stay well everyone bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye thank you