British Imperialism

[MachineGhost]

Last week three elderly Kenyans established the right to sue the British government for the torture that they suffered – castration, beating and rape – in the Kikuyu detention camps it ran in the 1950s.

Many tens of thousands were detained and tortured in the camps. I won't spare you the details: we have been sparing ourselves the details for far too long. Large numbers of men were castrated with pliers. Others were raped, sometimes with the use of knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels and scorpions. Women had similar instruments forced into their vaginas. The guards and officials sliced off ears and fingers, gouged out eyes, mutilated women's breasts with pliers, poured paraffin over people and set them alight. Untold thousands died.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... CMP=twt_gu

[Pointedstick]

Holy shit. That's insane.

[MediumTex]

Those were definitely the acts of a pre-Benny Hill Britain.

[stone]

A very very good movie set during the Mau Mau is "The Kitchen Toto" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093354/

[chrish]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ement.html

What I find really disappointing is the lengths the British government is going to to fight this case. They don't deny that these guys were tortured, so surely the only appropriate action is to grant them the compensation they are seeking (along with a grovelling apology).

[stone]

No excusing intended, but I can't help but wonder if reciprocal atrocities might also be considered. Encasing bound whites in tyres/tires and setting them on fire as just one example.

I think it was a classic case of tit-for-tat escalation in nastiness. That is captured very well in that "The Kitchen Toto" film. I think the Mau Mau had a tactic of wanting each killing to have the maximum impact. They thought it was better to do a few very gruesome killings rather than more less gruesome ones. I think Indian independence by non-violence shows the best way to do things but that was an amazing achievement. I think it is tremendously impressive that white and Indian Kenyans were treated so well in Kenya after independence considering what went on during occupation.