“Collaborators” or “Resistors,” “Loyalists” versus “Rebels”: Problematizing Colonial Binary Nomenclatures through the Prism of Dedan Kimathi's Career (original) (raw)

Abstract

This paper evaluates the “evolution” of African anti-imperial resistance in African history in general and that of Kenya in particular, in the attempt to reveal hidden or private/public transcripts and inherent power dynamics that fueled political dissent, opposition, and action. James C. Scott informs us that people, generally, and especially where relations of power are concerned, do not usually wear their opinions, emotions, motives or deepest thoughts that shape their behavior on their sleeve. Therefore, throughout history, the vast majority of people, the “dissembled weak,” or “those subject to elaborate and systematic forms of social subordination,” are given to putting up “public performances,” a perfunctory adherence to imposed laws, policies, and the status quo as is required of them. The outcome of this general rule of thumb is a “public transcript” that, “by its accommodationist tone,” provides “convincing evidence for the hegemony of dominant values, for the hegemony of ...

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