White settlers invaded State House in 1952 in protest

British Arm parade outside State House Nairobi in 1962. [File, Standard]

Organising a protest near State House, Kenya’s seat of power might be the height of folly and a great miscalculation, akin to signing your death warrant.

But such a protest did happen on the well-manicured lawns. It all had to do with the havoc visited upon the settler community by the rag tag military wing of the Mau Mau.  

Following the declaration of the State of Emergency in Kenya in October 1952, Mau Mau became more savage, killing a number of whites and Africans opposed to their forced oathing rites.

Among those killed was Roger Ruck, his wife Esme and their son Michael at their home in Kinangop on January 24, 1953. The Rucks’ murders so infuriated the white community that they resolved to take their grievances to the door of Governor Sir Evelyn Baring at Government House, now State House. 

The settler’s leader, Michael Blundell, had heard of the murders the previous day while on his way to a meeting between Legco members and the governor. By the time he reached Nairobi, hundreds of settlers “of the more extreme persuasion” had already organised a march to the House on the Hill to protest the governor’s “foot-dragging and timidity” in crushing the Mau Mau uprising.

In the words of David Anderson in Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire, “the more reactionary of the settlers wanted Kikuyu blood in revenge for the killing of the Rucks.”

Once inside, not even the line of security men with interlinked arms could prevent the mob from forcing their way into the building. “As they pushed up against the police line, some pressed their lighted cigarettes onto the flesh of the African constables in an effort to break through,” wrote Anderson.

With the mob violently banging the ten-foot doors, the governor’s staff tried to strengthen their positions by stacking up furniture. By this time, their boss, who had abruptly ended the meeting in the Cabinet Room, took shelter in the study room, praying for the cacophony to end.

Baring’s chief guest at the time, the Sultan of Zanzibar was even more perplexed: “I saw in front of me a little woman dressed in brown who was, in normal times, the respected owner of an excellent shop in Nairobi. She was beside herself with fury and crying out in a series of unprintable words. This was my first experience of men and women who had momentarily lost all control of themselves...” In the end, Blundell managed to calm the mob and persuaded them to disperse.