Two Kenyans fight on for a glimpse of paradise
Daniel Nelson
White colonists glimpsed paradise when they reached the fertile highlands occupied by the Kikuyu people. So they seized the land. When Kenya became independent in 1963, the dispossessed inhabitants thought that history might be reversed.
But injustice is rarely a concern of power politics, and many Kikuyu are still clamouring for their land lost between 1895 and 1963.
One of them is N’ganga Mungai, who has spent years acquiring evidence of the colonial landgrab: “They raped our country, they displaced us.” It’s personal, because he’s fighting for land lost by his grandfather a century ago. His cause is taken up by Kikuyu journalist Bea Wangondu. The documentary Kikuyu Land follows their struggle through meetings, demonstrations, archives, interviews, political machinations, legal bureaucracy, obfuscation, corruption and threats.
Wangondu constantly bumps up against cover-ups — by big-name tea companies, politicians and a Kikuyu family trying to protect their name and interests.
Because, of course, it turns out that the land grabbers often worked through Kikuyu middle-men, and that even after independence expropriated land remained in the hands of a new Black elite and transnational corporations. Paradise still exerts its spell.
The tea plantations do not look good when the spotlight falls on them. They are portrayed as secretive entities who do not want to engage with journalists, preferring to spout PR crap such as “Our ambition is to support the livelihoods of people throughout our global value chain.”
An old woman gives devastating testimony about her experience at the hands of field managers on a tea plantation after she ran away from home in 1968. She says that women workers were given an ultimatum: have sex with the field managers or be punished.
“There was constant fear, constant hatred, we were forced to do anything they wanted… You belong to them. It was pure torture,” she recalls.
“The soil is fertile, but the land is cursed.”
In addition to the raw truths and the crime thriller evidence doggedly pursued by Mungai and Wangondu, the film has a third major character: Stephen, the son of a tea worker. He’s an engaging character, and his insect-collecting, the shots of him at home and leaving for school, and his musings about life are a delight. He gives the film another, broader, hopeful perspective.
The filmmakers say Stephen “represents the young generation fighting to break the perpetual cycle of poverty his family has inherited. He brings both curiosity and a critical perspective to the story. Through Stephen, the film explores themes of inheritance, hope, and the potential for change, as he reflects on what it means to grow up on land marked by exploitation yet filled with resilience and identity.”
But there’s already a lot in the film for British audiences to think about in this beautifully shot film and I fear his story adds a layer of complication that detracts from the overall impact.