The legacies of the past are always our present, and the histories that we are not able to confront continue to play out. This is certainly true in Kenya, where the unfinished business of the Mau Mau war and the injustices of British colonial rule endure. Filmed over almost a decade, the documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi, daughter of famed Kenyan independence fighters Dedan and Mukami Kimathi, as she searches for the remains of her father, who was executed by the British colonial administration in 1957 – six years before Kenya gained independence.
As the film’s title suggests, land is central to the narration of this story and to the history of the Mau Mau. Without a doubt, this question is echoed in Kenya’s sociopolitical present. As Wanjugu Kimathi puts it in the film: »To us, land is a matter of life and death.« Certainly, land was central to the Mau Mau campaign for independence, whose slogan »ithaka na wiathi« translates as »land and freedom«, or more conceptually as »self-mastery through land«. To the Kikuyu people, who made up the vast majority of the Mau Mau movement, land was the way of life; the organising principle that connected members of the community to each other and to the ancestors. And through all the changes of the last six decades, land alienation is still the central issue that galvanises Mau Mau veterans.

From: Rose Miyonga, Africa Is a Country

Guest: Fidel Amoussou-Moderan

Video: Fidel Amoussou-Moderan in conversation with Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi