# Jomo Kenyatta

Jomo Kenyatta (20 October 1892? – 22 August 1978) was an African social activist and politician; the first Prime Minister (1963–1964) and first President (1964–1978) of an independent Kenya; born Kamau wa Ngengi, he was baptized John Peter in 1914, later changing his name to Johnstone Kamau, and finally to Jomo Kenyatta.

## Quotes

* I have no intention of retaliating or looking backwards. We are going to forget the past and look forward to the future.
** (1964) Post-election statement. Virginia Morell, Ancestral Passions: The leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings, Copyright 1995, Chapter 19, beginning.
* God said this is our land, land in which we flourish as people... we want our cattle to get fat on our land so that our children grow up in prosperity; and we do not want the fat removed to feed others.
** From a speech given in Nyeri, Kenya (26 July 1952).
* Unless we have a Government with capable officers to run it, then our Government will fall tomorrow. I want the people to understand this: that we have this policy of Africanization, as we have during the time we have taken over the Government; people are being trained for various posts, and when they are ready we shall give them responsibility, but we cannot take people just because they are black and say "All right, you run this, you run that." We have to learn by experience, and this is the policy of my Government. In our Kanu manifiesto, we state clearly that we are not going to discriminate because of race, colour or religion. We are going to treat Kenyans on an equal footing and the law of Kenya is going to apply to Europeans, Asians and Africans, those who are citizens of this country. They are going to be treated alike. We cannot have our cake and eat it. We have started our policy and we are going to follow it.
** As quoted in Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard) Jul 23 - Nov 29, 1963. p. 1223.
* Some people try deliberately to exploit the colonial hangover for their own purpose, to serve an external force. To us, Communism is as bad as imperialism. What we want is to develop the Kenya Nationalism which helped us to win the struggle against imperialism. We do not want somebody else's nationalism. It is a sad mistake to think that you can get more food, more hospitals or schools by crying "Communism". "I am amused by those who suggest that we cannot condemn something we have not seen or tasted: I have even heard it said our only threat: is neo-colonialism from the West. I speak plainly on this subject today because the time has come for us to do so, in order to leave no room for confusion. I am happy that we have our Constitution, a document on African Socialism, and a Party Manifesto. These three documents have been endorsed by our people and Parliament and must be a guide to our new society. It is now for the public to judge the actions of the Government, and the utterances of all our leaders, according to what is laid.
** Reported in Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa (1964), p. 266; in "Suffering Without Bitterness: The Founding of the Kenya Nation" (1968), East African Publishing House, distributed in U.S.A. by Northwestern University Press, p. 276; in Cherry J. Gertzel, Maure Leonard Goldschmidt, Donald S. Rothchild, (1969), "Government and Politics in Kenya: A Nation Building Text", University College Nairobi. Institute for Development Studies, East African Pub. Hse, p. 579; and in Guy Arnold (1974), "Kenyatta and the Politics of Kenya", Dent, p. 164.
* Don't be fooled into turning to Communism looking for food.]]
** Reported in Lamb, David. The Africans. p. 61.
* Whether I am a Christian or not is none of your business. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing to add. My friend, I can see that your philosophy is running short; The Bible is not the property of one nation or of one group of people, it can be quoted by anyone, even you. I have nothing further to add to the answer that I have already given. I do, however, call upon the Kenya nation to wake up and help itself. Thank you.
** Reply to someone who had just said and asked"All I can do it to call upon the nation to mind their own business that is to do their own work, instead of begging from other people: from the outside world. I think that even Almighty God said somewhere in the Bible that He only help those who help themselves... Are you a Christian?". As quoted in Kenya National Assembly Official Record (Hansard) Jul 23 - Nov 29, 1963, p. 1475.
* The basis of any independent government is a national language, and we can no longer continue aping our former colonizers … those who feel they cannot do without English can as well pack up and go.
** (1974) cited by David Crystal, "English as a Global Language" (2003), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521530323, p. 124.
* Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since this short book was first published . So much has happened in this time. In 1942, the book involved presentation that I described as 'history shading into legend'. Today, we in Kenya are making our own history, as an independent Republic. In the dark years of the war, when this work was written, social studies might have seemed absurdly academic, were it not for the living faith of a Christian society. A generation later, we find a new perspective, a greater and more universal enlightenment, brought about by swifter communications and mass media which probe into and make familiar all the social patterns of our human family.
** In his Foreword of My People of Kikuyu: And, The Life of Chief Wangombe (1966), Oxford University Press.
* When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the Land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.
** The oldest source found is a fiction play published by holocaust doubter Rolf Hochhuth, in The Deputy, a Christian tragedy (1964), Grove Press, p. 144. No reference to any historical or original source was given.
** This has also been attributed to anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu; e.g. in Seeds of Conflict in a Haven of Peace: From Religious Studies to Interreligious Studies in Africa (2007), by Frans Jozef Servaas Wijsen.

### Facing Mount Kenya (1938)

* We have to recognize the fact that an African who looks at things from the tribal point of view and at the same time from that of western civilization, experiences the tragedy of the modern world in an especially acute manner."
** Introduction, p. ix
* For the extinction of a kinship groups means cutting off the ancestral spirits from visiting the earth, because there is no one left to communicate with them.
** p. 15
* The Gikuyu lost most of their lands through their magnanimity, for the Gikuyu country was never wholly conquered by force of arms, but the people were put under the ruthless domination of European imperialism through the insidious trickery of hypocritical treaties.
** p. 47

## External links

* Facing Mount Kenya