Whose crime? Arson, class warfare and traders in Nairobi, 1940-20001

Abstract

This article concerns the crime of arson at Nairobi (Kenya), which became common in the 1950s Mau Mau Emergency when the British colonial government was attempting to control a growing insurgent movement, the Land and Freedom Army, which used urban African markets as one of its key loci for organization. Many traders were involved in the insurgency and the government used arson to burn them out, before deporting most of them to the reserves in Operation Anvil. The constant struggle over urban space continued after Kenyan independence in 1963, when in the 1990s and later, in particular, arson once again became a key tactic used by corrupt government officials in alliance with developers to get control over prime urban land. The best example is the five-day Gikomba Market fire that destroyed most of it, but not the will of the sellers to rebuild. It is widely believed that the thugs who burned the market did so for hire. Thus, the class struggle continued, embodied in the crime of arson between a privileged class including high government officials and developers and an insurgent underclass bent on survival.