"October 20th is one of the dates that any Kenyan cannot ignore because it has many meanings in the history of his country. Besides being the date of birth of the Father of the Homeland Jomo Kenyatta, the first leader of independent Kenya and father of the current President of the Republic, it is also the date on which Kenyatta himself, along with other political activists believed to be the minds behind the Mau Mau liberation movement, was imprisoned in the village of Kapenguria, on the Turkana road, in 1952.
While until 2010 "Kenyatta Day" was celebrated, for ten years now both dates have been reunited.
under the celebration of the country's national heroes.
If at first one thought about those who fought and often gave their lives for Kenya's independence, year after year the national heroes have increased and "Mashujaa" has become a sort of honour destined to anyone who wears the country's flag internationally. Last year, for example, the title of "National Hero" went to marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge who, as recordman of the Olympic competition, fell under 2 hours after an epic solo ride followed live by over a billion people around the world.
But let's go back to the historical "Mashujaa".
Kenya's first heroine was Mijikenda and she came from the hinterland of Kilifi. Mekatilili Wa Menza fought against the harsh conditions that the farmers of Malindi and the surrounding area were forced to face, going so far as to slap a British officer in public. For this and for having planned an attack against a settler's vehicle, she was locked up twice in the detention camp (a sort of concentration camp) in Kisii, in Maasai land. Both times she managed to escape and while the first time she was captured, the second time, after almost 1000 kilometres on foot, saw her return triumphantly to her people, welcomed like a queen. Eventually, after the First World War, the coastal governors of the British Empire came to terms with her and the local farmers and gave them better treatment.
The national hero is also the politician Harry Thuku, leader of the Kikuyu Youth Association, founded in 1921. In fact, the first national party in Kenya. For this reason in 1922 he was arrested and that action led to the first big protest in the Kenyan People's Square. Thuku was exiled to Somalia for nine years. Afterwards he resumed his political activity even if with moderate and pacifying tones, becoming coffee farmer and first African member of the Union of Coffee Growers of Kenya.
During the Mashujaa day the six Kenyan leaders who were arrested and deported to Kapenguria on 20 October 1952 are celebrated in particular. Together with Kenyatta there were Bildad Kaggia (later politician of the first Kenyatta Government), Kung'u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei (important institutional figure always at the leader's side) and Achieng' Oneko.
Among the heroes of the Resistance is also the revolutionary Dedan Kimathi, leader of the Mau Mau, extremist and violent wing of the Kenyan liberation movement. Kimathi was executed by the British army in 1957.
Recently the title of Mashiujaa has also been given to the great spiritual leader of the Mijikenda Katana Kalulu, who was barbarously assassinated in 2014, to the Mau Mau veteran Kitu Wa Kahengeri and to the lawyer Joseph Karisa Mwarandu who, after having sued the British Government for the torture suffered by their compatriots in the 1950s, through a trial that lasted years in London, managed to obtain compensation that was anything but symbolic.