Reasoning on fighting for one's land

[Makini]

'...the oath administrator led them [Mau Mau followers] through the ceremony where they ingested the meat and blood of the slaughtered goat. After the ceremony, she said [Muringo Njooro],

[we were] told that we were fighting for our land, the land of the Kikuyu, which had been taken by the white people who had taken it for themselves. They could do whatever they wished with the land. A white man could come and declare land for miles as his, without having to ask for anybody's permission or buying it from us. If you as a Kikuyu happened to graze on that land the white man declares as his, you could he be beaten or killed. That was where the anger started.... We could see that we were being opressed because when something belonging to you had been taken by someone else and then you are treated like slaves on the land that once was yours, you're bound to feel angry about it, aren't you?'

from Imperial Recokoning, The untold story of Britains Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins