Humanitarianism, Race and Denial
The International Committee of the Red Cross and Kenya's Mau Mau Rebellion, 1952-60
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4494818 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yolana Pringle (0000-0001-6471-5839, University of Cambridge, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 84 |
| Pages | 89-107 |
| Publication date | 2017-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History Workshop Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hwj/dbx035 |
| OpenAlex | W2743891013 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 22 |
This article explores the humanitarian principles of universality, impartiality, and neutrality, and the moral boundaries of humanitarian action in the past. It does so through a case study of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion (1952-60). Drawing on the vocabulary of denial, and on the spaces in which something is both ‘known’ and ‘not-known’, it asks why the ICRC were reluctant to respond to allegations of torture in Kenya’s detention camps and prisons, and explores reasons for its later positive assessment of detention conditions. The article advances two arguments about the ICRC and Mau Mau. Firstly, that ideas about race and cultural difference helped provide a moral justification for the avoidance of politically-sensitive decisions about Kenya and may have fed into the down-playing of evidence of abuse. Secondly, that the ICRC became entangled in the British Government’s project of denial. By drawing on the language of detention and interrogation developed by the British, the ICRC fed into and confirmed an official version of events. In doing so, the article reveals the uneasy relationship between key humanitarian principles and denial, and highlights how the impartiality of classical humanitarian actors like the ICRC could be invoked by powers committing abuses and cover-ups.
Denial · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Race (biology) · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Entre ambitions universalistes et préjugés raciaux. La mission du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge en Afrique méridionale et centrale au début des années 1960
Saving the souls of white folk
A haunting past
Missionaries and Mau Mau
Reconstructing the legacies of colonial detention
Hidden violence and silenced voices
Rehabilitating an Empire
Between Bombs And Good Intentions
‘ In countries like that… ’ moral boundaries and implicatory denial in response to human rights appeals
The ICRC
Médecins Sans Frontières and the ICRC
International or transnational? Humanitarian action during the First World War
Doing denial’
Cultures of Denial
Mau Mau
The trouble with humanitarianism
Collateral Damage
Guilty Secrets
Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Modernity
The Psychology of Rebellion
Neo-Humanitarianism
Mau Mau in the High Court and the 'Lost' British Empire Archives
Mau Maus of the Mind
British abuse and torture in Kenya's counter-insurgency, 1952-1960
Constructing the Colonial Myth of Mau Mau
The Comfort of Denial
Separating the Men from the Boys
Relief agencies and moral standing in war
Mau Mau and Kenya
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |