Editing Jomo Kenyatta (section)

==Political ideology==

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote="Kenyatta possessed the common touch and great leadership qualities. He was essentially a moderate trying to achieve the radical revolution of a nationalist victory in a colonialist society, and his ambivalence over many issues can best be explained by his need to contain or use his militants—and he had plenty of them. They were impatient and wanted to see effective action. Kenyatta certainly knew how to appeal to African sentiments."|source= —Kenyatta biographer Guy Arnold{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=105}} }}

Kenyatta was an African nationalist,{{sfn|Assensoh|1998|p=26}} and was committed to the belief that European colonial rule in Africa must end.{{sfn|Assensoh|1998|p=27}} Like other anti-colonialists, he believed that under colonialism, the human and natural resources of Africa had been used not for the benefit of Africa's population but for the enrichment of the colonisers and their European homelands.{{sfn|Assensoh|1998|p=27}} For Kenyatta, independence meant not just self-rule, but an end to [[Racial segregation|the colour bar]] and to the patronising attitudes and racist slang of Kenya's white minority.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=306}} According to Murray-Brown, Kenyatta's "basic philosophy" throughout his life was that "all men deserved the right to develop peacefully according to their own wishes".{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=321}} Kenyatta expressed this in his statement that "I have stood always for the purposes of human dignity in freedom, and for the values of tolerance and peace."{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=322}} This approach was similar to the Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda's ideology of "African humanism".{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=321}}

Murray-Brown noted that "Kenyatta had always kept himself free from ideological commitments",{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=312}} while the historian William R. Ochieng observed that "Kenyatta articulated no particular social philosophy".{{sfn|Ochieng|1995|p=93}} Similarly, Assensoh noted that Kenyatta was "not interested in social philosophies and slogans".{{sfn|Assensoh|1998|p=25}} Several commentators and biographers described him as being politically [[Conservatism|conservative]],{{sfnm|1a1=Savage|1y=1970|1p=537|2a1=Arnold|2y=1974|2p=156|3a1=Assensoh|3y=1998|3p=147|4a1=Nyangena|4y=2003|4p=8|5a1=Lonsdale|5y=2006|5p=89}} an ideological viewpoint likely bolstered by his training in functionalist anthropology.{{sfn|Lonsdale|2006|p=94}} He pursued, according to Maloba, "a conservatism that worked in concert with imperial powers and was distinctly hostile to radical politics".{{sfn|Maloba|2017|p=209}}

Kenyatta biographer [[Guy Arnold]] described the Kenyan leader as "a pragmatist and a moderate", noting that his only "radicalism" came in the form of his "nationalist attack" on imperialism.{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=33}} Arnold also noted that Kenyatta "absorbed a great deal of the British approach to politics: pragmatism, only dealing with problems when they become crises, [and] tolerance as long as the other side is only talking".{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=32}} Donald Savage noted that Kenyatta believed in "the importance of authority and tradition", and that he displayed "a remarkably consistent view of development through self-help and hard work".{{sfn|Savage|1970|p=537}} Kenyatta was also an elitist and encouraged the emergence of an elite class in Kenya.{{sfn|Arnold|1974|pp=190, 208}} He wrestled with a contradiction between his conservative desire for a renewal of traditional custom and his reformist urges to embrace Western modernity.{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=38}} He also faced a contradiction between his internal debates on Kikuyu ethics and belief in tribal identity with his need to create a non-tribalised Kenyan nationalism.{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=38}}

===Views on Pan-Africanism and socialism===

While in Britain, Kenyatta made political alliances with individuals committed to Marxism and to radical Pan-Africanism, the idea that African countries should politically unify;{{sfn|Maloba|2018|p=47}} some commentators have posthumously characterised Kenyatta as a Pan-Africanist.{{sfnm|1a1=Assensoh|1y=1998|1p=27|2a1=Nyangena|2y=2003|2p=10}} Maloba observed that during the colonial period Kenyatta had embraced "radical Pan African activism" which differed sharply from the "deliberate conservative positions, especially on the question of African liberation" that he espoused while Kenya's leader.{{sfn|Maloba|2017|p=201}} As leader of Kenya, Kenyatta published two collected volumes of his speeches: ''Harambee'' and ''Suffering Without Bitterness''.{{sfn|Maloba|2018|p=3}} The material included in these publications was carefully selected so as to avoid mention of the radicalism he exhibited while in Britain during the 1930s.{{sfn|Maloba|2018|pp=3–4}}

Kenyatta had been exposed to Marxist-Leninist ideas through his friendship with Padmore and the time spent in the Soviet Union,{{sfnm|1a1=Murray-Brown|1y=1974|1p=312|2a1=Assensoh|2y=1998|2p=6}} but had also been exposed to Western forms of [[liberal democracy|liberal democratic]] government through his many years in Britain.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=312}} He appears to have had no further involvement with the communist movement after 1934.{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=29}} As Kenya's leader, Kenyatta rejected the idea that Marxism offered a useful framework for analysing his country's socio-economic situation.{{sfn|Maloba|2017|p=83}} The academics Bruce J. Berman and John M. Lonsdale argued that Marxist frameworks for analysing society influenced some of his beliefs, such as his view that British colonialism had to be destroyed rather than simply reformed.{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=28}} Kenyatta nevertheless disagreed with the Marxist attitude that tribalism was backward and retrograde;{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|pp=28–29}} his positive attitude toward tribal society frustrated some of Kenyatta's Marxist Pan-Africanist friends in Britain, among them Padmore, James, and [[T. Ras Makonnen]], who regarded it as parochial and un-progressive.{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=34}}

Assensoh suggested that Kenyatta initially had socialist inclinations but "became a victim of capitalist circumstances";{{sfn|Assensoh|1998|p=4}} conversely, Savage stated that "Kenyatta's direction was hardly towards the creation of a radical new socialist society",{{sfn|Savage|1970|p=535}} and Ochieng called him "an African capitalist".{{sfn|Ochieng|1995|p=93}} When in power, Kenyatta displayed a preoccupation with individual and ''mbari'' land rights that were at odds with any socialist-oriented collectivisation.{{sfn|Savage|1970|p=535}} According to Maloba, Kenyatta's government "sought to project capitalism as an African ideology, and communism (or socialism) as alien and dangerous".{{sfn|Maloba|2017|p=6}}