The term "Mau-Mau" damned the movement before it began, striking fear in the hearts of westerners. "Land and Freedom Army," on the other hand, aptly describes what the movement was about, what Kenyans were fighting for, according to Tabitha Kanogo, a historian who argues that Mau-Mau was initiated by squatters whose conflict with white settlers led to the war. Kenyans wanted land, and as long as the British ruled Kenya, they would never get it.
Yet class structures were equal to land as one of the grievances leading to the revolt:
Europeans, who made up less than 1 % of the total population, constituted a "high caste." They monopolized the local government, with a color bar that led to apartheid policies similar to those in South Africa. Because of their political power, they held the majority of land rights. This class system was complicated by the fact that white settlers wanted a government free of British interference, a complaint similar to Rhodesia, who ultimately declared themselves independent of British rule.
Indians and Asians were staggered in the caste system, lower than Europeans but higher than Africans. Though they shared economic grievances with Africans, they feared Afriacn rule.
Africans were at the bottom of the caste system. The Kikuyu, who played a leading role in the move for Independence, were upset by the unavailability of land, high taxes, the restrictions on Africans cultivating coffee (the settlers ensured their own livelihood growing coffee by restricting Africans from growing it), and the kipande (or labor registration system).
But was Mau-Mau a movement largely against the British, and for independence - thus, making it available and accessible for all "Kenyans" and not just for the "Kikuyus" who led the revolt -- or was it splintered by internal concerns?
Some historians argue that a broad African identity emerged out of World War II, thus making Mau-Mau a nationalist movement for independence. Historians John Londsdale and Bruce Berman argue instead that Mau Mau was not a nationalist movement (Unhappy Valley).
Rather, it was a Kikuyu ethnic movement, one coalesced and splintered by the conflict in defining the "tribe" of the Kikuyu. The concept of tribe -- a concept just as imagined as the concept of nation (see Benedict Anderson) -- emerged as traditional forms of power were broken by colonialism. Politics developed at a local level, smaller even than ethnicity. This contrasts with the theory that politics would encompass all ethnicities within a territorial boundary (a territorial boundary set up by the British).
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