Elijah Masinde

Elijah Masinde (* around 1911 in the region of Bungoma in western Kenya, † 1987 in Bungoma ) was the founder and leader of the political- religious group Dini ya Msambwa in the 1930s and 1940s in Western Kenya and also a prominent fighter against British colonial rule in Kenya.

Life and work

Elijah Masinde was born the son of a respected family that the Bukusu, a subgroup of the ethnic group of the Luhya in Western Kenya belonged. As a teenager, he visited several mission schools and was baptized. He was also a talented football player and was a member of several teams. In the early 1930s he played among others in the Kenya - selection for the Gossage Cup, a tournament that was played between the British colonies of East Africa.

Mid-1930s had Masinde a vision. God, he proclaimed in sermons, had appeared to him in a dream and told him to start a new religion. This religion should be oriented to the content and forms of traditional religious ideas of the Luhya. These included certain rituals cosmological ideas and social forms of life such as polygyny as well as the rejection of all Europeans and all European influences. The new religion called Dini ya Msambwa, quickly gained many followers in the region. Masinde and his fellow traveled through the villages and preached in the market places, called for resistance against regulations and laws of the colonial administration, refused to pay taxes and proclaimed the divine prophecy, all Europeans would leave the country soon.

In 1943 members of the group were involved in provocations and conflicts with representatives of the colonial administration repeatedly, frequently were lighted houses of Europeans. Elijah Masinde, who was particularly present by its flaming sermons and involvement was suspected, was arrested in 1945 and convicted as a "religious maniac " in the mental hospital in Nairobi. 1947 Masinde was dismissed as unremarkable and the anti-colonial activities of the group took increasing rapidly. A year later, the Dini ya Msambwa was banned, imprisoned their leading members. Elijah Masinde was banished to the island of Lamu in the Indian Ocean.

The activities of the group took off slowly. Its members came not only from the home area Masindes, but also increasingly from other ethnic groups, a particularly strong following the group found among the Pokot in North West Kenya. Also intelligence - - In the colonial administration, the crackdown and was monitoring the Dini ya Msambwa as the most important task for internal security. As increased at the beginning of the 1950s activities of the Mau Mau movement in central Kenya, it was assumed to connect to the Dini ya Msambwa that has probably existed but only loosely.

Elijah Masinde was released in 1962 shortly before the attainment of Kenya's independence (1963 ) to freedom. The group Dini ya Msambwa came after independence in an ever -increasing isolation, their religious rules were among many Christian Bukusu as backward, pagan and primitive. Under the presidency of Jomo Kenyatta Masinde was detained again religious agitation and political opposition to the dominance of the Kikuyu in the government and remained 15 years in prison.

Current assessment Masindes in Kenya

Elijah Masinde is now in Kenya as a hero of the independence movement, which in textbooks as well as in children's literature repeatedly great importance is attached to. The Kenyan historiography has his work recognized as a fighter against colonial rule in various ways.

The Dini ya Msambwa is officially recognized in the current Kenya as a separate religion, but has only a few members and hardly any political character.

Social Historical Background

Religious and political groups such as the Dini ya Msambwa there was during the colonial period in Kenya in large numbers, often they were small and short-lived, rarely them was dedicated by the colonial administration comparable attention. Even after independence, formed a series of independent religious groups opposed to European influences, they were based on traditional religion and culture and tried to influence the political situation, such as the Mungiki.

Similar movements were not only in many other African countries, such as the Lumpa movement of Alice Lenshina in Zambia. Also among the natives of South America and in North America they occurred in the course of colonization and conquest in numerous forms, such as the end of the 19th century, the Ghost Dance movement among the Plain Indians in the United States.

The research looked at them long an expression of non-European societies, to refuse the European perspective understood as progress changes. In fact, however, these groups integrated the changes in their self- understanding and a respect Christianity in their cosmology. Therefore, terms such as syncretic sect or were related to them often. Currently, one avoids such terms rather because they imply a contradiction between Christianity and non-European religions and assume that Christianity is a religion that had emerged from any merger and been subject to no changes. Rather, these groups are understood as a strategy of social and political marginalized strata of society to fight for participation in political power and influence on social transformations, from which it excludes the society.