3 “ In the Spirit of Harambee! ” Kenyan Student Unions in the German Democratic Republic and Yugoslavia, 1964

Situated above the signatures of the newly-minted executive committee, this phrase concludes the first official record of correspondence of the Kenya Students Union (KSU) in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). At the core of this phrase was a request: to retain, and in some ways expand, the nature of their status as Kenyan students studying abroad while also articulating a more robust and charged vision of the significance of their education to the nationbuilding program at home. Dated October 1, 1964, the letter was addressed to none other than Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta himself. In naming harambee (a Kiswahili term typically translated as “pull[ing] together”) the authors invoked the official rhetoric of the nascent Kenyatta regime, which had the year prior began using the term as “an appeal not only for self-help but for national unity as well.”3 The purpose of the KSU’s letter was to notify the independent Kenyan government, only a year and some months old at this point, of the formation of a new students’ union whose membership was open to all Kenyans studying in the GDR. The KSU was not the first students’ union to service Kenyans studying in East Germany. It is unclear in the historical record exactly when and how the Kenyan students whose lives this chapter explores had arrived in their respective

Eastern European host countries,b ut theira rrival likelyf ollowed established routes taken by African students embarking for Europe duringt his period. To this end, Eric Burton has shown that,i ng eneral: "In the 1950s and early 1960s, South-East travels weres haped to al arge extent by individual agency as avariety of trade unions, political parties, and other non-state organisations werei nvolvedi ns ending and receiving students and some even came on their own accord."⁴ It mayw ell be that,l iket heirT anzanianc ounterparts, these students arrivedv ia the so-called "Nile route,"" which East Africans usedt og et from Uganda to Sudan and Cairo, and from there to the Eastern bloc."⁵ What can be said with certainty is that in East Germanyagroup called the KenyaStudents Association (henceforth: KSA-GDR) had been founded as earlya s1 960 to organize and servesuch students, and was chaired by astudent of political economyn amedO willa Olwa.⁶ Thiso rganization was relatively short-lived, and by 1964 found itself marginalized within the student union landscape in the GDR.Infact,the KSUwas to be aconsolidation of sorts, the product of political pressuree xerted by the governmento ft he GDR who had pushed for the older union "to dissolve and join the KSU, preservinga'united front'."⁷ The dissolution of the KSA-GDR and the establishment of the KSUwas also tied to domestic politics in Kenya. "By this point," writes SaraP ugach, the KenyaA frican National Union (KANU) "was also fracturing internally, as leading figures Jomo Kenyatta, the country'spresident,and Oginga Odinga, its vice president,wereincreasingly at odds with each other."⁸ That Kenyatta and Odingaw erea to dds with each otherd uringt his period puts it mildly, and the ramifications of political tensions in Nairobi extended far beyond the borders of Kenya. Contemporary observers cited the ethnic composition of botht he KSUa nd the KSA-GDR as an extension of political strife at home, with the latter'sl eadership having been dominated by Luos tudents, the ethnic group with which Odingawas also affiliated. The creation of the KSUwas thus aproject responsive to the political landscapes of both the GDR and Kenya, each of which viewed student exchangeprograms as an aspect of diplomatic and foreign policy.⁹ Moreover,i ti sw orth noting that Kenyan students now studying in Eastern Europe were profoundlys haped by their earlier lives, particularly childhoods livedduringthe MauMau eraand the waning days of British colonialism.Thus, these students found themselvessituatedbetween not onlythe distinct racialized landscapes of the late BritishE mpire and the GDR,b ut alsot he domestic political and social dynamics of the country they planned to return to.
The archival materialsu pon which this chapter is based are quitel imited, consistingl argely of partial records of correspondence and internal government documents, anumber of which have no clear authorship.¹⁰ As one can imagine, the limitations of such an archive leave ag reat manyq uestions unaddressed. Moreover,t he inclusion of ac hapter about Kenyan students in av olume focused on the history of exchanges between African societies and the GDR raises certain questions of its own. Despite the Kenyatta regimealigning itself explicitly with an ideal of "democratic African socialism" after independence, the Kenyan state consistentlymanaged to cultivatethe reputation of being both pro-Western and friendlyt ocapitalist interests, be they Kenyan or foreign. "Despite the rhetoric of non-alignment and African Socialism," writes Branch, "Kenyatta'sg overnment was generallyp ro-West and pro-capitalism."¹¹ The period of studye ncompasses at ime when Kenyatta and his allies successfullys uppressed political opposition from the left.I ndeed, by the earlyd ayso f1 966 Kenyatta had effectivelyo usted Odinga( who harbored socialist and Maoists ympathies) from structural political influence. Thus, ac hapter examining Kenyan students studying in Eastern Europe (particularlyo ne based on rather sparse materials) appears odd on multiple fronts.Iwill argue, however,thatitispreciselythis position of these students, existing in aliminal space bothintheir host country and the one they called home, which makes their story particularlyv aluable for historians of decolonization and developmentalism.
Among other important threads,e xamining the experienceso ft hese students troubles the orthodoxh istorical ontologies about the relationship of African statesa nd professional networks to the global Cold War, and ultimatelya llows for abetteru nderstanding of the contingencies of African livesd uringt his period. This historiographical bias is nowhereclearer thaninthe relatively exten-sive amount of literature focusing on the "student airlift" coordinatedb yT om Mboya and the John F. Kennedya dministration, ap rogram which shepherded hundreds of Kenyan students (includingB arack Obama Sr.) to universities in the United States. Rather than reproduces uch dualistich istoriographical alignments, this chapter follows to an extent Marcia Schenck'sa rticulation of "the term 'Black East' to denote the livedr eality of aB lack diasporic network in East Germany( German Democratic Republic, GDR) and beyond. ThisAfrican diasporao wed its existencet os ocialist entanglements."¹² The trajectories of the studentsi nt his chapter highlight the importance of questioning the ways in which broad, national "ideological alignments" can overdeterminet he manner in which we approach African intellectual history,a nd also show how ambiguous Kenyan futurity was felt to be duringt he earlyd ayso fa ni ndependent Kenya. Moreover,b ye xamining students' experiences in botht he GDR and non-aligned Yugoslavia, this chapter demonstrates thatashared set of concerns and ideas existed for Kenyans completing their studies outside of more favored universities in Europe and the United States.¹³ These were, broadly-speaking, the ability to playameaningful role in Kenyan society after returning homea nd a sharp awareness of the significance of the culturald imensions of national consciousness. In order to explore the significanceo ft his dual desire, this chapter situates the KSUi nt he GDR in relation to botht he domesticp roject of Kenyan nationalism and the student unions' distinct Eastern European contexts. It also examines as ister organization (a different "Kenyan Students Association," henceforth KSA-Y) which operated duringroughly the same period in Yugoslavia, with the analytical aim of exploring how similar concerns wereexpressed in different contexts across socialist Europe.
The KSU, itsA ctivities, and the Project of Kenyan Nationalism country and the government at home. Itsa ctivities were most robust duringt he first two yearsofits existence, whenitworked to gather information on its members in an effort to provide the Kenyan Ministry of Education with details that might allow them to facilitatee mployment after students completed their studies. Yetthe KSUwas also viewed by its members as aculturalinstitution, hosting Independence Dayc elebrations and attemptingt og ain access to media produced in Kenyat os howcase in the GDR.I ti st hese socio-cultural dimensions of the union thata re the primary focus of this chapter,a st hey not onlyexpand our understandingofthe visions Kenyans studying abroad had for their country, but alsoh ighlighth ow these students challenged dual processes of objectification: on the one hand as commodified workers by their homeg overnment, and on the other as racialized subjects in European locales.¹⁴ One year after Kenya'snational independence in 1963, both fluid imaginaries of what the postcolonial state could be and the nascent status of postcolonial Kenyan state ideologyp layedp ivotal roles in shapingt he KSUa sapolitical and educational formation. The tensions thate xisted between Kenyattaa nd his allies in relation to Odinga and his necessitatedt he careful and strategic crafting of union rhetoric about its function and operations.¹⁵ The KSU'sd isplacement of the earlier KSA-GDR (not to mention political strifea th ome) contributed to adeep and protracted emphasis on rhetoric of unity on the part of the organization, in the service of which terms in both Kiswahili and English were deployed. "Under stable Government," wrotet he KSUi na ne arlycommuniqué, "we feel then thatweshould mobilize and employ the energies of all sections of such Unity,aswetook it as anoble cause everyone to consider it aprivilegeand duty to unite on an ationalb asis."¹⁶ Here, the organization positioned itself relative to the Kenyatta administration through its articulation of the "privilege" and "duties" which came with being an aspiringm embero ft he Kenyan intelligentsia. It also suggests that,despite the fact of their studying in the GDR,itwas their loyalty to Kenyathatheld central importance, rather than anyinternational  The racialized experienceo fA frican students studyingi nt he GDR has been explored in depth by (amongo thers) SaraP ugach. Form ore, see SaraP ugach, "African Students and the Politics of Race and Gender in the German Democratic Republic," in Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold WarW orld,e d. Quinn Slobodian (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015).  Forreaders interested in exploringt hese tensions morethoroughly, see Oginga Odinga, Not YetU huru: The Autobiography of Oginga Odinga (London: Heineman, 1968); TomM boya, Freedom and After (London: Andre Deutsch,1 963); Poppy Cullen, "'PlayingC old WarP olitics':t he Cold Wari nA nglo-Kenyan relations in the 1960s," in Cold WarH istory 18 (2018).  "Announcement of the KenyaS tudents Union in the GDR," October 1, 1964,X J/12/24,K NA. No individuala uthor listed.
3K enyan Student Unions in the GDR and Yugoslavia, 1964 -68 allegiance. This was, however,n osimple act of pandering to the administration or ad emonstration of blind and uncritical loyalty.I tw as tempered by laying claim to am orer obust role within the project of Kenyan nation-building than had previouslyb een offered to studentsi nt he KSU. In the same letter from October 1, 1964 mentioned above, union leadership wrote: the KenyaS tudents Union, ab odyc onsistingo fb oth the students and the apprentices[ in the GDR], so as to find out the solutions in which to implement to our constitutedtask in a sense of strengtheningour Unity and at the same time promoteour Studentship-talents in order to reflect Kenyai nalively wayt ot he rest of the Students fromd ifferent Nationsa s wella st ot he friendlyc ountry which areo ur hosts while abroad.¹⁷ While the letter goes on to outline avariety of more concrete and administrative functionso ft he KSU, the rhetorical emphasis on the notion of national unity is maintained throughout.Sotoo is the idea that these students weretoplayapart in both the "strengthening of our Unity" and the effort to reflect Kenya "in alively way"-this latterp hrase targeting not onlyE ast Germans, but also students hailing from otherE uropean, Asian, and African nations. This sentiment was also expressed in other terms which explicitlyu nderscored the importance of presentingK enya as an ation among nations, rather than the mythologized entity which was the product of coverageofMau Mauininternational media. "The Kenyas tudents in the GDR," wrote Secretary Mbianu in Mayo f1 965, "are now about or more than 100 as the list of the KenyaS tudents Union shows, and we would like to participate in anyK enya National days oa st or eflect Kenya as the other studentsf rom other nations do, but the arrangement of such celebrations or meetings come late and of course inadequate furthermore from too much toil."¹⁸ This critique of the Kenyan government'sunwillingness to provide support for such activitiesw illb er eturned to later.F or now,Iwish to highlight the emphasis on nationalidentity and unity manifested primarilythrough its deployment of three terms: uhuru, harambee,a nd "unity" itself. The first two of these, both Kiswahili, wereo ften used in al argely symbolic manner.W hile they did appearwithin prose penned by the KSUand its members, they manifest far more frequentlyinsigningphrases, letterhead, stamps, and to articulate particular ideas or claims to the official rhetoric of Kenyan nation-building.
"The Uhuru of Kenya," writes the KSU, "is no more thanaprelude to the mobilizationofour energies and resources aimed at freeing ourselvesfrom hunger,  "Announcement of the KenyaS tudents Union in the GDR," October 1, 1964,X J/12/24,K NA. No individuala uthor listed.  Miano, Mburu, "General/5/65," May1 965, KNA. sickness, ignorance and divisionism, etc."¹⁹ Here, the usage of uhuru seems to refer specificallyt of ormal independence as an epoch-making stage( thus its ability to servea sa" prelude"). It is usedi ne xactlys uch aw ay elsewherei n both KSUc orrespondence and contemporary Kenyan political discourse more generally. Yeti ti sn oteworthyt hatt his understanding of the concept would make other appearances within the KSU'so wn time,p erhaps most notablyi n the very title of Odinga's1968 autobiographyand critique of the Kenyan postcolonial order: Not YetUhuru.²⁰ Indeed, the very title of this work can be thought of in contrast to TomM boya'sp roximate work Freedom and After. DanielS peich suggests that in terms of the competingp olitical visions which dominated contemporary Kenyan thought, "the twop ositions are reflected in the titles of the autobiographies of the twol eading politicians."²¹ In otherw ords, whether or not the country had achieved as tate of uhuru at all remained the subject of debate throughout the 1960s (and, indeed, long afterward). While both of these usages are clearlys ituated within the register of national unity,t hey require us to think about whether ag iven group of Kenyans would have understood uhuru as having been attained with formal independence (as argued by the likes of Kenyattaa nd Mboya) or as something remainingt ob ea ctuallyr ealized through the destruction of what we might now identify as the neocolonial order (the perspective held by Odinga). In sum, such usages implythat the definitional status of even the most coreo ft he organizingc oncepts of postcolonial Kenya weref undamentallyd ynamic and political,acrucial point for consideringt he rhetoric and experiences of Kenyan students in Eastern Europe.
Though less explicitlyr eliant on the stagistu nderpinningso ft he KSU'sd eployment of uhuru, harambee functions in much the samep olitically-dynamic manner within the union'sr hetoric and was also articulated to the ideal of national unity.L ike uhuru,i ti so ften positioned ambiguously, possiblyt ot he end of allowing readersa tt he Ministry of Education to interpret it in whatever waym ight be most favorablet ou nion interests (a wise maneuver in at ime of tumultuous domesticpolitics). Typicallytranslated as "pulling together",harambee held ahighcurrencyw ithin the KSU'scorrespondence. This is most notable in the phrase "In the Spirit of Harambee," which official KSUc orrespondence often concluded with. On September 21,1 963, the eveo fK enyatta'sd eparture for London to negotiate the formal process of Kenyan independence, he spoke these words: "The new erat hat Kenyaw ill enter as an Independent nation-in the spirit of 'harambee'-in December,isone which will call for dedication, hard work and unity."²² From here, "the spirit of harambee" came to be afoundational concept upon which the Kenyan postcolonial order wasconstructed. "Pulling together" meant an attempt to manufacture an ationalw hole from diverse and often contentious ethnic, racial, religious,a nd class identities. Yete venJ omo Kenyatta himself employed an otoriouslys lippery and vagueu sage of the term. In the fall of 1964,f or example, he expounded on the concept at ar ally by stating: "Unless the country can help itself, then it cannot develop. We must make systematic efforts to harness the spirit of self-help, and of national unity."²³ At the level of quotidian political discourse, this vagueness left open the possibility for Kenyans to articulate this concept as they sawf it.I ti s worth noting here that,from the earliest days of KANU, harambee had been connected to another phrase ("Freedomand Work" or Uhuru na Kazi)and conveyed as trongo vertone of capitalist-orientede conomic achievement.²⁴ Still, through the persistent invocation of the term it is reasonable to suggest that the KSUattempted to position itself as responding to the call to "harness the spirit of selfhelp" through servingasembodiments of Kenyaabroad, rather than serving flatly as an economic resource for "the nation" as understood by the top officials of the Kenyan state.
Most frequentlydeployed in the actual proseo fK SU communications,h owever,isthe word "unity" itself. It often reads as almost interchangeable with harambee,signalingmanyofthe samesemiotic dimensions as its Kiswahili counterpart. "The future of us and of Kenyai sf or Kenyans to plan," wrote the KSUi n October 1964, "and our judgement shallbeour destiny. The Union will takeacolossal measure against individualistsand sectionalists, who may, in anyw ay attempt to curtail such Unity."²⁵ Here, the deployment of "unity" harborsasharp political edge.And, yetagain, we see an appeal to national cohesion by Luostudents duringatime when tensions were flaring between Kenyatta and Odinga, and indeedb etween Kikuyu and Luoc ommunities.L ike harambee, "unity" was ac orei deological concept in the service of which the KSUi magined itself as playing ac rucial role.I nt he context of the power struggle between Kenyatta and Odingaa th ome, as well as the "divisionism" that had characterized the brief life of the KSA-GDR,t he salience of such an emphasis on rhetoric of unity is clear.T he KSUs ought to position itself as an organization whose aim was to represent Kenyaa saunited nation as much as, if not more than, it was concerned with the individual academic achievements of its members.
Together, the KSU'sd eployment of uhuru, harambee,a nd the rhetorics of unity more generallys uggests thatt he union considered itself to be facilitating not onlyt he economic advancement of the homec ountry but also the articulation of the broader,markedlyculturaldimensionsofaK enyan national identity. Also noteworthyi nt his regardi st he characterization of the intellectual composition of the KSU; both "students" at universities and "apprentices" at technical and vocational schools were eligible for membership and wereconsidered equal members, at least in formal terms. This voicingo fs olidarity across the lines of class and status appealed to different rhetorical registers. Explored further below,o ne such example is the organization'sp ositioning of itself under the banner of "African Democratic Socialism,"²⁶ though it is not further clarified in the archivedcorrespondence what this orientation entailed for the KSUmembership. Yett he union did far more than situate itself rhetoricallyasa ni ntegral component of the Kenyan postcolonial project; it necessarilypressed beyond this as it found its waythrough serving as the primary facilitator of relations between studentss tudying abroad and their home government.
In organizational terms,t he KSUp ositioned itself to playasignificant role both in serving as an intermediary for communication between studentss tudying in the GDR and the Ministry of Education in Kenyaa sw ell as in providing practical servicestoits members. This entailed avariety of distinct activities, includingb ut not limited to:p etitioning for increased levels of student funding from theirhome government,k eepingt rack of the courses of studyits members werep ursuing,updating the Ministry in Kenyaonc onditions of life in the GDR, workingt os ecure employment following the completion of students' degrees, and ah ost of miscellaneous administrative practicalities.²⁷ The KSUthus simultaneously served ar eportingf unction and advocated, though ofteni nv ain, for remedies that would address particularp roblems faced by Kenyan studentsi n the GDR.Perhaps the most emblematic examples of such afunction werethe efforts at tracking the experiences and courses of studyf or the 125-odd students present in the country during1 965. These efforts simultaneouslyh ighlight both  On Kenya'sAfrican socialism see, moreg enerally, Speich, "The Kenyan Style of 'African Socialism'".  While allusions to forms of documentation such as those listed here arefrequent in the papers of the KSUand KSA-Y, Ih avet hus far been unable to locate manyoft hem in archivalc ollections.
3K enyan Student Unions in the GDR and Yugoslavia, 1964 -68 the urgencyofthe KSU'srequests and the immense difficulties involved in informationg athering facedb yt he organization.
Throughout 1965, Mburu Miano, as the General Secretary of the KSU, made numerous appeals to the Ministry of Education in Kenyafor bothhigher levels of pecuniary assistance and more robust effortst owards ecuring positions of employment in Kenyaf ollowing the completion of students' studies. J.R. Sheffield, aprominent figure in the Ministry in Kenya, eventuallyresponded to Miano'srequests: "Ia ma lso enclosing under separate cover 150 record forms which you requested. We will be very grateful for your assistance in this important exercise since an accurate registry will help governmentp lanners and will help youa nd your colleagues find suitable employment upon completion of your studies."²⁸ While it appears that Miano did indeed undertake extensive attemptst og ather the information requested (which included courses of study, institutional affiliation, and expected year of completion), his efforts ultimatelyb ore little fruit. "I, the Secretary of the Union," Miano replied to Sheffield, "wrotetoall students and supplied all copies (each to everyone) to them, but sorry to saythat only15 copies have been successfullyfiled and we hope to seemanyfilled and dispatched to yous oon."²⁹ This level of student response, no doubta tl east in part a product of both the dispersion of students throughout the GDR and unsystematic paths taken by students to reach the country,istypicalofsuch efforts conducted by the KSUd uringi ts existence.
Like student unions in the present,these types of activities (and the accompanying drudgeries of bureaucracy) were no small part of the KSU'sa ctivities, and in fact constituted the bulk of the labor performed by union leadership. Yett hese administrative functionsw ould have playedar elatively limited role in shaping understandingso ft he KSUfor the union rank-and-file. Fort hem, interacting with the KSUp rimarilym eant two things. First,f illing out forms and paperwork (such as that lamented by Miano above) thatp rovided insight for the government as to the courses of studyo fK enyan studentsa broad. Another function seemed equallyp rominent,a nd indeed appears even more frequently than the information gatheringefforts undertaken by the KSU: making requests for and receiving news and culturalm aterials from homeb yw ay of the Kenyan government.These types of resources weretypicallyextremelylimited. Forexample, after receiving aKSU requestfor 125copies of aperiodicaltitled KenyaCalling,t he Ministry of Education responded: "We willo nlys end you5 0c opies of this publication which we think would be sufficienti fs tudentsl iving together  "Letter to Mburu Miano from J. R. Sheffield," December 9, 1965, XJ/12/24,K NA.  "Letter to J. R. Sheffieldf romM buru Miano," February 26,1966,X J/12/24,K NA. shared the copies."³⁰ This was asolution proposed by the Ministry in Kenyawithout knowing even such basic information as whether it was the case thatKenyan studentsactuallydid live together, as housing arrangements varied by locale and student background.
Responses such as this suggestthat,inlarge part,non-board members of the KSUw ould likelyh avei nterfaced in av ery limited wayw ith theirh omeg overnment,a nd on the occasionsw hen they did (such as receiving copies of Kenyan periodicals or gathering personal information) faceda na mbivalent ministry interested onlyi nt he nature of their studies and the occasional dissemination of extremelys parse resources.I nt he union'so wn phrasing: "KenyaS tudents take their different courses in different institutions of learning,but it seems to them, that,t he Ministry of Education in Kenyan ever establish [sic] contacts with them."³¹ The overarchings entiment was,t hen, thatt he home government seemed to have little interest in interacting with Kenyan studentsa broad and even less in assistingwith the coordination of events not deemed to be properly "educational." Fore xample, in responset ot he KSU'sl etter announcing the foundation of the organization and requests for pecuniary support of an upcoming nationali ndependence celebration, an administrator named D.K. Ngini wroteinaninternal Ministry of Education circular: "Idofeel that if the students want to qualify as well and as widelya st hey can as as teppings tone towards contributingtothe KenyaNation building,the best course is for them to concentrate primarilyo nt heir studies."³² Kenyan studentsi nt he GDR had other aims, even if the project of nationbuilding remained the ultimateg uiding star.T aking seriously the intervention that the organization understood itself to be making by "reflecting Kenyai na lively way" allows for areadingofthe KSUasconsciouslyserving apedagogical function.Bydescribingitasanorganization seeking to project alivelyv ision of Kenyatoother students and comrades in the GDR more generally, union leadership explicitlyp ositioned the organization as disruptiveo fw hat,b ye xtension, must have been felt to be as tatica nd problematic conception of life in Kenya. This is perhaps unsurprising,g iven the temporal proximity of the KSUt ot he events of the MauM au Emergency,d uring which ag reat deal of European media coverageh ad presented Kenyaa saplace rife with tribal antagonisms and "primitive" traditions.³³ And, while the narrativesa bout the rebellion that  "Correspondencef romJ .H .Wanyoiket oM buru Miano," December 15,1965, XJ/12/24,K NA.  "Correspondencef romK SU to Ministry of Education," May1 965, XJ/12/24,K NA.  "Circular written by D. K. Ngini," October 28,1964,X J/12/24,K NA.  See, for example, Melissa Tully, "All'sW ell in the Colony: Newspaper Coverageo ft he Mau MauM ovement,1952-56," in Narrating Warand Peace in Africa,ed. Toyin Falola and Hetty ter 3K enyan Student Unions in the GDR and Yugoslavia, 1964 -68 circulated in the socialist worldw erec ertainlydifferent thant hosei nt he West, abstractions about Africa and Africanness fundamentallyi nformed each. We might think about the KSU, then, as having understood themselvestobemaking ac rucial correction to the narratives about Kenyat hat circulated in the Eastern Bloc, and perhapsE urope more generally. Moreover,t he KSU'sc onsistent appeals to national unity impliesac onnection between the ideological construction of Kenyaasacultural and national entity and the unique position that Kenyans studying abroad considered themselvesa si nhabiting: ambassadors of a certain sort.
In this light,requests for Kenyan-produced ephemeraand culturalmaterials (and in particular films, as will be explored further later)w erev ieweda sa means of disrupting residual mythologies attached to Kenyanness.A nd while Ia mu naware of anye xisting scholarshipe xamining media representations of MauM au specificallyi nt he GDR,the fact that Kenyans expressed similar sentiments in otherEuropean spaces (coupled with Pugach'swork on racialization in East Germany) lends credibilityt ot he idea that these studentsv iewed themselvesa sd oing ac ertain type of ideological work. The pedagogical coreh ere, then, was an attempt to intervene in the channels through which information about Kenyan society in the wake of independence travelled. Moreover,t his was an interventionthatwould present Kenyaasaunited and "modern" nation with the right to control its ownd estiny, an understandablycommon sentiment in the rhetoric of manyA frican people and states in the 1960s. When the KSU positionedi tself "against individualists and sectionalists, who may, in any waya ttempt to curtail such Unity," it did so as am eans of positioning itself squarelyw ithin this national destiny.³⁴ Again, the idea thatt he Union could be aforcefor remedying the divisionism that had plagued both the student community in the GDR and the political landscape at homei sm ade manifest.The KSUw as thus ultimatelya no rganization with am embership that conceivedo f itself as ag roup of politically-conscious students who sought to influence both the articulation of national identity and, in addition, the future role of Kenyans who accessed higher education in socialist Europe.

Competing Visions:T he Ideao fE ducation in the KSU
In recent years, educational trajectories of Africans sojourning in the socialist world-like the GDR-have been the subjectofmuch interest,asthe compilation of this volume itself attests to.³⁵ With regardt ot he GDR'so wn articulation of these programs, Tanja R. Müller'sr ecent monograph Legacies of Socialist Solidarity traces the contours of the complex ways in which the hegemonic ideological ethos of the GDR drew from the rhetoricalr egisters of socialist internationalism in its construction of policies targeting relations with African states.³⁶ Recent work such as Müller'sunderscores the centralityofdiscourses of "development" within contemporary socialist thought.The concept has also been explored deeplyw ithin Africanist postcolonial theory,and importantly by V.Y. Mudimbe. Mudimbe has written extensivelya bout the teleological natureo ft he notion of development in postcolonial Africa, calling particular attention to its ubiquitywithin political rhetoric across the continent.InTheInvention of Africa, he goes so far as to agree with B. Vergaegan'sc haracterization of this line of thinking as a "theologyofdevelopment."³⁷ The GDR'semphasis on development should thus also be understood in relation to the concept'sevengreater salience for postcolonial Kenya, for whom the stakeso fi mplementing anyn otiono fd evelopment weref elt to be far higher and operated at exactlys uch aq uasi-theological level. The Kenyan Ministry of Education'semphasis on development,and its relation to the very idea of "education," was predicatedonanunderstanding of education as the production of skilled "manpower."³⁸ Here, it is worth draw- ing upon the KSU'sp eers studying in Yugoslaviad uring the samep eriod. In a 1967e xchangew ith the KSA-Y, for example, J.R. Sheffield wrotet hat: "As part of the government'sp rogramme of manpower planning and Kenyanization of both the public and privates ectors, it is extremelyi mportant for us to know the supplyo fh igh-level manpower which will be returningf rom study overseas."³⁹ As we will see, the members of the KSA-Yw eren ot particularlyf ond of such ao ne-dimensionalu nderstanding of what,e xactly, their "education" was to be. Moreover,e ach organization rejected (sometimes explicitly, but more frequentlyt acitly) the purpose of an education abroad being articulated within the relatively narrow project of "Kenyanizing" the national economy.⁴⁰ In broad strokes, duringt he years the KSUw as active-from 1964 to 1968the Kenyan government thus pursuedaneducational policy primarily concerned with increasingits intellectual manpower while students such as those involved in the union conceivedt heir studies abroad as botht his and the work of consciousness-raising.T he emphasis on political consciousness was stated often and clearlyb yt he organization. In fact,t he emphasis on "consciousness" as an organizingconcept more generallyp layeda ni mportant role in the KSU'si ntellectual framing.I nt heirf oundational lettert oK enyatta referenced abovew e read that: "The Union has broughtS tudents to the consciousness that the stagei sn ow set for us to embark upon the next phase in our struggle for advancement."⁴¹ Here, the relationship of students to "consciousness" functions within as omewhat stagist vision of historical development. As seen above, formal uhuru had served as a "prelude" which had allowed for the emergenceo f such ac onsciousness.K SU leadership insinuates that,o nce attained by themselves, it was the task of intellectuals such as thosei nt he union (regardless of theirf ield of study) to assist in proliferatingp olitical consciousness throughout the Kenyan social fabric. When considered in relation to theiroutline of the functionso ft he KSU, it is evidentt hat the notion of "advancement" held by union members exceededt he instrumentalizing,f latlyeconomic one being pur- "Letter to the President,K enya Students Association in Yugoslavia from J.R. Sheffield," May2 5, 1967, XJ/12/28,K enya Students Association in Yugoslavia, KNA.  Of course, the critique that the simple replacement of white colonial administrators with Africans did little to disrupt the political economyofcolonialism was commoninsocialist thought of the era. Indeed, few political leaders in Kenyae xpressed this concern moref requentlyt han Odinga. This perspective could also suggest the possibilityt hat students in socialist Europe had perhapst aken some of their "ideological training" mores eriouslyt han has typically been thought to be the case, as such ideas certainlywould have circulated in classrooms discussing Marxist theory and left politics.  "Announcement of the KenyaStudents Union in the GDR," October 1, 1964,KNA.Noindividual author listed. sued by the Kenyan state. It included the role of the intelligentsia as ac ultural vanguard. However,this type of function implied activities which the Ministry in Kenyaw as skeptical of students abroad pursuing.M oreover,t he expression of this idea was also rather subtle, perhaps due to the possibility that anyperceived affiliation with communist politics would have jeopardized the position of students who returned to an increasingly pro-capitalist Kenyan state.
The differencesb etween visions of the role of the educated Kenyan was a constant site of contestation along with allegations of underfunding, poor communication, and general mismanagement.⁴² What underwrotea ll of these tensions weretwo different (if deeply-entangled) conceptions of the idea of "education," what such ac oncept entailed and the role the foreign-educated Kenyan would playa fter returning home. In other words, this represented ac ontinuous and extensive debate about the relationship between contested ideas of education within the Kenyatta regime'sp roject of harambee. These contestations found themselvese xpressed in av ariety of ways,b ut few weref elt as acutely by KSUstudents as thatofenteringastatus of commodified intellectual-laborers, towardw hich the state took an attitude at once ambivalent and instrumentalizing in ethos. This wasnot asentiment restricted to studentsinthe GDR,and indeed Kenyans in other European locales articulatedi tf ar more explicitlyt han through the "consciousness-raising" rhetoric of the KSU.
From ac omparatives tandpoint,t he KSA-Ya lleged in as imilar mannero f their primary Ministry of Education contact that "he considers us as just 'mere trading instruments.'"⁴³ This was ap erspective that understood the instrumentalization of students in two ways:a sb oth pawnsi ni nternational diplomacy as well as fungible workers crafted solelyf or the smooth operation of the postcolonial order in Kenya. The expression of such asentiment across two different Eastern European contexts, each explicitlys ocialist in orientation, is intriguing. Whether couched in the affirmative terms of political unity or articulated through direct critique, it seems evidentthatboththe KSUand the KSA-Yhoped for afar more robust vision of the role to be playedbyK enyans educated in socialist Eu- Employment followingt he completion of one'sc ourse of studyw as ap articularlyr obust point of concern. Ageneral lack of communication and mismanagement in this regardproduced sentiments such as the following, merelyo ne of dozens of such inquiries: "We would liket o know our positions towards our communal aim in Kenya, that is relationship between qualified manpower and Ministry of Education, at the same time Ministries which offer employmenta nd other institutions." ("Lettert oMr. G. R. M'Mwirichia from Mburu Miano," November 5, 1965, XJ/ 12/24,K NA).  "Letter to the Permanent Secretary,Ministry of Education from George S. Owuor and Arthur K. Owuor," February 3, 1966,X J/12/28,K NA.
3K enyan StudentU nions in the GDR and Yugoslavia, 1964 -68 rope thanw as held by the Ministry of Education in Kenya. Morep referable for these students was aposition as harbingers of an improvement in economic circumstances, the disruptors of European mythologies about Kenya, and the artic-ulationofanAfrican socialist politics (however impreciselyitwas defined)all at once.
Aside from direct statements-such as Ngini'si nsistencet hat "the best course is for them to concentrate primarily on their studies"⁴⁴-the Kenyan government'sa version to student activities not considered to be part of theireducation-proper was expressed through the consistent rejection or inadequate fulfillment of requests for the financial support of cultural events. In al etter from Novembero f1 965, the KSUm ade an appeal to the Ministry of Education in Kenyaf or pecuniary and material support to fund as tring of events celebrating the second anniversary of Kenyan national independence. They made theircase on the grounds that: "The matter of facts [sic] is that,KSU represents an imageof Kenyainthe front line in celebrations, advertisements, speeches and in newspapers duringsuch national occasions."⁴⁵ This, they argued, meant that their home government had both ar esponsibility and av ested interest to support their activities. The response the KSUr eceivedf rom the Ministry was disheartening( to put it mildly) and summarized in one line: "Unfortunately, our budgetd oes not permitour support of groups such as yours."⁴⁶ While this position loosened over time and small requests were granted on occasion,the government'sassertion that they bore no real responsibility for supporting student groups focused on cultural activities and consciousness-raising remained as ite of contention throughout the history of KSU-governmental relations.Thus, while the Ministry of Education in Kenyac onsistentlyd isplayedapreoccupation with tracking and managingthe production of "manpower," they showed far less in taking seriouslyt he political and ideological dimensions of the KSU'sa ctivities.
While visions of corrective approaches to this problem are rarely explicit, the KSU'se mphasis on unity and the positioning of their organization as ac ultural vanguard is telling.B ya rticulatingt hemselvesa sc entral to the culturald imensions of Kenyan nationalism, it is clear that they envisioned aposition relative to the Kenyan nation-building project that exceededas tatus as commodified (if educated and well-paid) labor.Exacerbatingthis wasaperception thattheir colleagues studying in other locales did not experience such frustrations as acutely. Daniel Branch argues that:  "Circular by D. K. Ngini," KNA.  "CorrespondencefromMburu Miano to G.R. M'Mwirichia," November 5, 1965, XJ/12/24,KNA.  "Letter to J.R. Sheffieldf romM buru Miano," KNA.
[Students whostudied in socialist Europe] expected to be the nation-builders,the economic planners and technocrats at the heart of the process of state-formation. But they found themselvese xcluded from the vital earlys tages of this process,m arginalized in favour of their contemporaries whos tudied in Kenyai tself, neighbouringU ganda,t he UK and, particularly, the USA.⁴⁷ Kenyan students in the GDR and Yugoslavia werenoexception. They each had a record of communicating this precise frustration to their homeg overnment. In the KSU'sp hrasing: "It is to the benefit of Kenyaa saNation to see to it that, those studentsqualifying themselvesinvarious fields of studies receive equal eligibility as thoseo thers in other parts of the globe."⁴⁸ The KSU'sr hetoric thus suggests something of ad ual-mandate for their homeg overnment: they hoped to be involved in the culturala nd political dimensions of nation-building while simultaneouslye xpressingt heirr ight to the samee conomic positions as Kenyan studentss tudying in other foreign countries.G iven that degrees from the "Second World" wereo ftenp erceivedb yA frican governments as "second class" degrees,t he KSU'sr equestc learlyd emanded ap osition of equality in this regard.⁴⁹ The understandingo fe ducation held by the Kenyan state thus existed in a state of deep tension with thato fa no rganization such as the KSU, which was tacitlye xpressed in its foundational mission and conceptual ethos. The government'sm ission of creatingaclass of educated clerks and administrators who would serveassomanyparts in the machinery of the Kenyan economic structure was afar cry from the understanding of education articulated within the cultural dimensions of KSUr hetoric, which did not shya wayf rom fiery language. This rhetorical style was, however,t emperedi no rder to reaffirm the organization's commitment to supportingK ANU: We are in the mind that Party is the rallying-point of our political activities and such, we support every measuret ol ead to as tability of KenyaA fricanN ational Union, in order to maintain African personality of every-man-Jack in both politics and economics which facilitate the buildingofa ni ntegrated Nation with as ocial structureo fa nA frican Democratic Socialism.⁵⁰ Through simultaneouslye xpressing their support for KANU and the nebulous project of "African Democratic Socialism," the KSUw alked af ine line that both acknowledgedt he authority of the Kenyatta regime and challenged it to take seriously some of its own positions. It should be no surprise, then, that the sense on the part of students thatthey werebeing commodified through educational programs in the interest of astate that relegated them to an apolitical space was difficultt oa ccept.
Through ac omparative perspective,wec an see that the experiences of organizations similar to the KSUi no ther areas of socialist Europe suggest that this perception of apathyt oward (and fungibility of)s tudents was not confined to the GDR alone. The KSA-Yalso found itself perpetuallyfrustrated by the lack of material support and the poor quality of communication between the Kenyan Ministry of Education and students abroad. In the records of the KSA-Ythis manifests not onlya si nadequate material assistance, but also as an utter lack of knowledge on the part of the Kenyan authoritiesa bout the educational institutions they weres upposedly "partnering" with. In response to aK SA-Y request for information on securing employment after completing theirs tudies, Deputy Secretary of Education G.R. M'Mwerichia wrote: "Iamwriting direct to Belgrade to getafull description of the type of schooly ou are attending and the final award youe xpect."⁵¹ It should be no surprise that this statement,which constituted an open acknowledgement that the Ministry of Education lacked even such basic information as the types of schools students werea ttending and the degrees they could expectt ob ea warded, was not well received. It is worth noting that such an idea would have been completelyout of line with the attention paid to those participating in the Mboya-Kennedyairlift.Inascathing retort,the KSA wroteback: "Your inquiry now into the type and system of education in Yugoslavia is ad irect proof that youn ever cared to know whya nd how we weres ent here."⁵² In another point of consonance with the frustrations experiencedb y those in the KSU, the letter also argued that: "Youc annot wait for as tudent to finish his studies and then when he comes back to Kenyay ou start saying youd on ot recognize his degree in spite of the fact that youa re the one who sent him here."⁵³ Contemporaries of the KSUi nt he GDR,t he frustrations of KSA-Ym embers speak to the broad and deeply-rooted discontent of youngK enyan scholars studying in Eastern Europe. Namely, these shared frustrations (voiced almost contemporaneouslyathousand kilometers apart) underscorethe experienceso f cohorts of scholars who felt marginalized by the national governmentt hat they hoped so dearlyt op layasignificant role in. It should,ofc ourse, be mentioned that the level of opacity encountered by the Kenyan Ministry of Education was due in part to the absenceo fe mbassies in the GDR during this period and an ambivalent relationship to the Yugoslavian state. That the particular channels through which Kenyan students arrivedi nE urope were not standardized, but varied widelyand occasionallyevenoperated without the knowledge of the Kenyan state should alsob eu nderstood as as ourceo fc onfusion. The fact that this was apparentlyawidely-shared experience, however,d id little to console the memberships of the KSUand KSA-Y. They perceivedthe Kenyan Ministry of Education as being (at best) inept,though this wordunderstates the strong sense of exploitation and fungibility felt by the students it was allegedlyr esponsible for supporting. These feelings towardtheir own governmenta re, however,onlyone part of alargerpicture. Equallyprevalent,ifevenmore cautiouslyand tacitlyexpressed, was the strongs ense of alienation felt by African studentsa st hey navigated the landscapes of Eastern Europe.

Film and the Ideao fS elf-Representation
In the years following national independence, existing in European space as a Kenyan student was al ived experience fraughtw ith tension, which laid bare the contradictions of the contemporary contours of socialist internationalism.⁵⁴ Iargue thatthe emphasis which the KSUplaced on film represented an attempt to disrupt residual forms of mythologies about Kenyans,and Africans more generally, that continued to circulateevenunder self-proclaimed anti-racist regimes of state socialism. To be clear,frank and explicit accusations of experiencing racial prejudice are few and far between in the limited records of these organizations to which Ihaveaccess.Nonetheless, it is tellingthatboth the KSUand KSA-Yembarked on sustainedcampaigns to gain access to materialsthat would allow for ad egree of self-representationwithin the cultural frameworks in which they found themselves. From their home governmentthey requested magazines, pho- Aparticularlyillustrative example of this is SaraPugach'sexploration of gender dynamics in the GDR and the relationAfrican students had to them. The antiracist posturingofthe state, Pugachargues,unravels when one considers the manner in which African students weremarginalized within the social bodyand the low-esteem in which East Germanswho had sexual relations with them wereh eld. Again, see Pugach, "African Students and the Politics of Race and Gender".
3K enyan Student Unions in the GDR and Yugoslavia,1 964 -68 tographs,newspapers,and culturalproducts of all sorts with an urgencynot extended even to securing employmentafter completingtheir studies. Requests for culturalmaterialsare numerous,clear,and (this cannot be emphasized enough) expressed more emphaticallye vent hanp etitions for financial support.
The final part of this chapter explores students' interest in, and perhaps even affinityfor,the medium of film through extremelyclose analyses of the demands they made for access to these materials.This section is consciouslyspeculative,a product of botht he archival collections from which it is derived( as well as the KenyaN ational Archive itself)a nd the informational voids that existed even for those who actuallyparticipated in the experiencesitexamines.⁵⁵ Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to highlightw hat is an undeniablef eature of the records that do exist,a nd to gesture toward the culturala nd intellectual implications present within them.I ti sn oteworthyt hat ap reoccupation with the medium of film was by no means unique to the members of the KSU. Sarah Pugach has argued elsewherethatin1965the Unionder Afrikanischen Studenten und Arbeiter in der DDR (Union of African Students and Workers in the GDR) had advocated for the relevance of film to challenget he static mythologies of Africa that circulatedi n East Germany.⁵⁶ In al etter from that year,the UASA argued for "compellingt he Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (German Film Corporation or DEFA) to produce movies on contemporary Africa, since most of what they werec urrentlym aking reflected only 'colonial barbarism.'"⁵⁷ As we shallsee, boththe KSUand the KSA-Ye xperienceds imilar debates that underscored the pedagogical utility of film.
The first mention of film in KSUcorrespondencedates from Mayof1965, only afew months afterthe UASA'slettermentioned aboveand the second year of the Union'se xistence.⁵⁸ Broadly, the document in which it appears voiced frustrations felt by members of the organization which tacksb etween specific complaints and arguments for the importance of the work being done by the KSU. The main grievancea rticulated in the text,which we have alreadyencountered, questions the equity with which students in the GDR werebeing treated relative  It should be re-emphasized heret hat the materials examined arel ocated at the KenyaN ational Archives. This institution,a nd the recordsw hich it houses,h as been subject to colonial and neocolonial power dynamics,dynamics pertinent to contextualizingits existenceand composition. Im ean this not onlyi nt erms of the presenceo ra bsenceo fm aterials (the "silences" produced by what is deemed "worthy" of cataloguingi na ll archival bodies,a nd what ag iven Kenyan regime has believed should be made available in this institution), but also in terms of its chronic underfunding and limited (though heroic and dedicated) staff.  Pugach, "Agents of Dissent," 93.  Pugach, "Agents of Dissent," 103.  "Correspondencef romK SU to Ministry of Education," May1 965, XJ/12/24,K NA.
to Kenyan studentss tudying in Western European and Americani nstitutions. Eric Burton has observedt hatA frican countries "sent youngc itizensw herever possibilities for academic training opened up, no matter if 'East', 'West',o r ' South'-although Western degrees continued to enjoy the greatestp restige."⁵⁹ In their letter,the KSUc laimed that in other European contexts whereK enyans studied,the impending completion of acourse of studywas accompanied by dialogue between would-be-graduates and the Kenyan government in order to place them in employment.Thisp ractice was rumored to be orthodoxi nt he U.K., for example. "We remember very well," wroteK SU leadership in ac ircular addressed to the Ministry of Education in Kenya, "that [the] City Council of Nairobi sent its delegation to England to interview thosestudents who wereabout to finish their courses (studies) so that,when they finished, they could go straight to their employment.But nothing has been done so far regarding those studentsin the GDR."⁶⁰ That the City Council of Nairobi would have taken adirect interest in recruitingstudentswho had been educated in the capitalist West is striking,especially consideringt he Kenyatta regime'sc ontemporary amenable positioning towardt he capitalist powers of the West.
The aim of securing employment after completingone'scourse of studywas, however,onlyone aspect of amuch broader set of concerns for Kenyan students expressed in this letter.Aspecial level of emphasis was reserved for underscoring the dire need for culturalm aterials from home. In the organization'so wn phrasing,the request made in their May1965letter was for "Financial-assistance +material assistance such as FILM in order that KenyaStudents mayshow other people how Kenyais."⁶¹ What exactlyi smeant by the phrase "how Kenyais"is not clear.Like other Kenyansstudying abroad, manyamongst the KSUmembership would likelyhavehailed from privileged backgrounds.Yet it is reasonable to suggest that the trope of a "backward," violent,and "tribal" Kenyawas what was being challenged here. To this end, it is worth mentioning once again that the bulk of the KSU'sa ctivities occurred scarcelyadecade after the height of the MauMau insurgency, an event which captured the imaginations of people across the globe (both out of fear or in solidarity) and placed Kenyainaposition of international notoriety.⁶² What is certain in the passageaboveisthe highdegree of 3K enyan StudentU nions in the GDR and Yugoslavia, 1964 -68 emphasis placed on the word "FILM," afeature found elsewhereinthe requests put forth by the KSU. In this document the wordi sl ocated on the edge of the right margin, and the actual shape and place of the wordi tself is striking. While its specific location on the pagew as incidental, its impact on the reader is indicative of the importance it held for its authors. It appears as asolid block in asea of small letters,impossible to avoid and disruptive of the measured tone and flow of the largerd ocument.That this degree of emphasis was deemed appropriatee venwhen requests for such basic necessities as financial sustenance werea lso present is particularlys triking.
As econd, even more explicit appealf or government-produced films to be shown at independence celebrations would find its wayt ot he Ministry of Education in Kenyas everal months later. By then, the emphasis on this particular demand had grown. In Novembero f1 965t he KSUs ent the following message: The KSUi nt he GDR wish to demonstrateo ur standpointa nd ours is for the Kenyaa sa whole, and thereforew ew ould expect from youp apers,p hotographs, maps, magazines, and even aFILMa bout Kenya. Anym aterial despatch [sic] fromy ou, which mayn eed preservation, the KenyaS tudents Union mayt ake responsibility,s uch as FILM etc.⁶³ Here, the highd egree of emphasis experimented with in the first document comes to full fruition. Not onlyd oes the wordo ccur twice in all capital letters, but one of these sees the insertiono faspace between each letter.T he effect of creating as olid visual block, absolutelyi mpossible to ignoref or the reader, cannot be overlooked as incidental or unimportant.I ti s, after all, not the only material requested. It is not even the onlyv isual material on the list.Yet photographs and maps seem to holdarelatively limited importance for the KSU. Exactlywhy this might be the caseisnot,however,stated explicitlywithin the Union'sr ecords.
Here, it is perhaps useful to recall very brieflythe history and role of the medium of film in mid-twentieth century Germany. Under the Nazis, cinema had been astaple of propaganda efforts. Racist imagery was ubiquitous, and the importance of visual contrastm aintainedacurrencyw ella fter the fall of the regime. In his famous 1947text From Caligari to Hitler,the film historian Siegfried Kracauer wrotet hat aprimary feature of the Nazi film was: "The exploitation of physiognomical qualities by contrasting,for instance, close-ups of brute Negroes with German soldier faces."⁶⁴ The deployment of the visual dichotomies of dark and light continued well into the period of KSUa ctivities, and the practice and idea of contrastc ontinued to holdacurrencyf or film critics and audiences. As Pugach has noted, the notion that ad ichotomye xisted between Germans and "brute Negroes" was not erased with the establishment of an "anti-racist" regime committed to socialist internationalism. Nor was the idea thatthe nature of film, as am edium, held aunique ability to intervene in popularn arrativeso ft he nation. In Germanyand elsewhereduring the postwar era, this rested on the figural creation of outsiders, and race was acommon modality deployed in their assembly. In line with this, Pugach has shown thataneducative impulseextended beyond the walls of the universities that hosted African students. "The students weres ubject to a 'moral' education in the GDR," she writes. "This education was based on supposedly 'primal' characteristics that had been assigned to Africans much earlier,inthe colonial era. It contradicted state claims thatrace did not matter, as well as state effortst oincludeb lacks in the bodyp olitic."⁶⁵ More generally, these students' experiences in Germanywould have been informed by what GeorgeS teinmetz has called the "devil'sh andwriting," or how "the inherited archiveso fp recolonial ethnographic representations provided the ideological rawmaterials for almosteverythingthat wasdone to colonized peoples in the modernera."⁶⁶ Such aline of analysis can easilybeextended to think about how continuities in racist mythologies manifested in different areas of life in the GDR, film being onlyo ne embedded within ab roader culturall andscape.
In tracking the maneuveringso ft he KSUa nd its membership, it is evident that the disruption of these mythologies was of great concern for Kenyan students in the GDR.R equests for films werem ade "in order that KenyaS tudents mays how other people how Kenyai s."⁶⁷ They werea lso made in ac ontext wherein multiple students had been either expelled from school or jailed under questionable circumstances.⁶⁸ The attempt to resist these processes of overdetermination was at the coreo fr equests for films depicting life in Kenya. Deployingthe rhetoric of national unity,and targeted at thoseprimarilyrespon- Pugach, "The Politics of Race and Gender," 148.  Steinmetz, George, TheD evil'sH andwriting:P recoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qungdao,S amoa, and SouthwestA frica (Chicago:T he University of Chicago Press,2 007), xiv.  Mburu Miano, "General 5/65," KNA.  Over the course of the KSU'se xistence, it sawo ne studente xpelled from school duet oa minor alcohol infraction and two others tried and imprisoned on chargeso fr ape.A llegations of police brutality werealso made by the Union against the East German authorities. Fordetails about this see "CorrespondencefromE.N.Gicuchi to The Rector of Dresden Technical University," January 25,1966,X J/12/24,KNA; "CorrespondencefromJ .M wemat oMinistry of ForeignA ffairs," February 9, 1966,X J/12/24,KNA; "CorrespondencefromJ .N .Muimi to Ministry of Education," February 24,1966,X J/12/24,K NA.
3K enyan Student Unions in the GDR and Yugoslavia,1 964 -68 sible for fosteringsuch as entiment within the nascent Kenyan republic, the desire to disrupt the existing pedagogical channels through which information about the homeland travelled found an affinity with the medium of film. It follows thatt he KSUmay have understood it as at echnology through which Europeans and Africans in the audience would receive the voice of Kenya(at least as it was portrayedb yt he government) without the distortions of aE uropean lens or gaze. AEurocentric vision of Africa would have at least some chance of being "pushed against" or "corrected." To be clear,t his is not to suggest thats uch a representation was unproblematic, "authentic," or even an accurate analysis of the pedagogical dynamics of film. Nor was the project of Kenyan nationalism organic or untethered from colonial legacies and massive disparities in ethnic and class representation within government.I nstead, the aim here is to suggest that the KSUharbored apowerful understanding of the possibilitiesheld by the medium of film and its value for them as they navigated life in the GDR and their relations to the government at home.
While (in line with their political rhetoric more generally) the KSUs ignaled the importance of the medium film in ac arefullyc oded manner,K enyan students in Yugoslavia werel essr eserved. Their debates on the subjectd epart from the KSU'si ni mportant ways,b ut bear striking similarities with regard to at the level of conceptualizing the medium of film itself, and especiallyits ability to shape perception. As in the GDR,Isuggest that it was the pedagogicalpower of the medium of film that served as the defining feature of these debates,a lthough the contours of the specific circumstances are notablydifferent.InJ anuary 1967, abitter dispute emergedbetween two groups of Kenyan students within the KSA-Yoveraseries of films thath ad been screened for the previous year's independence celebrations. On January2 6, GonzagaO pundo (a rank-and-file membero ft he KSA) wrotet ot he Kenyan Ministry of Education alleging that "threef oreign Embassies have engagedt hemselvesi nw hat seems to us a joint-work for corruptingKenya students in Yugoslavia."⁶⁹ The three foreign powers mentioned wereB ritain,the United States,a nd West Germany, and Opundo alleged that they had targeted KSA-Yl eadership. "The British and the American Embassies," wroteO pundo, "do invite 'selected' number of Kenyas tudents to their respective Consulates or sometimesi nt heir privateh omes to talk over a cup of tea. After the talks the studentsa re shown some propaganda films and they are alsop rovided with free newspapers."⁷⁰ Opundo went on to claim that this wasessentiallyarecruitment operation on the part of these foreign powers, which offered promises of work and financial support in exchangef or information on Kenyan studentsstudying in Yugoslavia. He alsoargued that these operations werebased on students' political orientations, as their talks and information-gathering efforts included "Kenyapolitics and the parties which individuals prefer."⁷¹ Such an attention to party affiliation must be contextualized in relation to the Kenyan political landscape, where the year prior Odingahad formallysplit from KANU and playedaformativerole in the organization of the KenyaPeople's Union. That Britain, the United States,a nd West Germanyw ould have been interested in securing such information is to be expected. More surprising is that the particulari tems mentioned (films and newspapers) are the sameo nes petitionedf or by the KSUi nt he GDR,i sk ey,a nd underscores the widespread existenceo fc oncerns around sets of culturalm aterials that were understood to be "accurate" or not.
Opundo'sa llegations did not go unchallenged. Less than am onth later, a response arriveda tt he Kenyan Ministry of Education from the leadership of the KSA-Y. Fadhili Lugano (the organization'sC hairman) and John Omudanga (Secretary) excoriated Opundo'sl etter,c alling his claims "baseless" and "extremelys erious."⁷² Opundo was, apparently, not fond of Lugano or Omudanga either,a dding the phrase "whom they use as at ool" in brackets next to each of their namesw hen listing out the students he believed had been corrupted.⁷³ Nevertheless,the KSA'sleadership responded in-depth to his "baseless" claims. "The truth is," they wrote, "the KenyaS tudents Association decided to have as part of the KenyaI ndependence Celebration, 1966 aK enya film, photographs and the National Anthem. We wrote to the KenyaHighCommissioner in London to help us acquiresome of these things."⁷⁴ They receivedatotal of four different films for their celebration, and "nearlya ll Kenyas tudents in Zagreb including Mr.O pundo sawt hese films."⁷⁵ Along with their rebuttal to Opundo, Lugano and Omudangasent the titles of the films screened, writing that "It is for the Gov- 3K enyan Student Unions in the GDR and Yugoslavia,1 964 -68 ernment of Kenyatojudge whether the abovefour films are propaganda films."⁷⁶ At the heart of these debates was,i ne ssence, the question of what constituted propaganda within the medium of film. It is not the aim of this chapter to servea sa rbiter to whether or not such films did indeeds erve such af unction. Rather,Iwish onlytounderscorethat competing understandingsofK enyanness within the medium of film clashed not onlyinthe GDR and the Eastern Bloc, but in places such as non-aligned, socialist Yugoslaviaaswell. Moreover,these contestations werenot simplyaquestion of "European" representations versus "African" ones, but weres uspended within ap olitical space in which one'sa lignment to domestic politics in Kenyaw as considered to be an equally( if not more) important factor.

Conclusion
In their relatively brief periods of tenure, both the KSUand the KSA-Yestablished themselvesasintermediaries between their members in relation to both the Kenyan government and the authorities of their host states. In anumber of different ways,t hey sought to carveo ut am ore expansiver ole for its membership in relation to each. However,with the exception of abrief influx of nursing students in late 1966 which it helped organize, the KSUwitnessed asignificant decline in membership after its first twoy ears. By the beginning of 1967t he union had mergedw ith the KenyaS tudents Association (a similar,s maller organization) to createt he KenyaS tudents Organization (KSO), which at its foundation comprised only9 6m embers.T his figure is striking when considered in relation to the fact that at its height the KSUa lone had boastedamembership of over 150 students. Moreover,t he activities of that organization appear to have been short-lived, and in large part consisted of collectingd ata about the students and (more importantly for the KSO) advocating on students' behalf for transfers to educational institutions in West Germany.The explicit rationale is onlyprovided for two of these students, both studying agriculture, who requested to continue their education in West Germany "to develop their both theoretical and practical knowledge" at al evel not offered in the GDR.⁷⁷ The medium of film occupied aprominent space in the intellectual and political imaginaries of Kenyan students studying in both the GDR as well as other areas of socialist Europe like Yugoslavia. The KSU'sobjectiveto"show other people how Kenyais"accounts for this in part,but their petitions for access to film produced in Kenyamust also be considered alongside the manner in which they articulated their organizational politics. In treading carefullybetween displaying loyalty to KANU and advocating for amore robust vision within aKenyan version of "African Democratic Socialism," the Union worked to carveo ut both ap olitical and economic place for students educated in the GDR within the postcolonial order at home. So too did their comrades in Yugoslavia. The experiences of studentsinthe KSUand the KSA-Yare thus onlytwo episodesembeddedwithin a much broader landscape wherein African studentss imultaneouslyp ushed against both an alienated existencei nE astern Europe and the constraints and demands of their governmentath ome. This ethos was at the heart of their project to both "represent Kenyai nalively way" and jockey for position within the Kenyan economic landscape. Followinge xperiencesa broad defined by both hope and frustration, members of these organizations would eventuallyr eturn home to aK enyan state increasinglycritiqued as deeplyn eocolonial in practice and inattentive to its people in the wake of formal "Uhuru." Through their activities and rhetoric, the leaders of the KSU( out as ense of both historical destiny and necessity) had attempted to chart ad ifferent path through the postcolonial order as they struggled in the spirit of harambee. More broadly, the careful analysis of groups such as the KSUa nd KSA-Yp ursued here offers al argely unexplored avenue through which we might examine the complexities of African postcolonialisms, socialist imaginaries in the Global South, and the experiences and expressions of intellectual communities of color in whites paces duringt he global 1960s.