Use | National flag, civil and state ensign |
---|---|
Proportion | 2:3 |
Adopted | 12 December 1963 |
Design | A horizontal tricolour of black, white-edged red, and green with two crossed white spears behind a red, white, and black Maasai shield |
The flag of Kenya (Swahili : Bendera ya Kenya) is a tricolour of black, red, and green with two white edges imposed with a red, white and black Maasai shield and two crossed spears. The flag is based on that of Kenya African National Union and was officially adopted on 12 December 1963 after Kenya's independence. [1]
In the years following World War II, the Kenya African Union was created and introduced a flag in September 3, 1951 which was a black and red bicolour with a shield and arrow at it's center. The next year it was altered into a black, red and the additional green tricolor with a shield crossed with a spear and arrow coupled with the initials "KAU" at its center. The black stood for the native people, red for the common blood of all humanity and green for the nation's fertile land. The weapons were a reminder for the organized struggle that was the basis for independence. [1]
In the 1952 book Mau Mau from Within, Kenyatta's intentions were described differently: "What he said must mean that our fertile lands (green) could only be regained by the blood (red) of the African (black). The black was separated from the green by the red: The African could only get to his land through blood." The flag was later adopted by the Kenya African National Union (KANU), successor to the KAU, in May 1960 with the weapons being replaced with a rooster wielding a battle axe. The Kenya Africa Democratic Union (KADU) was formed a month after adopted a flag following it's formation in June 1960. It's flag was a tricolor of a similar design to that of KANU but with white instead of red in the middle.
Some officials wanted to use the KANU flag as the national flag. This was influenced by Tanganyika and Uganda's choices to use the ruling party's flag as the national flag. Tom Mboya, one of Kenya's founding fathers, warned against using the KANU flag to avoid further politically polarizing the country. A committee came up with a compromise that everyone could agree on. This was achieved by combining the KANU flag and that of KADU with the addition the white fimbriations, which were originally to symbolize Kenya's multiracial society as they did in KADU's flag but were changed to symbolize peace and unity, a modified Maasai shield crossed with spears were also added. [2] [3] The meaning of the colours of the flag of Kenya matches closely to those of the Pan-African flag adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League in 1920. [3]
The 2010 revised edition of the Constitution of Kenya includes specifications of the Kenyan flag, located in the Second Schedule, Article 9, paragraph 6.2. [4]
The Kenyan flag includes symbols of unity, peace, and defence of the country. The color black represents the country's African heritage, red represents the bloodshed during the fight for independence from the British colonialism, and green represents the country's landscape and natural wealth. The white fimbriation was added later to symbolise peace, honesty, purity, and innocence. The black, red, and white traditional African shield and two spears symbolise the defence of all the things mentioned above. Many of both colours and symbolic values are shared with the flag of South Sudan.
The colours of the flag are specified in the Constitution in terms of British Standard 2660. [5]
Colors | HEX | RGB | CMYK | British Standard | Sample |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Black | #000000 | 0, 0, 0 | 0, 0, 0, 100 | 0-E-53 (Black) | |
Red | #922529 | 146, 37, 41 | 0, 75, 72, 43 | 2660-0006 (Post-Office Red) | |
Green | #008C51 | 0, 140, 81 | 100, 0, 42, 45 | 2660-0010 (Paris/Vir. Green) | |
White | #FFFFFF | 255, 255, 255 | 0, 0, 0, 0 | 0-E-55 (White) |
A part of Eastern Africa, the territory of what is known as Kenya has seen human habitation since the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic. The Bantu expansion from a West African centre of dispersal reached the area by the 1st millennium AD. With the borders of the modern state at the crossroads of the Bantu, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic ethno-linguistic areas of Africa, Kenya is a multi-ethnic state. The Wanga Kingdom was formally established in the late 17th century. The Kingdom covered from the Jinja in Uganda to Naivasha in the East of Kenya. This is the first time the Wanga people and Luhya tribe were united and led by a centralized leader, a king, known as the Nabongo.
The Kenya African National Union (KANU) is a Kenyan political party that ruled for nearly 40 years after Kenya's independence from British colonial rule in 1963 until its electoral loss in 2002. It was known as Kenya African Union (KAU) from 1944 but due to pressure from the colonial government, KAU changed its name to Kenya African Study Union (KASU) mainly because all political parties were banned in 1939 following the start of the Second World War. In 1946 KASU rebranded itself into KAU following the resignation of Harry Thuku as president due to internal differences between the moderates who wanted peaceful negotiations and the militants who wanted to use force, the latter forming the Aanake a forty, which later became the Mau Mau. His post was then occupied by James Gichuru, who stepped down for Jomo Kenyatta in 1947 as president of KAU. The KAU was banned by the colonial government from 1952 to 1960. It was re-established by James Gichuru in 1960 and renamed KANU on 14 May 1960 after a merger with Tom Mboya's Kenya Independence Movement.
Jomo Kenyatta was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He was the country's first president and played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and a conservative, he led the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party from 1961 until his death.
The Kikuyu are a Bantu ethnic group native to East Africa Central Kenya. At a population of 8,148,668 as of 2019, they account for 17.13% of the total population of Kenya, making them Kenya's largest ethnic group.
The Pan-African flag is an ethnic flag representing pan-Africanism, the African diaspora, and/or black nationalism. A tri-color flag, it consists of three equal horizontal bands of red, black, and green.
The Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) was a political party in Kenya. It was founded in 1960 when several leading politicians refused to join Jomo Kenyatta's Kenya African National Union (KANU). It was led by Ronald Ngala who was joined by Moi's Kalenjin Political Alliance, the Masai United Front, the Kenya African Peoples Party, the Coast African Political Union, Masinde Muliro's Baluhya Political Union and the Somali National Front. The separate tribal organisations were to retain their identity and so, from the very start, KADU based its political approach on tribalism. KADU's aim was to defend the interests of the so-called KAMATUSA as well as the British settlers, against the imagined future dominance of the larger Luo and Kikuyu that comprised the majority of KANU's membership, when it became inevitable that Kenya will achieve its independence. The KADU objective was to work towards a multiracial self government within the existing colonial political system. After release of Jomo Kenyatta, KADU was becoming increasingly popular with European settlers and, on the whole, repudiated Kenyatta's leadership. KADU's plan at Lancaster meetings was devised by European supporters, essentially to protect prevailing British settlers land rights.
The flag of Malawi was officially adopted on 6 July 1964 when the colony of Nyasaland became independent from British rule and renamed itself Malawi.
The flag of Mozambique is the national flag of the Republic of Mozambique that was adopted on 1 May 1983. It is a tricolor flag with white fimbriations and a red triangle. Teal stands for the riches of the land, the white fimbriations signify peace, black represents the African continent, yellow symbolises the country's minerals, and red represents the struggle for independence. It includes the image of a Kalashnikov rifle with a bayonet attached to the barrel crossed by a hoe, superimposed on an open book. The rifle stands for defence and vigilance, the open book symbolises the importance of education, the hoe represents the country's agriculture, and the star symbolizes the spirit of the international solidarity of the Mozambican people. It is one of four national flags among UN member states that feature a gun, along with those of Guatemala, Haiti and Bolivia, but is the only one of the four to feature a modern firearm instead of cannons or single-shot rifles.
The flag of Uganda was adopted on 9 October 1962, the date that Uganda became independent from the British Empire. It consists of six equal horizontal bands of black (top), yellow, red, black, yellow, and red (bottom); a white disc is superimposed at the centre and depicts the national symbol, a grey crowned crane, facing the hoist's side.
The coat of arms of Botswana was adopted on 25 January 1966. The centre shield is supported by two zebras. The shape of the shield is that of traditional shields found in Southern Africa. On the top portion of the shield are three cogwheels that represent industry.
The Kenya African Union (KAU) was a political organization in colonial Kenya, formed in October 1944 prior to the appointment of the first African to sit in the Legislative Council. In 1960 it became the current Kenya African National Union (KANU).
Thomas Joseph Odhiambo Mboya was a Kenyan trade unionist, educator, Pan-Africanist, author, independence activist, and statesman. He was one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya. He led the negotiations for independence at the Lancaster House Conferences and was instrumental in the formation of Kenya's independence party – the Kenya African National Union (KANU) – where he served as its first Secretary-General. He laid the foundation for Kenya's capitalist and mixed economy policies at the height of the Cold War and set up several of the country's key labour institutions. Mboya was Minister for Economic Planning and Development when he was assassinated.
In heraldry and vexillology, fimbriation is the placement of small stripes of contrasting colour around common charges or ordinaries, usually in order for them to stand out from the background, but often simply due to the designer's subjective aesthetic preferences, or for a more technical reason to avoid what would otherwise be a violation of the rule of tincture. While fimbriation almost invariably applies to both or all sides of a charge, there are very unusual examples of fimbriation on one side only. Another rather rare form is double fimbriation, where the charge or ordinary is accompanied by two stripes of colour instead of only one. In cases of double fimbriation the outer colour is blazoned first. The municipal flag of Mozirje, in Slovenia, show an example of fimbriation that itself is fimbriated.
The coat of arms of Kenya features two lions, a symbol of protection, holding spears and a traditional East African shield. The shield and spears symbolize unity and defence of freedom. The shield contains the national colours, representing:
Bildad Mwaganu Kaggia was a Kenyan nationalist, activist, and politician. Kaggia was a member of the Mau Mau Central Committee. After independence he became a Member of Parliament. He established himself as a militant, fiery nationalist who wanted to serve the poor and landless people. Because of this he fell out irreconcilably with Jomo Kenyatta.
The Kapenguria Six – Bildad Kaggia, Kung'u Karumba, Jomo Kenyatta, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei, and Achieng' Oneko – were six leading Kenyan nationalists who were arrested in 1952, tried at Kapenguria in 1952–53, and imprisoned thereafter in Northern Kenya.
The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya or British East Africa, was part of the British Empire in Africa from 1920 until 1963. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1920. Technically, the "Colony of Kenya" referred to the interior lands, while a 16 km (10 mi) coastal strip, nominally on lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar, was the "Protectorate of Kenya", but the two were controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony came to an end in 1963 when an ethnic Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually declared independence.
Joseph Martin Shikuku Oyondi was a Kenyan politician.
The presidency of Jomo Kenyatta began on 12 December 1964, when Jomo Kenyatta was named as the 1st president of Kenya, and ended on 22 August 1978 upon his death. Jomo Kenyatta, a KANU member, took office following the formation of the republic of Kenya after independence following his efforts during the fight for Independence. Four years later, in the 1969 elections, he was the sole candidate and was elected unopposed for a second term in office. In 1974, he was re-elected for a third term. Although the post of President of Kenya was due to be elected at the same time as the National Assembly, Jomo Kenyatta was the sole candidate and was automatically elected without a vote being held. He died on 22 August 1978 while still in office and was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi.
Clement Michael George Argwings-Kodhek, also known as Chiedo Moa Gem Argwings-Kodhek, was a Kenyan attorney and politician. He served in the government and cabinet of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, for six years, during which time he held the post of member of parliament for the Gem Constituency and the portfolios of Minister of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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