The Lunatic Express: Development, the Rule of Law, and the Myth of Progress Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

This dissertation names progress as the root ideology of Western imperialism. The power of the ideology lies in the fact that progress is not just a superficial assertion of the superiority of Western culture but is in fact a theology of history, carrying within it an eschatological vision of the world that authorizes empire and from which imperial powers spin theodicies to explain the gross inequalities colonialism constantly produces and thus avoid the overcoming of empire.

The dissertation resists progress’s mythical history of Kenya by telling a decolonial material history of Kenya that shows how the colonial railway, the law, and the Independence Constitution introduced by the British failed to deliver on their eschatological promises of moral advancement, political maturity, and economic development. Their material histories reveal that even the highest “achievements” of British colonialism in Kenya: its construction of the railway, its introduction of Western law, and its establishment of Kenya as a constitutional liberal democratic nation, were experienced by Kenyans as subjugating, impoverishing, and death-dealing. Moreover, the imposition of the railway, the law, and the Independence Constitution created in Kenya the political and economic systems that were demanded by a grossly unequal and imperial global political and economic order. Progress enmeshed Kenya in a manic mythic circle in which the establishment of empire demanded even more empire for the delivery of progress. Progress also demanded colonial violence to facilitate the extractions that imperial capitalism demanded. Empire established itself as a material fact in Kenya through violences that the myth of progress simultaneously legitimated and effaced and survived ideologically through progress’s mythical naturalization of Europe.

This dissertation resists progress’s false and idolatrous theology of history with a theological account of history that eschews myth and idolatry. It is animated by a different eschatological vision: that of the coming of the Kingdom of God among the colonized, even now. It seeks a theology of history that recognizes history not as the progression by which the colonized become debased versions of themselves by becoming Europe but as the site of God’s redemption of God’s world from the powers of empire.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction. 1

 

Chapter 1

Progress. 14

 

Chapter 2

The Lunatic Express. 56

 

Chapter 3

Colonizing Law.. 92

 

Chapter 4

Independence Constitution without Independence. 136

 

Chapter 5

Not Progress. 177

 

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Religion
Subfield / Discipline	Ethics and Society
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Theology Ethics Law
Palabra Clave	Development Kenya Colonialism History
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Smith, Ted A., Emory University
Committee Members	Nimi Wariboko, Boston University Kaveny, Cathleen , Boston College Hall, Pamela M., Emory University Bounds, Elizabeth, Emory University

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