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Revision as of 01:18, 14 December 2025
In terms of origin, etymology, and epistemology, uhuru is an abstract noun built with the Swahili prefix u- (forming “-ness” or “-ity”) plus huru (“free”), itself derived from Arabic ḥurr and ḥurriyya (“free” / “freedom”).
In everyday usage it can mean personal liberty, but historically it has also signified collective liberation from colonial rule, racial domination, and economic subordination.
Uhuru is a Kiswahili word meaning “freedom” or “independence,” and in much of Eastern and Southern Africa it names both a political goal and an unfinished project of decolonization. In the mid-20th century it became a rallying cry for anti-colonial struggles: in Tanganyika/Tanzania in slogans like Uhuru na kazi (“freedom and work”) and Uhuru na Umoja (“freedom and unity”), and in Kenya as shorthand for full political independence and self-rule, later echoed in the naming of places such as Uhuru Park and Uhuru Peak on Kilimanjaro.
Epistemologically, it sits inside wider decolonial projects that challenge Eurocentric definitions of “freedom”: thinkers of African decoloniality and Afro-feminism argue that uhuru involves reclaiming indigenous knowledge systems, gender justice and land-based autonomy, so that freedom is understood not as abstract individual rights alone, but as collective capacity to live, know, and govern otherwise after empire.
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