Jomo Kenyatta reactionary. Those desiring a radical transformation of Kenyan society often compared Kenyatta's Kenya unfavourably with its southern neighbour, Nyerere's Tanzania. The criticisms that leftists like Odinga made of Kenyatta's leadership were similar to those that the intellectual Frantz Fanon had made of post-colonial leaders throughout Africa. Drawing upon Marxist theory, Jay O'Brien for instance argued that Kenyatta had come to power "as a representative of a would-be bourgeoisie", a coalition of "relatively privileged petty bourgeois African elements" who wanted simply to replace the British colonialists and "Asian commercial bourgeoisie" with themselves. He suggested that the British supported Kenyatta in this,
Jomo Kenyatta manners" and a flexible attitude in adapting to urban situations dissimilar to the lands he had grown up in. A. R. Barlow, a member of the Church of Scotland Mission at Kikuyu, met with Kenyatta in Britain, later relating that he was impressed by how Kenyatta could "mix on equal terms with Europeans and to hold his end up in spite of his handicaps, educationally and socially." The South African Peter Abrahams met Kenyatta in London, noting that of all the black men involved in the city's Pan-Africanist movement, he was "the most relaxed, sophisticated and 'westernized' of the lot