Jomo Kenyatta Kenya urged him to pursue the project; in May 1964, Kenyatta rejected a back-benchers resolution calling for speedier federation. He publicly stated that talk of a federation had always been a ruse to hasten the pace of Kenyan independence from Britain, but Nyerere denied that this was true. Continuing to emphasise good relations with the white settlers, in August 1963 Kenyatta met with 300 white farmers at Nakuru. He reassured them that they would be safe and welcome in an independent Kenya, and more broadly talked of forgiving and forgetting the conflicts of the past. Despite his attempts at wooing
Jomo Kenyatta whose assumptions about the Kikuyu it challenged. The book reflected Kenyatta's desire to use anthropology as a weapon against colonialism. In it, Kenyatta challenged the Eurocentric view of history by presenting an image of a golden African past by emphasising the perceived order, virtue, and self-sufficiency of Kikuyu society. Utilising a functionalist framework, he promoted the idea that traditional Kikuyu society had a cohesion and integrity that was better than anything offered by European colonialism. In this book, Kenyatta made clear his belief that the rights of the individual should be downgraded in favour of the interests of the group.