Events in Kenya are moving at a fast pace in the year 2024. Resistance to capitalism and imperialism under another comprador government had given birth to a new upsurge in resistance by working people, joined by professionals and activist individuals and organisations. It is sometimes difficult to see fast moving events in their historical and political perspectives. People active in the struggle are often too busy organising and being active and may not have time to analyse events in their national and global perspectives.
The situation in Kenya has moved on from time of President Daniel arap Moi when resistance was forced underground in 1970s onwards as public resistance was made impossible by Moi’s reign of terror. Similarly, the open resistance to capitalism and imperialism and the advocacy of socialism by the Kenya Peoples’ Union in 1960s had been suppressed violently by the ruling KANU-B party. Resistance then took a different route after Moi was forced out of power. People’s forces became active, first as the Saba Saba Movement, later as the struggle for the new constitution. The latter succeeded and the 2010 Constitution brought a new era.
In all this period, notably absent was the voice of organised labour — trade unions which had been incorporated into the government structure at independence. COTU became the voice of the ruling class, not of the working class as was the case before independence under Makhan Singh, Bildad Kaggia and Pio Gama Pinto.
Given the absence of the voice of trade unions, people-driven resistance activities helped to prepare the ground for greater awareness of the rights of people, now guaranteed by the new constitution. However, these rights remained on paper only as the comprador governments ignored the constitution as well as judgements by law courts. They continued to manipulate election results to suit the needs of the strongest powers within the comprador classes and meet the needs of international finance.
It is now, in 2024, during the implementation of the IMF-inspired budget that people have said Tunakataa!, Tumechoka!. This then is the background to the RutoMustGo movement, sometimes referred to as the resistance of the GenZ. But the resistance did not grow out of a vacuum. The young generation, well educated and articulate could not be absorbed into the economic life of the country. They remained unemployed and voiceless as local industries were suppressed and the economy returned to the colonial model of serving the needs of imperialism, not the people. Thus, the last ten years of so has seen a people’s movement to learn, study and understand lessons of how capitalism and imperialism have captured the country and driven people to poverty. Most working class communities were driven into so-called informal settlements. But see what happens when people are placed in situations of lack of necessary means of survival. Add the on-going police brutality and murders that became the norm in Mathare and other areas of working class settlements.
Repression always gives rise to resistance. Over the years, there developed the growth of various social justice centres which encouraged cooperative living and mutual support of people abandoned by the state. At the same time, there grew up a movement of study circles, often organised by a growing number of resistance movements.
All this meant that the RutoMustGo resistance was well informed about the political and economic background to Kenya as the ideal neocolonial nurtured by over 60 years of imperialism as a valuable ‘asset’ for the USA-imposed global warfare.
So, can events during the period of Kenya Land and Freedom movement — Mau Mau — which was active in from 1940s up to early 1960s have any relevance to what is happening in Kenya in 2024? After all, the Mau Mau activists are no longer active today, they have little or no power to influence events in Kenya today. Their experiences and example is no longer taught in schools, colleges and universities and young people today have only a limited information about them.
Any yet, one finds the images of Kimathi in many public and private spaces. The demand for releases of Mau Mau documents grows louder as do those to get compensation from UK for the atrocities they committed and the looting they did in Kenya.
What drives the memory of Mau Mau today is the fact that the demands they made before independence have not meet. These were Land and Freedom. The underlying causes of poverty in Kenya is the loss of land which was initially stolen by colonialism and subsequently re-stolen by the powerful forces in the comprador governments. The families of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi are among major land holders in Kenya together with some former ‘White Settlers’ and multinationals. That leaves peasants and workers without land, work and jobs. It is not surprising that resistance had not died.
However, there are other lessons that Mau Mau can teach today’s resistors. They organised against the most powerful global power in the world at the time. How? That understanding is essential for anybody anywhere — not only in Kenya — seeking liberation from a well-armed oppressor. What made it possible for Mau Mau to unite a large number of people, politicise them and get them committed to the struggle? What methods did they use for communicating with them? And do it all in secrecy, under the watchful eyes of British intelligence. These and other experiences, even those of surviving and waging a war from forests and in urban areas, are equally relevant today.
Today’s repression is different from that faced by Mau Mau. While tear gas and police bullets are probably the same, today’s state machinery uses not only these but other hidden methods that render them invisible to foreign observers. These include the use of gangs employed by the ruling class to kidnap, kill and massacre activists. While it is easier to deal with open warfare — to some extend — fighting these armed mobs is more difficult. Resistance will need to come up with new methods of resistance. Similar methods assassinated Pio Gama Pinto in 1965 and the December Twelve Movement leader, Karimi Nduthu, in 1996. The resistance has not yet learnt lessons from such assassinations and will need to prepare for similar assassinations of today’s activists.
Shiraz Durrani is a Kenyan political exile living in London. He has worked at the University of Nairobi as well as various public libraries in Britain where he also lectured at the London Metropolitan University. Shiraz has written many articles and addressed conferences on aspects of Kenyan history and on politics of information in the context of colonialism and imperialism. His latest book is a joint publication with Nigel Flanagan (2024): Trade Union Studies in UK and Kenya.
Some of his articles are available at https://independent.academia.edu/DurraniShiraz
and books at: https://www.africanbookscollective.com/search-results?form.keywords=vita+books
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These essays have been written during different stages of the 2024 RutoMustGo campaign and were first published in countercurrents.org. They are reproduced here on the occasion of the Mau Mau Conference at the University of Nairobi in October 2024 in the hope that they will encourage greater awareness of the current situation and its links with historical events associated with Mau Mau.
Note:
This is the Introduction to the pamphlet, From Mau Mau to RutoMustGo: Essays on Kenya’s Struggle for Liberation. It is to be issued by Vita Books during the Mau Mau Conference in Nairobi in October 2024 at the University of Nairobi. All the essays, except the last two, were published initially in countercurrents.com. These are:
RutoMustGo as a Resistance Movement
Lessons from Mau Mau for Today’s Resistance
Historical Perspective on the Resistance of Gen Z in Kenya – Part 1
Historical Perspective on the Resistance of Gen Z in Kenya – Part 2: Ruto’s Reign of Terror
People’s Resistance to Capitalism and Imperialism in Kenya — Then and Now
What Next for Resistance in Kenya as the Comprador Government Increases Repression?
Combating Capitalism and Imperialism in the 21st Century: Some Experience from Kenya
All writers are ideological
Lessons from Mau Mau for Today’s Resistance – Story in Pictures
