History never dies. It is embedded in people's memories when books are burnt and children are taught false histories, imagined by false historians from near and far - says the author in this book. This is the context in which Key Points in the History of Kenya, 1885-1990 is published. This, the 4th in the Kenya Resists Series from Vita Books, brings together presentation points from several conferences and meetings on the history of Kenya. It also includes historical records on Kenya by Saleh Mamon and Ladislav Venys. Key Points highlights many hidden facts about the history of Kenya. References are included for those who wish to explore the history further. While these books and facts are readily available in many history books, they are not easily available to all people in Kenya and in a form that meets their needs. The book therefore aims to familiarise people with the history of Kenya. It seeks to keep people's struggles, sacrifices and history alive. The author hopes that it will be a weapon in the sense that Bertolt Brecht meant when he said: 'Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon'. That is the aim of the series, Kenya Resists too.
The Kenya Socialist exists to: Promote socialist ideas, experiences and world outlook; Increase awareness of classes, class contradictions and class struggles in Kenya, both historical and current; Expose the damage done by capitalism and imperialism in Kenya and Africa; Offer solidarity to working class, peasants and other working people and communities in their struggles for equality and justice; Promote internationalism and work in solidarity with people in Africa and around the world in their resistance to imperialism; Make explicit the politics of information and communication as tools of repression and also of resistance in Kenya. This issue, No. 3, is devoted mainly to an extended article by Shiraz Durrani and Kimani Waweru, under the title, Kenya: Repression and Resistance: from Colony to Neo-colony, 1948-1990.
Essays on Pan-Africanism begins with essays by Shiraz Durrani, Abdilatif Abdulla, Issa Shivji, Firoze Manji, Sabatho Nyamsenda, Willy Mutunga and Noosim Naimasiah on various aspects of Pan-Africanism. This is followed by Remembering the Champions of African Liberation, with articles on Patrice Lumumba by Antoine Lokongo, Abdulrahman Babu by Amrit Wilson, Makhan Singh by Hindpal Singh and Piyo Rattansi, followed by Tajudeen Abdul Raheem's last Pan African Postcard (2009) and Debating and Documenting Africa - A Conversation. The Preface, Pan-African Thought, is by Prof. Issa Shivji. The book incorporates Karim Essack's compilation, The Pan African Path (1993) with historical records and documents on Pan-African history, with a new Preface by Prof. Issa Shivji. The final section has documents on Pan-Africanism, including the Kampala Declaration (1994)
The year 2023 saw one of the latest genocides in modern times - that of the people of Palestine by Israel. People born in the last or this century find it difficult to understand how such genocides in the past were allowed to take place at all, so barbarous an action this is. Yet the current genocide continues unabated, despite the millions of people around the world demanding an end to it. This exposes the real nature of capitalism and imperialism. It is in this situation that issue no 7 of The Kenya Socialist focuses on the Palestine Question. Articles include The Palestine Question, Claim to be Pan-Africanist? Until Everyone is Free, Zionism and the Myth of Democracy. The title of the Editorial is ‘We are all Palestinians’. Another article examines why ‘the struggle for Palestine is the struggle of working people worldwide’, showing the class and imperialist background to the genocide. The issue ends with solidarity statements from Kenyan organisations and a book review. It carries a number of illustrations on the struggle.
The struggle between socialism and capitalism in Kenya has been long, bitter and violent. Capitalism won with the active support of USA and UK governments at the time of independence in 1963. Yet the original (1960) Kenya African National Union (KANU) Party was in favour of socialism. It was Presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi who used violence to suppress those advocating socialism. They used their power to massacre, assassinate, exile, imprison and disappear people and created a state of terror to silence their opponents. Capitalism became the unstated state policy. Thus, imperialism won and the aims of Mau Mau were brutally suppressed. However, the desire for socialism never died. Resistance movements and opposition parties made socialism their aim, reflecting peoples desire for justice, equality and empowerment. Many studies on Kenya focus on personalities or tribes' or race as driver of events, ignoring the all-important class and ideological positions of leaders and their Parties. Two Paths Ahead reproduces and comments on the documents from the opposing sides in the battles between capitalism and socialism the original Kenya African National Union (KANU), its successor, KANU-B, and the Kenya Peoples Union (KPU) on economy, land, labour, and social policy. It also touches upon the demands of the organisers of the 1982 Coup and traces the political stand of key leaders as proponents of capitalism or socialism. The final section reproduces some of the documents on this ideological struggle. The book exposes the hidden hand of imperialism in the countrys rush to capitalism. It fills a gap in understanding the real contradictions that divide Kenya to this day.
The lyrical pessimism of Nsah Mala's poetry presents a world characterized by violence, inhumanity and destruction, a world that is sadly too familiar. While many of the poems address contemporary issues in the poet's native Cameroon, much of the human-inflicted damage they describe is not limited to 'Cam-Kingdom'. Although much of the content is negative, many of the poems contain questions. These questions express the cynical voice of this politically committed poet, but behind them lies the distant possibility of a better version of the world in which values of love, peace and unity reign: 'Don't we know,' the poet asks, 'that violence is out of fashion?' - Professor Nicki Hitchcott, University of St Andrews, UK
The Kenya Socialist is published by Vita Books, Nairobi and is edited by Shiraz Durrani and Kimani Waweru. It aims to encourage free flow of information, knowledge and discussion which can lead to a better understanding of socialism. It seeks to promote socialist ideas, experiences, and world outlook and to increase awareness of classes, class contradictions and class struggles in Kenya, both historical and current. The latest issue (No. 6, August 2023) carries articles on class struggle in Kenya, primitive accumulation of capital and an essay on understanding socialism through literature. Other articles are on the history of UMOJA and the role of trade unions as a force for resistance in Kenya. A Kiswahili section is also included, as is a section on ‘Remembering Pio Gama Pinto’. A short Poems section ends this issue.
The Annual General Meeting of the Labour Trade Union of Kenya in Sept 1936 fixed Oct 1936 for implementation of the eight-hour day .. In December 1936, the Union gave notices to employers that all wages should be increased by 25% from April 1937. The strike began on 1 April, 1937. It was a complete strike. A strike-committee was formed, picketing was organised, a free kitchen was started .. the decision was popularised through handbills, meetings in residential areas, works-discussions and public announcements (preceded by ringing of a large bell), in the the main thoroughfares of Nairobi, and daily mass meetings. The campaign created a new spirit among workers. The employers were at last compelled to reach a settlement. They agreed to wage-increase of 15-22%, to an eight-hour day and reinstatement of all workers. The workers resumed work on 2 June, 1937. - Makhan Singh (1969) Thus ended the longest, and the most successful, strike in the history of Kenya. But the sacrifices, the actions and the reality of the strike for workers is not captured by history books. Nor are the organisation by the East African Trade Union Congress and the role of its leader, Makhan Singh, fully understood. In going on strike for sixty-two days, the workers showed their industrial and political power, unmatched to this day. Shiraz Durrani's A Struggle of Sixty-Two Days is a welcome addition to a growing backlist of drama texts that draw on the rich and often hidden history of East Africa. A Struggle of Sixty-Two-Days sets itself apart from the tradition of historical plays before it by eschewing the use of a singular heroic figure to centre the drama. Instead, the play deliberately delivers the texture of the lived realities, skills and experiences of the workers who made a success of the longest and most consequential strike in the country's history, but also acknowledges the collaboration and support they drew from the people against the backdrop of the imperialist, racist and colonial era The 1937 strike would not only deliver an eight-hour working day as a right, besides wage increases, but would also be the seeding for mobilising the people of Kenya to challenge injustice and launch the fight for freedom. It is a struggle that pits the might of imperialist capital against the survival instincts of the oppressed and their quest for justice. The scenery and dialogue transport the reader back to 1937, but its echoes still ring true in continuing present-day clashes between labour and exploitative capital. - Kwamchetsi Makokha
Nigel Flanagan brings a distinct perspective to the problems of trade union organising. In this account he draws on his own experiences as an activist, shop steward, strike organiser and working for the global union UNI. The book has be very well received and after six impressions this revised and enlarged edition is also being published in a Kenyan version with our partners, Vita Books - Nick Wright. Nigel Flanagan's Our Trade Unions: What Comes Next? was first published in Britain in early 2023 at the height of the country's inflationary crisis, when basic food costs were increasing by up to 20 per cent and energy by far more. Workers were fighting, through their trade unions, to protect their living standards and local services from the biggest attack for a century. This new Kenyan edition of Flanagan's book is, therefore, doubly welcome because it provides real life substance to these links. The chapters from Shiraz Durrani, himself a veteran of these struggles, reveal how far the movements of resistance to colonial rule were rooted in, and largely sprang from, the trade union movement in the 1920s and 30s. The importance of the contribution from Shiraz Durrani is that he places this resistance squarely in the special circumstances required for capitalist exploitation to take place in Kenya... Resistance demands mass-based political trade unions. This is why Kenya's experience and that of other African nations is of relevance not just to workers in Africa but those who wish to rebuild the workers' movement internationally. But this process must be political. It cannot be simply that of 'organising'. As Shiraz Durrani stresses, 'without a vision of achieving equality and justice, unions remain merely to make capitalism more acceptable to workers'- John Foster
he book has been out of print since it was published on December 12, 1963 — Kenya’s Independence Day. It is being reprinted by Vita Books in 2024. It was published at the end of one phase of Kenya’s history of liberation as colonialism was forced out of the country after long battles which culminated in an armed struggle under the Kenya Land and Freedom Army — Mau Mau. It was also the beginning of a new phase which was expected to bring land and freedom to people who had suffered massacres, murders, concentration camps, land thefts and all forms of torture under colonialism. The hope naturally was that all this will end with the gaining of independence. It was during this interim, hopeful period in the history of Kenya that Ambu H. Patel edited and published the book. It is no ordinary book. In days before the Internet, it carried the voice of 130 progressive personalities from Kenya and around the world. It was the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist voice of Kenya, as much as that of the progressive world. Their voice reflected the optimism that the colonial rule of injustice had ended and that a new, prosperous Kenya was about to be born. The hope was that there would be justice for people whose land and livelihood had been stolen and taken over by colonial looters. Their hopes were pinned on Jomo Kenyatta and his colleagues, detained and imprisoned by colonialism. Surely their release was the key issue at the time. Surely that group of people would ensure justice for the people. It was at this time that Ambu H. Patel started the Release campaign. Events proved that such hopes for justice were premature. A new world had not yet been born. The struggle had to go on and the children of Mau Mau fighters would have to continue their parents’ struggle. But that was in the future. Now, at the dawn of independence, there was hope.
