The Gen Z Uprising/Rebellion/Revolution in Kenya

Walter Rodney has taught us that struggles for liberation have their links and continuities. Samir Amin wrote about small revolutions and the great ones, emphasizing this connectivity. In these links and continuities of struggle we celebrate the gains we have made; and we rescue the weaknesses, thereby drawing out the lessons we have learnt out of the resistance. The Gen Z revolution in Kenya is no exception to these teachings of Rodney and Amin.

Kenya’s Gen Z revolution of  2024 had, and continues to have, robust support from the Millennials and other generations. This rebellion used the word “Occupy” to identify the enemies of Kenya’s liberation . The uprising sought to occupy the buildings of the IMF, World Bank, the US Embassy, the Executive, and the Legislature. Gen Z argued against the IMF and its authorship of the 2024 Finance Bill which was part of a larger austerity program. That is how President Ruto, the personification of the comprador bourgeoisie in Kenya, earned the name Zakayo in reference to Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector in Jericho, in the story narrated in the Bible in Luke 19:1-10. These occupations clearly identified the enemies targeted by the uprising. As for the IMF and the foreign interests, that political message to all was that they must respect, uphold, and defend the 2010 Constitution of Kenya. The compliance with the Constitution meant sacrificing the respect of the people of Kenya, their sovereignty, and their voice. These demands to the IMF and other foreign interests also sought to expose the hypocrisy, racism, perfidy, and double standards of these interests when they pontificate publicly about democracy and the rule of law.

The revolution was based on political demands anchored in the 2010 Constitution of Kenya. Article 1 of the Constitution decrees that  all sovereign power belongs to the people of Kenya and shall be exercised only in accordance with the Constitution. The sovereign power can be delegated to the Executive (national and county), the Legislature (national and county), the Judiciary, and all state institutions. The political argument by this rebellion was that the people of Kenya have a parallel political power that is ultimate and trumps the delegated sovereign power. Since the people of Kenya can exercise this sovereign power directly, after it withdraws it from those institutions they have delegated it, the people have the power to delegate it to other political formations. 

In a nutshell, the rebellion argued that the 2010 Constitution of Kenya decrees a regime change in compliance with its provisions. This constitutional position was stated clearly so that the regime had to think twice before it sought to charge the rebellion with treason. The regime thought through this political position many times, and it did not prepare criminal charges of treason. In any event, the Gen Z had described themselves as “tribe-less, fearless, and leaderless.” It is now in the public domain that J25M (the June 25 Movement) was born out of this rebellion. J25M is working with the movements and political parties of Millennials (defined as those who were born between 1981-1996),to come up with the agenda for Kenya that can be presented to Kenyans when the J25M celebrates the uprising of last year.

In tandem with the consultation carried on by J25M, there are consultations on the formation of a broad front of the Kenyan Left that will critique the so-called Kenyan Left of the past, politically identified with the leadership of Raila Amolo Odinga. This consultation has come up with a Minimum Draft Agenda of the New Kenyan Left. The central argument of this critique is against the intellectuals, politicians, and the Kenyans that support Raila. The intellectuals and politicians opportunistically argue that Odinga’s faction in the Kenyan dictatorship is the lesser evil that the Kenyan Left and Kenyan people in general, should work with. Mr. Odinga did not support the Gen Z revolution. Intellectuals that support him argued that Gen Z had created a dangerous political vacuum that forced Odinga to join the dictatorship, and thereby save the country from such a political vacuum. Asked whether Odinga, as the leader of the opposition, had considered the possibility that Gen Z would delegate the people’s sovereign power to him, these intellectuals had no answers. Raila decided to reinforce the KANU-RUTO dictatorship that continues to abduct, disappear, extra-judicially kill, and subject the youth of Kenya with false arrests and malicious prosecutions. It is this dictatorship that supported Odinga’s candidature to run for the Chair of the African Union Commission with the major aim of him supporting imperialism in Africa.

In this slave plantation called Kenya, we know who the Master is, who the house niggers are, and who the field niggers are. Odinga’s last political act of supporting the KANU-RUTO dictatorship has resulted in a clarion call that the factions of the dictatorship be overthrown and buried forever. Alternative political leadership is the burning political question of the New Kenyan Left. There will be a convention soon that brings together all forces that are anti-imperialism and anti-comprador bourgeoisie. The convention will elect an interim leadership, roll out the Minimum Draft Program (one of the demands in this program is continuous registration of voters and political parties), and emerge as another centre of political power. The New Kenyan Left must have as its base the quest for an alternative political leadership in Kenya. The Gen Z uprising last June should be glorified for this pathway to a New Kenya.
 

Willy Mutunga was the Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court, Kenya, 2011-2016; and an Adjunct Professor in Public Law at Kabarak University Law School, Nakuru, Kenya.