The very first plank of the Kenyan people’s agenda should be a departure from elite pacting: the noxious, personality-driven “succession” political maneuvering.

The confirmation of charges against four Kenyans, three of them wealthy and powerful elites, is welcome news for the victims of the 2007/8 post-election violence. But there are thousands of other perpetrators who are still walking free.

Onyango Oloo reports that, when the Trans-African Caravan of Hope reached Nairobi, there was song and dance, poetry and speeches on the theme of climate change and the need for African governments and the people to take appropriate action.

Kenya’s military invasion of Somalia ostensibly to pursue the Al Shabaab terrorists is unconstitutional and unnecessary, argues Onyango Oloo. The war is part of a larger US/NATO geo-political agenda to ‘stabilize’ the Horn of Africa in line with wider imperialist interests

‘The Kibaki and Raila-led regime set up in February 2008 has conned and let down Kenyans by short-changing us of our democratic aspirations and derailing our efforts at implementing good governance, sustainable economic strategies, deepening a human rights culture and rooting out corruption, crime and insecurity,‘ Onyango Oloo tells Pambazuka News. Now, says Oloo, its time for Kenyans to work together to find ways to reclaim their country from the ‘power vampires’ and remove them from office by peaceful means.

they flung your carcass to
the hyenas of
ngong
not knowing that a
maasai mchungaji
known as musaita ole tunda
would retrieve your remains
and expose moi's brazen canard
about your mythical excursion to zambia
they bombed the otc buses in late february
to provide a
red herring
for the execution
they were planning, the sadistic festival they were plotting
not knowing that your blood was already crying out for justice
ndugu jm, even you know that what was killed
in march nineteen seventy five was not your populism from nyandarua
but the paralyzing fear of the red eyed devil known as mzee jomo kenyatta

Through examining the broader context behind the recent US election, Onyango Oloo argues that Barack Obama’s emergence as an exceptional figure of leadership is to a great extent circumstantial. In his timeless historical appeal, the new president-elect merits comparison with Nelson Mandela and will likely be remembered favourably by posterity regardless of the potential ineffectiveness of his policy over the long-term. Situating Obama’s victory within a broader political move across the Americas towards left-wing governance – notably in Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia – Oloo contends that the real challenge for forces of the global Left will centre on building on and exploring the successes of a veritable popular movement for democratic reform.

During the 2007 election campaign period and beyond some of the most virulent hate messages of an ethnic kind were to be found spilling over in Kenyan online communities, largely populated by young to middle aged Kenyans living in places like the United States, Sweden, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, South Africa, India and other places overseas. I was once one of those Kenyans living for years and years in Toronto and Montreal

For the almost two decades that I resided in Canada I became quite perplexed and intrigued by the reckless display of rabid ukabila on display at various online Kenyan forums.

Many of the worst Kenyan tribalists in cyberspace have lived for years in such cosmopolitan and liberal urban locales such as Oakland, Boston, Toronto, Leeds, Dallas, St. Paul, Chicago and Washington DC.

Offline, these Kenyan immigrants and naturalized citizens in the West share the collective plight of other people of colour when it comes to systemic racism and discrimination. Some of them are married to Asian-Americans, Jamaican- Canadians, Zambians, Greeks and Iranians not to speak of fellow Kenyans from the very same ethnic groups they bash online about.

The question of ethnic identities in Kenya is intricately tied up with the country's politics and influences to a greater or lesser degree the class cleavages in ways which often defy orthodox analyses from the right or the left.

But if you ask Kenyans across the political, ethnic, racial and religious divide what is the cause of major political problems in Kenya, many of them will, without hesitation, cite "tribalism" as the number one problem. Depending on who you are talking to, it will be either those "Kikuyus"and their determination to hog all political and economic power to themselves. Or it will be those "Luos" who are perennial trouble makers and stone throwers not content with accepting the status quo. If you go down to the Coast, you may hear people grumbling about those upcountry "Wabara" people who have consciously marginalized the Coastals. A good friend of mine argued in a national newspaper column a few days ago that the "small tribes" have really been left out by the dogfights between the "major tribes". And on and on it goes with outbursts against those "Indians" when it comes to looking for a convenient scapegoat to explain away our economic woes.

Quite frankly these perceptions are naïve, shallow, ahistorical and dangerous.

There is no doubt that certain elites in Kenya converge around and along narrow ethnic or even sub-ethnic agendas that are detrimental to the national good. It is true that what passes for political parties in this country are frequently nothing more than vehicles of political expediency fueled by tribal agendas and tribal constituencies. It is also a fact that political elites have hijacked the neo-colonial state to divvy out economic goodies based on a system of ethnic and regional patronage. As someone who argues from socialist positions, I am also aware of the reductionism of certain doctrinaire approaches which reduces everything in society to class, overlooking gender, racial, religious, generational and other specificities. In other words, nobody in their right mind can downplay the corrosive and debilitating effects of what some observers call “negative ethnicity” in Kenya.

When I assert that using a broad ethnic brush to explain away our national problems is naïve, shallow, dangerous and ahistorical, I am merely pleading for a sober, scientific deconstruction of ethnic identities in Kenya based on our collectively lived historical experience.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ETHNIC IDENTITIES IN KENYA

The entity we now know as Kenya is a product of the historical interaction between diverse African peoples in this particular patch of the eastern part of our great continent with the forces of world monopoly capitalism. A version of the many anecdotes about the origin of the name Kenya has it that in the mid 1840s when a couple of German missionaries were busy exploring and “discovering” Africa they ran into a bunch of locals in the Mount Kenya region. Depending on whether it a Mgikuyu or a Mkamba retelling the story, Herr Krapf (or was it his counterpart Rebmann?) pointed to the snowy peaks of our tallest mountain and inquired via their guide about the name. He was allegedly told “ Kirinyaga” or “the place where God lives”. To his Teutonic ears, the German visitor heard and contracted it to “Kenya”, leaving us stuck with a distortion which ended up being the name of the country famous for its long distance runners, stunning environment and exotic wild life.

In a sense, our national identity was built on a stencil cut out by a clueless European traveler almost two hundred years ago.

More fundamentally, the process of “becoming Kenyan” was directly connected with the imperialist incursion at the tail end of the 19th century- from the ravenous carving up of the African continent at the 1884 Berlin Conference to the annexation of our country by the British, first by the Imperial British East Africa Company in 1888 to the formal declaration of Kenya as a British Protectorate in 1895 to the promulgamation of Kenya as a British Colony in 1920.

What hitherto had been a conglomeration of diverse Kenyan peoples at various stages of socio-economic development from the autonomous semi-feudal kingdom of Wanga in the west to the Ismalized coastal city states of Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu etc and the myriad communal, largely egalitarian communities among the Mijikenda, Luo, Agikuyu, Maasai and the like were now transformed into a territorially distinct “country” where each and every one of these diverse Kenyan people were considered “British subjects” subservient to the Crown in the UK; a colony where the best land was grabbed by racist British settlers; a missionary lab where Christian ideologues attempted to wipe out all vestiges of the indigenous traditional cultures; a tea, coffee and wheat plantation dotted with vast ranches- with most of the proceeds destined for the so called “mother country”.

The British foreign domination was of course resisted by communities all over Kenya. In 1895-96 Mbaruk al Amin Mazrui led a valiant guerrilla war against the invaders along the Kenyan coast. In 1913-15, Me Katilili, an octogenarian grandmother emerged as a leader of the Giriama people in Kilifi mobilizing local peasants to resist forced labour and compulsory taxation. For her efforts she earned herself the title of Kenya’s first political prisoner- forcibly exiled hundreds of miles away from her community but heroically escaping from custody to continue her fight. Among the Dawida, Mwangeka also led and inspired an uprising. At around the same time in central Kenya Waiyaki wa Hinga was leading the charge against the British- he was later buried alive in Kibwezi. Among the Nandi, Koitalel arap Samoei was conducting a ten year armed resistance to the incursion of British imperialism, symbolized by the Kenya-Uganda Railway. Other stalwarts of these early resistance movements include women like Syotuna among the Akamba and Moraa wa Ngiti among the Gusii- not to speak of later nationalist heroes like Harry Thuku, Mary Nyanjiru, James Beuttah, Makhan Singh, Elijah Masinde, Oginga Odinga, Chege wa Kibacia, Muindi Mbingu, JD Kali, Pio da Gama Pinto, Achieng’ Oneko, Fred Kubai and others.

In the end, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, the British had the Maxim gun and we did not.

One of the immediate consequences of the brutal British take over was the question of entrenching tribal identities at the expense of more nationwide agendas. First and foremost, even the question of who were and how we called ourselves was mediated by the British colonial state. A colonial bureaucrat had in 1917 written a memo cited by Professor Al Amin Mazrui in his book on the history and identity of the Swahili peoples stressing the urgency of enforcing tribal identities as a bulwark against growing national consciousness. It is for this reason that the colonialists outlawed nationwide social and political organizations, restricting people to such outfits like the Kikuyu Central Association, the Ukambani Members Association, the Kavirondo Tax Payers Association, the Taita Hills Association and so on. This did not prevent these associations from collaborating together in a joint anti-imperialist project for national independence.

The other noxious by-product of British colonialism was the phenomenon of being "named" and identified by our oppressors. For instance upto this day in 2008 it is standard practice to talk of the "Kikuyus" even though the proper name is the Agikuyu; people refer to the “Taitas” even though they call themselves the Dawida. Fortunately slurs like “Kavirondo” for the Luos; “Suk” for the Pokot and “Kitosh” for the Bukusu have long since been abandoned. In the 1930s the colonialists robbed the Yiaku people of the Mukogodo forest in Laikipia District just north of Nanyuki of their identity by forcibly merging them with the Maasai. One of the consequences of that is that today, among the 4,000 remnants of the Yiaku, LESS THAN TEN can still remember and speak of their mother tongue and the majority are in their eighties and nineties dying out by the year. Similarly, the original indigenous hunter-gatherer communities of Kenya like the Ogieks, the Njemps and others are often arbitrarily “absorbed” into more dominant ethnic groups.

Also in the colonial period certain artificial clusters were baptized “tribes” even though it was often a convenient fiction to suit certain political agendas. An example is the appellation, “Abaluhyia” to refer to several distinct linguistic groups (Samia, Abakhayo, Marachi, Manyala, Wanyore, Ikhisa, Tiriki, Maragoli, Bukusu, Isukha, Idakho, Marama) as one tribe. The same goes with the “Kalenjin” cluster which brings together the Kipsigis, Nandi, Tugen, Keiyo, Marakwet, Pokot and other communities. One can make a similar argument that there are no such group as the Meru, but rather it has to be broken down to the Tharaka, Chuka, Tigania, Imenti and Egoji people. Until recently the Mbeere people were lumped together with the Embu. And in the 1960s, for political hegemonic reasons the larger “Meru” and “Embu” communities were cynically appended to the Agikuyu.

That is why it is bizarre to see, read and hear of violent evictions of so called “enemy tribes” in the 21st century- killed and displaced using the spurious and specious excuse of “ethnic purity”- when no such purity existed in the first place and even if it did has been thoroughly eroded through inter-marriage, urbanization and resettlements across the country.

THE MYTH OF ETHNIC PURITY IN KENYA

Here is my theory about so called "Pure" Ethnic Identities in Kenya:

By and large, these are historically determined, socially constructed CONVENIENT community MYTHS.

Some years ago- 2005 to be exact- when I was still residing in the west end of Toronto, Canada, I ran into a middle aged Southern Sudanese who happened to be a Dinka. He had also lived in Kenya for over a decade and he told me his version of how the Southern Luos ended up in Kenya. He said that in Sudan they have another name for the Luos which means that this appellation came later in the history of this community.

My uncle, the veteran historian Prof. B.A. Ogot has documented in his seminal text on the Southern Luos how many Luhyia clans in Gem (Siaya District) were assimilated as Luos. And he should know- this grandson of Agina the son of Paulo Opiche and grandson of Ayieko. His grandfather is my father’s grandfather and my father told me that this polygamous ancestor of Onyango Oloo had both Luo and Luhyia wives. Ogot’s grandmother was a co-wife of my father’s paternal grandmother (who I was told by my own paternal grandmother was another Luhyia who did not speak a word of Luo. Interestingly enough my own “Luhyia” grandmother from Emanyulia- who spoke BETTER Dholuo than her sons and daughters- in law from Karachuonyo, Oyugis and Seme- startled me when she revealed to me sometime in 1972 or 1973 that her folks had actually been “Luos from Alego” who had resettled in Emanyulia near the Butere-Yala train tracks.

Quite frankly I never believed her- until over thirty years later, when a Kenyan woman born and raised in Emanyulia writing online from southern France repeated this story in a certain Kenyan cyberforum almost word for word- yes, indeed there was actually a Luhyia clan in Emanyulia who were originally Luos from Alego! She herself was quite conversant with the Luo language and had relatives from Anyiko on the outskirts of Yala Township.

When I once argued that many Kisiis are former Luos and many Luos are ex-Kisiis I was virtually slapped by tribal venom from Luo and Abagusii friends and colleagues of mine. But I was right: the Luos know it and the Kisiis know it.

It is just that our accumulated, largely mythological creation stories have encouraged us to imagine the "ethnic jirani other" as the enemy who stole our land, raped our grandmothers and placed a multi-generational pox on us.

I should have added that there are similar kinship ties among the Luos and the neighbouring Kalenjin communities. For instance, one of my sisters has a kid whose name is Samoei- even though the kid’s father is a Luo. But guess what, his grandmother is a Nandi. Back in my Luanda Dudi village in Kisa West, Khwisero, Western Province there was this old pint sized cattle-herd who never ever married. And he used to tell us that he was a Meru. Again, how far fetched that story is I am not sure.

What I am saying about Luos can be extended to the Agikuyu and the Maasai; the Akamba and Meru; the Waswahili na Mijikenda and even many Kenyans who imagine they are pure Wahindis. How many people know for instance that Kenya’s SECOND Vice President Joseph Murumbi was part Mhindi and part Maasai? How many people know that Najib Balala is part Mhindi and part Mwarabu (with probably some Mijikenda relatives somewhere down his lineage)? How many people know that John Keen’s father was of European descent? How about Kariuki Chotara? His last name is often a pejorative equivalent to the equally derogatory “Point Five” slur used to describe Kenyans of mixed race.

In my own immediate family I have cousins who have Swedish mothers; nephews who have Tanzanian fathers; in laws who are from Nanyuki. My own son has two Meru grandparents on one side- apart from the whole mchuzi mix on his father’s side.

Who knows what Kenyan communities and the attendant ethnic identities would have emerged had the British colonialists not invaded and occupied our lands?

Is it possible that over time, the Luos, the Luhyias and the Abagusii would have merged into a synthesized ethnic group called the Abagusiluohyias? Think of the stranglehold they would have on the Soccer Championships!

Could we be talking about the Maagikumerumbians?

Or the Akamboranas?

Or perhaps the Turkopokotomarkweiyo?

How about the Gujarasomalis or the Arabogiriamas?

The possibilities are just endless.

What happened in Kenya instead is the REALITY of historical colonial oppression.

About thirteen years ago I read a book called The Swahili: Idiom and Identity of an African People by author/activist/scholar Alamin Mazrui and Ibrahim Noor Shariff. Somewhere in the pages of that book I recall a passage about a 1917 letter from some colonial DC instructing other functionaries to do everything they can to foster tribal identities among the Kenyan nationalities as a way of thwarting the growth of a collective national consciousness.

This is one of the reasons why the first nationalist organizations had names like the Kikuyu Central Association, the Taita Hills Association; the Kavirondo Tax Payers Association, the Ukambani Members Association and so on and so forth. It is not that Kenyans back then were so tribal that they could only form “tribal bodies” - on the contrary - they wanted to form nationwide patriotic formations but this was considered a grave threat to the colonial status quo.

For evidence, you will find out that all these organizations collaborated and worked together and had a common anti-imperialist objective of fighting for Kenyan independence. As early as 1923 Kenyans of Indian descent defied the attempt to segregate them from their African brothers and sisters by leading the fight which led to the defeat of the White Paper which wanted to transform Kenya into an apartheid state like South Africa or the former Rhodesia.

When we pick up this multi-ethnic patriotic thread in 1990 when Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia and to a certain extent the Reverend Timothy Njoya went public with their agitation for multiparty democracy we should not forget the very important 1981 to 1990 chunk of underground anti-imperialist organizing featuring patriotic and again multi-ethnic formations like Second of March Movement, Cheche Kenya, the December Twelve Movement, the Kenya Anti-Imperialist Front, Harakati ya Kupambania Demokrasia Kenya, Upande Mwingine, the Kenya Socialist Alliance, Chama Cha Ukombozi, the Kenya National Front, the Kenya Revolutionary Movement, Ukenya, Umoja, Mwakenya, the Me Katilili Revolutionary Movement, the Kenya Patriotic Front, the Muungano wa Kupambania Demokrasia Kenya, the Organization for Democracy in Kenya, UWAKE, the Februray 18th Movement and many others that have slipped my mind.

As a rule all of the above formations were multiethnic, multiracial NATIONAL progressive and patriotic formations something that can be gauged by some of the insiders and foot soldiers- Ngugi wa Thiongo, Koigi wa Wamwere, Willy Mutunga, Alamin Mazrui, Abdilatif Abdalla, Shadrack Gutto, Micere Mugo, Edward Oyugi, John Munuve, Rubiik, Odindo Opiata, Adanje, Shadrack Mwarigha, Kathini Maloba, Maina wa Kinyatti, Ngugi wa Mirii, Kaara wa Macharia, Omondi K'Abir, Njuguna Mutahi, Wahu Kaara, Wang'ondu wa Kariuki, Mwandawiro Mghangha, Wafula Buke, John Odongo, Zarina Patel, Shiraz Durrani, Sultan Somji, Irung'u Houghton, Njeri Kabeberi, Jembe Mwakalu, Oduor Ongwen, Odenda Lumumba, the Mungai Brothers, Tirop arap Kitur, Onyango Oloo, Adongo Ogony, Kishushe Mzirai, Mwangi wa Githinji, Chitechi Osundwa, Karimi Nduthu, Yusuf Hassan, the late Mwakdua wa Mwachofi, and a whole bunch of other people some of whom are alive and some who have passed away.

Ironically, some of the "Young Turks" veterans were much, much older than the patriotic comrades that I have name-checked in the preceding paragraph. But again, you see them continuing the very same multi-ethnic NON-TRIBAL national tradition of political mobilization- FORD’s founders like the late Jaramogi and the late Mzee Muliro and Martin Shikuku, Jaduong’ George Nthenge, Kenneth Matiba and Shahib Bamhariz liaised with younger firebrands like Wamalwa Kijana, Raila Odinga, Paul Muite, Gitobu Imanyara, Anyang Nyongo, James Orengo, Murtaza Jaffer, Kiraitu Murungi and other patriots to create the massive opposition that would have surely toppled Moi in 1992-were it not for the artificially created schisms imported from without.

The period between 1992 and 1997 again exhibited yet another multi-ethnic phase of popular mobilization with the likes of Dr. Willy Mutunga, Njeri Kabeberi, Kivutha Kibwana, Timothy Njoya and Davinder Lamba forging the NCEC into the most militant and progressive political machine agitating for democratic reforms and constitutional change.

The period between 1998 and 2002 we saw the faith communities led by stalwarts like Ndingi Mwana Nzeki, David Gitari, Timothy Njoya and Reverend Mutava Musyimi picking up the thread from fiery clerics of an earlier era like Bishop Alexander Kipsang Muge and Henry Okullu to lead the fight for democratic reforms.

And of course we see the Unbwogable Eruption of 2002 leading to this massive anti-KANU pan Kenyan coalition umbrella group bringing together Charity Ngilu, Mwai Kibaki, Anyang Nyongo, Wamalwa Kijana, Raila Odinga, Najib Balala, Kipruto Kirwa, Mukhisa Kituyi, Kivutha Kibwana etc to confront and defeat the Moi-KANU dictatorship. Again we see that Kenyans coming together as Kenyans- not as Luos, Gikuyus, Kalenjins etc.

In summary, my argument in this section is that contrary to mainstream clichés, Kenyan politics has NOT always been dominated by narrow ethnicity as the driving force.

[To be continued]

* Onyango Oloo is Secretary General Social Democratic Party of Kenya Nairobi. This paper was delivered at the Goethe Institute, Nairobi on June 18, 2008. Be sure to look for Parts II and III in the next two issues of Pambazuka News.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

I am jotting these few lines from the offices of the Centre for Multiparty Democracy-Kenya here in Nairobi. It is almost 16:00 Kenyan time. I have just been informed by Mr. Omweri Angima the CMD-K Program Officer that the centre's Executive Director, Ms. Njeri Kabeberi and Mr. Cyprian Orina Nyamwamu, the Chief Executive Officer of NCEC are currently confined at the Lusaka Airport having been barred entry into Zambia where they were going to attend a conference/meeting convened by Freedom House on the Zimbabwean Crisis. Haron Ndobi the well known human rights lawyer walked into the office and briefed me further on the situation, revealing that he had spoken to Njeri over the phone. Mr. Ndobi in turn called up Kenya's Foreign Affairs minister, Mr Moses Wetangula who has since called the country's High Commissioner to Zambia to give the Kenyan government a full briefing. In the meantime, K24, the 24 hour Nairobi-based television station has carried a live telephone interview with Njeri Kabeberi who basically reiterated that they were barred from entering Zambia.

In terms of details, Njeri Kabeberi and Cyprian Nyamwamu were delegates to a meeting entitled "Civil Society Conference on Transitional Processes in Zimbabwe" organized by Freedom House Southern Africa slated to take place in Lusaka, Zambia from 7th to 9th August, 2008.

Among the participating organizations are the following:

Kenyan activists gathered to peacefully urge the Kenyan government not to increase cabinet ministerial posts as a way of accommodating the power-sharing deal because this adds to an already bloated bureaucracy - instead power should be shared meaningfully within the posts that exist. Onyango Oloo here below is writing shortly after the Kenyan government tear-gassed the activists.

It is around three minutes to one in the afternoon here in Nairobi.

Slightly over forty minutes ago, I was part of a group of civil society activists who were sent scampering all over Uhuru Park after being tear gassed by the Kenyan riot police.

Among those dozens forced to shed sudden involuntary tears were Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, well known Kenyan human rights lawyer Harun Ndubi, Kenya National Commission for Human Rights Chair Maina Kiai, Africog head honcho Gladwell Otieno, Awaaz Managing Editor Zahid Rajan, Bunge la Mwananchi regulars Samson Ojiayo and Gacheke; Open Society East Africa Director Binaifer Nowrojee; independent documentary film maker/activist Mbugua Kaba; singer/dancer/drummer/actor/activist "Toothbrush" Ooko; ODM Secretariat member Dr. Jospeh Misoi; feminist/GBLT activist " Ms. P"; NCEC Coordinator Ndung'u Wainaina; minority rights activist Ms. Patita; Fahamu staffer Stella Chege and even the colourful Orie Rogo Manduli.

The cops did not discriminate in their distribution of the noxious canisters: I saw Anne Mawadhe of the BBC and several other local and international media folks choking from the ubiquitous gas fumes.

Later, as we were exiting Uhuru Park-with some still trying to access Harambee Avenue, the ultimate destination of the protest march- I could not resist throwing a broadside a the clutch of askaris, headed by an Assistant Commissioner who were looking for an opportunity to clobber us with their over used rungus. Directing my ire and fire at their presumed boss, I berated them for thwarting the efforts of democracy loving, corruption hating Kenyans like us who were there to fight against a bloated cabinet precisely we were thinking of underpaid public servants like the police and prison warders who still lived in hovels and earned a pittance even as they put their lives on the line for the greedy fat cats lining up for big jobs at the expense of the poor mwananchi tax payers. For a moment, given his vicious ferocious glare, I thought the Assistant Commissioner would unleash his goons on me.

Whatever violent thought was passing through his mind, he let that thought pass and let me, pass too, through them to the other end, towards the Hotel Inter Continental.

Ironically, the rest of the rally had gone smoothly, peacefully and without an incident.

Statements were read and speeches were made by Maina Kiai, Gladwell Otieno and Wangari Maathai; the patriotic songs including the militant national anthem were sung by all of us. We all had our "No More Than 24!" placards and we all intoned our slogans.

What is intriguing is WHO gave the police instructions to disrupt our legal, peaceful, democratic and constitutionally protected right to assembly, freedom of expression and association?

Was it just the police bureaucracy acting on their own and obeying their blood thirsty instincts?

Or was it an order from the "government" trying to keep a lid on dissent?

Freedom Corner is of course associated in the public mind with protests againt the status quo.

At any rate, for such a routine civil society action, I was somewhat taken aback by the number of helmeted riot cops on hand to"welcome" us to Uhuru Park with their traditional feisty hospitality.

The question that needs to be posed to PNU and ODM is whether or not power sharing extends to the Kenyan people.

After all, it is the ordinary Wanjiku and the Achieng who ensured that these two major parties have so much political clout.

It is our votes which propelled them to parliament.

It is our taxes which sustain them-whether as backbenchers or full cabinet ministers.

When they want to demonstrate to their opposite numbers about their strength, it is to us their turn when it comes to mass mobilization.

Presumably, we should be their political bosses because we are the ones who keep them in power.

In other words, we have a direct stake in their power sharing wrangles between PNU and ODM.

Obviously, we may never be invited to those hush hush negotiations because some of the political players view us as irrelevant to the process.

But since this is OUR Kenya that they are talking about, we do not their word of approval to participate in the process.

We have a right to be involved in determining not just WHO governs us HOW, but what kind of policies and action points will ensue.

It is not just about PNU haggling over positions with ODM.

At the moment all praises are going to Kofi Annan as the man who saved Kenya.

We have quickly forgotten that long before Kofi Annan set foot in Kenya, there were already Kenyans from all walks of life- from Ambassador Bethwell Kiplagat to Muthoni Wanyeki and the youth in the informal settlements- who were busy calling for Peace, Democracy, Truth and Justice.

I feel that two main players-ODM especially- should take their time to study how the ANC kept in touch with its popular and social base even as it top leadership anchored by Nelson Mandela kept ordinary ANC members informed and involved in the details of the power sharing process even as they dialogued with the De Klerks and the Pik Bothas.

There is a need for the Kenyan people to step up to the plate and seize this historic moment in our country's political development and push through a thorough going agenda for constitutional and democratic reform and shake our mainstream politicians from their comfort zone.

We should redefine power sharing to mean the right of the poor to share power with the rich; the right of women to share power with men; the right of the vijana to share power with the wazee...

To do this we must have a battering ram, an organized voice- a force that brings together civil society, smal political parties, trade unions and other social forces.

Today we saw that the Kenyan neo-colonial STATE as opposed to the "government" has no qualms about reasserting its essential violent and coercive nature. It means that even after elections, even after the bloody carnage which followed after it and all those heart rendering peace songs and exhortations for reconciliation and national harmony, we still need to redefine the power dynamics expressed by the daily actions of the state in the lives of Kenyans.

Yesterday (at least according to the front page of the Daily Nation today, April 1, 2008) cops trying to disperse a similar peaceful communiy protest in Njiru, on the peripheries of Nairobi shot dead an unarmed woman who was not even in the protest but sitting as a passenger in a public service vehicle. As we speak, units of the Kenya Army are busy torturing peasants in Mt. Elgon and shooting dead innocent civilians in an attempt to "restore peace" in that western Kenyan region that has been rocked and wracked with state and militia violence.

As Kenyans with a democratic conscience we need to tell the powers that be that there are effective alternatives to those Rambo intrusions- whether it is tear gassing peaceful protestors in downtown Nairobi; shooting in cold blood a woman in a matatu in Njiru or torturing villagers in Mt. Elgon.

In the meantime let me go back to two Sixties/Seventies slogans:

A Lutta Continua!

Un Pueblo Unido, Hamas Sera Vencido!

*Onyango Oloo, a Kenyan political activist and ex political prisoner.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

In part one, Onyango Oloo diagnosed the Kenya crisis. In Part two he prescribes, amongst other remedies, continued civil action against the Kibaki government

In this section of my essay, I want to examine the options ahead for the Kenya democratic movement.

Many of us heaved a sigh of relief when Raila Odinga announcement the postponement of the rallies.

Let me hasten to add that our sigh of relief DID NOT coincide with NOR WAS IT THE SAME AS the sighs from the Kenyan comprador and petit bourgeois elite.

Rather, our own sense of relief was grounded on organizational, tactical and strategic considerations.

We felt that the initial round of protests were largely spontaneous and unfocused.

Even the first attempts of ODM to rally the troops to Uhuru Park relied heavily on the passions and voluntarist energies of the ODM popular base. These actions were not very well coordinated in our view and that is why the cops had an upper hand.

We also felt that after the series of lumpen jacquerries in the informal settlements which had left in their wake infernos, innocent victims and tribal acrimony, it was crucial for the ODM to step and take charge, because contrary to the strident accusations of PNU supporters online and throughout the country, the Orange Democratic Movement as a party HAD NO ROLE in the riots and subsequent carnage.

This fact is graphically illustrated by the plight which befell hundreds of innocent Kisii speaking voters in Nyanza and parts of the Rift Valley. A comrade of mine who was one of the defeated aspirants in one constituency on the southern tip of Nyanza province recounted to me the violent reprisals and terrible ordeals which befell innocent Kisiis who had actually voted for Raila Odinga. He told me that there was a series of very blatant rigging of the ballots for Kibaki in parts of the Greater Kisii region where the PNU Presidential candidate got abnormally high amounts of votes- a clear plan to steal votes from Raila Odinga. When these artificial tallies were announced by ECK and especially after the shocking award by Kivuitu to Kibaki of the 2007 Presidential prize, mass anger erupted in places like Migori, Kericho, Kuresoi and Kisumu. The target this time was not confined to innocent Kikuyus and their property but also members of the Kisii who were wrongly accused by enraged Luo and Kipsigis mobs of having “betrayed” the people of Nyanza in bringing back Kibaki to power. I am told that even now there are unclaimed bodies literally some of the tea estates in Kericho with many members of the Kisii community losing their businesses in Kisumu and some areas in the Rift Valley. The many illegal road blocks erected on the Kisii-Nairobi road especially the Sotik-Narok section were scenes of unbelievable horrors if one happened to be a Kisii. This account corroborates the harrowing narrative of the Toronto-based Dr. Matunda Nyanchama that was posted on the Africa-Oped and Mwananchi online discussion forums.

My comrade told me that it took his own urgent personal intervention to two members of the ODM Pentagon that enabled the leadership of ODM to travel to the Rift Valley and Nyanza to appeal for calm and the end of ethnic slaughter.

The point I am trying to drive home is that the ODM leadership could have hardly "ordered" an ethnic attack on the Kisii community which rallied together to rout Simeon Nyachae and eliminate the PNU as a political force in Gusii land.

If anything, the ODM leadership, especially in southern Nyanza can be accused of being largely impotent in the face of a grave crisis affecting their own fervent supporters.
I would like to state for the record that I have been disgusted by the emerging PNU propaganda that attempts to portray the ODM leadership as Interhamwe type masterminds of genocide when the facts point to two developments:

The deployment of state troops who went on a shooting rampage in Nairobi, Eldoret, Kakamega, Bungoma, Kisumu and Mombasa killing innocent civilians and two; The cynical abdication of duty by the same state employed uniformed security forces when looting and plunder was taking place in Kisumu, Kibera and Mombasa to just cite three examples where eye-witnesses (including my brother in law in Mombasa who happens to be a half-Kikuyu and who had his bar on the west mainland pillaged and plundered under the uncaring eye of hordes of heavily armed cops who stood by as his club was stripped of all the equipment, appliances and facilities that he spent the last two years installing to revamp the place). It is my considered opinion that the looting and plunder WAS CONSCIOUSLY FACILITATED BY THE STATE TO DISCREDIT RAILA ODINGA AND THE ODM. This position was echoed by an elderly clear headed Kisumu resident when he was interviewed last night by a KTN television crew.

The PNU propagandists peddling the spurious “genocide” allegations are of course blissfully oblivious to the fact that the MAJORITY OF DEAD VICTIMS of the post-electoral violence has police wounds riddling their corpses.

If there is a case that can be made of pre-meditated mass killings, then the person in the dock should be those Kibaki connected and conniving political schemers who instituted a shoot to kill policy after arming cops with live ammunition instead of rubber bullets.

The breaking news revelations by Maina Kiai, the fiercely independent Chair of the state funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights to the effect that members of the dreaded Mungiki sect had been reactivated by the Kibaki regime to carry out murderous attacks in Nairobi slums thought to be ODM strongholds is a stunning setback that is already causing ripple effects and knocking the wind out of the sails of those Kibaki supporters online who have been trumpeting a concocted campaign against Raila Odinga and his ODM colleagues who they have stridently accused of ethnic cleansing.

What is even more astonishing that this story was broken by none other than Mungiki insiders who took the initiative of contacting Maina Kiai's offices.

It should be recalled that only a few months ago the same Kibaki regime was indiscriminately executing innocent Agikuyu youth suspected of being Mungiki members based on the sole “evidence” of ethnicity.

What a CYNICAL case of Use and Dump and Abuse Again!

The PNU propagandists may very well get what they wish for with unintended legal consequences for their paymasters because I earnestly believe that an independent, transparent international inquiry composed of legal experts into the Kenyan post-electoral deaths is far more likely to indict the Michukis and the Murages than anyone else within the ODM leadership.

And that is why I say:

Bring on the Inquiry, the Tribunal, the Commission!

Let the investigations commence this very afternoon!

As I was saying before I veered off on that tangent, many progressive and democratic minded Kenyans were grateful when ODM called off the mass rallies.

Why?

The masses were fatigued; they were famished; they were unorganized and disorganized and certainly not very politically conscientized and sensitized. As one of my comrades was pointing out to me yesterday evening, mass action is NOT A JOKE.

You need a detailed strategy.

You need mobilizers.

You need resources; in the same way an army needs supply lines, commanders and maximum flexibility of tactics to outwit the other side.

Of course Onyango Oloo is NOT going to delve into any kind of detail about how one can implement a successful, sustained and popular mass action strategy here online.

I would have to be certified INSANE for me to do that.

The key thing to remember is that the crisis in Kenya has by now evolved far beyond Raila Odinga and the stolen Presidential vote or the right of ODM to form the next government.

What we are now dealing with as Kenyans is the need to repulse a criminal conspiracy to overthrow democratic rule and restore the neo-colonial fascist ethno-kleptocracy of the Moi-KANU years.

What we are dealing with as Kenyans is a direct danger to ALL of the democratic gains we have made over the last twenty-five to thirty years.

What we are dealing with as Kenyans is an immediate threat that could plunge Kenya into a bloody civil war that would make Liberia, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Congo look like child’s play.

The danger we face as a nation calls IMMEDIATELY for, among other prerogatives:

1. A UNITED response that does not look at the problem through PAROCHIAL ETHNIC spectacles;
2. A DEMOCRATIC and PEACEFUL response that eschews militaristic and violent conspiracies;
3. A perspective grounded on SOCIAL JUSTICE and ANTI-IMPERIALIST precepts to ensure a progressive, egalitarian and just eventual outcome;
4. A PROTRACTED approach realizing that Kibaki and his henchmen, having tasted state power, will not, of their own accord relinquish the same unless forced to do so by united, democratic, progressive determination of the Kenyan people rising up to demand their country, their rights and their aspirations back from the PNU usurpers;
5. An organic linkage with the international solidarity and fight back campaigns spearheaded BY PROGRESSIVE AND PATRIOTIC KENYANS OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY together with our other global comrades in many countries throughout the world; There is ONLY ONE WEAPON at the disposal of the Kenyan people at this present time and that weapon is:

ORGANIZATION.

Let me repeat Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary dictum over and over and over and over again:

Organize, Organize, Organize!

Yes we know that the MOST AGGRIEVED IMMEDIATE ENTITY is the ODM who have just been robbed of an election that they won fair and square in broad daylight.

However the issue is far, far beyond the ODM and its immediate supporters. They are millions of Kenyans who are not necessarily aligned to ODM who are completely outraged and want to be part of a successful fight back.

This reality calls for the launching of a Kenya- wide organizational and democratic conduit which is much broader than any one political party in the country.

The other day I called for the formation of a NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT founded on the four pillars of JUSTICE, PEACE, DEMOCRACY and TRUTH. This movement must be based on the poor wananchi in the urban and rural areas, the youth, the women, the cultural and religious minorities, the progressive elements among the middle-class, patriotic Kenyans outside the country and all anti-imperialist forces.

My call is merely one of dozens of such calls emanating simultaneously from Kenyan progressives from all over the country, from Mombasa to Malaba, Moyale to Loitoktok.

Already we see fast mutating ancestors of that kind of an organization sprouting almost on a daily basis.

At the civil society front, a network of over 30 NGOs and non-profit formations formed a Coalition for Peace, Justice and Truth within the first few days of January.

At the core of this coalition are such credible institutions like the Kenya Human Rights Commission, Mars Group, Law Society of Kenya, Kituo Cha Sheria, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, NCEC, the Centre for Multi-Party Democracy-Kenya and other like minded bodies.

We must commend the admirable work of such Kenyan militant patriots and progressives like Muthoni Wanyeki, Gladwell Otieno, Cyprian Nyamwamu, Kepta Ombati, Ndung’u Wainaina, Maina Kiai, Zahid Rajan, Haron Ndubi, Zarina Patel and Mwalimu Mati in jump-starting this much needed vehicle and process.

Among the praise worthy initiatives of the new coalition are efforts to engage members of the Central Kenyan communities through an entity called the Republican Forum- a network of younger business people and professionals from among the Agikuyu. This forum which meets regularly at a certain Nairobi hotel and counts among its regulars people like David Ndii, Mutahi Ngunyi to name just two, is right now assessing the ECONOMIC and FINANCIAL immediate impact and long term ramifications of the Kibaki/PNU on Central Kenya within the context of the national reality that the Agikuyu, like other Kenyans live all over the country and if the anti-Kibaki backlash maintains an ethnic tag how this will mess up national harmony. Apart from that, the group has a mandate to emphasize to the GEMA communities that Kibaki’s coup should not be seen as synonymous as a “victory” for millions of individual Kikuyus, Merus and Embus but rather an insult and assault on every one of them who as Kenyans are equally affronted by this callous subversion of democracy, justice, and yes, prospects for peaceful coexistence across all our diverse Kenyan peoples.

Over and above the above, forces within the coalition are exhorting Kenyans to do the following:

(i)Agitate for new presidential elections within the next three months;
(ii)Urge ODM to take up their seats and continue their struggle in the 10th parliament because a boycott will be a political faux pas that will play right into the hands of the PNU usurpers;
(iii)Engage the police, the paramilitary and the military with a view of winning over these security forces to the side of the democratic and patriotic forces;
(iv)Mobilizing the international community, especially the United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union to realize that Kenya will be UNGOVERNABLE under an illegitimate regime and that their interests and the interests of neighbouring countries like Uganda, Rwanda, the DRC, Sudan, Ethiopia etc will be at risk if the current political impasse persists;
(v)Step up indigenous, in country humanitarian efforts reaching out to ALL the victims of the post-electoral strife regardless of ethnicity, political affiliation and regional origins;

There are of course some other interesting developments but I guess it as this point that I will dutifully ZIP MY LIPS.

*Onyango Oloo, a Kenyan political activist and ex political prisoner.

*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

From the look of things, it would appear that we are still a long way from resolving the serious post-election crisis that is gripping and almost crippling Kenya.

Even after Raila Odinga and ODM considerably softened their preconditions for internationally mediated talks with their opposite numbers by dropping their demand that Kibaki must resign; calling off a series of rallies and mass actions across the country and lowering the decibel of their political rhetoric, Mwai Kibaki and his fellow usurpers seems set on a suicidal path to tighten their hold on the stolen public offices.

On Tuesday, January 8, 2008 the besieged Pretender President in the State House compounded the putschist, undemocratic initial injury he had inflicted on the Kenyan nation by unilaterally and illegally appointing his cronies and side-kicks to ministerial positions literally hours before African Union Chairperson John Kuffuor of Ghana landed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to mediate in scheduled talks between ODM and PNU.

Not only did Kibaki violate Kenyan law by appointing these individuals before they had been sworn in formally as members of parliament, the Othaya MP was desperate to confront the visiting Kuffuor with a fait accompli by grabbing the most powerful and strategic cabinet positions for himself and his faction.

In doing so, Kibaki also laid bare a lot of what Kenyans had been suspecting for months:

Kalonzo Musyoka, the ODM-K leader and also ran presidential candidate had always been a fifth columnist amidst opposition ranks causing much rancour while still in the original ODM and bolting off to form ODM-K as a stratagem of wangling for himself the coveted VP slot. Now every boast of Kalonzo’s about being a “peace maker” and ‘Mr. Clean Hands” rings hollow; words and phrases added to the growing hill of human turd, the self-created merde composed of his swaggering and sauntering election campaign boasts of being the “most formidable opponent” of Kibaki and the “people’s servant”.

How could Kibaki’s so called “most formidable opponent” agree to be a mere junior stand in for his alleged nemesis?

How could an alleged “peace maker” and so called “servant of the people” jump hastily into bed with someone whose criminal actions had led to so much blood shed, ethnic acrimony, economic devastation and political uncertainty?

What is also clearly evident is that Kibaki’s move to appoint Kalonzo Musyoka as his deputy could be an advance gambit anticipating a re-run of the presidential contest where Kibaki and his schemers reckon that Kalonzo may single-handedly delivered the Akamba bloc vote.

Judging by his less than stellar showing at the just concluded parliamentary and presidential elections, it is by no means a sure bet that Kalonzo will actually live up to this lofty expectations.

Many of us in the progressive and democratic camp here in Kenya have been chastened with the emerging agenda of the United States and such multi-lateral global bodies like the World Bank.

A leaked memo authored by the Guyanese born Kenya Country director of the World Bank Colin Bruce basically setting the ground for an acceptance of the Kibaki coup d'etat is a very sobering reminder that when it comes to crunch time, institutions such as the World Bank will gravitate towards the status quo.

Some of my reliable sources here in Nairobi inform me that the United States publicly unstated position militates against a re-run of the election, leaning more towards a negotiated power-sharing formula between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki- as if the national crisis that has seen tens of thousands of democracy seeking Kenyan protesters lash out in anger in response to the stolen presidential vote outcome.

It is also not very clear what the mainstream African agenda is regarding the current crisis in Kenya.

Conterminous with the arrival and presence of John Kufour was the puzzling tour of ex-Presidents Kaunda of Zambia, Mkapa of Tanzania, Chissano of Mozambique and Masire of Botswana.

Were they in Kenya to bolster or undermine the shuttle diplomacy of the Ghanaian head of state?

What are more disturbing are the personal, ideological and strategic intentions of President Yoweri Museveni from the neighbouring nation-state of Uganda.

Credible reports indicate that Ugandan troops-some of them dressed in Kenyan police uniform, some of them in civvies- have been implicated in the extra-judicial state ordered executions of unarmed civilians in Kisumu, including many infants and minors, with some shot at close range while cowering in their own homes.

An observer in Nairobi has privately suggested to this writer that the Kibaki posse of political criminals did approach the Ugandan government expressing their insecurities about dealing with any negative fallout from within the Kenyan military establishment in the aftermath of the elections.

Museveni, according to this source, is supposed to have reassured the Kenyan head of state and his shadowy kitchen cabinet that Uganda was ready to do ANYTHING- including dispatching troops to Kenya to thwart any efforts at overturning the Kibaki civilian coup.

The observer in Nairobi is of the opinion that the main thing driving Museveni’s mother hen attitude towards Kenya has less to do with guaranteeing Kenyan political stability as with the Ugandan president’s own megalomaniacal ambitions to be the capo dei capi of East and Central Africa over the next few years. As many readers of these lines know, there is a push to consolidate the process of implementing the East African Community as an economic, legal, social and POLITICAL entity. Part of the provisions of that process is the creation of an East African Community President.

My source avers that Museveni sees himself as the natural born leader who will fit that slot. M7 (as the Ugandan president is often referred to, especially in his native land) thinks that Kenya’s Raila Odinga stands in Museveni’s way because of the ODM flag-bearer’s own charisma, Pan African appeal and political pedigree (it never hurts to be scion/offspring of one of the Third World’s most celebrated nationalist heroes, Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga).

The observer in Nairobi is convinced that Museveni’s covert and overt (he is the only leader to have so far "recognized" the illegitimate hostage in the State House) support for Kibaki is rooted in a cynical, mid term quid pro quo strategy of neutralizing any aspirants to the ultimate East African crown jewel.

I ran this hypothesis by another friend of mine, this one a highly placed individual embedded at the core of Kenya’s National Security Intelligence Service.

My NSIS contact was very skeptical about the Museveni Factor as delineated by my observer pal.

He says that going by his own contacts within the Ugandan armed forces and intelligence agencies, there does not seem to be ANY credence that could lift the Museveni Hypothesis above the level of wild rumour and baseless speculation. He also doubts the reports, lately echoed by Raila Odinga himself about the active participation of Ugandan troops in the state-engineered massacres of civilians in Kisumu.

I will leave my readers to use their own discretion to interrogate, verify and/or corroborate the veracity or otherwise of these serious allegations regarding the role played by President Museveni in the current Kenyan crisis.

Nevertheless, my spooky intelligence pal shared with me something else:

He told me that there is a high level of uncertainty and even mild dissent within the armed forces, the regular police and other elements of the Kenyan state security apparatus.

He claims that the wildly refuted SMS rumours which speculated that Kenya’s army chief and the police commissioner had resigned around New Year’s Day were NOT totally baseless because there had been some kind of heightened pressures on the duo within those ranks that the military and the police should not be seen to be condoning Kibaki’s electoral grand larceny.

The NSIS Deep Throat also told me that overall morale within the armed forces has been lowered considerably and that there are more and more middle-ranking officers who are quitting the Kenyan military to pursue soldier of fortune opportunities in places like Iraq or take up private civilian security consulting gigs within the country- a trend that he evaluates as not being in the best interests of the Kibaki junta.

My shadowy source also asserted that the MAJORITY of the members of the REGULAR police are OPENLY sympathetic to ODM and that could be one reason why the Michukis and Murages opted for members of the dreaded GSU and the Administration Police together with the elements from the National Youth Service as the storm troopers to protect the illegal installation of Mwai Kibaki. Even here he says that many of those young people dressed up in those fierce looking anti-riot gear are actually NOT GSU but AP and NYS personnel because the commander of the Administration Police is allegedly closer to the kitchen cabinet cabal than the other police heads.

Again what I am purveying here is a perspective from one individual. Whether what he is saying is true or not is subject to further investigation and verification.

There are so many things which have been happening in Nairobi which are yet to make it to the public domain. For instance we are told that immediately after the polls, former President Moi (with or without some of his kids) boarded a plane bound for Germany. Upon arrival, the authorities in that European state loaded promptly on another Nairobi bound flight, barring his presence in Germany.

* This is the first part of the essay, the second of which will appear in the next issue of Pambazuka News

*Onyango Oloo, a Kenyan political activist and ex political prisoner.

*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

No JUSTICE, No PEACE!!
Onyango Oloo Dissects The Wrong-Headed "SAVE OUR COUNTRY" Media Blitz

During my 18 year sojourn in Ontario and Quebec, I became quite immersed in a wide array of social justice struggles-from Indigenous People’s rights, anti-globalization, working class struggles, anti-apartheid to anti-racist movements.

The Canadian anti-racist movement, while different and autonomous from its sister movement south of the 49th Parallel, has been inspired by the African-American led struggles for civil, social, economic, cultural and political rights.

Icons like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, Ben Chavis, Jesse Jackson Jr., Fredrick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Angela Davis, George Jackson, Huey P. Newton are household names in the African-Canadian, Caribbean Canadian and Native Canadian communities.

As many of us know, one of the most ubiquitous rallying cries and chants during anti-racist rallies, protests and demonstrations is the slogan, “No Justice, No Peace!”

I remember the summer of 1989 being amidst angry protestors around the Queen’s Park subway in Toronto, making our way up the street to the Royal Ontario Museum chanting these and other slogans to vent our ire about a racist exhibition at that Museum which really demeaned continental Africans and people of African descent in general.

To some, the phrase, “No Justice, No Peace!” is just another tired slogan, to be grouped with “A People United, Shall Never Be Defeated!” or “An Injury To One Is An Injury to All”.

These cynics are of course obtuse, because they do not appreciate the blood, the sacrifice and the torture which infused the historical origins of those chants. The second phrase emanated from the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist struggles of Latin American women and men confronting the US backed dictatorships of Central and South America. The third slogan is from South Africa where the militant workers in that struggle-soaked nation were right at the frontlines of the South African national liberation movement.

This morning I want to talk about “No Justice, No Peace!” in the contest of the ongoing social and political turmoil in Kenya.

And I am doing it because I have been reeling with DISGUST, recoiling in horror at a new campaign for “Peace” launched primarily by Kenya’s media houses, principally the Nation Media Group, the Standard Group and the folks who run Kiss 100 FM and the Nairobi Star.

Now to be fair to people like Julie Gichuru at NTV and the KTN anchors, they appear sincere and earnest enough. It is good intentions all through.

At least at the surface level.

When you do scratch beneath that surface however, you are confronted with something else- a blatant attempt to restore social control and buttress the class domination of the comprador and petit bourgeoisie in Kenya.

Please stay with me if you are temporarily befuddled.

Most Kenyans know that the spontaneous anti-government insurrections were sparked off by the decision of the Electoral Commission of Kenya to steal the Presidential vote at the behest of Mwai Kibaki and his PNU cohorts. We also realize that criminals and tribalists have hijacked these protests to loot and plunder and attack members of specific ethnic groups.

One would expect that ANYONE interested in a peaceful solution to the crisis in Kenya would begin with where “rain began to beat us” to quote Chinua Achebe for the billionth time.

One would further expect that only a transparent restitution of justice would jump start a sustainable peace and national reconciliation process.

At a minimum, there would have to be some kind of a public acknowledgment that the flawed Presidential election results must be rectified.

That seems to be the consensus in Kenya, and judging by media reports, among the publics of Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and many other African countries.

The indictment by the EU observer mission would seem to indicate that the capitals of capital have no doubt in their minds that Kibaki stole the elections.

Given the above, one would expect that a "peace process" dubbed “Save Our Country” jumpstarted last night by the main Kenyan media houses who were in the forefront of exposing the anomalies and irregularities would pay attention to the question of justice even as strove to put out all the infernos raging across Kenya.

What has happened instead?

A mealy mouthed editorial piece on peace carried simultaneously across different Nairobi media that insults the collective intelligence of Kenyans.

Sample this:

“Political leaders on both sides must be told in no uncertain terms that they are currently in great danger of losing their credibility in the eyes of Kenyans and the international community because systemic killing of the innocents sweeping Kenya, destruction of the economy and the spread of disaffection throughout the land. No grievance and no cause is worth the innocent blood of Kenyan children. The orgies of looting, burning, rape and wanton, well-orchestrated blood-letting are undermining the moral basis of the politicians’ cause…”

-Excerpt from an editorial jointly run in the Daily Nation and Nairobi Star (Thursday, January 03, 2008)

HELLO?

Since when did “politicians on both sides” coerce ECK to steal the Presidential vote?

The culpability rests solely with President Kibaki. From the fascist diktats of Michuki, Muthaura, Murage and Co. we know that the ODM leadership has NOT had a chance to publicly address their followers and therefore cannot be accused of “orchestrating” or “instigating” anything.

Yes, the blood of innocents is flowing freely with mobs setting alight a church full of women and children and targeting innocent wananchi based on their ethnicity and regional origins.

But who is talking about the orgy of POLICE and PARA-MILITARY EXTRA-JUDICIAL EXECUTIONS?

By yesterday, there were over ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY BULLET RIDDLED BODIES in the New Nyanza Hospital including corpses of INFANTS. Who shot to death those innocent unarmed civilians? The police have been executing ghetto youth in Kibera, Kawangware and elsewhere. Who employs and commands these killers in uniform?

Reports from Kisumu insist that the Kibaki regime may be using crack NRA troops from neighbouring Uganda to slaughter Kenyan citizens. When I first raised this issue online twenty four hours ago, some were quick to dismiss the very possibility. Today the Nyanza Provincial Police Officer is on the defensive, admitting she is aware of these widespread allegations even as she strenuously denies them.

In this regard I must state that I was somewhat disappointed by the public statement released yesterday by Kenyan Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai.

While I commend her for speaking up and appealing to Kibaki to take charge, I am disappointed that what motivated her was not so much the reality that the whole of Kenya is burning but rather that “her people”, the Central Kenyan communities were being targeted. Surely one can make a very strong case that the Luo communities residing in Kisumu, Migori, Homa Bay and elsewhere are being similarly targeted, this time by THE STATE itself.

In fact, in the letters to editors page of the Standard there is this letter from a Kisumu resident of South Asian heritage which says, inter alia:

“…The recent riots are not Kisumu riots. Even the killings are State-operated to gain political mileage to discredit ODM’s Raila Odinga and his supporters.”

-Mahesh R, Kisumu, p.8. Letter, The Standard, Thursday, January 03, 2008

Raila Odinga has publicly stated that he is ready to meet with international mediator and in fact as I write these lines is meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu at Pentagon House. Earlier this morning Amos Kimunya was interviewed by the BBC and he was quoted as saying that the Kibaki regime does NOT see the need for international mediators because they (PNU) can deal with the matter internally- a claim which is mocked by the ongoing protests. The same Kimunya has accused the international observers as being biased towards ODM after the EU team publicly denounced the anomalies in the tallying of the presidential results. President Kufuor of Ghana, the current AU Chairman was scheduled to be in Kenya today, but the Kibaki regime BLOCKED his coming.

Are these guys SERIOUS???!

Let us go back to the editorials. This is a passage from the Standard’s:

“…Employ a reputable international arbiter, NOT to determine who won the presidential poll, but to work out a road-map that will bring Kenya back from the brink and a mutually acceptable proposition for sharing power…Notwithstanding the inflation of figures in a number of areas, both ODM and PNU garnered 4 million plus votes in the presidential ballot, meaning the country is split right down the middle. The position of President is not vacant. Kibaki was declared President whether or not the presidential ballot was flawed…”

-Standard editorial, Thursday, January 03, 2008

It is right in this excerpt that the mask slips to reveal the PNU underbelly of the much ballyhooed “Save Our Country” onslaught.

Huh?

So we should not “determine who won the presidential poll” eh? How then, dear Standard editors, will we work out a road-map that will bring back Kenya from the brink?

Even queasier is the cheesy full page ad by the Concerned Citizens for Peace addressing two men-Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga- to do something.

The very content of the ad betrays its elitist, undemocratic character.

The 2007 Kenyan civic, parliamentary and presidential polls was a national affair involving MILLIONS of Kenyan citizens. What is happening in Kenya is NOT a PRIVATE FIST FIGHT involving the Othaya and Lang’ata MPs, but rather a NATIONAL CRISIS that has the future of MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of Kenyan women, children and men at stake.

To try and lock out the Kenyan people from an urgent democratic impasse and reduce it to a two man tussle is a grave insult to the Kenyan people.

By the way, WHERE is President Kibaki, the apparently “popularly, democratically and fairly elected leader”?

From the look of things right now one would be forgiven if they thought that Major-General Hussein Ali is the acting Head of State with chief government propagandist Dr. Alfred Mutua as his deputy.

In the few times I have seen Kibaki he is holed up at State House flanked with senior military officers giving the distinct impression that he is their hostage.

It is now approximately 12:15 as I keyboard these lines and reports on the television indicate that there are ongoing skirmishes between the police and pro-ODM youths along Thika Road, Mbagathi Way, Kibera, Eastlands and the City Centre. In other words, there is a minor uprising in Nairobi and not just the capital but also Kakamega, Bungoma, Mombasa, Kisumu and elsewhere.

On December 30th I spoke about Kibaki’s Coup.

Four days later the presence of police, para-military and military formations underscores my point about the overthrow of democratic rule.

What is actually laughable is the phenomenon of a horde of PNU election losers led by Kibaki down to his deputy Awori and FORMER cabinet ministers Tuju, Kombo, Kituyi, Shakombo etc MASQUERADING as a legitimate “government”.

Surely, if Kibaki had the mandate that PNU hawks like George Nyamweya claims he has, he should have formed a government by now. He should have by now been addressing his 4.5 million supporters at heavily attended mass rallies by now. Instead, Kibaki skulks stealthily in State House afraid to meet the very Kenyan citizens he claims to lead.

Which brings me back to the slogan:

“No Justice, No Peace!!”

Until we resolve the simple question of who Kenyans actually elected President on December 27, 2007, there WILL BE NO PEACE.

In my considered opinion, the SAVE OUR COUNTRY campaign is a slick, dishonest appeal by the pro-Kibaki comprador and petit-bourgeois business elite hoodwinking Kenyans to ACCEPT the fraudulent election results and legitimize criminal PNU’s civilian coup.

Why should Kibaki or Raila share power?

At the December 27th elections, Kenyans overwhelming voted for a new government:

That government is the Orange Democratic Movement led by its flag bearer, Raila Amolo Odinga.

Once again I say:

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!

A PEOPLE UNITED, SHALL NEVER BE DEFEATED!

AN INJURY TO ONE, IS AN INJURY TO ALL!

*Onyango Oloo, a Kenyan political activist and ex political prisoner.

*Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Social movements in Kenya, “want to see the WSF being transformed into a space for organizing and mobilizing against the nefarious forces of international finance capital, neo-liberalism and all its local neo-colonial and comprador collaborators,” writes Onyango Oloo. Whether this will be achieved is a practical question which will be put to the test in Nairobi this coming January.

The clock is winding down. With barely a month before the commencement of the 6th World Social Forum (WSF), social movements from Africa and around the world are gearing up to make their presence felt in the Kenyan capital where the annual event is scheduled to take place from January 20th to 25th 2007.

Indeed, there has been a flurry of activities in the host country itself. At the end of November, a bevy of organizations and movements representing various pastoralist and minority groups converged at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre to celebrate the Kenya Pastoralists’ Week. In contrast to previous outings, the 2006 edition was devoted to building up support and mobilising for the World Social Forum. Impatient with their stereotypical image as cultural artefacts used to drum up foreign exchange earnings from tourism, members of the Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Rendille, Pokot, Yiaku, Njemps, Ogiek, El Molo and other marginalized groups (many of them from the historically ignored and systemically impoverished northern limits of Kenya) resolved to bring to the global audience offered by the WSF space, issues more relevant to their lived experience.

Among these issues are colonial era land edicts and policies which dispossessed their communities; the impact of mining and extraction activities on the environment and human livelihoods; discriminatory policies by successive governments that have guaranteed the stubborn survival of pre-colonial conditions of poverty and underdevelopment among many pastoralist and minority communities; the arrogant disregard for the concerns raised by (for example) Samburu women raped over the years by British soldiers dispatched on military exercises in those Kenyan communities; proposals on ending conflict and creating conditions for sustainable growth; the role of youth; tensions persisting with neo-colonial era settler farmers and indigenous Kenyan comprador businessmen in hiving off thousands of hectares of land while the pastoralists and minority communities are targets of state terror, evictions and denunciations and other related concerns.

The WSF 2007 may also serve as an occasion to celebrate recent victories by some of the above marginalized groups. In Botswana, the San people made global headlines in December 2006 after a court affirmed their legal claim that they were wrongly forced off their ancestral lands by the Botswana government and that they had a right to return to their homes in the Kalahari Desert. Hot on the heels of that decision barely a week later, another court this time in Kenya, agreed with lawyers for the minority Njemps community that they had a right to a parliamentary representative from their own community given the decades of exclusion and marginalization by successive Kenyan regimes, both colonial and neo-colonial.

On the other side of the coin, members of the Digo community on the Kenyan coast are fuming after a High Court judged ruled in favour of the Toronto-based Tiomin company and against seven local farmers who are opposed to the paltry compensation packages the firm was offering for displacing members of the community from the site of proposed titanium mining operations. The court also ruled that the Kenya government could immediately proceed with forceful evictions of all farmers opposed to the displacement and proposed compensation. The Tiomin issue has been a lightning rod that has led to national and international coalitions and solidarity campaigns bringing together activists in Kenya, Canada, the United States, Italy and other parts of the world.

The Yiaku people have been also quite involved in the plans for the World Social Forum 2007. They have at least two representatives sitting in the Organizing Committee itself and active in the Social Mobilization Commission.

Theirs is a unique case for cultural survival: in the 1930s, they were forcibly assimilated into the larger Maasai cluster and over a period of decades, they have effectively lost their language with less than 10 people (mostly greying elders) able to communicate in the Yiaku tongue. Today they are confined to the inner reaches of the Mukogodo Forest on the outskirts of Nanyuki town in the Laikipia District of central Kenya. But in a testimony of their grit and resolve to fight for their right to self-determination, they have joined up with other marginalized and endangered peoples in Africa and around the world and no doubt they will have compelling testimonies to share during the January global event in Nairobi.

Dwellers of the so-called “mitaa ya mabanda” or informal settlements in Kenya- from the sprawling slums of Kibera and Mathare to the lesser known Huruma, Korogocho, Mukuru, Kondele, Chaani and other slums are quite in the thick of things. The Kutoka Network is working closely with these communities to ensure a massive presence of the inhabitants of these settlements at WSF 2007. One of the highlights of their activities will be a marathon that will snake its way through the Nairobi slums to historic Uhuru Park - the venue of the opening and closing ceremonies.

Hawkers, who have of late born the brunt of municipal government and state terror in the Kenyan capital, are also organizing to participate, partly to correct the media misperceptions that they are nothing but a bunch of hoodlums working in cahoots with organized criminals to desecrate the central business district of Nairobi.

Women in Africa and around the world are busy organizing their presence at the WSF 2007 with the Nairobi-based FEMNET and the Kampala-based AWEPON taking a very conscious lead in hooking into encounters like the Feminist Dialogues to ensure an effective participation by women.

The Kenyan trade union movement walked into the WSF process rather late in September 2006, and found their way around after a couple of hiccups. At first, it was a major battle to get the phrase “right to decent work” inserted into the major principles guiding the WSF 2007 meeting because some WSF veterans objected to incorporating the name of a specific ILO campaign into a broad platform such as the WSF. At the end of the day, there was a compromise and the phrase was adopted after protracted behind the scenes discussions.

More recently, a press conference organized by the Kenyan trade union leadership cast wrong aspersions at the Nairobi-based WSF 2007 Secretariat and this created some bad blood, which was once again overcome after face to face meetings with representative of the two bodies.

Even before the arrival of COTU (the Kenyan trade union confederation) on the WSF scene, workers and their issues were very much part of the WSF process with South Africa’s COSATU part of the International Council of the WSF and OATUU head Hassan Sunmonu one of the most familiar presences at the African Social Forum council meetings. Elsewhere around the world, bodies like the Canadian Labour Congress and other trade union formations have been longtime supporters of the WSF process since its very inception.

In Kenya, bodies like the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) have worked for a long time to highlight the plight of export processing zones (EPZ) wage slaves and flower farm workers. The KHRC recently organized an international forum for shopstewards from Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and other parts of the world to talk about the issues workers would be bringing to the WSF 2007.

The Kenya Land Alliance, one of the constituent bodies of the Kenya Social Forum and a member of the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee has for the last year been mobilizing peasants, squatters, fisher folk, pastoralists and other rural folk to bring their issues on land and livelihoods to the WSF event. KLA has supported regional forums such as the Western Kenya Social Forum, the Coast Social Forum and the Central Social Forum, materially and otherwise.

Other dynamic bodies in the WSF 2007 Organizing Committee such as the Shelter Forum, Citizens Assembly and Haki Jamii have mobilized evictees, urban dwellers, the poor, the youth etc to articulate social and economic problems and suggested alternatives.

On a global scale, the World Assembly of Social Movements has held a series of meetings and exchanges on how best to use the WSF space to galvanize social movements. At the continental level, the South African based Khanya College and the newly founded Sankara Centre for Social Movements in Kenya are determined to see that the WSF 2007 event is an occasion to network and map out joint actions with other social movements from around the world.

In the same vein, an initiative coming out of Asia and Africa will be a prominent feature of the WSF Nairobi encounter, as activists from the two vast continents map out the elements of Africa-Asia Solidarity. A similar process is underway involving Latin America and Africa.

At the formal organizing level, all these initiatives, encounters and proposals have been concretized in an International Council of WSF (supported by the local organizing committee and the African Social Forum) decision to devote the fourth day of the WSF event (January 24, 2007) to solidifying joint actions and campaigns, partly to stave off lingering criticisms and perceptions that over the years the WSF has become little more than a talk shop.

With just weeks before the WSF 2007 event, it is clear that the WSF process itself is a contested ideological terrain. Some of the more activist types are struggling to ensure that WSF events transcend their depiction as annual NGO jamborees with the usual high flying suspects flitting from one seminar to the other workshop before jetting back to their familiar civil society lairs.

Social movements, including dozens in Kenya, want to see the WSF being transformed into a space for organizing and mobilizing against the nefarious forces of international finance capital, neo-liberalism and all its local neo-colonial and comprador collaborators.

Whether this will be realized is a practical question which will be put to the test in Nairobi this coming January.

• Onyango Oloo is the National Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum. He writes here in his personal capacity.
• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Despite making some progress towards developing an inclusive process for women within the World Social Forum (WSF) movement, profound problems remain that are likely to manifest themselves in the lead up to the WSF meeting in Nairobi in 2007, says Onyango Oloo, in this paper presented at a public forum on “Gendering the WSF Process”. It’s not a lost battle, however. Oloo suggests that action can still be taken through which men can show solidarity with their women comrades.

Conceptual Underpinnings

First things first:

In talking about gendering the World Social Forum process, it is crucial for my readers to grasp what I am NOT talking about.

I am NOT talking about “women’s issues” nor am I trying to “solve” or “resolve” “The Woman Question”.

Rather, I am trying to explore the problematics thrown up by the age-old power dynamics between men and women and contextualizing this within the history of planning and organizing for successive WSF events.

And I have embarked on this task for reasons that are far from “academic”; I am not driven solely by theoretical and intellectual preoccupations about the subject of gender.

I happen to be right in the middle of the logistical, programmatic and other aspects of social mobilization, fund-raising, outreach and publicity for the next edition of the World Social Forum taking place in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20th to January 25th 2007.

As a man, I am keenly aware of the baggage of male privilege that I was born with growing up in a world defined by patriarchy, misogyny and other forms of oppression against and domination over women. As a Kenyan, I am also cognizant of the inescapable fact of the world capitalist economy buttressing these age-old oppressions by punctuating every thing with class and confining historically determined societies within an overall imperialist vortex which in the Kenyan and African context manifests itself as neo-colonialism.

Over the last quarter century or so, neo-liberal policies downloaded to Kenya and other African and Southern countries via multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) etc etc have worsened the already lopsided power dynamics between men and women in the spheres of the economy, political representation, social and cultural relations, not forgetting the ideological imperatives of the day.

As humankind struggles to realize and implement the vision of an alternative, more egalitarian and social justice oriented world, one is quite conscious that we are doing so within the context of class struggles and gender tensions which define our everyday existence. Progressive women and men continue the fight to build a better world even as we explore the stark reminders of persistent sexism, pervasive patriarchy and rampant misogyny that seep into our work despite our subjective commitments and best, sincere and earnest intentions against these manifestations of oppression, marginalization and even outright contempt and hatred towards women.

It should therefore surprise no one that the World Social Forum process, unfolding against the complex tapestry of real and concrete social conditions cannot be hermetically sealed and insulated from all the troubling manifestations of inequality between men and women and other aspects of the lopsided power dynamics between the two genders.

Before proceeding further, let me pause and share some capsules capturing various testimonies, perspectives and experiences from the World Social Forum process itself:

Testimonies and Critiques Regarding Gender and the WSF Process

1. …even while trying to build another world based on principles of participatory democracy and social justice, internal contradictions remain in the WSF. One of the most notable are weaknesses in maintaining gender inclusiveness. The majority of participants in the WSF are women, but most of the presenters on panels are men, continuing the stereotype that men are the producers of knowledge. The raises the question of what the WSF will do to assure more participatory democracy in terms of gender balance? - Marc Becker, April 12, 2006 (http://www.yachana.org/writings/beautyqueens.html)

2. Other aspects of the forum were more problematic. "One huge issue at the WSF was gender dynamics," Nadja Millner-Larsen, a recent graduate from New York’s Bard College, said. "There was an enormous lack of women on the panels at the social forum. I attended this one panel on the anti globalization movement and at the end of it a lot of women stood up and said "how can we create another world when we don’t have healthy gender dynamics in these panels?"

"Some of the men said, ‘Okay, we should pay attention to this.’ But others on the panel had this age-old response that been going on in the left since the sixties. They said, well, classes aren’t equally represented, nor race, therefore you shouldn’t be so outraged by the underrepresentation of women."

"This is skirting around the issue," Millner-Larsen continued. "If a black person in a white audience asked why there aren’t black people on a panel, the speakers wouldn’t say, ‘Relax there aren’t any women either.’ Here we are thirty years later and we are still arguing class and gender against women…it’s shocking. To allow this unequal gender distribution to be sanctioned within the official forum obviously has this kind of trickle down effect in the youth camp."

In addition to hundreds of robberies and numerous fights in the Youth Camp, rapes were reported there as well. "There was a high level of violence in the Youth Camp, Millner-Larsen explained. I felt more scared there than I really have traveling anywhere else. I got the sense that being alone in the camp was a really dangerous thing." - Benjamin Dangl, commenting on the WSF in Porto Allegre (http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/177/63/)

3. However, it was felt that the women's movement still rests on the margins of the WSF. In his testimony, Candido Grzybowski, Sociologist, Director of IBASE, and member of the WSF organizing committee, states that "women were just 43 percent of WSF delegates, although they make up over 50 percent of the world's population! It is sad to acknowledge, but WSF was still limited in terms of its social female face". He continues: "In the WSF, I'm learning something fundamental, that will certainly change my role in the Forum and at IBASE. Women are a 'minority' created by ourselves within civil society. With respect to that, there is no point in blaming capitalism, neoliberalism, globalization, exclusionary states, etc. This is a major problem that is engendered, developed, and maintained in the culture of civil society itself." -(http://www.dawn.org.fj/publications/docs/cardosawsf.doc).

4. Trains are a good example. Seldom have I been so scared as when I took the train to the forum one morning and did not go on the women’s wagon. There was no space there, I thought – before discovering that the space given to me in a wagon full of men was a form of hell.

In this appalling, everyday situation women struggle to find space for themselves, and somehow they succeed. The WSF is the same; neither women nor the gender issue in general was better represented in the official programme this year as compared to previous years. The same men dominated the ‘star’ panels; some, who clearly think too highly of themselves, participated in several seminars at the same time. Who (to name just one) did not see Walden Bello deliver a speech and then say: “excuse me, I have to go”, and run off to the next seminar?

Many panels consisted entirely of men. Some trendy activists, who think that they are super-feminists because they know a bit of gender theory, agreed to sit on panels without a single woman. Everywhere you could see “homosocial” relations: men preferring to talk to men, men favouring men when organising a seminar or editing a book. Women being forgotten and given the same proportion in a space as Indian women will get in the train. All of this has been there since the forum process started and was still there in Mumbai – but somehow it was challenged and overtaken by women who decided to occupy more space than they had been given.

I’ve heard so many people say: “something must happen to this WSF process. It can’t go on like this.” But, this year, something did happen.
A “new” issue – women’s rights – has moved into the centre.

Many “old” problems remain. The approach to solving them may be through proposals that some will find uncomfortable. It’s like the women’s wagons. I’m sure that many would oppose the idea of separating men and women travelers. Well, before judging you should be a woman traveling in a train in India. The wagons “for everybody” consist only of men, who will harass and molest any woman who ventures aboard. It was women themselves who fought to have the women’s wagons.

If the WSF panels “for everybody” consist only of men, who talk about and analyse everything, and the women-only panels speak solely of women’s issues – and that continues regardless of how many think it’s wrong – then maybe we have to make rules. One rule we could make for the WSF is that all-male panels are allowed only to talk about men’s issues.

If people refuse to understand the obvious, perhaps we need to make rules until they do? I’m not suggesting that that would be a positive thing, but the success of the women this year will have an impact that will mark the forum process for more than just a few days in Mumbai.

But this World Social Forum (Mumbai 2004) should not primarily be remembered as an event where we started to make rules, but as a beautiful political festival dominated by women. According to gender research, women are perceived as “many” or “in majority” when we occupy 30% of a space. At this forum, women were approximately represented in accordance with our proportion of the world’s population: around 51%. I think that is why many observers perceived women to be everywhere at this forum. - America Vera Savala (http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4910&sectionID=1)

Prevailing Gender Dynamics Within the Eastern African Context

Eastern African Women have played and are playing a crucial role in planning and organizing for the upcoming WSF 2007 event. In the host country of Kenya for example, the only member from Kenya of the International Council is a woman; two of the four Kenyan representatives to the African Social Forum Council are Kenyan women. The main representative of the Ethiopian Social Forum to the ASF/WSF gatherings is a woman; in Tanzania at least five of the leading WSF organizers in that country are women; in Uganda almost half of the representatives to the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee are women.

At the inaugural WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee held in Nairobi from April 22nd to April 23rd 2006 half of the chairs of the plenary session were women. At the same meeting, 27.5% (22 out of 80) of the participants were women. Women are also very well-represented in the overall Organizing Committee itself. Prior to and following that pivotal meeting, FEMNET, one of the leading African women’s civil society organizations (and represented in 3 Commissions for WSF 2007) initiated a series of meetings to bring together women involved in the WSF process.

At the same time, out of the 7 Commissions of the WSF Organizing Committee, only 1 is convened by a woman despite the fact that women constitute nearly half of the membership in those commissions. In one of the key decision bodies - the Nairobi Local Committee - 2 of the 5 members are women. The WSF Nairobi 2007 Secretariat is still very much male-dominated. At the inaugural WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee women called for the setting up of a Women’s Commission - although this issue was never resolved or decided upon.

From the above it is clear that Eastern African women are right in the thick of things when it comes to planning, organizing and mobilizing for WSF Nairobi 2007. Simultaneously the process to the 2007 Nairobi event remains male driven and centred. One can safely assume that the testimonies and perspectives shared in the preceding section will find their equivalents within our regional context. Most of the population in the Eastern African region remains rural-based. Over half of that population is female. Yet the organizing and planning for Nairobi 2007 is centred in the major urban centres like Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar town, Mogadishu and Addis Ababa. This has direct implications when it comes to ensuring effective participation of ordinary Eastern African working class and peasant women in the planning and execution for WSF Nairobi 2007. Young adult women (not just in Eastern Africa) have been complaining that there is an assumption that “Youth” = “Young Male” thus marginalizing female youth who in our local context outnumber their male counterparts. One could cite other examples, but suffice to say that the issue of women remaining at the margins of the WSF process is a reality within Eastern Africa as well.

At the end of the day, this reality of women’s marginalization should not be an earth-shattering shock to anyone. The WSF process is a microcosm of concrete conditions in the world today. The gender dynamics within the World Social Forum are a reflection of the actually existing power relations between women and men all over the world.

Just confining ourselves to the Kenyan situation for a few minutes, it is not contested that the prevailing grinding poverty in this country has a greater impact on Kenyan women - even though women are the primary producers of food, the main engines in the unpaid household economy, the chief child care providers, the ones who bear the brunt of taking care of the elderly, the HIV infected and AIDS orphans. There are only a handful of female cabinet ministers and their assistants in the bloated Kenya government.

Every single day there are literally dozens of stories in the local print and electronic media of women being killed, raped, defiled, battered, brutalized and otherwise assaulted by their spouses, fathers, uncles, brothers, sons and other men in their immediate lives as well as total strangers who see females (from babies under a year old to grandmothers pushing a century in existence) as vulnerable, “weaker” targets for their violence prone male power trips.

Recently there was a huge national furor when a Kenyan woman MP introduced a bill to legislate against a huge array of sexual offences including marital rape. Male Kenyan MPs led the charge in ridiculing and rubbishing the Bill with one notorious MP quipping that African women mean “Yes” when they say “No” to uninvited sexual advances. The newspaper columns were full of commentaries and letters to editors from battalions and garrisons of Kenyan men feeling threatened in their bastions of male privilege and therefore unwilling and/or unable to appreciate the terror of rising rape incidents and manifestations of violence against Kenyan women; radio stations were bombarded with phone- calls and mobile text messages from across the country as the male backlash against the Njoki Ndung’u Sexual Offences Bill intensified with gusto.

Notwithstanding the fact that sections of the bill were poorly drafted (as in the startling shifting of the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused) Kenyan male MPs managed to weed out many of the path-breaking recommendations of the bill. For instance, these male MPs and their non-parliamentary brothers in arms across the country considered it a huge “triumph” when the clause criminalizing marital rape was excised from the final, hugely diluted Act of Parliament.

A couple months ago this writer was horrified at the way the crowd at a certain Mombasa night club approvingly cheered when a stand up comic gleefully made fun of a Kenyan woman who had been viciously gang-raped just the previous week. Listening to the sports commentaries on the radio or browsing through certain weekly columns by male writers, it is evident that sexism and misogyny in Kenya cuts across age, class, tribe, race, religion, creed, urban/rural divides and other cleavages in society.

One should therefore not be surprised to see manifestations of these unequal power dynamics between men and women in the actual WSF process itself. If anything, the situation as far as the planning and organizing for Nairobi 2007 seems to reflect a reality that stands a cut above the day to day interactions between men and women in Kenya and the rest of the Eastern African region.

Towards WSF Nairobi 2007: Learning from Past WSF Gender Pitfalls

When one looks at the gender dynamics informing the WSF 2007 process, one is filled with optimism and left brimming with hope. This despite the parlous panorama painted in the preceding section; this despite the unflattering global audit of power relations between women and men around the world.

Why then the optimism? From which spring gushes the hope?

The optimism comes after taking stock of how women around the globe involved in the WSF process have been successfully challenging the bastions and assumptions of male privilege; the optimism is inspired by the fact that an increasing number of men in the WSF family are self-critically re-examining their own roles and seeing how these roles keep women marginalized. The hope emanates from Dennis Brutus’ (a WSF veteran in his own right) poetically dubbed “stubborn hope”: the stubborn hope of the oppressed and marginalized to reclaim centre stage through determined collective struggles. On the Eastern African plane, the optimism and hope comes from the presence of many strong feminists who have helped to build the Social Forums in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia and a core of progressive men who realized early in the process that the active participation of women and interrogating assumptions of male domination and female marginalization are key indicators of the growth and maturity of the Social Forums in this part of Africa.

Despite these plaudits, the path ahead is rocky; it is hilly and it is thorny.

Speaking as a man anxious to contribute towards a reconfiguration of this lopsided gender equation, I strongly feel that it is about time Eastern African men started a deeper process of questioning ourselves.

One of the places to begin this reflection and rectification has to do with the question of taking up space. One of the mantras of the World Social Forum is for people to claim their space. But in doing so, as men, suck up all the oxygen? Do we stifle others? Do we silence others? Do we literally take up TOO MUCH space? How often do we speak? How long do we speak? In speaking often and loudly, do we perhaps silence others - especially our sister comrades in struggle for a better, more alternative world?

When women speak, do we men listen? How often do we fidget, start side conversations with “our brothers” or interrupt our sisters when they are speaking? When women are through with their presentations do we as men acknowledge what they are saying or were we waiting for OUR chance to speak without bothering to switch on our active listening ears? Do we question the socially determined gender roles at such meetings (as in who takes the minutes, prepares the tea and cleans up)?

It is not once when I have heard concerns raised by women in the WSF process dismissed by otherwise very progressive men as yet one more instance of the often derided “Western bourgeois feminist” contagion - a charge that often silences even the most articulate of African women.

By making that anti-feminist charge, even some of the most overtly “progressive, radical, anti-imperialist ” Eastern African men are often guilty of consciously or unconsciously participating in a covertly sexist attempt to belittle the concerns and demands of women.

The F-word – FEMINISM - is surprisingly dreaded even by dyed in the wool “socialists” “Pan Africanists” and self-declared “revolutionaries” - which is a pity because in my opinion one CANNOT be a socialist, a Pan Africanist or a self-declared revolutionary and hold as anathema the straightforward credo of feminism: equality between women and men.

Sadly, sometimes the most implacable foes of the feminist idea in the Eastern African region are some African WOMEN who in a weird sense of bonding with their African BROTHERS rush to take up cudgels against their OWN SISTERS IN STRUGGLE who insist on pointing out gaps and flaws in the gender dynamics of a given process like the WSF.

Being part of the WSF 2007 Secretariat I am confronted with the practical task of practicing what I preach.

In other words, what concretely can Eastern African men involved in the WSF process do in re-gendering the planning process in order to engender more equal and equitable relations between women and men?

One take off point I believe, is in more and more Eastern African MEN supporting the calls of sisters like Roselynn Musa of FEMNET who have called for the establishment of a Women’s Commission as one of the sub-structures of the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee. The arguments I have heard AGAINST the notion of a Women’s Commission with regards that women are represented in ALL of the Commissions and that gender is a cross-cutting concern in the whole planning process is an argument that can NOT be sustained upon further reflection. Youth too, are represented across the board and youth issues are cross-cutting as well. Yet, there is in fact not just a Youth Commission but a whole process of setting up and running a Youth Camp.

Another place to begin taking action is in devising strategies, policies, instruments and structures that will help reduce the level of violence against women attending the WSF event in Nairobi next year. I am zeroing in on the incidents of rape at past WSF events and how we can all work together to turn around this situation. We must go beyond treating Rape as a law and order problem that can be ameliorated by deploying more cops to the WSF site. To do so is to betray an insufficient understanding about the complexity of rape and other instances of violence against women because it reduces the issue to a one –dimensional phenomena of women being accosted and ambushed by “strange men” prowling the Kenyatta International Conference Centre and Uhuru Park for foreign and local female victims.

If we were to adopt this blinkered approach for next year’s WSF event, we would be letting off the hook other potential and actual assailants of WSF- attending women. I am talking about the scientifically proven and documented reality that more often than not, women are raped and assaulted by men they know, men they work with, men they are familiar with. How do women guard against fellow WSF male participants or even fellow delegates from the same organization and the same country. Rape is the extreme, but how about under-reported cases of sexual harassment, unwarranted touching and groping, offensive sexist jokes and exposure to pornography?

These are not problems that are easily amenable to mechanical legislation or a reductionist resort to more police presence - forgetting that all over the world police forces are often implicated in rapes and other forms of violence and harassment against women.

I suggest that in combating rape and other manifestations of violence against women during the next edition of the WSF scheduled for Nairobi in January 2007, men and women can work together, in first sensitizing ALL delegates about rape and violence against women as a manifestation of sexism, misogyny and patriarchy - concepts that are totally alien to the WSF Charter.

Beyond the sensitization should be put in place enforceable sanctions for people who are caught in perpetrating these outrages. In addition to this, the Program, Methodology and Content Commission can send out a specific call for workshops, panels, seminars and teach-ins that address questions of rape, sexual harassment and violence against women. The Logistics Commission could set up banners, stickers, brochures, leaflets and banners campaigning against rape and sexual harassment within and among the WSF delegates.

The Youth Commission could organize an orientation session with the same themes heavily represented. The Culture Commission can organize screenings or performances that highlight the experiences of rape survivors and women who have been through wife battery and similar forms of violence.

The Social Mobilization Commission can carry out a campaign to identify and recruit women and men who have worked in rape crisis centres and counseled victims of violence so as to set up such centres within the sites of WSF Nairobi 2007. The Media and Publicity Commission can come up with special pamphlets or produce short video documentaries campaigning against rape and violence against women.

The Resource Mobilization Commission can try and mobilize funds to recruit and train in house security organized to deal with incidents of rape and violence against women. Perhaps there should be special provisions for women who are survivors of rape and sexual violence to get housing and accommodation that lowers their fears of a repeat occurrence - by opting for billeting (solidarity accommodation) with other women, living in secure female only hostels etc. And yes, deploying more police and other regular security personnel can help reduce the number of rapes and incidents of violence against women during the WSF event next year.

In doing all this, the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee should and must work with organizations like the Coalition on Violence Against Women, FEMNET, FIDA, Equality Now, AWEPON, Sahiba Sisters Foundation, TAMWA, Five Centuries Theatre Group, WIPPET, ENDA-Ethiopia, Kenya Human Rights Commission, OXFAM, Action Aid, MS Kenya, Heinrich Boll Foundation and other civil society bodies that have a proven track record in these areas.

What else can Eastern African men do in terms of changing the gender dynamics of the WSF process for the better?

Perhaps I will pause here.

I fervently urge everyone reading this to get hold of Roselynn Musa’s presentation on the same subject during the recently convened Heinrich Boll Foundation supported forum on “Gendering the WSF Process” held at the Ufungumano House on Thursday, May 25, 2006.

* This paper was first presented at a public forum on “Gendering the WSF Process” held at Ufungamano House in Nairobi on Thursday, May 25, 2006 and financially supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. Onyango Oloo is the National Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum

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Onyango Oloo, a Kenyan political activist and ex political prisoner, argues that there is a deepening crisis of legitimacy for the Kenyan government. The implication of key government officials in grand corruption has struck yet another nail in the coffin of the shattered and battered National Rainbow Coalition. Oloo sees corruption as driven by two factors; internally by a lack of democratic institutions, structures and culture and externally as one of the by-products of the disastrous neo-liberal policies imposed by the West and its institutions.

As I write these lines, Kenya is being rocked hard by the ramifications of the dossier unleashed from the United Kingdom by John Githongo, the country’s former anti-corruption czar. Githongo has since fled the country after uncovering the deep involvement of key Kibaki insiders in one of Kenya’s most notorious scandals - the Anglo-Leasing Affair.

Earlier in the week, the President appeared on live television to inform his compatriots that Kiraitu Murungi, the Energy minister and Prof. George Saitoti, the Education minister had “stepped aside” to allow for unimpeded investigations of the twin graft scandals of Anglo-Leasing and Goldenberg.

Some observers believe that this dramatic announcement may have been a desperate, even deft move to stave off, pre-empt or undercut the looming mass actions announced by a consortium of 76 civil society organizations and to scuttle a planned meeting of parliamentarians ratcheting up the pressure for the re opening of the National Assembly to allow members of Parliament to debate the corruption scandals.

Whatever the case, these latest resignations - coming hot on the heels of the firing of State House official and Kibaki right hand man Alfred Getonga, the resignation of long-time Presidential confidant and former Finance minister David Mwiraria and the dropping of former cabinet minister Dr. Chris Murungaru in the post-referendum reshuffle last year -have if anything deepened the crisis of legitimacy for the Kenyan government and struck another nail into the coffin of the shattered and battered National Rainbow Coalition which rode to power on a landslide victory, with a mandate to fight graft and deliver a new democratic constitution.

Many have hailed John Githongo as Kenya’s knight in shining armor and have lauded the critical, sometimes strident opinion pieces of former British envoy Sir Edward Clay. The Kenyan media, especially the Nation Media Group, has been giving itself a pat on the back, preening in self-congratulation about their role in publicizing and exposing the scandal.

Indeed, the feistiness of the Kenyan press is ironically one key indicator of how much democratic space has opened up since the ascendancy of the Kibaki-led NARC regime. Truth be said, the courage of the Kenyan media and the almost unfettered expressions of critical views by ordinary Kenyans has happened in spite of, rather than because of the NARC government. Indeed, many are the times when demonstrators have been shot dead in cold blood, clubbed senseless, tear gassed, arrested and vilified by leading politicians allied to the ruling elite. The freedom of the press in Kenya is a direct by product of the burgeoning democratic struggles within the country over the last fifteen years or so.

In as much as the ongoing campaign against corruption in Kenya has highlighted the need for clean, transparent and accountable governance, it also throws up several convenient smokescreens when it comes to unraveling the enabling environment for grand graft in Kenya.

Many Nairobi-based pundits and observers have focused on the personal greed, moral foibles and even psychological make up of the leading villains. A few have probed the links to the need for the NAK faction to have a war chest to perpetuate itself in power come the next presidential elections in 2007.

Laudable as these insights are, I am of the opinion that they do gloss over two fundamental factors - one internal and the other external that seem to fuel the waves of corruption scandals that have bedeviled Kenya for decades.

The internal factor has to do with the refusal of successive ruling cliques to take the lead in democratizing the structures of power - especially in the economic sphere. In the particular case of the Kibaki regime, there is a justifiable national ire at the NARC government because it is the one formation that rode to power with a pledge and a popular mandate to deliver a new democratic constitution within its first one hundred days in power.

The fact that a national constitutional conference concluded its deliberations by ratifying and proclaiming a new draft constitution that was effectively trashed, thrashed and shelved sent strong signals that the parvenu rulers - especially in the NAK faction fronted by the President himself - having tasted what KANU had enjoyed for 39 years were quite reluctant to forego the perks of power - like the latitude given for ministers and government insiders to circumvent procurement and conflict of interest policies for self-enrichment. Therefore the adamant refusal by the ruling clique to acquiesce to the national demand for a new constitutional dispensation was a direct factor that led to the rot of institutional safeguards against corrupt practices. Indeed the injection of political agendas directly propelled the Anglo-Leasing scandal - with disclosures that one of the motivating factors that drove key Kibaki insiders to loot state coffers in collusion with shady hoodlum business types was to stuff a war chest full of loot that NAK would use to fight its electoral rivals in 2007.

The external factor is best described in the following excerpt from Sue Hawley in a July 2000 publication by the Corner House titled “Exporting Corruption: Privatization, Multinationals and Bribery”:

“The growth of corruption across the globe is largely the result of rapid privatization of public enterprises, along with reforms to downsize and undervalue civil services, pushed on developing countries by the World Bank, the IMF and western governments supporting their transnational corporations…” (http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/launder/general/2001/0705sng.htm)

If we accept the argument that I am advancing - namely that corruption is driven internally by lack of democratic institutions, structures and a culture that militates and acts as a check on abuse of power by political barons and other state-connected thieves and that it is one of the by-products of the disastrous neo-liberal policies imposed by the West and her institutions like the IMF on ‘Third World’ countries like Kenya, then it follows that corruption is a fundamentally political problem rooted firmly within certain local and global ideological constructs and parameters.

To put it more colloquially, graft is a manifestation of a rotten neo-colonial regime gutting the country at the behest of the imperialist powers. This means that at an ideological level, a consistent fight against corruption in societies like Kenya has to be embedded in a broader struggle for national democracy and against imperialist neo-liberal policies and machinations.

That is why I find it bizarre to see so many of my Kenyan compatriots look to places like the UK and individuals like Sir Edward Clay for mentorship and support in the war on corruption.

It is surreal to find the sleaze engulfed states like the United States and the United Kingdom - with their ENRONs, Haliburtons and so on - presume to act as the 21st Century champions against graft and other economic crimes and go further not only to lecture and harangue, but to sanction and punish states and governments that they consider “corrupt”. These mark you, are the very states which consciously assisted pariah governments in Africa like Ian Smith’s illegal regime in the so called “Rhodesia” and the racist cabal in the apartheid South Africa circumvent international censure and sanctions for their repressive and corrupt practices in years gone by. These are the same governments which turn a blind eye to the erection of the apartheid wall in Israel and the series of scandals implicating the now ailing Ariel Sharon.

We must therefore openly question the motivations and ideological intentions of these imperialist powers when they jump into the fray in battling corruption in places like Kenya and so on.

This is not to say that we have swallowed the demagogic populist appeals of discredited Kenyan ministers caught in a web of deceit who suddenly discover their mythical anti-imperialist credentials only when they are caught with their pants down. It is so easy to pierce through their threadbare rhetorical flourishes - especially when these ministers are confronted with compromising facts and startling admissions on tape - even when these surreptitious recordings are executed in less than ethical fashion.

By interrogating the motives of the Western powers in “fighting” graft in countries like Kenya, we are also putting a question mark on the local actors who, like the embedded journalists during the Iraqi invasion seem to be snuggling in bed with the Sir Edward Clays of this world.

One litmus test that would indicate whether these actors are driven by purely patriotic motives rather than being proxies and conduits for nefarious imperialist - even regime change agendas - can be gleaned by the extent that these local players participate in national democratic struggles and oppose neo-liberal imperialist policies.

We are aware that the anti-corruption campaign the world over has provided a convenient platform for many a would be imperialist friendly Presidential aspirant in this or that neo-colonial outpost. Of course, the surest testing ground is the arena of mass struggles where progressive and democratic forces meet to know each other more, struggling for unity and clarity while pursuing concrete pro-people goals.

* Onyango Oloo is a Nairobi-based political activist and former political prisoner who is currently the National Co-coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum. He returned to Kenya in late October 2005 after an 18-year stint in exile where he lived in Toronto and Montreal, Canada. The views expressed are his personal opinions and do not in any way reflect the positions of the Kenya Social Forum - which in the spirit of the World Social Forum process, does not in fact hold or express any political or ideological viewpoints as an entity.

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