The Gen Z and Millennials movement/struggle/uprising/revolution (GZMU) has caught the attention of the government, the opposition, religious organisations, corporate interests (both national and international), our political elite, and above all, the people of Kenya who have resisted a KANU dictatorship that turns 61 years old on 12 December this year. What has to be reiterated and glorified is the resistance to this dictatorship that is as old as the dictatorship itself. Links and continuities in this resistance can be historically traced.
Domination, oppression, exploitation, and gross inequalities in land and other resources have always been resisted in the quest for a planet that is free, just, peaceful, non-militaristic, non-sexist, gender-just, non-racist, non-ethnic, non-patriarchal, non-homophobic, ecologically safe, non-exploitative, equitable, and prosperous. The state of the planet reflects these struggles in all countries. Debates about which system will liberate the planet from the unsustainable and unacceptable status quo continue as the people interrogate the practice of both capitalist and socialist systems. Kenya has been involved in these debates since the colonial period. The debates continue.
Mass action for a transformative and democratic constitution for Kenya erupted on 3 May 1997 and continued, in twists and turns, until 20 October 1997 when it retreated. Nane Nane was one of the pivotal days of that mass action. There are lessons to be learnt from that year’s mass action year 27 years ago: divisive politics; the coming together of political parties under the Inter-Parliamentary Parties Group (IPPG) as yet another instance of the political handshakes that have taken place since independence; the solidarity of the social, economic, religious, and political elites – reinforced by foreign masters – to subvert the mass movement. The state’s machinery of violence targeted the mass action with killings, tear-gassing, and other acts of brutality. What are now called “criminals and goons” have always been a manifestation of the solidarity between state violence and the militias controlled by the elites. Yet the struggle for a transformative and democratic constitution continued and succeeded with the promulgation of a new constitution on 27 August 2010.
The GZMU is anchored in constitutionalism and the rule of law. The clarion calls and messages on the posters collectively justify the mass action, the exercise of the sovereign power of the Kenyan people as decreed in the Preamble of the constitution and in Articles 1, 2, 3, 10, among others. This sovereign power that has been delegated to the Executive, Parliament, and all state institutions is being withdrawn and exercised directly by the people. The constitution is not being overthrown as has happened in cases of military coups. What is being sought is to send home those who have abused the sovereign power delegated to them.
The abuses in question have impacted negatively on the material conditions of the people of Kenya. Issues of corruption, wastage of resources, gross inequalities in wealth, the non-realisation of the material interests and rights of the people as envisioned in the provisions of the constitution, and the denial of the participation of people in all matters that affect their material well-being have been clearly articulated.
The GZMU has been described as “tribeless, faceless, and leaderless”. It is a movement and an uprising of the people that has a definite agenda of social transformation and the development of an alternative political leadership that loves Kenyans, that does not kill our children and youth, and that does not steal and waste our resources. The GZMU leadership will emerge organically from the people’s movement and be enslaved by it. And this alternative political leadership has to be bold and patriotic in its relations with foreign interests. Why is it that our elites never seek the protection and the participation of the people of Kenya in all matters of national interest? Are not the commissions, bribes, and the enslavement of our elites by foreign interests the basis of the anti-people governance by the elites? The GZMU has made this connection and articulated it well in calls for the occupation of the IMF, the World Bank, the US embassy, and other institutions.
As our history of struggles for liberation shows, the GZMU’s experience will have its twists and turns but this time within a shorter period of time and with greater outcomes. The GZMU seems to be familiar with the links and continuities of the struggles of the past, what to glorify and what to vilify in equal measure. The GZMU is on the path of consolidating gains made while continuously removing the weaknesses that have in the past overlooked the politics of division and betrayal. The GZMU seems alert to the various interests, national and international, that will form barriers to its progress. And more significantly, the GZMU is aware that because of the links and continuities in our struggles, the quest to weaken the movement by casting it as being against the older generations must be resisted. The GZMU must be wary of those millennials within the current political factions that are bent on jumping on the movement’s bandwagon in order to derail and ultimately kill it. The GZMU must not be seen to reflect any similarities with the current elite in any of its activities. It must in every action reflect the New Kenya We Want to See Built. And that Kenya will necessarily reflect the kind of planet the global citizens want to see exist.
History has its lessons. Regimes that have killed children and the youth who resist enslavement and the denial of values of humanity never succeed – a great lesson from the youth-led Soweto uprising of 1976 against the brutality and inhumanity of the apartheid system.
Kenya’s history is no different. We resisted colonialism for 68 years. Independence was our uprising and revolution, a struggle that was to continue against the KANU dictatorship. Are the days of KANU’s dictatorship numbered? This should be the end of the twists and turns, however long it takes. An end that celebrates the links and continuities of our struggles, consolidating all gains, removing all weaknesses in a trajectory that guarantees the permanence, irreversibility and irrevocability of what is built.
From what I have observed and analysed of the GZMU, it seems to me that what I have shared here may joyfully amount to preaching to the choir. I am convinced that the GZMU have an agenda for this country.
