The seismic Saba Saba event was the first serious organised challenge to repression through defiance in Kenya. However, thirty years on, many of the people who were at the forefront of the movement have died or have been accommodated by the rapacious state. Nonetheless, the struggle for people-centred democracy continues.
Despite various setbacks, devolution has produced tangible results and demonstrated that Kenyans are determined to have a form of governance that is responsive to people’s needs and desires. In many ways, devolution embodies the spirit of Saba Saba.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has had one unexpected effect in Tanzania: it has emboldened Zanzibaris’ relentless struggle for self-determination.
Many middle class Kenyans are converting their car boots into mini fruit and vegetable markets. In these times of coronavirus, car boot sales have become an adaptation mechanism: they give people an opportunity to earn some hard cash and maintain their sanity.
The Kenyatta family business, managed by one the president’s brothers, has sprawling interests across the Kenyan economy, and as Faull and Wafula reveal, the presidency has increased their stake in the economy.
After joining forces with William Ruto to win the 2013 and 2017 elections, President Uhuru Kenyatta now seems determined to ensure that his deputy does not ascend to the presidency in 2022. The breakdown of their alliance has all the hallmarks of betrayal, brinkmanship, deception, fraud and subterfuge.
When BLM demonstrators tore the bronze statue of the seventeenth century slave ship owner Edward Colston from its plinth in Bristol, they triggered a discussion on whether statues and monuments of those who helped Britain extend her colonial tentacles around the world should also be removed. Hopefully, this discussion will also lead Kenyans to review their monument landscape.
Science-based containment strategies, including nationwide surveys, significantly reduced COVID-19-related infections and fatalities in Uganda and Rwanda. In contrast, the Kenyan government turned the public health crisis into a “law and order” issue, while the leaders of Tanzania and Burundi went into denial mode.
The early Pentecostals rejected war, militarism, patriotic indoctrination, wage slavery and racism, believing that the love of Jesus had to supersede the love for nation-state, money, social class and whiteness. We must revive the passions of early Pentecostal leaders and examine Pentecostalism in fresh ways.
The recent news of evictions and mistreatment of African students in China during the COVID-19 pandemic is rooted in a history of violence and discrimination.
