The campaign against a coal-fired plant in Lamu is a good example of how a small, voiceless community can be mobilised to fight powerful and influential forces intent on destroying the environment. RASNA WARAH explores key aspects of the campaign and the landmark ruling that has inspired environmentalists and social justice advocates worldwide.
Our elites should never be politically underestimated as they have a genius for lies, distractions, diversions, and divisions. They have mastered the art of manipulating the divisions of class, clan, gender, generation, religion, region, occupation, race, and, recently, even the English Premier League. Politics of division must be replaced by politics of humanity, national unity, and inclusion. Above all, we must breathe life into our constitution and our vision of how our politics is to be organised.
With nothing but political blunders and policy failures behind him, there is only one thing left that Uhuru Kenyatta can do for Kenya, and that is this. Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, please do us and yourself a big favour; you have neither the mandate nor the wherewithal to shape our political destiny. Just finish up and go.
RASNA WARAH argues that the 2019/2020 and other budgets prepared by the Jubilee government are essentially predatory and borrow heavily from the British colonialists’ playbook, which sought to enslave the indigenous population by taxing it. The tax regime is in essence in the service of foreign (previously Western, but now increasingly Chinese) capital and local elites.
Narendra Modi epitomises the kind of neo-fascist right-wing leadership that is sweeping across some parts of Europe, the United States, South America, Asia, and even Africa, where the likes of Donald Trump, Victor Orban, Benjamin Netanyahu, Rodrigo Duterte and Jair Bolsonaro are imposing intolerant, highly regressive policies that polarise populations and create false “them-versus-us” narratives.
Uhuru Kenyatta’s grand scheme, the Big Four manufacturing agenda, is predicated on the restoration of protectionism and economic controls. But as DAVID NDII argues import licensing and exchange controls - the old tools of the trade - are no longer available, hence the “out of the box” solutions of the Jubilee government.
The core issue in the Murungaru v Githongo case remains whether the revelations of the Anglo Leasing scandal – which was not just exposed in the Nation newspaper that published the Githongo Dossier in 2006, but was also extensively documented by the British journalist Michela Wrong in her book, It’s Our Turn to Eat were in the public interest.
Six years later, writes GABRIELLE LYNCH, little progress has been made on Kenya’s Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) despite on the gross injustices and abuses that the report outlines.
As long as cartels and cockroach ideas rule the roost, coffee farmers will continue to vote with their feet. Because farmers owe themselves an income, be it from bananas or avocados, it does not matter.
In his book, The Kenyan TJRC: An Outsider’s View from the Inside, Prof. Ronald C. Slye reveals the intrigues that intensified near the date of the TJRC report release in May 2013 and how various top State House mandarins sought to influence the contents of the report.
The economies may be growing, but because unemployment and underemployment are also rising, the incomes of those that are earning are supporting more people. People are not feeling the growth. Instead, they are feeling the financial burden of adult children who were expected to be contributing to family upkeep.
As I argued in Social Mobility and the Enclave Economy, today’s university graduate is a victim of a legacy of privilege of those halcyon days of matunda ya uhuru (fruits of independence) when it was an automatic ticket to high-status public sector jobs. Every graduate was automatically employed. What Kenyans seem not to appreciate is this status was not merited, and had no relationship whatsoever with the economic value of university graduates. It was a case of replacing a white with black privilege.