The strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya seems to have eased off. Schools have been re-opened. Inequalities and class divides, however, continue to sharpen and to deepen. Whereas private schools are, to a large extent, able to mitigate the restrictions of this pandemic, public schools are overcrowded. The public schools are crushed by these restrictions, resorting to extremely uncouth means to cope and disruptive learning environments. The government of the day has behaved like the proverbial ostrich, burying its head in the sand – this time in the sands of corona – or like the proverbial monkey: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Meanwhile, the so-called Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), a power play among the ruling elite, is being shoved down the throats of the citizenry. It’s the most urgent and priority concern in the minds of the ruling elite, not the basics of food, shelter, education, health care, security, jobs, freedoms, and other essentials to the suffering masses. These masses have been silenced, but they have not lost their voices. They are watching and observing these selfish power games. They are waiting. “You can fool some people all sometime, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” Bob Marley would sing.
There is hope in the scripts of resistance being woven on the horizon. Times are changing; change is on the way. The social movement of these times is unfolding, coalescing around the struggle to safeguard the constitution, known variously in Kiswahili as Tekeleza Katiba. The vistas of the emerging social movement in Kenya are explored in a reflection in this issue. The left is also uniting. But wait, what unity of the left, or rather, what’s left of the left? A reflection in this issue interrogates this. How are progressive artists positioning themselves in the struggle: is it for constitutionalism or revolution, or both? This dilemma is explored in an article in this issue. The margins of community struggles for ecological justice are also explored as sites of struggle in a reflection in this issue.
There is also poetry in this 4th issue of the publication as well as pictorial canvasses and much more. This issue in particular introduces a new series on the heroines and heroes in the struggles for freedoms and liberation in Kenya. Those simply known in Kiswahili as Mashujaa, our own version of Mashujaa: Those Kenyans who held and practiced, personally and collectively, patriotic values and ideals, and engaged in progressive struggles for a just, democratic and unified nation. This series is known as Mashujaa Heritage, focused on extolling the virtues, commitments and deeds bequeathed to generations by our departed Mashujaas. This issue will reflect on Moraa Ng’iti: Heroine of Abagusii anti- colonial resistance
Enjoy the read and as usual, share with us your feedback, bearing in mind that this publication is about connecting people’s struggles. Write a pitch of a struggle you would like to reflect on. We shall work with you to refine the reflection. No struggle is either too small or too big to be significant. All struggles matter as long they are struggling for just social order. “When spider webs unite,” goes an Ethiopian proverb, “they can tie up a lion.”
Ahsanteni sana
Njuki Githethwa
Managing Editor
