2025 has been a year of difficult tidings. This year we lost Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the titan of African literature. We lost Raila Odinga, the supremo of resistance politics in Kenya. We also lost David Mulwa, the great thespian and teacher. As the year came to a close, we lost writer Meja Mwangi. And as if to mock our collective tears, we further lost Mumbi Maina, a revolutionary thespian.
We have lost many other friends, family and comrades along the way. The words sang by Bob Marley in his song No Woman No Cry come to mind:
Good friends we have had, good friends we’ve lost along the way
In this great future you can’t forget your past
So dry your tears I say.
But it has also been a year in which a progressive united front for the left in Kenya has taken shape. Kenya Left Alliance (KLA), also known as Kenya Left, has been forged out of many years of attempts at organizing a leftist united front in Kenya. KLA brings together over 40 leftist political movements, organisations and individuals into a radical united front under the clarion call: Revolution Now! Land, Food and Liberation (Mapinduzi Sasa! Ardhi, Chakula na Ukombozi). KLA unites struggles for just social order in Kenya and globally based on four key pillars: Socialism, Anti-imperialism, Pan Africanism and Feminism. In the parlance of Kenyan politics, KLA fronts the alternative political leadership that Kenyans are yearning for. The road ahead for KLA is to build sites of resistance and struggle as liberated zones for class power and revolution. This will entail cultivating progressive leadership and constructing democratic and self–sustaining community structures through people’s assemblies. People’s assemblies ennoble the working class, including the peasants, workers and other proletariat groups to build emancipatory positions and bases that can confront and ultimately dismantle systems of exploitation and oppression. After all, it is the organized resistance of the people that forces concessions from the ruling-class, not merely habitual voting in bourgeoisie elections.
Difficulties still lie in opposition politics whose key faces and personalities are not any different from the status quo regime that Kenyans want to get rid of. People’s movements over the years and the “GenZ’s” uprising have so far produced presidential aspirants who are immersed in emancipatory politics, mainly Okoiti Omtata, Boniface Mwangi and Sungu Oyoo. They have also produced a host of other progressive aspirants at various levels of representation. As cautioned in a previous editorial of this publication, Guidepost for a revolution, true and genuine leaders of the people often emerge in the process of the struggle, not from messianic fantasies. These people’s aspirants are alive to the reality that elective politics in Kenya is usually driven by dirty money, politicised ethnicity and running mouths who can froth lies to a gullible public like angels.
These times, just like the unprecedented storming of Parliament on June 25th 2024 at the height of the “GenZs” uprising, calls for a departure and a rupture from the myopic politics of the status quo. The point is for the genuine and progressive aspirants not to play to the gallery of the mainstream media, but to build bases of liberation among the people. They need to walk with the people, not behind them, not so far ahead of them, but beside them in their daily struggles, to amplify marginalized voices, front radical positions and illuminate a clear and ideological road map ahead.
The times call for radical positions that would right unresolved social injustices since the country attained flag independence in 1963. The GenZs on the beat in the streets are stomping mightily not for cosmetic changes, but for a radical departure that would abolish the prevailing status quo. The masses are yearning for genuine, clear and committed voices they can trust to bank their hopes on. These voices have emerged and many others are still emerging, marshalled by years of organizing in people’s struggles and movements. These voices represent alternative leadership. The future of progressive politics in Kenya is therefore not as bleak as it seems to some. The struggle is being waged online, offline and in communities. People’s leaders will soon take over political power. Ukombozi Review will continue to journey with people’s struggles; amplifying, reflecting and connecting them whilst Kenya Left Alliance solidifies and grounds the struggle for liberation into a left united front towards radical and revolutionary transformation of the politics in this country.
Welcome to the combined issue of Ukombozi Review as we close the year 2025, the year of difficulties. As usual, share your feedback and contributions. Look through the submissions guidelines on this site. It explains that submissions can be in any form; articles, book reviews, conversations, poetry, short stories, drama, cartoons, photographs, music, songs and other forms of storytelling in any language or format, as long as they reflect people’s struggles in the pursuit of just social order and ideological Pan Africanism.
The revolution moves on!
Njuki Githethwa
Managing Editor
