Action Program: Forward to a Free and Socialist Kenya!
Economic Freedom and Political Power for the Workers and Oppressed through Socialist Revolution!
Issued by the Revolutionary Socialist League (Kenya) and the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), September 2019, https://redflagkenya.wordpress.com/ and www.thecommunists.net
Preface (September 2019)
It cannot be denied that decades of sham independence in Kenya have seen an entrenchment of the system of exploitation of the majority by the minority. The bulk of the resources of the country remain in the hands of greedy and corrupt personalities, as the rest of the population languishes in poverty.
The Kenyatta regime, in conjunction with the nonexistent opposition, led by Raila Odinga, works tirelessly to maintain itself at the top of Kenya's ruling elite, that occurring by means of dividing the Kenyan population on the basis of ethnic identity. All the while, unemployment and inequality have soared to unimaginable heights. The fight against ignorance, poverty and disease seems all but lost. Corruption among public officials is the order of the day. Our people are, on a daily basis, getting more and more oppressed, suppressed, repressed and depressed.
There can be no doubt that, in order for Kenyans to chart a practical way forward, they must reject the Kenyatta-Odinga ruling alliance, together with their companions, and usher in a new era of revolutionary change.
All power to the people!
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The working people of Kenya suffer a similar fate as all other oppressed people – in Africa and around the world. They face the brutal consequences of capitalist super-exploitation and imperialist oppression. This is why our fate is closely connected with global developments and why our liberation struggle is inextricably linked with the international struggle of the workers and oppressed.
While our country has formally achieved independence in 1963, only foreign corporations and a small minority of black capitalists and big land owners have benefited from this. While this elite grows richer and richer, the vast majority of the working people still suffer from poverty and misery. According to official numbers of the World Bank, at least 46% of the population live below the poverty line. The real figure is certainly higher. More than 39% of the population of working age is unemployed with an even higher number among the youth (53%)! Nearly two thirds of urban residents have no access to improved sanitation.
The workers, poor peasant and urban poor of Kenya are exploited by foreign corporation and the small domestic black capitalist class. More than 40% of Nairobi Stock Market and a similar share of the banking sector are in foreign hands. Land is mostly concentrated in a few hands. Three powerful political families are estimated to own more than 1 million acres of rural land, while at least 4 million rural Kenyan citizens are entirely landless and at least 11 million own less than 1 hectare.
Our country is a semi-colony – it is formally independent but in reality a pawn in the hands of the imperialist Great Powers, mainly the U.S., Europe and China. The Great Powers have a long history of exploitation and robbery of the human and natural resources of our continent. This robbery continues until today albeit in different form. Half of Kenya’s rising public debt is owed to external creditors. As a result 30%-50% of the annual export income has to be used for debt service.
African migrants, if they manage to get to imperialist Europe – despite all war ships and border fences – face racist discrimination and economic super-exploitation as cheap migrant labour.
Kenya’s participation in the occupation of Somalia – a war of aggression against the Somali people – reflects the role of the government as a reactionary minion in the service of the Great Powers.
Despite the delusively fairy story of the capitalist ideologists about the advantages of the market economy, poverty and exploitation are the grim reality of capitalism today – in Kenya, in Africa and around the world.
In can not be otherwise, as capitalism is a global system where a small minority of capitalists owns the economy and enriches itself by the labour of the vast majority. Their system is not superior but rather decaying. This is why the world economy experiences repeatedly severe crisis and stagnation.
The liberation of our people is not possible via small reforms and change of government. One can change the head of the government but the system dominated by small elite of foreign and domestic capitalists remains the same. The Kenyan working class and the oppressed masses can only liberate themselves if they overthrow the ruling class and expropriate the corporations and big landowners.
The workers and oppressed must take their fate in their own hands instead of putting their hopes in this or that politician. This is why we fight for an authentic workers and poor peasant government, based on popular councils and militias, which can open the road to a socialist future. Only a free and socialist Kenya – as part of the United Socialist States of Africa – can guarantee our people a future of welfare and peace!
Such a government will not come to power via parliamentary elections, backroom deals or a military coup d'etat. The workers and poor will rather take power via a mass popular uprising resulting in a socialist revolution.
More than five million wage labourers represent the core sector of the liberation forces. While they constitute the majority of the urban labourers there is also a significant minority of workers among the rural labourers.
While the working class represents the central class in the liberation struggle, its most important allies are the poor peasants and the urban poor. About 75% of the working people are employed in agriculture. Subsistence production accounts for almost half of the total agricultural production. In Nairobi nearly 2.6 million people – two third of the city’s population – live in informal settlements. The working class can only open the road to socialism if it makes the demands of the poor peasants and the urban poor part of its program.
Our liberation struggle is international by its nature. Since our enemies operate internationally, we must also join forces with our brothers and sisters in other countries inside and outside of Africa. Only as an international class are we able to fight back. Fighting for the liberation of all workers and oppressed will be the surest road of liberation of us!
Liberation will not happen automatically. We can only achieve it if we fight with a strong revolutionary party which unites the politically most advanced workers and youth. Such a party must be part of a Revolutionary World Party. The crucial task today is the construction of such a party – in Kenya and internationally.
This Action Program for Kenya is based on the analysis and strategy outlined in the RCIT’s “Manifesto for the Revolutionary Liberation of Black Africa”. We call all activists who share our programmatic outlook and who are prepared to dedicate their lives for the liberation struggle of the workers and oppressed to join us. Let us build together the Revolutionary Socialist League and the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency!
Free Kenya and the whole of Africa from capitalist super-exploitation and imperialist oppression!
We say: Kenya as well as the whole of Africa can not be free as long as our people are held hostage by imperialist Great Powers, multinational corporations, foreign settlers and the small domestic capitalist class. The working class and the oppressed must fight them so that they can finally expropriate them.
The Revolutionary Socialist League and the RCIT fight for:
* Expel all the Great Powers (US, China, EU, etc.)! Shut down the US and UK military bases in Kenya!
* Expropriate all the imperialist banks and corporations without compensation! For the nationalisation and centralization of all banks and the creation of one state bank operating on the basis of socialist guidelines!
* Cancel all debts! Down with the economic terrorist regime of the IMF and World Bank! No to all "free trade" treaties with the imperialist powers!
* Defeat the military intervention of the Great Powers and their local stooges!
* Force the old and new colonial powers to pay compensation for centuries of slavery, exploitation and oppression!
* Abolish all privileges for the settlers!
* Reject imperialist border controls! Open the borders! Raise the wages for migrants to the levels of domestic workers! Full equality of migrants! Stop the racial oppression of Black people in Europe, Latin America, US and other parts of the world! Stop the Islamophobic discrimination of Muslim migrants in Europe; No to all religious-based persecution of minorities!
Jobs and Education for all! Nationalise the economy under the control of the workers and poor peasants!
We support every struggle, as limited as it might be, for the improvement of the living conditions of the workers and poor peasants. However, we are aware that no sustainable rising of our living standard is possible as long as industry and banks remain in the hands of foreign and domestic corporations and the land in the hands of a few big landowners.
This is why the Revolutionary Socialist League and the RCIT fight for:
* Jobs for all and higher wages! For safe and secure job! For a public employment programs to expand infrastructure, housing, education, health care, etc., financed by massive taxing of the rich!
* Nationalization of all big corporations, mines and banks under control of the workers!
* Nationalization of large estates so that the poor peasants can decide how to best utilize the land!
* Raising women’s wages to the level of their class brothers! For a popular campaign to stop violence against women!
* Jobs and education for all youth! Equal wages! Abolish child labour!
* Free health system for all, financed by a massive taxing of the rich!
* The right to decent food, housing and social protection for all!
No to the war of aggression against the Somali people! Immediate withdrawal of Kenya’s troops!
The Kenyatta regime has led our country to join the imperialist occupation of Somalia – the so-called “African Union Mission to Somalia” (AMISOM) with more than 20,000 troops. We denounce this aggression as an act national oppression against the Somali people in the service of the imperialist Great Powers. While we don’t give political support to the petty-bourgeois Islamist Al-Shabaab militia, we support the struggle of the Somali people against this reactionary foreign occupation. We demand the immediate withdrawal of all Kenyan troops from Somalia!
* Immediate withdrawal of Kenyan troops from Somalia!
* Support the resistance against the imperialist occupiers and their local henchmen!
Defend Democratic Rights! Down With the Ruling Elite!
We strongly denounce the ruling elite in Kenya, who have been in control of the instruments of governing the state, and who have had a long record of collaboration with the imperialist powers. The ruling elite are completely in bed with the Western imperialist powers as well as the Chinese. They are mere stooges of the global exploitative system, and serve as agents of international monopoly capital.
It is clear that the interests of the ruling elite in Kenya are completely antagonistic to the interests of the people. Their interests are aligned to those of the ruling classes of the North, whom they serve.
The central task of our people, therefore, remains to build an independent Workers' Party based on a revolutionary action program.
The Revolutionary Socialist League and the RCIT fight for:
* For the freedom of speech and assembly!
* Defend the right to strike and demonstrate!
* For the freedom of political and union organization, as well as the freedom to make use of all communication and information media!
* No discrimination of ethnic or religious minorities!
* For the right to elect and recall all public officeholders!
* Access to human rights, including political rights for prisoners!
* All state officials and their actions – especially police, army, intelligence, administration, legal, enterprise directors, etc. – must be monitored by workers’ and popular councils!
* For a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly!
* Down with the Kenyatta regime!
* For a Government of Workers and Poor Peasants! For a Socialist Revolution!
* Long live a free and socialist Kenya!
* Long live the United Socialist States of Africa!
Organize the Workers and Oppressed for the Mass Struggle!
We know from our history, that the workers and oppressed can not trust the promises of corrupt politicians. They must fight for their rights by themselves. The methods of fighting are mass mobilisations on the streets, in workplaces and in schools and universities. We fight for our rights by using all forms of mass struggle dictated by concrete circumstances. In the current situation such methods will primarily be mass demonstrations, strikes and general strikes, occupations, etc.
As revolutionaries we call in all struggles for the formation of action committees of workers, youth and the popular masses in workplaces, neighbourhoods, villages, schools and universities. Furthermore, revolutionaries call for the formation of self-defence units in order to defend strikers, demonstrators, migrants and refugees against the violence perpetrated by police and fascists.
We do not ignore existing mass organizations like trade unions, student unions or peasants’ organizations. But we are aware that they are often dominated by corrupt bureaucrats and careerists. We therefore advocate the formation of revolutionary factions and rank and file opposition movements inside these mass organizations in order to advance the struggle for democratisation of these organizations.
No future without socialism! No socialism without a revolution! No revolution without a revolutionary party!
Long Live the Revolution! Aluta Continua!
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For the RCIT’s analysis and strategy for the African liberation struggle, we refer readers to our numerous articles and documents which can be accessed at a special section of our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/. In particular we refer to our programmatic document:
Manifesto for the Revolutionary Liberation of Black Africa
Economic Freedom and Political Power for the Workers and Oppressed through Socialist Revolution!
Document of the 2nd Congress of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) in Lusaka (Zambia), November 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/manifesto-for-the-revolutionary-liberation-of-black-africa/