Guerrilla History - Booker Omole of the Communist Party of Kenya - History and Class Analysis of Kenyan Elections Dispatch

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

In this tremendous conversation, we talk with Comrade Booker Omole of the Communist Party of Kenya for the history and class analysis of the recent elections in Kenya.  An absolutely fascinating and enlightening discussion, we could not hope for a better guest than Comrade Booker! Booker Omole is the National Vice Chairperson and National Organizing Secretary of the Communist Party of Kenya.  He can be found on Twitter @BookerBiro. Support the Communist Party of Kenya!  You can contribute to their fundraising drive on PayPal.  You can follow them on Twitter @CommunistsKe or on Facebook HERE Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory  We also have a new (free!) newsletter you can sign up for!

You remember Den Bamboo? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm your host, Henry Huckmacki, joined as usual by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queens University in Ontario, Canada.

Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm really well, Henry. It's great to be with you. Absolutely. It's always nice to see you. And also joined by Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett, how are you? I just saw an episode of RevLeft come out today, and I can say today, because we'll be releasing this episode today, on the French Revolution, and I'm very excited to listen to that. Yeah, I'm doing really good, and I'm really proud of that episode. We just released on the French Revolution. It's over two hours, so if you're interested, and you want a uniquely communist spin

on that fundamentally bourgeois revolution, check out the French Revolution episode on Revelle. Yeah, unfortunately, it only came out like 20. minutes before we hit record, so I haven't been able to listen yet, but I am very excited to do so. I'm also very excited to speak to our guests today. Our guest is Comrade Booker Amole from the Communist Party of Kenya. He's a national vice chairperson and national organizing secretary of the Communist Party of Kenya. And today we'll be talking about the recent elections in Kenya. Hello, Comrade Booker. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thank you very much, Comrade. And it's also a pleasure.

to be in the midst of comrades, you know, every time we're in Kenya here, normally the corporate media is quite hostile, but we are glad that, you know, people like you are getting the message out to not just to the Kenyan working class, but the global working class. Absolutely. So it will be interesting to help. We're very happy to be able to bring the message from you and the Communist Party of Kenya to our primarily global North audience,

hopefully we'll be expanding more to a more, you know, global North and global self audience very soon. Adnan, why don't I turn this over to you now to get the conversation underway? Again, listeners, we're going to be talking about the recent elections that just took place in Kenya. Yeah, thanks so much, Comrade Booker. You know, our listeners are obviously going to be very interested to hear about your analysis of the recent elections, but they may not know that much about the recent political history of Kenya. I'm wondering, they may know one thing, which is that there have been a lot of disputed elections

and conflicts around the results of them. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit just by way of brief background about the recent political history of Kenya, these previous elections that have brought us to this position now. Yeah, thank you very much. In my opinion, I think it's important for our listeners to understand that we can group the Kenyan struggles in probably three stages. And we had the pre-independence and then post-independence.

And all of them are characterized by the colonial and neocolonial system. And that also help us to understand the history of our electoral politics, because then we will see a one-party political system that was dominated by mainly dictator MOI for 27 years. And then after that, there is introduction of multi-partism. But we must realize also that the introduction of multi-partism was only multi-partism for capitalist political parties. So it basically means it was a dictatorship of Bujua political parties. Because at that time, then there was elections only within the Kano government. And it was called the Lulongo system. That means you're lying behind your preferred candidate.

That's how it started. But the country's Bujua legality only legalized a political ideology which was, you know, capitalism. So that means communism was literally banned. There was seditious laws to do it. So that is when we can see that if you want to understand our electoral politics, that's the far we have come from. But I also want to say that the opening of the democratic space or the civic space

has been a product of the struggle of many people. In fact, we can only say that the Communist Party of Kenya at the moment, no single individual can claim ownership of the Communist Party of Kenya because it is a product of the struggle. It is a product of several poor and the working class people that have struggled to open this democratic space that now we can participate even in the Bujua electoral processes.

So after the sham independence, the power went to a retrogressive nationalists. That means the British government were quite careful that when they were defeated by the Mao, as they call it, or the land defense force, they opted for a negotiated independence. And that negotiated independence was basically to install a puppet government. And in that way, they then started to massacre the progressives

and then negotiate for a progressive nationalist. And that is where we have the founding father of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, who in barely one week into the office, he already had grabbed, you know, quite a bit of land and, you know, signed good, you know, good deals for the British colonizers. So in the Communist Party of Kenya, we say that's sham independence. We never did get real independence. So after that, of course, John O'Keynata ruled us with an iron fist and entrenched the neo-colonial system.

It was actually a puppet of the British government at that time. And then we went to the next stage because he died when he was in the office. So we had dictator Moyi taking after him to perfect his legacy. And probably it's also good to connect that this freedom to challenge electoral processes outcomes is a reason thing. So because the Kenyans were never allowed to challenge any election outcomes. So when they got a breather after the promulgation of the 2010 constitution, then we can see a lot of judicial activism to try and challenge our electoral processes. But so after Moy took political power, he was basically the darling of the United States,

you know, and he embraced the foreign policy of the United States. States and he even went ahead and declared Kenya a one-party state system and even when the pressure came from below to introduce multi-partism we only got you know at this service it was multi-partism for a few bourgeois political parties but that went on and the Kenyan people started to resist, you know, the dictatorship, Moe. And that was to try and, you know, defend that the electoral processes should be democratic and they should actually be open and fair. So that's how the struggle started.

But please know that there is a very important event that happened in 1982 when Moy was just farming. So there was an attempting coup by. some progressives, you know, by, but that coup, being that it was, you know, it was not revolutionary organized, only a few progressives and nationalists supported by the Kenya army at that time. That coup was defeated. So the result was horrendous because the people that were organizing against the Moir regime, there was a crackdown against their families. There were people that, you know, were condemned to joblessness in their entire life. There were people who were, you know, incarcerated without even being tried.

So it was the darkest year in our history, because for about five years, Moe had, you know, a free playing field to then use the state machinery to, you know, to oppress and even deregister any progressive, you know, voices in our country. Now, at that time, when the communist literature were declared seditious and were burned in our country, most progressives and communists went to organize covertly. They went underground to organize. And that history can be found if you read two main underground organizations that were mainly the Mwarkena movement and the DTIM movement.

Most of them were started within the university. and were students led. Now, to take you back to when Moy was basically, after the introduction of multi-partism, Moy was voted out through elections in 2002, after mass demonstrations, and many people died in the streets of Nairobi, fighting against dictatorship, Moy.

So Moy left, he humiliated in 2018, But he actually promised the Kenyan people that Moism will dominate us forever. You know, that's how he made it known. And for sure, you will see some similarities in Moism in our electoral processes. Because when he was exiting, he nominated one of the people who was the son of Jomo Kenyatta. And that was Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of our, you know, founding father, who was actually a reactionary nationalist. And that, the fact that he nominated him, the masses were angry. So they voted out Uhuru, Kenyata, and they voted out Moy, and then elected one of the long-serving opposition leaders who was Muay Kibaki in 2002.

But then that was an anti-climates for the actually progressives, because everybody who was an activist joined Kibaki government. You know, the revolutionaries joint Kibaki government. The reform is joint Kibaki government, and they all were able to be treated well and given government positions. So it was like for a moment, revolution had taken place in Kenya because dictator Moe had already exited the sin. But alas, that was just a way to defeat any organization.

So Muayki-Baki came and then people started to realize, no, no, no, no. The problem was not just Moe. Maybe the problem is the Manchester Constitution, the new colonial constitution that we inherited from the British. So then the struggle for intensification of constitutional review started in 2002 and that went up to 2007 and up to 2010 again during that period there were mass demonstrations in major cities in Kenya and so many of our comrades lost their life

until their new constitution was forced upon the ruling class on 2010 and that's how we succeeded in terms of having a space now to conduct our our elections free and fair. After Mojikibaki, of course, the election disputes is not progressive. I think that is something that is, it's important for us to not. Remember this Bujua, you know, plus they sign deals with each other and then they start to do each other. They don't trust each other. So in 2007, Raela Mollodinga and Maki Bakki signed a deal. They are all from the bourgeois, the working class, the national bourgeoisie. In fact, Comradeo Bujuas, to be specific.

But then they say they're going to share government. But when Mwai Kibaki got into government, no, no, no, he did his own things and annoyed Raella Molodinga. So Raela come to the next election, which was 2007, what did he do? he chalenged Muayikibaki, not based on any principles, but based on, you know, a deal gone sour, because they had signed some deal, and now Maki Bakke was not playing ball. And just like we always say that there is no point of signing deal with the bourgeoisie. They will just turn, you know, they just take it as a piece of paper and throw it away. And they do it to each other as well.

So in 2007, Raela Molojenga joined now the current president-elect Ruta to oppose Mwai Kibaki. And most of that politics was ethnically mobilized. Remember, Raela, fermenting the Lua Nation, Ruta fermenting the Kalenjin Nation, and Kibaki fermenting the Kikuyu Nation, the three big tribes in our country. So then they start to rig election. even before the votes are counted. So they are competing in terms of breaking elections. And then when one of them is rigged out,

then they start accusing each other, you rig me out, and then they proceed to court because the constitution actually provides that exit. So that is what has been happening. And remember that all these characters that have been buying for presidents are actually, you know, trained by more dictator regime.

In fact, the last person that joined the Kanu at that time, which was Moy, Moy's party, was Rahila Moldinga, that now is crying that the election has been rigged. But he was appointed by dictator Mouye to be one of the leaders in Kanu, and Mew promised to reward him as the president of Kenya. But then Mui turned that out. The same person that now is the president-elect,

Mr. Ruto, was actually in the, an infamous, brutal youth wing of carnage dictatorship that is unpopularly known in our country as YK-92. So you can see that the people that have been in the electoral processes are actually the same people that from the previous regime. But how is it that, how is that possible? Because, you know, Moy took the money from the personal coffers, and give this money to a small minority.

And your election is about money. So are you able to hire 10 planes to campaign for you? Are you able to pay? Are you able to bribe voters? Are you able to buy media space? So the people with the money in this country is a minority that basically benefited during the Moid dictatorship by helping themselves from the public coffers.

That money has been cleaned. They have been multiplied, In Kenyatta's regime, even the land, since they are not able to predict the future of our country, and there have been a lot of demonstrations on landlessness, then you will realize that they have been selling the land to the state to try and clean it and remove the money out of the country. So that I could say that that is the history of electoral politics, and the open democratic space happened after the promulgation of the 2010 constitution, but we cannot say that they are actually progressives. Maybe the last comment will be, why did CPK participate in this particular election? Yeah, I actually want to jump in on this because, first of all, fantastic overview. Thank you very much for that, Comrade Booker. That was so helpful.

Yes, really excellent. But as you mentioned, why did CPK take part in this election? I think it's very important that the listeners understand this next point, which is that CPK Communist Party of Kenya is a Marxist-Leninist party and that they take a very, you know, straight ahead stance towards elections, even bourgeois elections. And I first want to recommend the listeners to go back to the episode that we did with August Nymphs on the electoral theory and strategy of Marx and Lenin that came out just over a year ago at this point.

But do go back in our feed and listen to that. It was a really great interview that we did about the electoral theory and strategy of Marx and Lenin. So it's very important that listeners, you understand as we talk about these elections that are taking place now, the election that just took place, that the Communist Party of Kenya is a Marxist-Leninist organization and does have this theory towards elections. So, Comrade Booker, with that preface, can you tell us about how the Communist Party of Kenya views these bourgeois elections and why did the Communist Party of Kenya take part in

this election. Maybe it's important for our listeners to know that being a Marxist Leninist with a clear, you know, scientific line on that the only way to liberate the working class and the poor will be through a revolution. And we must, even after the revolution, we must break the Bujua state, not just break it, but break it to atoms and build it. the proletariat, you know, the state. Then the proletariat state will then impose the will of the majority and flip the, you know, the con that the will of the minority now will be turned to be the will of majority. But Communist Party of Kenya consciously participated in these election processes

for the very reason that the masses of Kenya today believe in electoral politics. So it will be irresponsible for the Communist Party of Kenya to abandon the Kenyan workers only to the reactionary ideas of bourgeoisie political parties when they are highly activated at a political moment. So we were there to do our propaganda work. We were to declare Communist Party of Kenya a national movement. We were there to expose the contradictions. within the Bujua electoral processes,

within the Kenyan society, and bring up the hypocrisy of the ruling class and the instruments of the state as they are. Have we achieved that? I think the Communist Party of Kenya now, as we speak, is a national movement in Kenya, and every person in our country now know the existence of the Communist Party of Kenya.

So in terms of doing our propaganda work and bringing the youth through art and music, to the party, we have achieved that. Secondly, we had published a document to guide us because we draw a lot of inspiration from one of the Lenin's document, a left-wing communism and infantile disorder, or left-wing childishness. Those are two main documents that Lenin categorically say

that even the communists know, you know, they know the principle that they can compromise, on and those principles that they cannot compromise on. And in actual sense, when we were taking part in this election, we decided to explain to the Kenyan population what Bujua election is, and now they understand it. But for a moment, Buja election is only, you know, a process

where the poor people, the working class, elect one of the people from the oppressing class to continue their domination, to continue their exploitation. And we call them back to join the Communist Party of Kenya and tell them that if we still see Bujua elections as the Alpha and Omega, then they will continue to be dominated, they will continue to be exploited, to be humiliated, and they will continue to live and dignify that.

So those are the reasons why we took part in that election. Has one of the things that has also been useful, is the tactics that we have seen that have been used to destabilize the Communist Party of Kenya's chances of winning in bourgeois elections. Because I could tell you that the state itself used, in fact, with the help of the United States Embassy in Nairobi, made sure that the Communist Party of Kenya was infiltrated,

and a few people in the Communist Party of Kenya that were holding important positions actually were both and they were used to block progressive and popular candidates that were organizing in working areas or even in rural areas that had chances to win political seats so in that way that infiltration process confirmed that the bujua election even though they have an upper hand in their own democracy they will still be able to destabilize progressive political parties who decide to take part in their own processes. So we had an element of great opportunism. In fact, a few weeks ago, we declared that the emergence of the Communist Party of Kenya from the elections has only exposed the internal contradictions and has opened

an internal struggle within the party and an external struggle. And in that way, we declared a period of rectification program, and we say, actually the youth, the youth wing has now adopted the rally call that it is the opportune time to continue to build cadars who clearly understand the Marxist-Leninist way of thinking. So I could say that we have achieved our objective in terms of this election, and we are going to continue to build the Communist Party of Kenya without even, you know, the interest of being, you know, being called Puritans, as some people have decided to call us. Maybe if you like, I could tell you about the internal contradictions in the party that arose from the Bujua elections and then

probably, yeah. So if you are to talk about the internal contradictions in the, the party. There were two, because we say that ideological debates in the party must continue, because ideological struggle is the guarantee of the permanent unity within the party. So there are few people that made a decision to sign deals with actually an extreme, you know, kleptocrat, or what I call an evangelical Christian fundamentalist, who is, you know, Mr. Ruto, who has been declared the president-elect. But communists are known to actually publish the analysts before taking such actions.

But we see that unilaterally, some people could ignore the democratic centralism of the party. And since the party was experiencing extreme, you know, financial difficulties, they can go and pick money from Bujua political. parties and then try to justify it through, you know, through Marxist language that since there was a hustler narrative that was being propagated by this Mr. Ruto, that they could use that hustler narrative to imbune class consciousness from her force above the working class. Of course, we saw that was just a way to justify the

opportunism and now we can declare that the party is divided into two hostile cam which one a minority which are opportunists and reactionaries and of course the majority that are revolutionary and we hope to build this party together yeah that's absolutely fascinating it sounds incredibly principled and it sounds like the the communist party of kenya is really in line with the with the marxist tradition of the role of the electoral front in class struggle in particular and doing it perfectly. So, you know, huge salute to all of you for all of that. I do want to get into this recent election and specifically both of the candidates, having laid this groundwork so wonderfully as you have, Booker. I want to talk about William Rudo and Raleigh O'Dinga, what they were

offering, what they sort of ran on, and how that election actually played out for our listeners. Probably it's important to know that Mr. Raella and Mr. Roto come from one class, and that is the property class. It's also important to understand that the two of them, how they gained their wealth, one from one Mr. Ruto, was the son of a peasant, you know. who was then served in the MOY dictatorship. And through connection with dictator Moui, he was able to use the government machinery and the state machinery to accumulate wealth. So his wealth can be attributed to his service in government

through state corruption and land grabbing. That is his history. And that history in Kenya today, they have coined a popular narrative. That the people who succeed in that way, they say they are hustlers. So there is this talk that you can come from a chicken farmer and be a billionaire. And if you walk into Nairobi bookshops, you'll find that the rich politicians have coined autobiography to explain you know how they got their wealth they are they are so ashamed to say that they have either stolen it or their mothers and their fathers or their grandfathers

told on their behalf so they start saying how they rose from chicken farming so that is the hustler narrative and that is the origin of root for aela molo dinger he was the son of one of the progressive nationalists in fact he earned his education in western in eastern Germany during you know the the during the socialist experiment there so he will have we will have thought that just by going to East Germany to learn the environment the circumstances will have molded him to embrace you know revolutionary ideas but that has not been the case because historically he has not embraced even the progressive nationalist of his father. In fact, in the

left, we always say that he is stepping on his father's legacy because he only cuts deals with governments. He only cuts deals with dictators. He only cuts deals with the people in power to try and get his position. But now, are these two people protagonists? In our opinion is that they are not protagonist. And if they are, It is only in form but not in content, just like their political parties. Their political parties is bourgeoisie. They are capitalists, but then they start calling themselves social democratic parties. So somehow, and then they try to say that this manifesto is different from that manifesto.

But in content, they are all one and the same, Mr. Ruto and Raleighamolo Dingo. Now, when it came to mobilization, remember the Kenyan masses are ahead. In fact, they have been fighting in the streets, and there are certain progressive reforms that have happened in arms of government, like our judiciary, and also the opening of the space through promulgation of the 2010 constitution. So in actual sense, they are tribal leaders or tribal warheads, but they can never publicly, you know, drive. their tribal agenda. So in actual sense, they bring out, for example, if you look at Raela's coalition, he brought the leader of the Kamban nation,

he brought some leaders from the Lua Nation, and the same was done on the other side. But since they're not legally allowed to now, after the 2007, where their rhetorics, the same people, led to post-election violence, and many deaths that happened, now they start to hide, you know, their tribal entities. So Raela came up with another rhetoric, state welfareism.

So Raela was selling state welfareism and promising the poor people of Kenya that if he makes it to become the head of state, he will give them $6,000 shillings. That is about $60 a month. But the Communist Party of Kenya was asking the Rael Odinga-led faction, where will you get this money if you're not willing to expropriate, the expropriators, because you are one of them.

So where will you get the money to pay the poor people? Where will you get the money if you don't have internal plans to start a deliberate effort towards industrialization of Kenya? So in actual sense, the Communist Party of Kenya was convinced that Railo-Dinga state realism was just a rhetoric. It was full of verbosity. He did not even have a plan and he was just, you know, trying to say that he is now not a tribal leader, but he wants to help the Kenyan people through the Scandinavian projects, which again, we know the contradictions that have happened in those Scandinavian so-called projects.

because they have not been able to eliminate exploitation, they have not been able to explain oppression. But that's another discussion. What about Mr. Ruto? Mr. Roto then came up with another rhetoric calling the bottom-up economic model. And the bottom-up economic model, at least consciously the Ruto's planners realized that Kenya was a class society

and there were many poor people who are wannabe to be rich, people. So if you can tell them that Raela Mollodding and the clique are part of the dynasty because their fathers were in politics and myself, I was a chicken farmer. So I represent the people from the poor neighborhoods that have made it to the higher level by just selling chicken and participating in politics. So then we have a hustler narrative and a dynasty narrative. We had a bottom-ups economic approach and state welfareism at least from the communist party of kenya and we appreciate the pressure from the masses from below that that is a small progress in terms of our politics because at least we were discussing about economic models even though those economic models

we could not have you know the intensity to probe them or even to have plans that how they will you know, roll them out. So that's what the mobilization, but generally in Bujou election, what do they do? First of all, they buy the corporate media. So they compete in buying the main media houses and accusing each other this media is biased, this media is not biased, but they invest a lot of money. And that a lot of money in the media campaign is to set narratives and run away from the truth and the problems of the Kenyan people. So the second thing was just to bribe influential people in the villages, give them money. There was obviously outright distribution of up to even two dollars to each poor person

who attended the rally. That's how bad it was. So such were the characters of our election. But the Communist Party of Kenya, for the first time, also money. to give their alternative opinion in corporate media. Even with their hostility, they still appreciated that our ideas were actually far removed from the ideas of mainstream politics.

And you can see I did several analysis in the corporate media and try to bring out at least the future of the Kenry went. That's very interesting to have these analyses of these two. figures, but more than the figures, what is sort of lying behind them, you know, in terms of where they stand structurally. This is very useful analysis. It made me, though, think and wonder that this hustler approach, hustler economy, you know, the bottom up and appealing to youth who have had to struggle and characterizing himself as a sort of self-made person who stands

outside of the established political dynasties and their machinations and rivals, even though, of course, he's somebody who also, as you pointed out, comes out of, you know, the dictatorship of, you know, of Moy, reminds me a little bit of, in broad terms, with the kind of narrative that we've had in the United States, for example, of a wealthy individual who's appealing to, you know, populist sentiment on the right. but channeling the anger and dissatisfaction and developing class consciousness away from a genuine class analysis, but destroying the, or at least profiting from the lack of trust in the system. You know, it's clear that from what you described about the history is that there was a very

simple cycle of dealmaking from the bourgeois capitalism. establishment political class in Kenya. And now people might be sort of fed up with it because they are dealing with the more clear failures of that system and failures of that state. But one component that's very interesting here that I consider also useful is how, in this analogy, is also how there was an appeal to evangelical Christians, the conservative right in the United States by Trump, made his deal and his bargain, they helped propel him to success in the election, for example. And from what you mentioned and what little I know, it sounds like William Ruto also appeals to a kind of evangelical Christianity and Christian identity.

So I thought it would be interesting to hear your analysis of the role of these kinds of religious discourse and religious affiliation in the politics of Canada. Kenya, and also how and whether he is being supported by similar kinds of formations transnationally. Maybe the U.S. evangelical churches, do they see him as an ally? Are they supporting him? Is there some way in which this is an index of his connection to kind of a new imperialist, neo-colonialist type in formation? is a lying, you know, is he the preferred candidate for, you know, right-wing forces outside of Kenya?

These are questions that I had about him. Now, for Mr. William Ruto, he has built himself as a staunch Christian. In fact, in many of his rallies, in many of his meeting, he starts them and ends with a prayer, and he always put a biblical verse. And then when he concludes, it says, leaders come from above and they are God given to them. So that is the person that we know as William Routon. Why we say he will fail in the course of time is

the Kenyan masses are already way ahead. If you look at the 2010 constitution, we already made it clear that Kenya is not a, theocracy and there shall never be any state religion and that was reflecting the ideas of that time of the kenyan masses that they do not consider you know a state religion the second part of it is that are there evangelicals especially the extreme right wings from the north that are supporting yes they have been you know and this it has to be understood that all these political leaders before every election. They dot the continents and the planet, you know, to ask for arms and campaign

money for people that support their ideas, you know, in Kenya, the people who support the ideas outside Kenya. So you could see that the number of groupings that William Ruto met in the United States were mainly, you know, the, the, from the Christian, the rich right-to-in Christians. Then he went to pledge loyalty to the Zionist regime in Israel. Then he went to the United Kingdom. So, and even to say the most, that even after the elections, when he was declared the president-elect, he was very grateful for the Christian. community outside Kenya and inside Kenya. And he went to the, he went upon invitation to the United

States Embassy here in Nairobi. And he played homage to them and said that he will continue to learn from the democracy abroad to be able to change the Kenyan society. So you are guess it's not far from it. In fact, we, in the Communist Party perspective, we said that this, elections was between an obvious imperialist stooch in the name of Mr. Raela and an extreme, you know, evangelical Christian fundamentalist in the name of William Roto. And why were we saying that? Because we were trying to look at the positions of Mr. Raila across in history and what positions he has supported is his foreign policy, you know, even when he was in opposition, we realized that in terms of the continental issues,

Raela Amolodinga was supporting sanctions against Zimbabwean government at that time. Raila Mollo Dhinga was perfectly with the Moroccan king against decolonization of Western Sahara. To us, that is strange. Raela Mollodinga supports the Zionist regime that continues to brutalize the Palestinian people.

So when there was the French offensive in the Ivory Coast, when Loro Babo was being overthrown by, through an electoral coup by Wattara, who was actually being sponsored by the French imperialist, Mr. Raleigho Dinger went there to support the French offensive there. So in actual sense, he is the beacon of imperialist. In actual sense, he's an imperialist dog in Africa.

But then on the other side, Then we have Mr. Ruto that is far right and is talking about, you know, his reward from God by being a Christian and how he's chosen to live this country to win the sympathy, basically, of the majority of the poor people. Because in the issue of religion, I would like to say that the Bujua education system has perfected it to pass. the masses, you know, and to continue to promise the Kenyan masses that, you know, you can live here in poverty, but, you know, somehow there will be milk and honey in heaven for you if you are poor and the rich people, you know, will have difficulty to access heaven. And that rhetoric, in fact, if you go to the poor neighborhoods in Nairobi, you will be put up by the number of churches and European and American NGOs. that have established themselves there, but it's actual sense is to disrupt the organization of the left. And maybe if there is time, I could probably explain a bit why the United States have been very keen in terms of Kenyan electoral processes

and why they see that if they don't interfere with the Kenyan election, then they will probably be in problems in terms of, you know, implementing their dominations in that aspect. Yes, I mean, that would be very interesting because it's been my perception, looking at Kenya's role over the last couple of decades in Eastern African politics, is that it is seen as a reliable and even maybe a crucial regional ally of U.S. Empire, particularly in pursuing, you know, the global war on terrorism, regional security, so-called suppressing, you know, resistance against capitalist. movements or anything that would kind of undermine the U.S. sort of imperial system in East Africa and that it's very keen on maintaining Kenya as the loyal ally, which I assume that is part of the reason why the Communist Party was prevented from being involved in electoral politics, you know, in previous periods where it was illegal. So anyway, that would be very useful if you

could elaborate on what you see as the reasons why the U.S. is so interested in the outcomes of the Kenyan elections. Yeah, thank you. Maybe to note also that the Kenyan foreign policy in history has been a very retrogressive, a reactionary foreign policy. In fact, I can conclude it that it has been a wait and see where we can get bread from or where we can get money from that has been the government's foreign policy and it only reminds me of that movement of non-aligned the when the east were competing the west and then people say no we cannot take sides let us have an unaligned movement and we can take from both sides but having said that the the if you look at the the strategic interest of the united states government in kenya it

It's been threatened, for example, if I was to tell you that now China is the number one trading partner of Kenya, that means China has disloded not just the West, but has dislodged the United States as the trading partner in Kenya. And that, I think, since the empire scared, you know, why will that happen? So they are determined to have a government in place that will be able to bring more business and more trade mainly in our, you know, the so-called permanent partners of Kenya that were mainly the British and the United States. And the second thing is, you know, a few years back, I think it's three years back. You know, already decided to challenge the dominations of the dollar. And actually, when the president Uru Kenyatta and his deputy, Mr. Ruto, were indicted by ICC, they got very angry with the West and decided to focus their foreign policy on the East. And for the first time, the president employed a rhetoric that, you know, he would embrace Fidel Castro's policies

and even went ahead to sign a deal with the Cuban government to come and offer the Cuban Medical Brigade are here with us courtesy of that. And also he went to China to get funding and even made a public statement that Kenya is reconsidering to have some of the currency reserves in Yuan and that I don't think the United States would be even happy to talk about it.

And then you come to the military. bases in our country. It's unprecedented that the British had continued to have a military base here at least one. The United States have continued to build, at least they are on the third military military and a naval and the air force base here in Nairobi in Kenya. So in that way, you can see how uncomfortable the United States are. And you also know that that charade war, the anti-terrorist war that so-called happening in Somalia, while we know that the United States are only concerned about colonizing Somalia, they have actually separated the Somaliland to continue to, you know,

exploit it economically. So we have also seen that the Kenya supports the Ethiopian government, again, as the ramp of the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the forces that are happening in Tigris, that, that actually, the American government is not happy about that. And they're hoping that if they can intervene in the new administration, then they can be able to influence the foreign policies of the new Kenyan government. And there is already an ongoing program that Obama signed. You know, when Obama got to power, there was a bit of emotions about a black man being the United States president. And I think

every time we watch TV, we saw all these black people crying, and we didn't know what to make of it, because Obama was the most brutal, you know, in his policy towards the continent. And he came to Africa, he came to Kenya, and he continued with this Bush policy. They were calling it a goa, where it was meant to rescue the Kenyan people from unemployment. And they crafted this thing called economic processing zone where the Kenyan government will set up a space and suspend, basically suspend all the laws because they will allow the multinationals from the United States to come to our country, and they will suspend minimum wage. Basically, they could pay the workers what they have, and that is how that name came, the modern day slavery that was being sponsored by the United States. secondly they will offer them subsidies in water in electricity and even give them 10 years tax holidays here in our country so basically they see Kenya as also a you know a source of cheap labor for the multinationals from the west and such policies they want to you know to anchor them and make sure that they can continue to carry out the expectation of the continent, and in case they are able to fight a war with any country, they will want to

use Kenya as a base to do it like they have been using in Djibouti and other countries. Yeah, exactly. And of course, as you probably know, here in the U.S., the big thing around Obama was, you know, Trump, for example, rose to political prominence in part saying that Obama was secretly not only born in Kenya, but was secretly a Muslim and secretly a communist to scare the reactionary white people here in the U.S. It's kind of amusing, at least, to see that how he was portrayed and then how his actual policies manifested on the continent. But I actually want to touch on briefly before we move on. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but you mentioned China, specifically in relation to the overcoming of

the U.S. as a trading partner with Kenya. What is the Communist Party of Kenya's analysis of China in Africa broadly, but in Kenya specifically, and how does it differ from European and American and meddling in the region as well. Maybe it's important also to tell you the Communist Party position on geopolitics. Then we can place China on it because in the Communist Party of Kenya, it is clear in our mind that the progressive

and the organization of the left is possible when we have a multipolar world. That means that when we have a multipolar world, however those shades, shapes of multipolar world it is better for us to organize you know politically on the left other than having a big boy in the name of the united states that wants to perfect the world secondly is that the coming of chinese capital to africa was welcomed both by the progressive and also the african governments that actually failed that the united states

and the European capitalist were coming here to put preconditions and also determined their internal policies and interfere with their processes in the name of democracy. While on the other side, China came with a policy of non-interference. In fact, it was called a cool policy. So in actual sense, we did not have the Britainwoods institutions like IMM, World Bank, telling us what to do to introduce austerity measures, to tell us to, you know,

this silly campaign of less state, you know, more private, telling us to retrench the people within and telling us that the government cannot be able to do business and it is the business or businessman. And so privatization, you know, so the structural adjustment plans, you know, structural adjustment plants that was imposed on African people was very clear even for me who was a child when I was growing up and, you know, I got people who were working at

the national corporations that were owned by government. They were entrenched and, you know, they had to go home and die because they did not have income. And people relate those policies with the United States and British. And that hatred only was being able to exploit by the Chinese capital. Secondly, when the Chinese capital came in, they introduced another good policy what they were calling the local content.

That means the local people were working, you know, have to get 30% of Chinese funded projects. and then Chinese companies could then have the 70%. While in the British arrangement, the multinational like Straub would take 10, you know, you'll take 100% of the business and only employ the locals as drivers or anything else. So what I'm trying to tell you is that the tactic

that the Chinese used in their entry into the African continent was applauded by both businessmen, governments, and the left. And that, then we can say progress, because there are no bureaucracies in the processes. And they have also been able to demonstrate that they can renegotiate the loans, which definitely that is nothing you can never imagine from IMF and World Bank.

They will never do that. So what then can the Communist Party of Kenya say that we can criticize China, but not in the racist way that the Western government and the Western NGOs who like us to criticize, China. After all, we share a lot of histories with the Chinese cultural revolution. China was colonized by one of the extreme imperialists, the Japanese colonialism, which was the most brutal. Kenya was colonized by the British. Chairman Mao, that now we study carefully

in our study circles, is a big contributor to our intellectual, you know, in the world of information and knowledge. So we relate with him, you know, as our chairman, even to date. So we see a greater possibility with the sister nation of China. In terms of debates about the degeneration of communism in China, that is a debate we can carry out with our brothers and sisters in China to learn and advance it. We can have an internal criticism. But when it comes to where the BBC and CNN can only parrot and manufacture anti-Chinese propaganda, then we'll be very careful not to join that brigade. Now they are Western Allied NGOs in our country. They are on the payroll under USAID, under UK aid. What do they do? They sponsor adverts against

China. They do everything possible to dirty talk about the Chinese socialist experiment. And in fact, they come and say, no, no, no, what has succeeded in China is not socialism. It's actually capitalism. So that's how we see our brothers and sisters in China. And we see great possibility even even sometimes you're having discussion that they should actually change their policy of non-interference if that interference can advance the class struggle in areas where they're doing businesses and for the isolated cases between the chinese companies and and the Kenyan people i think those should be handled in their merits and demerits we should not generalize so that that's the the position that the communist part of Kenya has taken

that was an absolutely fascinating answer great analysis and it was just tremendous to be able to hear you elaborate on that question from brett both from your perspective as well as the perspective that is being put forth by the communist party of kenya so thank you very much for that that was an excellent excellent analysis i really appreciated it and i also want to let the listeners know that since comrade booker brought up multipolarity in about two weeks i believe it'll be two weeks from this episode we have a couple things already recorded that are waiting to come out. We have an episode on multipolarity with Ben Norton that you should be looking forward to in the next couple weeks. So if you haven't already subscribed to guerrilla history,

now is the time. But I want to turn now to the material conditions within Kenya, because I think that this is very important as we get towards the end of this conversation and understanding the outcome of this election to understand what the material conditions are like for the working class of Kenya right now. Now, of course, I don't have this firsthand experience. this firsthand, you know, look into how things are, but I have been reading over the last several years, actually, from various sources, including one of my favorites, which I always encourage everybody to look at, which is the review of African political economy or rope, great journal, and they have been looking at Kenya over the course of the past couple of years as well.

But what we've seen, at least from the analyses that I've been reading, is that in the last several years, we've seen the contradictions and the material conditions really deteriorate in pretty substantial ways. And this actually plays some role into explaining perhaps why the election went the way that it did. So you've been talking about how we have president-elect Routu. It seemed up until relatively recently that Odinga was going to be nailed on to be the next president of the country, up until relatively recent. The polls all had Rayla Odinga up, you know, five to 10 percent in most of the polls. Most people would have assumed that he would have been one of the frontrunners anyway.

He's been one of the lead opposition members as well as a perennial presidential candidate for years at this point. And now for the first time that he has never had before, he even had the backing of the institutional political elites within the country. previously he was always the opposition leader this time he had the backing of the outgoing president kenyara uh hurro kenyara which he hadn't previously not had but do you think that this may have actually hurt him because based on some analyses that i've been reading you know kenyatta is very unpopular these days and odinga had been positioning himself as this the staunch oppositionist over decades really up until 2017 we talked about the election of 2017 the violence that took place after the disputed election of 2017 listeners may remember some news stories about Odinga

proclaiming himself the people's president after losing this disputed election only for about a year and then after about a year he without making very without receiving very many concessions really decided to accept Uhuru Kenyara as the rightful president and basically work with him. And that subservience has, you know, potentially then led to this, this handshake that took place recently between Kenyara endorsing Odinga in this election. So from the outside looking in, it would seem like having the backing of the institution as an opposition figure might help you consolidate some forces. but the material conditions at this point in Kenya actually perhaps made it so that that was not going to be the case. You know, there was so much, I don't want to say hatred, but there was so much dissatisfaction with the ruling political class that by working with them, he really undermined his own opposition, you know, credentials, as it were.

So I would like you to maybe let us know from your perspective, what are the material conditions for the, a working class like in Kenya as things stand? And how did this influence how this election went out? How did this, you know, kind of coalition between Kenyara and Odinga impact the outcome of the election? Thank you, Comrade. First, it's also good for us to know that Mr. Odinga has proven that you can lie for a long time to be the friend of the poor people. But not all the time. Because since the attempted coup of 1982 and all the way to 2002, Mr. Odinga was very popular among the Kenyan working class and the poor people. In fact, he was seen as a fighter.

And every time he went to the national broadcaster, he always talked of a scandal in the government. So that is how he managed to build his political career as Mr. Odinger. And he was also, he had the benefit for being the son of one of the respected political beacons, Jaramoggi Odinga. But also he has proven, of course, not himself, but we know as Marxist that you do not inherit. revolutionary tendencies. If your father was progressive, it doesn't necessarily mean you will be progressive. And that is why Raella Molo Dinger and even Dr. Obrou, the elder brother, who went through Jaramoggi's teachings and even were taken to schools in East Germany and in the USSR and, you know, reactionaries today. So the popularity of Mr. Dinkas

started deteriorating after he became a deal-wheeler from Moy, where he went to shake hands with dictator Moy, that was hit in especially in areas of the landless, with a view that that Moy can, you know, can catapult him to be the president. So he has been doing that repeatedly. And since he had taken the lower nation firmly under his control, and he could negotiate that this bloc will vote you irregardless so long as I support you. So that is how his popularity started to deteriorate among the poor people. And that can be seen that in 2002, 2007, he was losing election, you know, every other year because he had lost a very important constituency, which were the poor and the working class that saw him as a hero. Secondly,

is that when you look at the people that have been supported by the establishment, an outgoing president, the suffering of the poor people in the country and the baggage of the incumbency for Raela Molodinga being supported by the establishment was too much for him. In fact, to tell you plainly is that we hold an opinion that most statistics that were collected during the election to inform the opinion polls were either interfered with to show that Mr. Odinger was leading the election. Because the Hustler narrative and rhetoric had already taken ground across all tribes. Now, there are certain things that Mr. Odinger did that actually made him his situation

even worse. Remember, Mr. Kenyatta comes from the mountain. Mount Kenya region, and there are people that Railo Amolodinga has castigated for a long time. In fact, he used to call them the Mount Kenya Mafia, the billionaires from the Kikuyu community. Now he coined a very sexy name for them because they were funding him and supporting him, and they called them Mount Kenya Foundation. And those people are hated in that region. So he lost votes there. The second thing is that in the coastal region, where he used to perform very, very good,

he was supporting the privatization of the port, and the port was the economy of Mombasa. So the port was moved to inland by the introduction of the standard gauge railway. He lost their hands down. The struggles of the poor and the landless people in the coast region, he abandoned. So that is probably what caused Mr. Odinger that he only exposed himself. that has been riding on the back of the Kenyan working class and the poor with only narratives to negotiate for interest for himself. Now, let us go to the material conditions.

I think to measure the development of a country probably other than the distribution is to look at the development of the productive forces. So the economy of Kenya has been expanding. If you look at the budgets, I've been going from billions. Now we are in trillions of Kenya shillings of the budget. But to whose benefit? And what are the reasons why that is happening? We think that our Kenyan economy was turned upside down.

In fact, it is more external looking than internal looking. And how so? When the World Bank and IMF adopted positions of management in our central bank and started to finance government, that is where our problem started because the industrialization processes started then. So we were told that it is expensive to manufacture things in our country.

We should export raw materials, manufacture them from elsewhere, and in that way, it is cheaper than trying to invest in a factory. We were told that instead of investing in a pipeline and an oil refinery, it is better to use the oil marketers to bring us cheap oil than processing our own oil. And conditions were put in that way. So Kenya was not in the process of industrialization anymore, but on the process of underdevelopment.

So you see, Kenya is the biggest growers of, let us say, tea and coffee. But this coffee is manufactured somewhere in Britain. It's manufactured somewhere outside the country and brought back. What that basically means that the quality jobs, the value addition processes, the skills, the skill transfer and technology transfer do not benefit the Kenyan people. And even if you go to the extractive sector, the mining sector, we do not have processing plants here. But it basically, basically, you know, scooping soil away and taking it to other countries to process it. So in terms of industrialization, then we say that from 1990s to now, we have re-progressed quite a bit.

And the volume of money coming in has grown because, and if you look at that, there was a policy that Maikibaki put in place. And many Somaliers from the neighboring found a way to bring money without being controlled and they bought property, they brought items in the city and that kind of thing. So the Kenya government has been measuring on physical policy than investing on the material production in the Kenyan way. And we can see the contradiction that happens in the society that in the Kenyan society, the people who work live in object poverty in slum areas, in informal areas, while the people who own lives in luxury, you know, in abundance. And in fact, you can see that striking disparity when you fly into Nairobi.

You see people living in five acreage of land and it is a lush. And just beside them, you see a slum area that basically provide cheap labor to the rich people to live in luxury. So Kenya has always been a class society. In the colonial system, it was an operation by the white minority over the black majority. In the neo-colonial system, we have the minority that belongs to the Comprado

and the national bourgeoisie dominating the rest of them, you know, the population. So in as much as the Kenya budget has been, been increasing and the economy has been expanding. And it has been a destination for multinationals that are interested in extractive sector, multinationals that are, you know, expecting to, that expect to invest in large plantation businesses. And one of the biggest foreign exchange honors was tourism and everything was being organized in foreign countries before they come back to us. So we see that our economy is external looking, our production is profit-driven, not for people.

So what the Communist Party of Kenya has always proposed is that we must start the process of reorganizing our economy, but internally looking, because even if we look at our, from our theory, we realize that the internal conditions of a country at the primacy, then the circumstances and external conditions are the secondary. Just like Comrade Mao tells us that for you to get a chicken, you must have an egg. So that internal conditions must be the egg. You cannot change a stone into a chicken.

And by the time you have an egg, then now you work on the right temperature out. They need to hatch into the chicken. But for us, when we are organizing the country, we look at, you know, factors that are ready backward. We look at geography. We look at climate. We try to look at trade with other external partners. So it's just misplaced priorities by the political leaders. So I will tell you that the amount of poverty in our country would obviously, you know,

encourage you to be part of the Communist Party movement if you're interested to change the society. Well, Comrade Booker, I really have to thank you for all of this very clear analysis and important information for our listeners. We had talked just briefly about some of the support of evangelical Christians and transnational involvement in, you know, Kenyan supporting certain regressive groups in Kenyan politics. It reminds me, however, that there have been affiliations and transnational connections that were very important in the black freedom struggle in the United States and that Kenyans' radical revolutionary tradition has been so important and inspiring for many of our own great activists. And I'm thinking particularly since you talked about the legacy of Oginga Odinga, that he was somebody who did. visit the United States and was very inspiring to the student nonviolent coordinating committee organizers in the South who were trying to register black people to vote and they even created a song for him that became the famous the favorite song of Malcolm X, who also, you know,

really was inspired by the Mao Mao, you know, movement and against Colon and for justice. And he declared once in a speech in 1964, he said, in Mississippi, we need a Mao Mao. In Georgia, we need a Mao Mao. So all I want to say is just that it's clear that that radical tradition is still continuing, even if it's not the people who are named Odinga, who are carrying it on, the people of Kenya are. And I'm very impressed by the work of the Communist Party, Kenya and your analysis. And I just want to tell listeners that you do have a website with a lot of useful information also in English so people can learn about the Communist Party's struggles, what its analysis is. And perhaps you can make sure that people know about it.

I know Henry also wants to talk about other ways we can express and show solidarity with your struggle and re-establish some of those positive transnational connections of comradeship and solidarity. Absolutely. I just want to hop in and say since, not first of all, since you mentioned that Malcolm X said that we need a Mau Mau in Georgia. One of our friends also has a book with a very similar title. Professor Gerald Horn has a book titled Mau Mau in Harlem, the U.S. and the liberation of Kenya, which of course is highly recommended as is anything by our friend and comrade at Gerald Horn. So listeners, you should definitely check that out. And we also have several episodes with Gerald Horn. So if you want to listen to those, go onto our feed. You can find

multiple episodes with Gerald Horn. But I also want to reiterate the fact that we need to show international solidarity with our comrades, including our comrades from the Communist Party of Kenya. As Adnan just mentioned, we will be looking for ways to assist the Communist Party of Kenya in the, you know, limited ways that we are able to give an arm means. I know the Communist Party of Kenya right now was on a fundraising drive to try to raise funds. Surprise, surprise, that's what fundraising drives are for, to keep their headquarters in Nairobi open. I will have the link for the PayPal that you can donate money to the Communist Party of Kenya

available in the show notes below this episode. So if you would like to donate money and you have the financial means to do so, Look in the show notes and you will have a link directly to that fundraising drive. We also are hoping to do a Twitter space sometime soon with Comrade Booker as well as other comrades from the Communist Party of Kenya in which we will bring them on, talk about the current conditions of Kenya as well as the Communist Party of Kenya's platform and some of the youth organizing that they do, which I think is quite exciting. There's a lot of really interesting work that's going on within the youth wing of the Communist Party of Kenya. And we'll hope to make that Twitter space like a little bit of a pledge-a-thon and hopefully raise some more money for the party to keep their operations going and hopefully help expand them. So, Comrade Booker, thank you so much for coming on the show. Again, our guest was Booker Omole, National Vice Chairperson and National Organizing Secretary of the Communist Party of Kenya.

Can you tell the listeners how they can find you on social media and anything else that you would like to direct them to? Thank you very much. We are very active on Twitter at Communist K.E. And we also have YCL League, which is our youth wing. So you can get us on Twitter. For Facebook, we are also quite active that is being run by the Young Communist League. You can just check us out at the Communist Party of Kenya. And I also have Twitter handle, which is a is Booker Bureau. And at that space, I reflect the party's ideas and also my ideas as a student and, you know, a student of philosophy and history because I will continue to be a student. So those people who are interested on the African perspective or the perspective from the Southern Hemisphere, please follow us for, you know, updates on those social media. And I will certainly include the links for those in the show notes as well. also listeners, you'll just be able to click and get access to those.

Again, Comrade Booker, thank you so much for coming on the show. Hopefully, we'll be able to continue interfacing with you and doing work with the Communist Party of Kenya, helping bring your voice to our audience and hopefully help you in any way that we are able to. Brett, how can our listeners find you and your other excellent podcasts that you do? Everything I do can be found at Revolutionary LeftRadio.com. Excellent. And like I said, you just had an episode come out today on the French Revolution that, well, it's already 10 o'clock at night here in, well, in Kazan, Russia.

Of course, there's a lot of time zones in Russia, so I have to be a little bit more specific. But I will be listening to that episode immediately after we wrap up this recording. So very much looking forward to that. Adnan, how can the listeners find you and your other podcast? You can follow me on Twitter at Adnan-A-Hus-A-I-N. and also check out the M-A-L-L-I-S. It's the one that's sponsored by the Muslim Society's Global Perspectives Project at Queens University. If you're interested in the Middle East Islamic world, Islamophobia issues and so on,

Muslim diasporic histories and experiences, you can check that out. Absolutely highly recommended. As for me, listeners, you can find me and all of the random things that I get up to by following me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1-995. You can follow Gorilla History, which is a much more entertaining and educational follow than my personal account by following at Gorilla underscore Pod,

G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-R-I-L-A-U-Sk, and you can help support the show and help us keep our lights on by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Again, Gorilla being spelled, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A. So on that note, listeners, until next time, Solidarity.

I'm going to be able to be.