Movements and Political Power: Lessons from Kenya and beyond
Kinuthia Ndung'u
Social and political science reaffirms that human beings cannot help but organize, both for resistance and the social reproduction of life. Historically, only through the organization of the people has social change been effected.
Social change also precipitates movements. The advent of industrial capitalism — premised on the ruthless and systemic exploitation of workers — triggered the emergence of the Luddites, trade unions, feminists, anti-child labor movements, and others. More recently, catastrophes like the COVID-19 pandemic have also been catalysts for social movements.
Various scholars have made attempts to define social movements. Laurence Cox and Alf Gunvald, authors of We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism, define social movements as a process in which a specific social group develops a specific project of skilled activities centered on rationality. They add that praxis is the object of social movements and that movement activities seek to change or maintain those structures through which human activity is socially organized and give form and direction to the development of these structures. For academic Yash Tandon, a movement is a complex phenomenon that is dynamic and grows as more people join the project. Philippine political scientist Antonio Contreras similarly writes, "Anyone familiar with social movement theory would know that it is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a social or political goal, which is to enable, resist, reverse, undo social change.”
Dialectical thinking offers a poetic perspective, encouraging critical thinking by emphasizing that nothing is inherently absolute. In different words, this concept reflects the existence of progressive movements alongside reactionary ones. Dr. Willy Mutunga, a radical light of Kenya’s pro-democracy movement, insists that social movements have class content, with some serving the status quo while others resist the status quo. Their ideologies are not implied; they can be conservative, reformist, liberal, social democratic, transformative, radical, or revolutionary.
History shows us that societal transformation occurs through mass political struggles. We can understand this by looking at the rise and trajectory of social movements in our countries. In my own country, Njuki Githethwa in his article Vistas of the Emerging Social Movement in Kenya explains that “social movements in Kenya are seen as rising in four waves. First wave: 1945 to 1960, anti–colonial resistance and independence wave. Second wave: 1963 to 1990, post–colonial discontent and against one-party dictatorships. Third wave: 1990 – 2002, pro‐democracy and regime change. Fourth wave: 2002 – 2010, the climax of the waves for a new constitution. From 2010 onwards, there is an emerging fifth wave that is being viewed as the social movement for constitutionalism and disenchantment with the existing social and political order. This wave is premised on the full implementation of the character and spirit of the new constitution by alternative political leadership.”
The progress of neoliberalism has reversed key victories and concessions won through previous struggles. Capitalist expansion and the intensification of class contradictions have increased social exclusion, environmental degradation, poverty, and war. The development agenda of Bretton Woods Institutions discouraged the participation of the state in the provision of social welfare. Water, education, housing, and other public goods ceased being basic human rights to be provided by the state, but commodities in the market that were to be governed by the rules of demand and supply.
This misery and indignity provoked insurgent consciousness, a cognitive sense of injustice that we were mistreated or that somehow the system was unjust. The result was cognitive liberation. We realized that holding resentment did not ordinarily translate to tangible change. Social movements thus resurged in response to the social and economic consequences of globalization and imperialism.
Most movements are engaged in the struggle for inclusion and reforms but are not active in the struggle for political power. We recognize reform as an essential feature of the battle against the system. Rosa Luxembourg in Reform or Revolution reminds us that immediate reforms to alleviate the struggle of the working class are part of the process of building social movements. Free public healthcare and education have been won in some countries through social movement struggles. Labor struggles have also forced capital to make concessions to some demands by workers. The right to vote despite one’s gender, race, or class is a product of this struggle. These struggles provide the working class with vital organizing experience demonstrating to them that qualitative change is possible. However, when approached as an end in itself, struggles become a cycle of minor and ineffectual changes that entrench the dominant system. It makes our movements unable to see beyond their singular orbits and address material needs.
Social movements face a myriad of obstacles from the state and NGOs financed by the West, which are cautious of the emergence of a radical social force from the grassroots. They demobilize movements and in the process depoliticize their social bases. When social movements are not deliberate about taking political power, a vacuum is created which is exploited by reactionary ruling elites.
The Mungiki movement is one such example. It emerged in response to historical land injustices and inequalities in Kenya. However, it rapidly deteriorated when it was coopted by the Kikuyu ruling elite. These elites periodically employ the group's leader, Maina Njenga, to stroke Kikuyu nationalism, bolstering the hold of the Kikuyu elite in power.
Another is Bunge La Mwananchi (BLM), Swahili for “The Peoples’ Parliament.” It emerged as a grassroots social movement in the era of neoliberal globalization in Kenya. It provided a platform for the people to discuss prevailing socio-economic and political conditions inside public spaces like Jevanjee Gardens. It formed alliances with other progressive forces to advance various campaigns like the 'Unga Revolution' (Flour Revolution). The members also actively participated in the struggle for a new Constitution that guaranteed basic human rights.
For lack of coherent structures to provide leadership, it was infiltrated and is today used by political elites as guns for hire in their political mobilization gimmicks. Its successive ideologically-bankrupt leadership ensures the movement doesn’t transcend ethnic politics and remains captured by backward politicians. In 2019, some members were used by the state to oppose the registration of the Communist Party of Kenya in court for challenging private property by talking of nationalization and socialization of resources in its proposed manifesto.
The Social Justice Movement in Kenya, a collection of autonomous grassroots community organizations, has been on the front line in the struggle for social and economic rights. It has organized demonstrations against human rights violations like extrajudicial killings and the high cost of living. It campaigns for the implementation of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. It falls in what was described earlier as the fifth wave of social movement for constitutionalism and disenchantment with the existing social and political order. However, this grassroots social force has isolated itself from the struggle for political power in the country. The movement forgets that social justice is an ambition that can only be realized under a different political system. This political indecisiveness and confusion makes some members term themselves apolitical. Others are ardent followers of the dominant bourgeois parties, and those organizers with political ambitions have to find a way on their own. Through it all the political class continues to capture the slogans and campaigns of the movement and use them to advance their deception and opportunism.
Y’en A Marre is a youthful grassroots social movement founded by a small group of rappers and journalists in Senegal. They utilized revolutionary rap and hip hop as means to oppose President Wade’s failed neoliberal reforms and the attempt to extend his term limit. They threw their weight behind the former Prime Minister, Macky Sall as the political alternative. Today, conditions in Senegal have only worsened and the group is making fresh calls on all Senegalese to maintain general mobilization demanding the resignation of President Macky Sall. They are demanding the release of populist opposition leader Ousman Sonko.
We must question whether we are building a movement just for protest, reforms, and appeal to those in power — or for power to the people, to build a new society.
The primary reason for the working class to get organized is to take state power for themselves in order to guarantee their material needs.
On 1st May 2021, The Social Justice Movement organized a demonstration dubbed the Njaa Revolution (Hunger Revolution), waging the People’s March To Statehouse. It was a protest against the unscientific management of the Covid-19 pandemic. Assuming the turnout was massive, forcing the government to abdicate, in whose hands would power fall? Was this a repeat of the Arab spring mistakes? Cabral insists that we must learn from life; learn from people; learn from books; and learn from the experiences of others, to never stop learning.
Social change theorist Claire Dunning argues that marginalized people seek structural changes to the system as opposed to trying to make it work better. She adds that “the work of building social movements and growing political power has been the most productive path to structural change. It is no accident that those activities have been the hardest to measure or track, and the hardest to get funded.”
To make qualitative leaps in our struggle, progressive political parties must have an organic link with the grassroots movements. Political parties translate the momentum of these social movements into real political power. There is no doubt that a united front of ideologically clear parties and social movements can fundamentally alter social and political landscapes and engender new possibilities.
We must grasp the dialectical relationship between the actions of our movements and the struggle for state power. This potential can be realized when our movements embrace alternative politics by forming or working with existing progressive political parties to connect grassroots issues with a wider democratic movement. In 2005, Evo Morales of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) built a broad alliance of popular social movements that helped him win political power. MAS was viewed as a political extension of the peasants’ movement rather than a conventional party. It brought together groups disenfranchised by and reacting to neoliberal globalization. He nationalized the oil and gas resources and proclaimed agrarian reforms, but was overthrown by counter-revolutionary military forces with the help of US imperialism. This is a reminder that the working class should be careful not to relegate themselves to a strategy of inheriting the existing rotten state.
The party's role in this unity is not to primarily function as an electoral vehicle but as a means to educate and organize the masses, thus generating class consciousness. Bunge la Mwananchi offers another example. The movement formed an alliance with progressive political parties like Safina Party, Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Peoples Party of Kenya (PPK). However, most members did not see this as a means to propagate an agenda for social change and alternative political leadership but as political vehicles for individuals to win political seats. As a result, there was no way of making the victors accountable to the collective agenda of the alliance, and the morally motivated ones could do so little on their own. The revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg viewed electoralism as a tool to build class consciousness and extract concessions, but not to solve the inherent contradictions. Party cadres must participate and conduct their organizing within these movements. This mass work will form the basis for strengthening our movements.
There’s no doubt that frequently, our movements have been ahead of political parties. They have been leading the masses to react to the objective conditions facing them on their own. When mainstream political parties are detached from the daily reality of our suffering masses, the social movements are looked upon to offer political leadership.
In 1944 Kenya African Union (KAU) was established to push for constitutional reforms and fight for better living and working conditions for Africans. At the period of its decline in popular support, Nairobi trade unions captured the Nairobi branch of the Party, and the African workers started participating in politics demanding radical change. Trade union leaders like Bildad Kaggia and Fred Kubai led the radical faction in KAU that organized armed confrontation with the colonial government. Stalin in Foundations of Leninism talks of there being in every revolutionary situation both objective and subjective parts of the revolution. The objective is the spontaneous. The subjective is the role of the party to direct this spontaneity.
A united front of our social movements and progressive political parties — with a clear minimum and maximum political program — is the only hope to collectively build a new reality. In the spirit of Che, we restate that liberators do not exist. Through organization, our people will liberate themselves. Organize To Take Power! Ushindi ni hakika! (Victory is Certain!)
Kinuthia Ndung'u is a community organizer, member of the Communist Party of Kenya, Kasarani Social Justice Center, and Organic Intellectuals Network.
