People are hyperventilating about the cluelessness or brazenness of Kenya Kwanza. The only rubric for analyzing it seems to be that this is a return to Moi-ism.
But if you follow our discussions on #MaishaKazini, their chaos makes perfect sense. We anticipated and explained it.
But if you follow our discussions on #MaishaKazini, their chaos makes perfect sense. We anticipated and explained it.
We explained it many times. But only Moi-ism seems to be available because anti-Moi struggles of the 90s are the most victorious non-governmental project in Kenya to date. Thanks to donors. All the others, like Mau Mau and class politics have been brutally crushed by the state.
We have to look at Kenya with a wider lens than politicians and NGOs. Kenya is a politically conservative country, thanks to donors and state violence. Conservatism is a moralistic discourse. That's why people can't see Kenya Kwanza's contradictions outside personalities.
Kenya Kwanza's hustler logic was inevitable. If Ruto didn't use it, somebody else would have. And capital needed a right wing populist narrative for two reasons
1) it massifies economic products and privatizes social services, like micro-finance and CBC (the charter school model)
1) it massifies economic products and privatizes social services, like micro-finance and CBC (the charter school model)
2) it blocks the development of a proper left politics in Kenya.
The donors are willing to fund the constitutional/2nd liberation discourse because that discourse is stuck in law and enlightenment principles. And is dominated by the middle class.
The donors are willing to fund the constitutional/2nd liberation discourse because that discourse is stuck in law and enlightenment principles. And is dominated by the middle class.
It's likely that many Kenya Kwanzans are clueless in where they fit in the larger scheme of imperialism. They just picked a narrative that worked but had no idea the baggage it carries. That's why they're fumbling between hustler rhetoric and dynasty madharau for hustlers.
We should not follow them in that cluelessness. Our view should be wider. We should understand why the meltdown between old money and new money was bound to happen at some point, with or without WSR.
That's why ALL the 3%, dynasties, hustlers and civil society, all support CBC. They support it because they hope to prevent that political understanding from growing among the 97% of Kenyans. But they will not succeed. They may delay it, but they will not win in the long run.
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