Post by Onyango Oloo on Jan 31, 2018 11:11:29 GMT 3
A Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo
No doubt the swearing at Uhuru Park on the 30th of January was a great event.
Hundreds of thousands of Kenyans flooded to the historic venue to listen to Raila Odinga’s 900 word statement.
I guess the pressure was too great to prevent the Mungiki terrorists and the trigger happy cops from unleashing terror on the eager, democratic minded wananchi.
What shocked many Kenyans was the no show spectacle that Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Musalia Mudavadi at the function.
Following the events here in South Africa I was perplexed enough to contact some of my well placed sources in Nairobi to give me some pointers as to what could have prompted the shock.
What I got via email did not really surprise me.
It all came down to a question of ideology.
Some months ago I publicly criticized in one of my digital essays, the wishy washy “coalition” coming together of ODM, Wiper, Ford Kenya and Amani. I said that this reactionary thoroughly bourgeois approach was predicated in a bunch of chieftains coming together to share the spoils after capturing state power.
For a while, when NASA evolved into economic boycotts and People’s Assembly, I was slightly encouraged, even going as far as lauding the new development.
But today I remembered an old thick book that I read about two decades ago when I was a refugee in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was one of those thick books by a radical leader I used to admire then-
Enver Hoxha (if he was East African, his name which has distinct Muslim origins, would be closer to Anwar Hoja). He was the revolutionary founder of the small south central European state of Albania. What distinguished Hoxha from other Communists was his complete independence from the Soviet Union, which he dismissed as a social imperialist empire and China, which he considered adventurist.
In going through the pages of this one book I was studying, I came across a passage referring to an old peasant Albanian proverb:
“You cannot fart higher than your own ass”.
At first, the language shocked me thoroughly to read of a Marxist leader I respected use such coarse and vulgar language.
Reading on is when I realized that Enver Hoxha was using the Albanian rural expression to make a revolutionary point.
What he was saying is that when it came to politics, you did not expect some figures to rise above and beyond their ideological and historical limitations.
I thought about that south eastern European peasant phrase today.
Now you see, in terms of Kenyan politics, Raila Odinga has evolved over the years. He is not a just a bourgeois democrat. He has even veered beyond the confines of social democracy. In a sense, I liken him to his late father, Jaramogi and I consider him a revolutionary nationalist. As a Marxist-Leninist, I do not consider Agwambo a Communist, even though his detractors have tried to foist that label on him. In the pages of the biography on him authored by a Nigerian writer, he actually extols that paragon of neo-liberal thought, Francis Fukuyama.
But he is oceans ahead of Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Musalia Mudavadi who are virtually locked in a KANU neocolonial comprador rut.
In other words, the three cannot fart higher than their own asses.
The most they can do is to salivate about this position or that-whether President, Vice President, Prime Minister or Foreign Affairs. Their only game in town is cutting deals-whether this be with Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto or some other mainstream politician.
The reliable information conveyed to me today is that they met with US Ambassador Godec-and we know how the envoy has been busy campaigning against the swearing in.
The same source told me that this was not the first time. The three Kenyan musketeers were also behind the earlier attempt scuttle to the swearing in of Raila.
Now I am going to speak like a Communist-which is frankly.
Raila Odinga is the glue has been holding the NASA fort together.
Kalonzo, Mudavadi and Wetangula have been mere passengers.
Raila Odinga has the overwhelming support of the hundreds of thousands who bravely showed up at Uhuru Park-despite belonging to Wiper, Amani or FORD Kenya.
The time has come to rise above this fiction called NASA.
It is time for Agwambo to use his very popular mandate to craft a new vehicle that will actualize the economic boycott, devolution and finally kick Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and Jubilee out of power.
As they say in my Dholuo mother tongue:
Awacho bi aywieyo.
I may have more to add in the coming days.
But I will stop here today.
No doubt the swearing at Uhuru Park on the 30th of January was a great event.
Hundreds of thousands of Kenyans flooded to the historic venue to listen to Raila Odinga’s 900 word statement.
I guess the pressure was too great to prevent the Mungiki terrorists and the trigger happy cops from unleashing terror on the eager, democratic minded wananchi.
What shocked many Kenyans was the no show spectacle that Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Musalia Mudavadi at the function.
Following the events here in South Africa I was perplexed enough to contact some of my well placed sources in Nairobi to give me some pointers as to what could have prompted the shock.
What I got via email did not really surprise me.
It all came down to a question of ideology.
Some months ago I publicly criticized in one of my digital essays, the wishy washy “coalition” coming together of ODM, Wiper, Ford Kenya and Amani. I said that this reactionary thoroughly bourgeois approach was predicated in a bunch of chieftains coming together to share the spoils after capturing state power.
For a while, when NASA evolved into economic boycotts and People’s Assembly, I was slightly encouraged, even going as far as lauding the new development.
But today I remembered an old thick book that I read about two decades ago when I was a refugee in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It was one of those thick books by a radical leader I used to admire then-
Enver Hoxha (if he was East African, his name which has distinct Muslim origins, would be closer to Anwar Hoja). He was the revolutionary founder of the small south central European state of Albania. What distinguished Hoxha from other Communists was his complete independence from the Soviet Union, which he dismissed as a social imperialist empire and China, which he considered adventurist.
In going through the pages of this one book I was studying, I came across a passage referring to an old peasant Albanian proverb:
“You cannot fart higher than your own ass”.
At first, the language shocked me thoroughly to read of a Marxist leader I respected use such coarse and vulgar language.
Reading on is when I realized that Enver Hoxha was using the Albanian rural expression to make a revolutionary point.
What he was saying is that when it came to politics, you did not expect some figures to rise above and beyond their ideological and historical limitations.
I thought about that south eastern European peasant phrase today.
Now you see, in terms of Kenyan politics, Raila Odinga has evolved over the years. He is not a just a bourgeois democrat. He has even veered beyond the confines of social democracy. In a sense, I liken him to his late father, Jaramogi and I consider him a revolutionary nationalist. As a Marxist-Leninist, I do not consider Agwambo a Communist, even though his detractors have tried to foist that label on him. In the pages of the biography on him authored by a Nigerian writer, he actually extols that paragon of neo-liberal thought, Francis Fukuyama.
But he is oceans ahead of Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Musalia Mudavadi who are virtually locked in a KANU neocolonial comprador rut.
In other words, the three cannot fart higher than their own asses.
The most they can do is to salivate about this position or that-whether President, Vice President, Prime Minister or Foreign Affairs. Their only game in town is cutting deals-whether this be with Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto or some other mainstream politician.
The reliable information conveyed to me today is that they met with US Ambassador Godec-and we know how the envoy has been busy campaigning against the swearing in.
The same source told me that this was not the first time. The three Kenyan musketeers were also behind the earlier attempt scuttle to the swearing in of Raila.
Now I am going to speak like a Communist-which is frankly.
Raila Odinga is the glue has been holding the NASA fort together.
Kalonzo, Mudavadi and Wetangula have been mere passengers.
Raila Odinga has the overwhelming support of the hundreds of thousands who bravely showed up at Uhuru Park-despite belonging to Wiper, Amani or FORD Kenya.
The time has come to rise above this fiction called NASA.
It is time for Agwambo to use his very popular mandate to craft a new vehicle that will actualize the economic boycott, devolution and finally kick Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and Jubilee out of power.
As they say in my Dholuo mother tongue:
Awacho bi aywieyo.
I may have more to add in the coming days.
But I will stop here today.