Conversations with Gamechangers: Grassroots Liberation

(part of the [[Conversations with Gamechangers]] webinar series.)

Organised by SEA ([[Solidarity Economy Association]])

• small coop based in UK
• multiple small projects for solidarity economy from below
• SE
  • being done all over the world (although maybe not called SE)
• SEA: sharing tools tips and solidarity from around the world

[[Grassroots Liberation]]

Speakers

• Waringa Wahome

  • social justice and human rights lawyer

• Brayan Mathenge - writer on politics

• Gacheke Gachihi

• Kinuthia Ndung’u

• all members of differnt social justice centres, involved in grassroots liberation, part of young communist league kenya

• music played at the beginning, tribute to the leader of the Mozambique people ([[Eduardo Mondlane]]?)

[[Mathare Social Justice Centre]]

• economic crisis in east africa
• mathare social justice centre started in 2015
  • collective political power and economy from below
  • documenting human rights violations
  • fight for the right to organise
  • in the face of extrajudicial killing and torture
• inspired by [[democratic confederalism]] of [[Rojava]]
• the centres have around 30 membres
• campaigns: rights to water, extrajudicial killing, ecological justice

Genesis

• how are the conditions historically changing
  • colonialism to neoliberalism
  • spread of hopelessness in [[Kenya’s informal settlements]]
  • broken healthcare, education systems
  • high levels of unemployment
  • police brutality, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings
• activities engaged in by the SJCs:
  • monitoring these things, stepping up to be a vanguard of the community
  • organised both legally and when legal means fail taken to mass actions in the streets
  • organising ecological justice hubs, parks in local neighbourhoods
  • building a popular power within local neighbourhoods
• Ecological Justice hubs
  • people’s park
  • clean up garbage and plant trees
    • not just for the park
    • but in memory of those affected by state violence, police brutality and killings
  • Kenya has a history of police state and violence
  • former british colony that has remained violent
  • sustainable economy
  • in urban areas Ecological Justice is pressing
    • growth
    • people trying to make profits from housing
    • open sewers, causing myriad of chronic conditions
    • in shanties (informal settlements) lots of people suffering from cancer and similar
    • also a lot of land grabbing, minimal green spaces
      • air is polluted
      • can’t drink the water that is in the rivers
    • social justice centres
      • organised in different ways in different areas
      • own means of sustenance
      • home where people can communicate
    • two struggles
      • first, building a civic space for community organising
      • second, building a sustainable basis for these
      • these spaces are sites of struggle

Informal settlements

• [[Kenya’s informal settlements]] - what is the life like there?

  • history, problems, typical lifes
  • poverty is violence, poverty is crime, drugs
  • 70% of people live in settlements
  • no water, housing
  • crises of capitalism
  • police stop people from organising against poverty and hopelessness
    • SJC are to give a space to start organising

• protest marches every year

Political education

• international solidarity is critical to send message to gov to stop cleansing and criminalisation of the youth

• hard to do community organising where there is poverty and hopelessness

• political education is important

• ecological justice campaign has helped challenging for a democratic space to organise

• political education

  • important to understand our history

  • to know where we are going

  • looking at history, all struggles are political questions

  • politicisation of human rights

  • in kenya, HR has been suspended

  • borrow from history, such as Che Guevara

    • first duty of revolutionary is to be educated

  • very important in understanding neoliberalism

  • students of walter rodney: revolutionary must understand the system

  • different ideological factions with doing opinions

    • standardised political programme

  • hopelessness in informal settlements (because of poverty)

  • wretched of the earth are detached

  • PE reawakes the wretched of the earth

  • to expose systemic forms of oppression

    • taking up sites of struggle

  • e.g. to help connecting water shortages to political organisation

  • create a syllabus of political thinkers and political writers

    • network of political thinkers
    • to organise around the same issues, and conduct education

• jeff miley

  • lives in england, political sociology
    • kurdish freedom movement in 2014
    • very involved in that since then, 2018 involved in dialogue with people in mathare social justice centre
    • affinity between kurdish movement and movement in nairobi
    • beyond NGOs and the nation state
  • grassroots liberation was born out of internationalist spirit
  • trying to do things at grassroots
  • organised a series of seminars done in the communities themselves
    • rasta resistance
    • women’s lib in the 21st century (from kurdish freedom movement)
    • social ecology as a revolutionary paradigm
    • legacy of walter rodney - he saw need for grassroots education
      • not political speeches, but go to grassroots and engage
  • arusha declaration for the 21st century

Intergenerational movement?

• focus on youth, intergenerational? how is it structured?

  • bring together different movements

• emancipation from NGOism

• majority of african population is young people in general

• borrowed heavily from democratic confedarlism

  • three line
    • ecological justice (youth, young people)
    • women’s rights
    • democratic confederalism

• rasta population has a lot of similarities with the kurdish people

What was the existing way of organising?

• organising cooperatives around food and rural organising
• organising around water
• people were doing self-help but began organising around struggle
• borrowing from south africa that organises around the housing question
• existing resilience of the people
• preexisting conditions
  • used to have individuals taking charge in the community
  • any time the community involved itself it was as a spontaneous reaction
    • that was not sustained organising
    • political education to help sustain the organising
  • individuals who defended the community might disappear
    • but if it’s as a whole community, then it’s harder to take down
• the main road that runs through mathare
  • mau mau road
  • preexisting tradition of land and freedom movement
  • political consciousness in the ghettos
    • political history that was betrayed by post colonial activities
    • referenced [[Dedan Kimathi]]

NGOism

• recent form of colonialism is NGOism
  • international development, NGOism
  • how have they challenged NGOism?
  • last 30 years in neoliberal economy
    • politiclisation of social movements by NGOs
    • has affected many people
    • similar to as in latin america
  • organic intellectual networks is putting together a book on ngo discourse, role of ngos in east africa
    • community organisation has to challenge NGOism every day
  • NGOs don’t ask fundamental question of why people are poor!
    • never look at political economy
• NGO activities limit their struggle
• neoliberalism is not necessariliy a tactic that people understand, this is part of the education work
• NGOs fragment different political struggles in communities
• the communities become depolitised
  • political education helps fight back against this
• fundmental question within GLs circles
• NGOism is very deeply rooted
• NGOs were born from the belly of neoliberalism and free market economy
  • very tied to neoliberal system
  • move from dependency to dignity
  • a self-determined structure
  • some progressive NGOs have had a positive influence or positive contribution (but they are still a result of neoliberal economy)
  • jeff: from an internationalist perspective
    • even going in with the grassroots, it’s hard to avoid a neocolonialist perspective
    • distinguish between NGOisation and leveraging our privilege
    • check our privelege and leverage our privilege
    • e.g. speak out about police violence, can be very dangerous for those threatened by it, leverage privilege to speak out about it
    • distinguish internationalism from neocolonialism

Economic aspect

Differences between rural struggles and urban struggles

• [missed a bit]
• as capitalism reinvents itself, the rural workers are experiencing similar struggles urban struggles as well, so there are overlaps

international solidarity

• sharing of their documents
• online fundraising that can be shared with us by jeff
• sharing about the crisis of capitalism
• creating awareness across the globe
• connect struggles - collective international campaigns

power relations between those with abilities and those with needs

• philosophical question
• it is inherent in the nature of capitalism that ther eis an imbalance
• there has long been a class difference
• those who are privilege must leverage that
• jeff:
  • fanon says that political education is different from coming in with speeches. help to be the midwife in the birth of critical thinking.
  • paulo freire - pedagogy of the oppressed
  • these webinars are one way of attempting to organise political education different

what is the situation for women?

• primary question is class struggle
• particular issues that address the women question
• patriarchy is prominent in capitalism
  • something to organise around
  • advocacy from women in SJC
  • women in SJCs are organising wmen in informal settings to politicise them
• NGOs and red carpet feminism
• glass ceiling and rock ceilings

Do you have any interactions with local government? Are they supportive or antagonistic?

(my computer is also struggling with zoom so I can’t ask this personally, sorry!)

social justice centres

• even if people don’t necessarily belief in the political theory
• people can engage with questions of housing, poverty, police violence, etc
• once reasoning about immediate needs
• history of kenya: dictatorship, crisis of economy
• social justice was a proposition from below
• why do we have an economy that is inherently violent?
• 21 SJCs in Nairobi
  • meet every 2 weeks (or twice a week?)
  • building a mass urban movement
  • organise forces against state violence
  • SJCs are found in informal settlements, where it is the less privileged and majority of poor people

closing remarks

• learn from each other and inspire international solidarity as the crisis of capitalism continues