📚 node [[conversations with gamechangers grassroots liberation]]

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
📖 stoas
⥱ context