Mwamko
Latest
Murder on a Festive Occasion for our People
Last year, tragedy struck on one of the holiest and merriest of times for the Christian faithful in Kenya after the discovery of four bodies near a small informal settlement on the eastern outskirts of Thika town. This was not death in a natural way, but as murder. A five-day search party had culminated in the discovery of the bodies of four young men from this squatter village floating on River Thika on Christmas Eve. The four were allegedly murdered by security guards from the food giant Del Monte for stealing pineapples and their bodies thrown in the river.
Surviving on the Fringes: Deception of Social Housing
The tailor who operates a small tailoring shop a few metres from my house, likely in his late forties, once narrated to me how he learnt and polished his craft in prison. He is often busy patching old clothes for clients, most of whom are laboring African sisters and brothers who cannot afford the luxury of buying new clothes every now and then.
But this, my dear reader, is not a narrative of how prisons rehabilitate offenders. That is a deception which we will debunk another day and expose how they instead act as reservoirs for the poor majority. This is additionally not a story about how his customers, most of whom work in an Export Processing Zone nearby, are exploited, everyday producing clothes they can not afford. Not at all!
You Cannot Fence Freedom
I am in Nairobi, seated in close proximity to the Nairobi Arboretum. I’m in deep thought about recent proposals to impose entry charges to Nairobi’s largest park, Uhuru Park. This move is nothing new, for there has been a concerted effort to zone off and commercialise such parks and other public spaces over the past decade – effectively turning rest into a commodity accessible only to those able to afford it.
The Nairobi arboretum today has an entry fee of 115 shillings. Down Nyerere Road, Central Park and Uhuru Park have been inaccessible to the public since November 2021 when they were closed for ‘renovation’.
What we Stand For
Intellectual restoration
African people, like all other peoples, are bearers of civilizational seeds that have blossomed throughout history. Finding its first known fruition in ancient Egypt, there existed a consistent building and renewing of civilizations until the advent of the colonial state.
Economic self-determination
Our people live in saddening conditions marked by gut-wrenching poverty, are deprived of basic needs, their rights to self-determination, barred from their lands, and are everyday humiliated and subjugated in a world completely laid to waste by capitalism.
Ecological sovereignty
Today, large multinational corporations are waging war on the sovereignty of land, seed and food systems on the African continent and beyond. As the African savannah disappears to be replaced by an ever encroaching desert and concrete, our seeds are concurrently being patented and small farm holdings criminalized.
Projects & Activities
Solidarity Economy in the age of Globalised
Neo-colonialism
In June 2023, Mwamko and Cooperation Jackson hosted a public lecture and conversation themed ’Solidarity Economy in the age of Globalised Neo-Colonialism’. This lecture by Kali Akuno touches on the alternatives to capitalism and the many ways to build a new world, specifically on how to situate leftist economic alternatives within today’s dominant economic structures.
Join Us Today
Join Mwamko as we take the course together for the transformation of Africa.
