Imagine a meeting of dreamers in a wide, lush and green compound sitting at the edge of the highest point of Africa, swarmed, at this time, by organizers and activists from across the world. Now imagine two dreadlocked youths meeting at the smoking point and each looking for what the other has. One looking for a cigarette after a long flight, another looking for a lighter. It was thus the cosmic forces brought two Marxist dreamers together to start an unusual journey through the art of questioning.

From early evening, they spoke and smoked till the arrival of dawn. What had lengthened an otherwise quick exchange of lighters and cigarettes is at the heart of the founding of this organization now known to the world as Mwamko. You see, these two had been in the people’s movement for a long while. They came as teens and stayed through the passage of time. But as time both heals and kills, they also came to find out that amongst the accessories of time is that very disturbing element called despair. This element of time we have here and there had at certain times reared its head amongst them and the movements they came from.

Their meeting, these two smoking dreadlocked youths, whether it be the handiwork of the spiritual or that of the material is in the end the work of the historian. Many things in this life sometimes border on the unknown, especially for children of the neocolonial state. So, let the historian colour her pages with the ink that will tell that ultimate objective story!

So, despair had set in, even though there had been those joyful moments when gains were made and the oppressor humiliated. They both carried with them questions from across rivers and mountains — questions disturbing and unrelenting. Each looking for a kindred spirit to talk to, as they searched for answers. Those questions that every human being must confront if they have committed themselves to that historical commitment of ending the oppression of one class by another. In their case the questions ranged from, where are we going? What happened to the unfinished African liberation struggle? Are we starting afresh or we must continue in that one genealogy of resistance that we inherited? What type of political education must be instituted beyond the very evident dogmatism that is plaguing the movements they issue from? 

These are just a few of the many questions they were then grappling with. 

Unbeknownst to them, in that very wide and green compound swarming with activists was one of theirs asking the same or similar questions. They too came to the smoking base looking for a smoke and the rest, as they say, is history. From that day on they grounded and broke bread and, of course, smoked. They came up with many ideas as to how they could turn these questions and passion into a material force. Because they also understood that a good conversation on ideas is just that, a good conversation. So they set out to enter history in all its fullness and promise but with a different touch this time around. For the oppressed, it has always been the fire next time (word to Baldwin). But for them stoking the fire wasn’t enough since they were tired of the smoke. They resolved that, this day till forever, is the fire this time. No more smoke or stoking!

They initially planned on starting an organ in the form of a magazine that would cover the continent. It would bring to fore the questions they were then asking in those confusing and despairing moments. The magazine did appear for some time and was based in Kenya. It initially had a bent on the issues and material conditions prevailing in that country — then slowly expanded and started producing on a Pan African basis. Though short lived, it was able to answer the very first question on the notion of praxis. This question has stayed at the heart of the revolutionary movement since it became a science at the hands of Marx and Engels. Here is the question: how do we subvert the ideas of the ruling class, its hegemony, and in its place propagate the progressive ideas and ideals of the oppressed?

It was this question that had led to the creation of that magazine at that time even as they continued to organize within their various formations on the continent.

A time came when, as the inherent contradictions that inform the movement and motive of change move ever on, they had to grapple with the important question of structure and organization. They knew that an informational organ can only find its direction within a self-conscious organized front. They understood from when they studied the laws of social development, that within the class struggle, the oppressed have to negate the boundless conditions that pit them against the system as a seamless mass of people without a social identity. That in their second negation is to enter into a definite movement of self-consciousness as a class unto self.

The need to now move from an organ and integrate it within an organization became a verdict of the science and laws that had guided for a century and more the struggles of the dispossessed. They again entered into conversation as a historically determined necessity had appeared. That they must now move into building an organization.

But what type of organization must they build? Since many movements and organizations exist already, should they just continue being part of those and build solidarity with the many others? In the event of a new organization, what newness does it bring to advance this ancient struggle of ours? This new set of questions, they knew, is part of the progress that every new conjuncture produces.

It was subsequently resolved that there was a need for this new organization to emerge, for it to be a vehicle of the questions they had initially asked themselves when they met in that lush compound. Since these are questions at the very heart of the times and what they demand, this emergence must now be linked to an ongoing interrogation on relevance, context and contestation. 

A founding document was written and thoroughly critiqued by various progressives from many sources within Global Africa. The three pillars that now guide this organization named Mwamko would then emerge. These pillars – on which the work is anchored – are Intellectual Restoration, Economic Self-determination and Ecological Sovereignty. The name Mwamko is itself a Swahili word that means Awakening. The naming was a reflective process that reminds one of the essence of its founding which was to formulate a rigorous political education program, one that challenges the hegemony of capital and its minions. In the process creating a new awakening rooted both in a liberatory science and the intellectual tradition of an awakened Africa.

It has been two years since Mwamko’s initial inception and it has since moved across the continent in dialogue, in education and in building with many other movements, organizers and activists. As the organization journeys into the future with all its dreams and tensions, it only hopes to become a material force whose ideas and ideals will take hold of the masses and become their tool to a new and radiant Africa. 

Peace to this righteous organization that started with a set of questions at that green and lush compound swarming with organizers and activists from across the world. Peace and power to those dreams that propel us on a dance to new worlds. Till we meet again through the inked page my people.