Should we feel flattered? (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

When, in 1904, the founders of our Party were attempting to formulate a clear and correct statement of Socialist principles upon which to base the new organization, they found an earlier declaration which had appeared in William Morris’s Commonweal of the greatest value as a starting point. From time to time during the intervening years it has been suggested that the continued prominence we give to this declaration, to which we steadfastly adhere, could lead to misunderstanding, so great, it is said have been the changes in the style of language since the beginning of the century. So it is with considerable interest and, we must admit, a certain degree of amusement that we have recently come across a curiously distorted version of our declaration of principles published in the August issue of "Africa and the World” which retains the period-style if little else.

NIGERIAN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT


(Incorporating “Forward with Nigeria Movement”)


DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

The Nigerian Socialist Movement holds:

1. That Nigerian society as at present constituted is oriented to capitalist form of social relations and the consequent exploitation and enslavement of the working class and the peasants whose labour produces the bulk of the wealth of the community.
2. That there is necessarily an antagonism of interests between the privileged, aristocratic and plutocratic class on the one hand and the working class and peasants on the other.
3. That this antagonism of interests manifests itself in Nigeria in mounting industrial disputes, but that tribalism confuses and divides the workers and peasants and is encouraged as a means of diverting them from a genuine struggle to obtain their rights.
4. That the antagonism of interests can only be abolished by the adoption of a truly socialist system where the workers and peasants are secured the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
5. That as all political parties are an expression of class interests and the interests of the workers and peasants are diametrically opposed to those of the privileged, aristocratic and plutocratic class, the workers and peasants must organise themselves in unity, with progressive and revolutionary intellectuals as a political force for the conquest of governmental powers—national and local—so that the machinery of government may be converted from an instrument of oppression and exploitation into an agency of emancipation and the abolition of all privilege whether aristocratic, plutocratic or economic.
6. That racialism, wherever it is practised is opposed to the universal principles of equality and social justice and therefore the Nigerian Socialist Movement considers the abolition of racialism and the economic and political exploitation of the people of Africa the most urgent problem facing the world today.
7. That in order to liquidate colonialism; to arrest the present tendency to neo-colonialism; to emancipate the people of Africa from all forms of exploitation; to restore the dignity of African culture and personality; and the promotion of world peace; a Socialist Union Government of Africa is a necessity now.
8. That the Nigerian Socialist Movement therefore enters the field of political action as a force representing the aspirations and yearnings of the workers, peasants, the progressive and revolutionary intellectuals and youth, calls upon the workers, ; peasants and the people of Nigeria to muster under its banner so as to bring a quick end to the system of exploitation and slavery; and that comfort, equality, true freedom and social justice may prevail in Nigeria, Africa, and the world as a whole.

Issued by The Political and Policy Bureau of the Nigerian Socialist Movement, 192 High Street, Stoke Newington, London, N16.

Were it not for the fact that this declaration of a London based group calling itself “The Nigerian Socialist Movement” follows our word order somewhat more closely, it might have been a mere adaptation of an earlier one which was put out in Nigeria by the Northern Elements Progressive Union. As it is, it looks very much as if it has been plagiarized direct from source. However, whatever were the circumstances in which this Nigerian group drew up its standpoint, we consider it necessary to deal with its tenets one by one.

(1) Their first error is to confine their analysis of society to Nigeria which is merely the successor state to the arbitrary contrived British colonial unit of the same name, Nigeria's problems are not unique. They are characteristic of formerly colonial Afro-Asian territories which are now emerging as distinctive capitalist entities. The fact that we are dealing here with an emerging capitalist state does presuppose the existence of remnants, at times quite substantial, of earlier social structures and this is indicated by the reference to the peasants. But with an economy so utterly geared to the world market (palm-oil, cocoa, tin and sides) capitalism has for some time had a predominating role in Nigeria and it is to the working class born of this development, and not to the peasantry, that the call for socialism is relevant and can be made meaningful. And even allowing for the difference in the level of capitalist development in Britain and Nigeria, it still remains true that wealth is entirely the product of the labour of those who produce but do not possess, not just the “bulk” of it.

(3) We can allow clause (2) to pass, but in clause (3) we must point out the dangerous lack of precision when reference is made to workers obtaining “rights.” We can readily agree that for workers to retain tribal loyalties, just like feudal or national loyalties, does stand in the way of their becoming aware of the international class character of their problems.

(4) By borrowing from the British Labour Party’s clause 4 the declaration descends into deep confusion and woolliness. Socialism does not mean the “equitable distribution of the fruits of the industry of the workers and peasants.” Having converted the means of production and distribution into the common property of society the working class will, by so doing, have emancipated itself and, indeed, the whole of mankind from the entire class system. There will no more be workers or peasants to have “fair shares” secured for them than there will be capitalists or landowners to deny them. Each member of a classless socialist society will have free access to the things that he or she considers he needs. These may well vary from person to person, just as in working according to his ability each man will be contributing differently.

(5) To state that political parties are but the expression of class interests is true enough, but if, by what follows, it becomes evident that what constitutes a social class is not understood such a statement is rendered meaningless. Who are the “progressive and revolutionary intellectuals” with whom the workers and peasants are exhorted to unite? If by intellectuals we are to understand people possessing a high degree of understanding then we say that it is only when the majority of workers become intellectuals, in the sense of attaining a basic understanding of the nature of capitalism, their position in it and the socialist solution, that they will be able to bring about the Socialist Revolution. Furthermore, the history of human development shows that our fellow workers do have the capacity to achieve this. If, on the other hand—and this is more likely the case by “intellectual” is meant a person possessing superior mental powers, an élite, a leadership, then it is evident that what is envisaged is a non class-conscious working class being led to its salvation by the chosen few, an idea proven by bitter experience to be quite erroneous. And in the context of a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society, just who are such “intellectuals” anyway? They are, almost without exception, the embryo capitalist class, those with the skills, techniques and ambitions of power who, upon the emergence of a locally governed state become its ruling class and who, far from abolishing privilege, entrench it upon the new capital and wage labour basis.

(6) Again in error racialism is seen as a problem in itself. Properly perceived, racialism is a noxious by-product of economic exploitation and competition. Consequently its disappearance is dependent upon the attainment of socialist understanding by working men and women of the entire human race and their acting upon it. Racialism, like war, poverty and other monstrous facets of present-day society, is an inescapable consequence of capitalism. It is, therefore; the abolition of the wages system itself which is the most urgent task facing workers throughout the world today.

(7/8) The problems of capitalism are world-wide. The socialist solution must, if it is to be a solution at all, be world-wide, too. There can be no national, regional or even continental solution, no Nigerian or British, West African or West European solutions. Human dignity requires an end to exploitation of man by man everywhere.

Eddie Grant

The liberation of Africa (1978)

From the October 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

It might as well be made clear at once. The title of this article is black humour. In the whole of this mighty continent (Europe would fit into a corner), from Cairo to the Cape, there is hardly a square mile of liberty—even of the capitalist brand such as exists in places like Britain where the proletariat is at least able to organise itself into trade unions and political parties (and where the SPGB can publish, and you can read, this journal).

For a hundred years and more, almost the entire continent was carved up among the powers of Europe, mainly England and France but also including Portugal, Belgium, Italy and pre-1914 Germany). The European imperialists had little difficulty in ousting the native rulers who were in many cases barely out of the Stone Age—but who, like all ruling classes, had treated the subject classes with horrifying oppression and exploitation. It would be anybody’s guess whether the mass of the African peoples were subjected to more vicious exploitation under the Europeans than they were under their own native rulers (some of whom, among other delights, were always ready to sell their subjects for transportation to slavery). However, there grew up in the African countries (just as in India and South America) a movement to liberate the Africans from the European capitalists—a movement which was eagerly supported by European leftists of the Fenner Brockway ilk (it may be news to some readers that this ancient ILPer, a colleague of such as Maxton whose names sound like history lessons, is alive and well in the Lords where he occasionally pontificates about Africa without the slightest sign of realising that he spent his life helping to con the Africans from a white-ruled hell to the black-ruled hell that they have to endure now). We in the SPGB always did our best to point out that nationalism, whether in Ireland or India or Africa, was simply a trap for the working class and that those who laid down their lives for this cause were merely substituting a native ruling class for a foreign one. With the kind of "benefits” that are made so horrifyingly clear every time you open a paper or switch on the news.

It may be worthwhile to have a very brief look at a few of the dozens of countries where nationalism has won the day. In the north there is Egypt where the lot of the mass of the people is at least as degraded as it was in British days and where, only a year ago, President Sadat rewarded the poor devils who crossed the Suez Canal in the teeth of Israeli guns in the Yom Kippur War by decreeing a massive increase in the prices of the poor basic foods that they subsisted on—with no comparable increase in wages. As these workers were already only just about subsisting, there were riots in Cairo and Alexandria which were put down with at least as much brutality as was used by the British. And the "ring-leaders” (the name the ruling class always gives to workers who have the cheek to kick against the pricks) are still rotting in gaol—as though rotting in the normal poverty of Cairo’s slums is not bad enough. That should teach the Egyptian workers to fight their masters’ wars against Israel. (Sadly, there is no reason to think it will. Any more than in the case of British workers.)

Sadat recently had the impudence to hold a referendum where the voters were given the chance to say they thought there was too much political freedom! And, according to Sadat, said it. There is of course no freedom whatsoever in the land of Egyptian “Socialism”. (Almost all these countries now have the nerve to call themselves socialist.) Except the freedom of a small ruling class to get inordinately rich while the people who produce the wealth live in abject poverty.

Similar conditions obtain in the other countries of the north of the continent, in the former French colonies, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Senegal, all of which have divested themselves of European rulers since the war. In all of them the position of the working-class is one of wage slavery compounded by the opposition of the native rulers to the formation of trade unions or independent political parties. One day, the workers will no doubt succeed in getting them. But meanwhile, their fate is deplorable. And as we move south of the Sahara, conditions are even more appalling. The very names of places like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the “Central African Empire” (ruled by a murderous megalomaniac called Bokassa, formerly a soldier in the French army, another General Amin) are enough to give nightmares to anyone with the slightest knowledge of the excesses that are perpetrated there. Then we have Zaire, formerly the Belgian Congo. One might have thought that the atrocities committed by King Leopold in pre-1914 days—his speciality was to cut off the hands of natives who impeded his quest for profits—would be unequalled. But the former Belgian soldier, Mobutu, who now rules in Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville) can compare with the worst of them. And to some purpose. The fortune that he has spirited out of the country (against the day when he may have to get out in a hurry) is reputed to make him one of the richest men in the world. And this brings us to Angola with whose president, Netto, Mobutu has apparently come to terms recently after the wars and massacres that have taken place in the copper-rich province of Zaire, twice invaded recently by rebel forces stationed in Angola. Angola, like all the worst hell-holes, is now a "Marxist” state if you please. Marx repudiated Marxists in his time, but he could never have dreamt that his name would be purloined by the kind of regimes that exist in Angola and Ethiopia where mass murder and constant terror—against their own subjects, as well as against neighbouring black countries—are worthy of Genghiz Khan.

In Nigeria, the largest and potentially the richest country in the continent, once again there is not a vestige of freedom and the lot of the workers can be gauged by an item which was mentioned in the Socialist Standard some years ago but is worth repeating in the present context. The government of this rich country, which had recently finished off a war attempted secession by Biafra (and finished off around a million people by guns and starvation) had the effrontery to put an advert in that well-known liberal paper, the Guardian, calling on British capitalists to invest in factories in Nigeria where the main advantage was “the cheapest wages in Africa”—seven cents an hour. Just enough to keep a monkey in peanuts. So much for black workers in independent Africa. The black capitalists make royalty look like beggars. At the very time when Biafran workers were literally starving to death (and when all fighting had ended) the Nigerian chief, General Gowon, got married. The papers were full of the stories about planes coming in from France carrying tons of the most delectable foods—and French chefs to deal with them for the delectation of the ruling class wedding guests. Yet only a few days before this article was written, there was an article by the editor-in-chief of the Observer, Conor Cruise O’Brien, saying what a nice chap Gowon is and how graciously he accepted the coup that kicked him out—so that he could live in Hampstead on the millions he had salted away!

We can only just glance in passing at such details as the war between “Marxist” Somalia (formerly backed by “Marxist” Russia but now armed by America) and “Marxist” Ethiopia (formerly backed by America and now backed by “Marxist” Russia). Suffice it to say that thousands of poor people fight and die in places like the Danakil desert where, in temperatures that go up to 150F in the shade, life is just about on the margin even in peace time. And Kenya. Here, we have just ben regaled with the story of the funeral of M’zee, the Grand Old Man and Father of the People, Jomo Kenyatta. Some of us knew Kenyatta in the ’40s when he was in Manchester; our word for him was “four-flusher”. He played the leading rôle in getting rid of the British in Kenya so that now there is, as always, a small, exceedingly rich, black capitalist class and a mass of liberated black workers who are suffering at least as much poverty, unemployment etc. as they ever did. And let anyone who criticises the leadership beware. Even an MP who had the nerve to open his mouth in Parliament was kidnapped by Kenyatta’s guards and his body found dumped in a ravine. The Commission of Enquiry is still sitting!

Still, these poor Third World countries do get aid from places like Sweden; a herd of magnificent Swedish cattle, each beast being worth a hundred men in hard cash, was donated to improve the Kenyan stock. No doubt it improved the stock on the farm belonging to Kenyatta’s sister where the entire herd ended up. Then, a year or two later, a proud announcement was made by Tiny Rowland the chairman of Lonhro, the British firm trading mainly in Africa (the actual “unacceptable face of capitalism”—Heath): "We have appointed the first black man onto our Board”. Great news for the downtrodden proletariat. Especially when the new director was the son of the same Kenyatta’s same sister. How many African workers, conned by leftists of all colours, were made to suffer privation and even death in rebellions like the Mau Mau so that a few blacks should own the country instead of a few whites? And who will win the election to succeed Kenyatta? Nobody. No election, see.

All of which leaves us but little space to deal with the appalling state of affairs in Rhodesia which is now filling the papers (not to mention the cemeteries). The white capitalists have undoubtedly treated the black people in unspeakable fashion ever since the days of the unspeakable Rhodes. And now there are massacres of blacks and whites so as to sort out which black leaders will come out on top in the struggle for power when the whites are dethroned. Which will get the black Mercedes and which the hearses. There is no more principle involved than in the struggle between A1 Capone and Jack Diamond —or Stalin and Trotsky. At the time of writing, the favourite for the role of Stalin is a gang-leader called Mugabe, backed by Nyerere of Tanzania (another black “socialist” dictator who has an enormous number of political prisoners rotting away in his gaols). Mugabe has been most honest for a politician. He has made it perfectly clear that there will be no freedom to oppose him once he gets power. One man one vote —for Mugabe, or else. He has also made it clear that there is a grisly fate awaiting those who are now opposing him—which means huge numbers of ordinary blacks as well as leaders (and ordinary whites). And when there was a debate in the Commons about a dreadful massacre of missionaries and their families, a loud-mouthed leftie, a former actor called Faulds, blamed the massacre on those who failed to give “one man one vote”. Knowing full well Mugabe and Co have declined to take part in elections. Saying in effect: We have got the guns. We are going to take power on our terms and to hell with democracy. And if a lot of “our" blacks are going to get killed in the process, who cares?

And while on that note it is apposite to mention the role of our former “socialist” Premier, Sir Harold Wilson. When sanctions were first proclaimed against the Smith regime many years ago, he boasted they would bring down the white regime “in weeks, not months". And the British navy have mounted a blockade outside Beira ever since. And now even a paper like the Observer (Sep 3) calls Wilson a hypocrite because he was at that very time conniving in supplies of oil—the heart of the matter—being pumped into Rhodesia by British government-owned BP in order to defeat those very sanctions. Still, as the paper says, some hypocrisy is essential in government; it is merely a matter of how much! Wilson went too far! And the dreadful thing is that the majority of workers, of all colours, just swallow the hypocrisy of capitalism as though no other system is possible.

L. E. Weidberg

African Narodnik (2010)

Book Review from the October 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Africa’s Liberation. The Legacy of Nyerere. Edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam. Pambazuka Press. 2010.

If Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania from independence in 1961 till 1985, had been a late 19th century Russian he would have been labelled a “Narodnik”, i.e. someone who thought that a basically agricultural country could move straight to socialism, on the basis of local communal villages, without having to pass through capitalism. The Russian Marxists denied this, but the Narodniks never got a chance to implement their ideas.

Nyerere did, with the Arusha declaration which adopted “Ujamma” (“socialism and self-reliance”) as the official state policy of Tanzania. As predicted by Marxists it failed. In fact one of the contributors to this tribute to Nyerere on the 10th anniversary of his death in 2009, Issa Shivji, once described the result as the development of a “bureaucratic bourgeoisie” in Tanzania. Today the present Tanzanian government openly embraces (is forced to) capitalist development.

This said, Nyerere comes across as sincere and principled, as genuinely wanting a society of social equality, democracy and without exploitation, and unlike nearly all the other historic African independence leaders power did not go to his head. However, the fact that he was sincere and incorruptible shows that the problem in Africa (and elsewhere) is not bad leaders but capitalism. Not even a saint can make capitalism – which African countries are currently obliged to accept – work in the interest of all.

It only remains to add that Tanzania in 1967 could have passed directly to socialism but only with the rest of the world following a world socialist revolution. Given that this did not happen, capitalism developed in Tanzania, as in Russia.

Adam Buick

Financial wizards or great pretenders? (2001)

From the October 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the 1990s when, under the cunning guidance of the IMF and the World Bank, the Ghanaian people were literally being strangled by the Economic Recovery Programme of the Structural Adjustment Programme, the financial advisers to President Jerry Rawlings always managed to conjure figures and statistics which indicated that the economy was doing excellently well. These statistics not only earned Ghana the epithet “darling state” of the West but Rawlings himself was so glad with his economists that he bestowed upon the title “financial wizards”. But the truth is that these accolades were for the purpose of damage control. Rawlings knew deep within his heart that his “wizards” were in reality great pretenders like himself as together they had been stashing away huge sums in foreign banks.

The history of the struggle for economic development in Africa and the forces dictating the pace thereof are not in the least different from the scenario that the West, Rawlings and the economic advisers enacted in Ghana.

Groping in the dark

Immediately African countries were pronounced independent by the colonial masters, the leaders rolled up their sleeves and set to the arduous task of nation-building. Although a few may have seemed to genuinely have the welfare of the masses at heart, many of these leaders and their ministers were deeply engaged in stomach politics. Be that as it may, these leaders, day in day out, saw the plight of the masses getting worse and worse.

A great number of African countries became independent in the sixties. This period also happened to be the peak of the so-called “cold war”. The West and the East struggled to control these newly-independent nations to enhance their (West and East) own economic interests. The result was that these African countries found themselves in a kind of trial-and-error methods of trying to extricate themselves from growing poverty.

At first the state got involved in business by setting up marketing boards. These bought up cash crops from the farmers and exported them. The state thus acted as a middleman. The state also created development boards, authorities and corporations in the hope of making money to move their countries forward. In some extreme cases some governments resorted to outright nationalisation of private business. However all these efforts by no means arrested the downward trend in the living standards of the masses. They still paid dearly for imports and received peanuts for their exports.

To overcome this problem of high prices of imports, the policy of import substitution was introduced. By this, companies producing such imported commodities as milk, beverages, matches, canned foods, bottled drinks, etc were encouraged to come and establish factories and carry out production here in Africa. Many companies responded positively but the outcome of this policy was a deepening impoverishment of the masses. They served as cheap labour in these factories. In fact only a few could afford to furnish their families with the commodities they got involved in producing. African leaders were baffled as what tended to happen was that nothing happened. No wonder there were lots of attempts at and successful coups d’état during the sixties and seventies.

It was during this period of beating about the bush for economic direction that the IMF and the World Bank joined in the fray. They came along with a novel package that was going to miraculously propel African economies to the highest degree of development. This new policy was the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). This SAP idea condemned the previous method of development as unworkable and maintained instead that making structural changes, including the expansion and re-orientation of production, was the only way forward. African nations were to put the production of “non-traditional exports” and tourism into a higher gear. Thus in a country like Ghana where the traditional exports were mainly cocoa, timber and gold, under the SAP crops like pepper, pineapples, yams, maize, and oranges were to be turned into cash crops and exported. SAP also stipulated that private capital was to be the “engine of growth” and that “governments have no business doing business”. It did not however take long for the people to understand that they were once again fooled by official policy. Hardship and suffering increased a thousandfold. The masses had been moved from the frying pan into the fire.

Today the SAP is still the invisible hand directing affairs at our finance ministries in the interests of the owners of the World Bank and the IMF and to the detriment of the masses of Africa. However this time around there is a formidable group of foot soldiers preparing the grounds for, facilitating implementation and soothing the pains of these anti-people policies. These are the NGOs. There are hordes of them in every African country. All the misinformation propagated in the form of catchy phrases and slogans by the IMF and WB are picked up unquestioningly by these NGOs and parroted all over the place. The NGOs assist governments in deceiving the people by embarking on projects which are either white elephants or never even take off the ground. Meanwhile the wealthy companies keep selling their obsolete equipment to Africa in the name of appropriate technology.

Socialists or capitalists?

On Thursday 23 August the BBC Focus On Africa programme broadcast the news that Jose Edouardo dos Santos of Angola had announced that he would not be standing for re-election in he next presidential elections. Interestingly the BBC referred to the man as a “former Marxist”. This reminded me of others like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and a host of them who were also said to be “Marxists” by which they meant “communists” or “socialists”. Of course the West and East tagged these people thus for obvious reasons—whereas the West saw the as “dangerous”, the East considered them “good boys”. But the truth is that none of these leaders who championed the struggle for independence actually understood the global system. At best they only had hazy and confused ideas of soviet-style “socialism” (state capitalism). And, sadly, the present crop of leaders are even more bankrupt and myopic than their predecessors. If so, who gave the precursors advice and who advises the current leaders?

On the attainment of independence many African countries still depended on the former colonial masters for advice and guidance. In fact this is true of most of the francophone nations. Others, like Gamel Nasser’s Egypt, Nkrumah’s Ghana and Sekou Toure’s Guinea were so radical (though not revolutionary) that they openly castigated the West and courted the friendship of the former USSR. But in reality they did not escape the domineering influence of the existing global economic system since the East also practised capitalism. The finance ministers and economic advisers thought there were differences between the West and East in their theories and strategies for development and that thinking was partly responsible for the trial-and-error methods of development the newly-independent countries adopted – they were just variations of the same rule of capital.

The situation is different is different today. There are thousands of “experts” working day and night in seemingly harmless institutions and commissions and advising governments on their economic policies. The IMF and WB are still the main determinants of the path African economies must chart. But in order to lend some credence to their nefarious activities, they keep creating, from behind the scenes, economic institutions which are outwardly African in nature. And even if the IMF and WB have no hands in the creation of some of such institutions, they still manage to control them by picking up some of their bills. These bodies serve as economic think-tanks and advisers to governments. Some of them even assist in soliciting loans for governments. These include the Economic Commission for Africa; Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS); African Development Bank (ADB); Southern African Development Committee (SADEC);West African Monetary Institute, etc. There are groups spearheaded by individuals like Adebayo Adedeji, Julius Nyerere and others. The experts in these institutions hold regular meetings not to seek genuine ways and means of salvaging the African masses but, pretenders as they are, to wine, dine and go home with per diems which are sometimes higher than the monthly salaries of employees in the high income category. They waste huge quantities of paper-producing volumes of reports which sit on shelves gathering dust. But even if these “experts” are genuinely engaged in helping, their efforts will always come to nil.

The reason is that like their bosses in the IMF and World Bank, they are trying to reform a system which is inherently flawed. The system in operation in today’s world is profit oriented. Every idea put across and every step taken is to make profit not to satisfy human needs. Based on money, the belief is that without money nothing can work. Therefore governments are advised and sometimes coerced to take loans. The few with big money invest in our countries. Since investors are looking for profits the end result is that the human and material resources are mercilessly plundered.

But the truth is that production is carried out by people not money. Problems are solved by human beings, not money. The main problems Africans face are food, healthcare, shelter, education, clothes, and so on. These are produced by human labour acting on natural resources,. Africa has more than enough of these human and natural resources but because they system is based on money, these resources are accessible to only those who have money. These are a negligible minority who own all the means of production and distribution of wealth. But since they will use their wealth to produce only what will fetch them more money, they may produce what people do not need. For instance vast tracts of land are used to cultivate cash crops like tobacco, cashew, and cocoa for factories in the West yet what we need more here are maize, rice and other food crops. These latter are not very profitable so despite their importance, they are not produced. This is capitalism.

Any hope for Africa?

In the increasing problems facing Africans are a result of the economic arrangement in which every action is determined by money and profit, then the surest way of arresting the sorry situation is doing away with money. This is only possible on a global basis. The profit system is universal and so getting it off our backs requires the concerted efforts of the global working class not just in Africa, Asia or Europe. When the means of production and distribution of wealth pass from private ownership to collective ownership then the products will also be collectively shared. People will, in this higher and humane system of ownership, willingly contribute whatever efforts they are capable of providing since they know they can freely take from the produce how much they need. In this new social organisation money will have no place and all institutions and people related to money like markets, banks, credit cards, cheques, tickets, bills, accountants, cashiers, sales-girls, etc, etc will vanish. The people engaged here will be available to get involved in the real work of producing clothes, food, medicines, education, etc. This is socialism.

However, this civilised system of production relations can only materialise when the majority get to understand it and want it implemented. It is only then that Africa and the whole world will rid itself of pretenders posing as financial wizards.

Suhuyini

The Cynicism of Capitalism: 1. Come and exploit our Africans (1972)

From the October 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always made clear that nationalism, whether in Africa, Israel, Ireland or wherever, is a snare and a delusion for the working class of the country concerned. National independence may well be a good thing for the native capitalist class who are naturally concerned at seeing the fruits of the exploitation of the local working class going into the pockets of the British Imperialists or whoever the alien ruling class might be. But for workers to risk imprisonment or even death in a struggle for independence which will ensure for them nothing more than the joy of being exploited by their very own capitalists instead of foreign ones is clearly the height of folly.

A rather lurid light on this subject has recently been displayed in an advertisement in The Guardian by the Nigerian Government:

People are earning

HUGE PROFITS

in Nigeria


Huge domestic market of 55 millions


Abundant manpower is available at a rate
as low as 7 U.S. cents an hour.

You can get your investment back in
less than 3 years.

It should be pointed out that the words Huge Profits are printed in gigantic capitals in the advert, and are repeated at the end — People are earning huge profits in Nigeria: why don’t YOU ! The word “people” is itself a misleading term beloved of capitalist propagandists. It made nice capital, for example, when Nigeria was part of the British Empire, for the national capitalists to appeal to the Nigerian workers: People of Nigeria, fight to throw out the British Imperialist Exploiters. But nobody can be deceived by the present rallying-cry in the advert. The “people” who are “earning” these huge profits are not the African workers. They are earning something less. 7 cents an hour, in fact.

So the Nigerian government is setting out to get British capitalists to come and exploit African workers. Which means, of course, that a lot of these workers are going to find themselves in the ironical position of once again being exploited by the same white capitalists from whom they had fought and won their alleged independence. It is not sure, what with devaluations of the pound and revaluations of the dollar, exactly what 7 cents is worth these days but a tanner (two-and-a-half new pence to younger readers) would be somewhere near it. “In less than three years” gives an effective rate of exploitation to show a net return on capital of between 30 and 40 per cent, per annum. That’s really mouth-watering exploitation — far better than you would find in England or America. Or far worse, of course. Depending on whether you are a worker or a capitalist. That makes all the difference. Black or white clearly makes none.

Naked and unashamed, the Nigerian capitalists are boasting to Guardian readers (those poor devils who are fed each day on a diet of anti-racialism as though that were the only cause that mattered and anti-South-Africanism as though the natives of that unhappy land were living on even less than a tanner an hour) about what shockingly low wages they are getting away with. These are the people that the other people, the Nigerian workers, have put in power. “Come and exploit our blacks. They are the cheapest wage-slaves you can get.” We are not saying that the wage-slaves were better off under British rule. It is clear that they could hardly have been worse off. Even the worst capitalists must pay wages sufficient to live on. And they could hardly live on less than 7 miserable U.S. cents. And it is doubtful if such brutally cynical advertising would have happened. British capitalists are a bit too sophisticated to advertise “Our workers are paid less than other wage-slaves”. It certainly adds insult to injury to know that your exploiters are actually boasting about your slavery in the columns of the world’s leading do-gooder paper, god help us.

One wonders what that old do-gooder, the Labour peer Lord Fenner Brockway, thinks of the result of his efforts on behalf of African nationalism. No-one was more scathing in days gone by about the Socialist Party’s contention that nationalism was nothing to do with Socialism and was a trap for the working class. Brockway and the other leading Labourites of those days were all great friends of people like Nkrumah, Banda and Kenyatta. All of whom, when in power, have treated the African workers to an adaptation of the Biblical phrase: the British rules you with whips, we will rule you with scorpions. Which of course did not stop Brockway and other lefties from supporting people like Nkrumah who could fairly be described as Black Hitlers in the making (and the last little phrase would be omitted by the victims of the Nkrumah dictatorship which Brockway upheld).

Only a couple of years ago, the Nigerian government which had achieved independence had a spot of bother. It seems that some of their fellow black capitalists who lived in a part of the country they called Biafra wanted independence from their own black capitalist brothers. There was a lot of oil in the Port Harcourt area where they came from and they didn’t see why they should share the swag with the other black capitalists in Lagos. So there was another little fracas which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Africans, Nigerians and Biafran workers and their wives and children, being caught in a most murderous bloodbath or starved to death. But it seems that this was independence that the Labourites didn’t approve of. You see, these were the days of the Wilson government, and the fake socialists who were then managing British capitalism preferred to pay ball with the Nigerian government because this was in the interests of British Business (as a searing article in, of all places, The Guardian made clear when it was all over). And now that Nigerian independence has been finally won and defended against black and white alike, the net result of all the suffering and carnage is that African workers get a tanner an hour.

L. E. Weidberg

Pan-African "Socialists" (1963)

From the February 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pan-African socialism, so-called, is essentially a creation of West Africa. But with the spread of education and the growth of communications in Africa these ideas have been absorbed also by Africans living in the East and the South of the continent. The main African political parties in these areas all claim to be Socialist. Frequently their leaders appear in London and ask the workers of Britain to support them in their struggle against imperialism. But nationalism is incompatible with Socialism and it is actually a barrier against the spread of Socialist ideas. On occasions it is even worse; for nationalism frequently hinders even the effective organisation of workers on the trade union field which is so essential under capitalism. Recent events in Central Africa well illustrate this point.

In Southern Rhodesia the Pan-Africanists whose political party, the Zimbabwe African Peoples' Union was recently outlawed, have provoked a split among the African workers. Previously there was only one organisation claiming to represent the African worker, the Southern Rhodesia Trade Union Congress (SRTUC), led by Reuben Jamela. However, Jamela betrayed a pro-Western leaning by maintaining, in defiance of Ghana, that the SRTUC should remain affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). In addition, Jamela, although himself a nationalist, held that . . .

the declared position of Jamela's trade unionism is that the workers as workers must not be involved in politics and it has been argued by politicians and trade unionists that the two cannot mix: trade unionism must be for economical well-being of the working class, while politics is the game of both the worker and employer for political and social rights.

Without in any way supporting Jamela, we must say that the arguments which he presents against the association of the trade unions with the nationalist parties are basically sound. After all, trade unions are primarily organised to protect the workers of a particular trade section, or of a group of more or less allied trades. People of varying political and religious views are united in trade unions on one issue alone: the recognition that collective action is more effective than individual action when dealing with employers. Politics within the trade union tends to destroy this unity. This is what has happened in Southern Rhodesia. The Pan-Africanists have broken away from the SRTUC and set up their own African TUC which is rapidly gaining support at the expense of the SRTUC and which, incidentally, has not been banned.

The particular party which it is suggested the unions support is, despite its Socialist pretensions, basically capitalist and nationalist. The nationalist case for turning the trade unions into little more than the labour wing of the nationalist party is based on an appeal to racial sentiment. “The absence of large African companies,” argues The People's Voice, “of African-owned mines and large factories—a natural consequence of colonial oppression—turns the African workers in an anti-imperialist direction. The European colonialist became the enemy of the African workers,” but the paper goes on to suggest that because of this the trade union struggle is against the “European rulers” just as is the African political movement and hence it is reasonable for them to unite.

But is the trade union struggle exclusively anti-European? Whatever may have been the position in West Africa, the idea that the European in Central Africa is merely a “monopolist” or a capitalist is as absurd as the notion that all Jews are financiers. First, there are over 80,000 European workers in Southern Rhodesia compared with 9,000 European employers and self-employed and, second, although nearly all the large businesses and factories are European or foreign owned, there are in actual fact more African businessmen than European. Nor the the Europeans the only people who have opposed African strikes. ZAPU’s allies in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland have done just this and worse.

In July this year the supreme council of the Northern Rhodesia African Mineworkers’ Union decided to call a strike for higher pay as they considered the copper mining companies' offer inadequate. Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party decided that a strike at this time might harm their chances in the October general elections. UNIP therefore advised the workers to accept the offer and itself took steps to prevent the strike. During the weekend before the strike was due to begin leaflets were distributed calling on the workers not to strike. One such leaflet, signed by A. B. Mutemba, UNIP Kitwe, Kalulushi and Mufilira Regional Secretary, read:

Tell all our people that UNIP docs not agree to the strike call. This strike will spoil our forthcoming elections. We ask you all to report for work as usual. If you want a strike you will do so after October — not now. Anyone who strikes on Tuesday will be regarded as an enemy of the African cause (Northern News 9/7/62).

Other leaflets, later repudiated, accused the union leaders of organising the strike for their own selfish ends. As a result of these leaflets so much confusion was created that the union decided to call off the strike. At least this is one explanation, but the strike was called off after Kaunda had met the union leaders. Only later did it become known that one of these leaders, previously not known as a nationalist, had agreed to stand as a UNIP candidate in the elections. Whatever the reason, UNIP and the Companies won. This episode clearly shows the attitude of the Pan-Africanists towards the trade unions: they want to see the African workers organised in order to use them for their own ends.

The Malawi Congress Party, led by Our Great Ngwasi Kumuzu Banda (Ngwasi means '‘sage" but is probably better translated “fuehrer”), which rules Nyasaland has also clashed with the unions. No sooner had the MCP formed the government than it acted against some strikers, members of the Motor and Allied Workers Union, whose leaders had called a strike for higher pay. A Pan-Africanist writing later complained “what a burden it was for the new African Minister to start his duties by solving a strike problem," and went on:

In any event, the Malawi Congress Party condemned the strike and since then the destructive actions by this Union have been less apparent. (Daily News 22/6/62.)

Trade Unions

This turned out to be a little optimistic as the Motor and Allied Workers Union and the Commercial and General Workers’ Union continued their “irresponsible*’ and “destructive actions” of trying to improve their members’ working conditions and living standards; For their trouble the leaders of these unions were suspended from membership of the MCP and accused of “importing Trade Union ideas from America and Western Europe in this country.” This was judged incompatible with the principles and policy of the party. Which is a frank admission that the MCP is not in favour of allowing the workers to form genuine trade unions or of allowing them to strike.

Banda and his colleagues have continued to abuse and insult these union leaders whose only crime appears to be their belief that trade unions should be independent of Government. In August Dr. Banda referred to these trade unionists as “self seekers who are misleading the workers” and accused one of getting money from Europeans to “further his selfish ends.” Banda went on to say that his ruling Malawi Congress Party “will crush mercilessly anyone who allows himself to be used by imperialists and colonialists.”

Such is the way the Pan-Africanists treat the workers when once in power. With African businessmen it is a different matter. Far from saying that the African worker has no interests in common with these African property-owners the Pan-Africanists seek to win them for their cause. UNIP has a clause in its programme which reads: "to work and protect the interests of commercial traders and help them in their progressive business schemes." The Daily News (10/9/62) reported that at a ZAPU meeting “Mr. S. J. Ndebele ... urged African businessmen to rally behind ZAPU and sacrifice both money and time.” In addition the President of the African Farmers’ Union is also a well-known ZAPU member. Such is the confusion of Pan-African “Socialism” that it preaches the identity of interests between African worker and African capitalist and ignores the European worker. Indeed one of the smaller African nationalist parties in Southern Rhodesia which calls itself Socialist, the Pan-African Socialist Union, has denounced ZAPU as a “capitalist multi-racial organisation ” and one of its leaders is on record as having said: “I loathe European membership in a pure African nationalist organisation.” Pan-Africanism as a political creed has more in common with Fascism, insofar as it is a radical nationalist movement, than with Socialism and there are no grounds at all on which Socialists can support it.

It is not an accident that African nationalist parties, once in power, “crush mercilessly,” to use Banda’s own words, the workers’ independent trade unions. Even people with more regard for democracy than Banda or Nkrumah, people like Nyerere, who have taken in Western liberal ideas, are forced to pass laws restricting civil liberties and trade union freedoms. They do so because they have chosen to develop capitalism in their respective countries. Why this means they must attack the workers was recently well explained by a writer in Africa Today. “Independence,” he writes, “upset the conditions under which the African union movement had flourished. The state is African now, not European; the issue of patriotism can be, and is, turned against the unions if they oppose the government. The state is concerned with holding down labour costs in both private and public sectors. ... Governments dedicated to rapid economic development obviously must hold down, or reduce, real wages in order to raise capital.” So it is in Ghana and in Tanganyika; so it will be in Central Africa. It is for this reason that the right to strike is more often denied than granted in post-colonial Africa.

This in itself is a good enough reason why the workers of Britain should not listen to these glib nationalist leaders who come here asking for help — help to “crush mercilessly” the workers back home. Nor is there any hope for the workers of Africa in nationalism or racialism; Socialism remains the only hope for the workers of the world. But in Central Africa the workers of all races have yet to learn that the dividing line there, as elsewhere, is that of class not colour. White and non-White workers should stand together against White and non-White property owners. The sooner the workers realise this the better. Meanwhile the danger of racial clash remains.

Adam Buick

Africa's Black Hitlers (1975)

From the December 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

On June 11 The Guardian printed a full-page article by one of their African “specialists” called John Hatch. The sub-heading is illuminating: “Tanzania is the model for a participatory democracy that is based on one political party but avoids dictatorship.”

So we can start with a forthright statement. The Guardian are lying hypocrites. Not only are they hypocrites in that they profess to be upholders of freedom and democracy which they clearly are not. They also are inverted racialists too because, despite all their constant preaching about the poor blacks in South Africa (and the blacks there are vilely treated, right enough), they know full well that they could not possibly defend the dictatorships in Tanzania and the other wretched countries described in the article if the victims were white Englishmen or Germans. What they are saying (whether the idiots know this or not) is that it is perfectly all right if a black dictator stamps his rule on an African country and fills his prisons with his political opponents. Real democracy is not for them. They are only ignorant blacks.

At the top of the page are pictures of smiling democratic dictators: “Nkrumah (his party failed him): Nyerere (no dictator); Kaunda (seeking social equality); Stevens (unity through agriculture).” Well, they have all got good reasons to smile except Nkrumah, (who is dead and was probably the worst of them all). They are sitting on the pile of suffering black humanity, and it must make them smile even more to know that the Hatches and the Guardians of the western press are so obliging in apologizing for their regimes and seeing that there are no Orwells around to demonstrate the Newspeak and Doublethink which can tell intelligent readers of the Guardian (all lively minds, they tell us) that dictatorship is democracy if it is black. And the dictators get their propaganda on the cheap. Just a spot of red-carpet treatment for all the “progressives” of the west will fill the leftist press with everything except the one thing that should infringe their much-vaunted principles: How many political prisoners are rotting in the gaols of black “independent” Africa? How long have they been there? Are they ever going to get out? In all the thousands of words in the Hatch page, not a word about these poor devils.

Hatch starts his article with a flourish by giving a quotation from a speech by Nyerere, the darling of them all. “I am now going to suggest that where there is one party, and that party is identified with the nation as a whole, the foundations of democracy are firmer than they can ever be where you have two or more parties . . .” Hatch gives his seal of approval to this: “This virile commendation of the one-party state was given by Nyerere in 1963.” This expert in virility realizes, of course, that the above is the same as spewed out by Hitler, Musso and Co, and goes on to admit that people might well ponder the resemblance between white fascist swine and the black fascist swine whom these lively minds must now worship. All he is doing is the political equivalent of “find the lady”: he is referring to Hitler & Co. to bemuse the lively minds into thinking that this objection to the African Hitlers had been dealt with. It just isn’t.

Why not allow the Africans a multi-party system, which is what we understand as one of the fundamentals of democracy in normal parlance as distinct from Guardianese? Hatch deals with that one too. He gives a number of reasons, all fraudulent to a degree, and too tedious to demolish in full detail here. Hatch opens on this one: “Tanzania offered unique advantages for the establishment of a healthy, democratic, one-party state”. No explanation how this can be healthy for those who wish to oppose the alleged non-dictatorship of Nyerere. Perhaps Hatch would like to spend a few weeks in one of his hero’s healthy gaols (what’s a few weeks among friends?). And what would happen to the health of any black worker who ventured to suggest that the wealth they produced should not be stolen by the Nyerere thugs on top of the heap? Another reason is that “Nyerere has always been a convinced democrat”. Now isn’t that just ducky? It must be so comforting for the political prisoners — and to the others outside who would like to say boo to a Hatch goose but daren’t because they know that a democratic gaol is waiting for them — to know that Nyerere calls himself a democrat. Marvellous what you can do with words. Another choice example comes immediately afterwards: “Moreover, Nyerere does not refer to the State, but only to the Nation.” So, the non-dictator uses the powers of oppression of the state — and what a state! — but it’s all right, O lively minds! He doesn’t call it a state. He calls it a nation. And that makes everyone feel better, doesn’t it? But the punch line is still to come: Nyerere tells us that his one-party “will be a mass party through which anyone who accepts TANU’s basic principles can participate in the process of government”. This is the sort of trash that presumably satisfies Hatch and The Guardian.

It is worth while mentioning that only a few days ago (i.e. long after the date of the Hatchpiece) the paper ran a leading article in which they actually stated that the regimes of Nyerere, Kaunda and, ye gods, Mobutu, were based on justice. Now the first two have been darlings of the left for years and it is as useless to expect the truth in relation to them as it was to get the truth about Stalin accepted by The Guardian and New Statesman in the ’thirties and ’forties. But the admission of Mobutu to the ranks is something new. I have no private information and the news I get is derived from The Guardian itself. So it would be in that very paper that I read a little story about Mobutu’s justice. A ceremony took place on the lawn of the Presidential palace in Zaire (it may then have still been called the Congo). Certain black politicians were brought before President Mobutu (who elected him President by the way? You must be joking) — trussed like chickens. As part of the act of justice, they were then beaten up before Mobutu’s very eyes. And after they had learned whatever lesson that part of the act was meant to convey, they were then strung up in public. Justice, Act III, I suppose. And our own dear old lady of Gray’s Inn Road, which would probably be voted the greatest newspaper in the world (if you want to get into university and they ask you what you read, tell the Prof. The Guardian and you’re halfway home), is happy with this justice. But, presumably, only for blacks; we couldn’t really have editors strung up at a Buckingham Palace garden party.

It is pertinent to mention an item of news reported in the same old Guardian date-lined Nairobi, June 12. This independent black state of Kenya is run by another darling of the left, who built up a great following of “progressives” like Lord Fenner Brockway (from a base in Manchester, of all places), Jomo Kenyatta. He too runs a one-party state, an empire of graft and corruption which makes Chicago seem like the New Jerusalem. But it seems from the report that within the governing circles there is the occasional silly fellow who objects to some of the things going on. One such MP, who had become rather a nuisance in his criticism, was simply murdered by Kenyatta’s police. Mau Mau, where are you now?

Where does all this point to? The usual way. If the workers of the world, black, white and any other colour, want a world worth living in, it is there for the taking. But they must form their own opinions about the system they live under; and the system they can have when they have thought about it and want it. Meanwhile, they must learn to see the grotesque fraud which is perpetrated at their expense by the ruling classes of all countries and their jackals in the press. Till they can see that, batten down all Hatches.

L. E. Weidberg

Africa (1967)

Book Review from the August 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Study of Africa Editors: Peter J. M. McEwan & Robert B. Sutcliffe (University Paperbacks 21s.)

Subject for a student’s essay: Compare the confusion caused among working class political opinion by the claim that Socialism was being established in Russia in 1917 with the effect of the same claim which has been made by the nationalist movements which have come to power in Africa.

Alright, so it will never happen; but there are some interesting parallels. In both cases, we have areas with a largely rural population and a backward society —in Africa expressing itself as a powerful and complex tribalism. In both cases we have the rise of a new ruling class, going back on their promises and offering the superficial differences between their countries and the older states as evidence that they had established Socialism. In both cases we have states being hurried into modem world capitalism, hungry for heavy industrialisation, power plant, expanding industries.

We have the imposition of dictatorship, the development of leader-worship. And we have in both cases the fact that Socialism has not happened, for the plain reason that the conditions for it were not there.

McEwan and Sutcliffe have edited a collection of papers which give a broad view of the new Africa socially, politically, economically. Here, in brief, is the background to show that at the end of the last war Africa may have been ready to take a slow and painful step towards capitalism, but no more.

In the light of this evidence of the essentially undeveloped nature of African society, we can fairly judge the claims quoted by Colin Legum:

  These aims (of the C.C.P.) embrace the creation of a welfare state based upon African socialist principles, adapted to suit Ghanian conditions... (Dr. Nkrumah). 
   The (Egyptian) Revolution laid down for itself six principles, declared in the name of the people to achieve Arab socialism. (Aly Sabry, U.A.R. Minister for Presidential Affairs.)

The Study of Africa is not a history and, apart from some tables of statistics, it gives little concrete information. It claims to be an "introduction to the study of the continent of Africa” but much of it is written in the style of a discussion, on the assumption that the reader is familiar with the subject. It does show up the intimidating complexity of African society, and some of the many problems facing the new rulers there, as they strive to drag their countries into twentieth century capitalism.

Ivan.

Capitalism in Kenya (1968)

Book Review from the August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not Yet Uhuru, by Oginga Odinga. Heinman Educational Books. 35s.

The people of Kenya have had the misfortune, reserved for colonial peoples, of experiencing two sorts of capitalism. One at second hand through colonial occupation, and the other, a more modern version, exploitation by capitalists of local origin and by the economic interests of the ‘advanced' countries.

Today, control of the resources of Kenya is in the hands of large international firms and of the Kenya government. The local would-be capitalists and bureaucrats have certainly derived much benefit from independence, but the vast majority of the people of Kenya, who were at one time led to expect a post-independence egalitarian Utopia, have been disappointed.

In this autobiography we learn well how the “benefits” of capitalism were first introduced to Kenya. There is an interesting survey of early land-appropriation by the British authorities and of the break-up of the tribal system through forced wage- labour. Odinga is particularly good in his account of the Mau Mau uprising and the reasons for it. Once the rebellion presented a real threat to British authority in Kenya, and thus to British economic interests, ruthless measures were taken. All civil liberties were suppressed—an African could be arrested in the street at any time. All Kikuyu (the main tribe concerned in the rebellion) were forced either to collaborate with the authorities or to join the Mau Mau bands as a result of persecution. British capitalism wanted to hold on to Kenya so as to have an assured and cheap supply of raw materials and a market monopoly.

Today, some four-and-a-half years after independence, things have not changed much. The people of Kenya are now exploited not only by businessmen with white skins, but also by civil servants and politicians who have somehow succeeded in securing company directorships and land. Little free expression of opposition to the government is allowed. The only consolation that the people may draw is perhaps in seeing men with skin the same colour as theirs replacing white colonists at the wheels of large motor-cars manufactured in West Germany.

Odinga is allowed, probably by virtue of his popularity (he was at one time Vice-President of the republic and Kenyatta's right-hand man) to lead a tiny opposition of nine in parliament. His party is, however, allowed few extra-parliamentary ‘privileges’ such as the holding of public meetings or recruiting campaigns.

This autobiography, as well as being a good document of British colonial history, is worthwhile reading because part at least of Odinga's conclusion is acceptable. Odinga himself left high state office for the political wilderness because he saw that national independence does not in itself end servitude for the mass of the people. He also recognises the oligarchic character of the present Kenyan government. To solve these problems, however, he presents a creed which he calls “African Socialism". The use of the word “Socialism" in independent Africa is very common but worth little. It is used, for instance, by both government and opposition in Kenya. The general purpose of this is clear: to give obviously oligarchic governments a facade of popular support and concern for justice and equality.

Odinga’s “African Socialism" would take the form of “a Kenya government backed by popular enthusiasm and national mobilisation". We suggest to the people of Kenya, and indeed to the people of the world, that the only way they will solve their problems will be by overthrowing capitalism which deprives and degrades them. This can only be done, not on a national scale, but by an internationally united working class who reject all leaders and governments.

Not Yet Uhuru (freedom) is the personal and political testament of a sincere, but unfortunately misguided, political figure. It is well worth reading for the insights which it offers into the lot of the people of Kenya.

Amit Pandya