Author: Durrani, Shiraz
Publisher: Vita Books
ISBN: 1869886224
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
This book examines the life and work of a remarkable trade unionist and revolutionary. Makhan Singh laid the foundation for radical trade unionism and influenced the liberation struggle in Kenya. He actively participated in the struggles of the working classes in India. For this, the colonial authorities in India and Kenya detained him for over 15 years. This collection, marking 101 years of Makhan Singh’s birth, explores different aspects of his life as a father, a trade unionist, a political activist, a poet and a communist committed to social, political and economic liberation from colonialism and imperialism. His vision, his action and his courage are as relevant today as they were in his time.
Author: Makhan Singh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Labor unions
Languages : en
Pages : 378
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Book Description
Study of the historical origins and evolution of the trade union movement in Kenya up to 1952 - covers political aspects, nationalist and labour movements, union membership, collective agreements, labour relations, leadership, strikes, grievances, aspects of social participation, etc.
Author: Durrani, Shiraz
Publisher: Vita Books
ISBN: 9966189092
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 119
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Book Description
It is due to the success of the trade union movement in the national liberation movement that the colonial government suppressed prominent trade unions and attacked TU leaders like Makhan Singh, Fred Kubai, Pio Gama Pinto and Bildad Kaggia. It also passed on colonial laws to the independent Kenya government so as to ensure that future trade unions were forced to take the non-radical approach to meet worker needs. They thus created imperialist-oriented and led trade unions that bedevil working class politics to this day. There are valuable lessons to be learnt from the history of the militant trade unions in Kenya and also from understanding how colonialism and imperialism enforced changes that made the trade unions ineffective after independence. The selections in this book recall relevant events in the history of the militant trade union movement in Kenya and record the contribution that the trade union movement made to Mau Mau and to Kenya’s war of independence. The Kenya Resists Series covers different aspects of resistance by people of Kenya to colonialism and imperialism. It reproduces material from books, unpublished reports, research and oral or visual testimonies. The three aspects chosen for the first three publications in the Series – Mau Mau, Trade Unions and People’s Resistance – make up the three pillars of resistance of the people of Kenya.
Author: Durrani, Shiraz
Publisher: Vita Books
ISBN: 9966189009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
Pio Gama Pinto was born in Kenya on March 31, 1927. He was assassinated in Nairobi on February 24, 1965. In his short life, he became a symbol of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles in Kenya and India. He was actively involved in Goa's struggle against Portuguese colonialism and in Mau Mau during Kenya's war of independence. For this, he was detained by the British colonial authorities in Kenya from 1954-59. His contribution to the struggle for liberation for working people spanned two continents - Africa and Asia. And it covered two phases of imperialism - colonialism in Kenya and Goa and neo-colonialism in Kenya after independence. His enemies saw no way of stopping the intense, lifelong struggle waged by Pinto - except through an assassin's bullets. But his contribution, his ideas, and his ideals are remembered and upheld even today by people active in liberation struggles. This book does not aim or claim to be a comprehensive record on Pio Gama Pinto, just the beginning of the long journey necessary to record the history of Kenya from an anti-imperialist perspective. It introduces readers to voices of many people who have written about Pinto to build up as clear a picture of Pinto as possible. In that spirit, it seeks to make history available to those whose story it is - people of Kenya, Africa and progressive people around the world.
Author: Shiraz Durrani
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9914970184
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468
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Book Description
Guerrilla Incursions into the Capitalist Mindset is an unprecedented collection of over 60 essays, interviews, petitions and letters as well as poems and short stories flowing from the pen of Shiraz Durrani. It is a treasure trove of truths that has so far been obscured by the information vacuum created by capitalism and its sister, imperialism. By reprinting out-of-print material, and bringing to light limited access information, this book supplies a new language for understanding and articulating our realities. This collection not only recovers and recollects the remnants of previous displaced history but also makes alternative ideas and experiences available. Remarkably, it sets the record straight by establishing a historical link between the arrival of the trade union movement from India through Makhan Singh, who began calling for independence in 1950, to the Mau Mau war of independence in Kenya led by Dedan Kimaathi, and the subsequent clash between socialism and neo-colonialism, which claimed the life of its champion, Pio Gama Pinto.
Author: Nigel Flanagan
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9914970109
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
Nigel Flanagan brings a distinct perspective to the problems of trade union organising. In this account he draws on his own experiences as an activist, shop steward, strike organiser and working for the global union UNI. The book has be very well received and after six impressions this revised and enlarged edition is also being published in a Kenyan version with our partners, Vita Books - Nick Wright. Nigel Flanagan's Our Trade Unions: What Comes Next? was first published in Britain in early 2023 at the height of the country's inflationary crisis, when basic food costs were increasing by up to 20 per cent and energy by far more. Workers were fighting, through their trade unions, to protect their living standards and local services from the biggest attack for a century. This new Kenyan edition of Flanagan's book is, therefore, doubly welcome because it provides real life substance to these links. The chapters from Shiraz Durrani, himself a veteran of these struggles, reveal how far the movements of resistance to colonial rule were rooted in, and largely sprang from, the trade union movement in the 1920s and 30s. The importance of the contribution from Shiraz Durrani is that he places this resistance squarely in the special circumstances required for capitalist exploitation to take place in Kenya... Resistance demands mass-based political trade unions. This is why Kenya's experience and that of other African nations is of relevance not just to workers in Africa but those who wish to rebuild the workers' movement internationally. But this process must be political. It cannot be simply that of 'organising'. As Shiraz Durrani stresses, 'without a vision of achieving equality and justice, unions remain merely to make capitalism more acceptable to workers'- John Foster
Author: Durrani, Shiraz
Publisher: Vita Books
ISBN: 996613381X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 39
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Book Description
The Kenya Socialist exists to: Promote socialist ideas, experiences and world outlook; Increase awareness of classes, class contradictions and class struggles in Kenya, both historical and current; Expose the damage done by capitalism and imperialism in Kenya and Africa; Offer solidarity to working class, peasants and other working people and communities in their struggles for equality and justice; Promote internationalism and work in solidarity with people in Africa and around the world in their resistance to imperialism; Make explicit the politics of information and communication as tools of repression and also of resistance in Kenya. This first issue covers several areas that remain neglected in public discourse in Kenya. The study of class remains one such topic and Kimani Waweru’s article, Class and Class Struggle in Kenya, fills this gap. Waweru also contributes a briefing on ideology as a weapon of oppression or liberation. He will continue his theoretical explorations in the next issue with an article on gender and women’s oppression and liberation. History is never far from any liberation struggle. Nicholas Mwangi looks at Mau Mau and the origin and meaning of the term ‘Mau Mau’. Njoki Wamai’s contribution is her presentation at the All African Peoples’ Conference in Accra in 2018. Linking up with the launch of the Ukombozi Library, the question arises, ‘What is the role of information in liberation?’ Shiraz Durrani answers some question from Julian Jaravata on various aspects of information. Finally, Durrani looks at the challenge by Wakamba wood carvers to the information embargo under President Moi.
Author: Zarina Patel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 596
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Book Description
Makham Singh (-1973) was an Indian settler in Kenya, who became a founding father of the trade union movement, and a leading opponent of the colonial state. He is distinguished by his consciously multi-racialist politics and his indomitable spirit. Ahead of his times, Singh was extraordinarily immune from colour prejudice and religious intolerance. He refused to accept a trade union movement segregated by race and the colonial apartheid that reinforced a hierarchy of races between black Africans, Asians and whites in such humiliating fashion. Instead, he demonstrated that the liberation of Asians and Africans were inextricably linked, and that imperialism and colonialism are the enemies of all peoples, and should be met with non-violent resistance. These stances gained him remarkable popularity amongst the ordinary people. The author explores her subject's childhood in India, his life outside his political concerns, the evolution of his politics, personality, and his experiences in detention. The research documents a hitherto un-researched archive of Singh's private papers, housed at the University of Nairobi. The primary source material, evidenced throughout the work, dates from 1927. It includes the subject's correspondence, poetry, press cutting, statements, hand-written notes, campaign posters and photographs. The project took the author further afield - to the northern border of India in Pakistan where Singh grew up; to Delhi, Jalhandar and Amritsar; and to Punjabi language sources.
Author: Shiraz Durrani
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9966189025
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 451
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Book Description
Kenya's War of Independence restores Kenyas stolen history to its rightful place, stripped of colonial interpretations. In this expanded and revised version of his 1986 booklet, Kimaathi, Mau Mau's First Prime Minister of Kenya, Durrani covers Mau Maus resistance to colonialism and neo-colonialism and reflects on its ideology, organisation and achievements. He sees Mau Mau in the larger context of Kenyas war of independence and looks at the influence of organised, radical trade unions as the engine of resistance, linking economic with political demands of working people. Additional chapters document the post-independence resistance by the underground December Twelve Movement-Mwakenya. Durrani captures the dynamism of transition from colonialism to neo-colonialism: Imperialism replaced colonialism, African elites replaced White Settlers, neo-colonial government replaced colonial government. Resistance changed from the War of Independence to War of Economic Independence. Worker and peasant resistance is evident once again. History is on the march.
Author: Shiraz Durrani
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9914992137
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
History never dies. It is embedded in people's memories when books are burnt and children are taught false histories, imagined by false historians from near and far - says the author in this book. This is the context in which Key Points in the History of Kenya, 1885-1990 is published. This, the 4th in the Kenya Resists Series from Vita Books, brings together presentation points from several conferences and meetings on the history of Kenya. It also includes historical records on Kenya by Saleh Mamon and Ladislav Venys. Key Points highlights many hidden facts about the history of Kenya. References are included for those who wish to explore the history further. While these books and facts are readily available in many history books, they are not easily available to all people in Kenya and in a form that meets their needs. The book therefore aims to familiarise people with the history of Kenya. It seeks to keep people's struggles, sacrifices and history alive. The author hopes that it will be a weapon in the sense that Bertolt Brecht meant when he said: 'Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon'. That is the aim of the series, Kenya Resists too.
