Tunakataa! We say no!
In history, people reach a stage when they say “no” to oppression and exploitation. During the colonial period in Kenya, the Mau Mau liberation movement developed appropriate strategies and tactics of saying “no” to colonialism”. Besides armed struggle, it developed songs, dance and other cultural activities that clearly embodied the message of people’s struggle. Once again under neo-colonialist and globalised phase of imperialism, the same tradition of resistance is emerging in Kenya. Tunakataa! We say no! is a collection of resistance poetry and artwork written by Kauli Raiya (“People’s opinion”) a group of Kenyans who remain anonymous. Kauli Raiya, whose other “Kiswahili underground workers’ organ” was Upande mwingine (“the other side”) were also active in documenting resistance activities of “workers, peasants, progressive intelligentsia and all the patriotic Kenyans fighting for the interests of the oppressed and exploited majority” and its documentation was used by Mwakenya-December Twelve Movement in its publication “Kenya: Register of resistance, 1986” (Nairobi: 1987 – the quotations are from this underground publication).
Kauli Raiya
Tunakataa! We say no!
New publication from Vita Books for 2008
In history, people reach a stage when they say “no” to oppression and exploitation. During the colonial period in Kenya, the Mau Mau liberation movement developed appropriate strategies and tactics of saying “no” to colonialism”. Besides armed struggle, it developed songs, dance and other cultural activities that clearly embodied the message of people’s struggle.
Once again under neo-colonialist and globalised phase of imperialism, the same tradition of resistance is emerging in Kenya. Tunakataa! We say no! is a collection of resistance poetry and artwork written by Kauli Raiya (“People’s opinion”) a group of Kenyans who remain anonymous. Kauli Raiya, whose other “Kiswahili underground workers’ organ” was Upande mwingine (“the other side”) were also active in documenting resistance activities of “workers, peasants, progressive intelligentsia and all the patriotic Kenyans fighting for the interests of the oppressed and exploited majority” and its documentation was used by Mwakenya-December Twelve Movement in its publication “Kenya: Register of resistance, 1986” (Nairobi: 1987 – the quotations are from this underground publication).
These poems in reality reflect the everyday reality of the lives of Kenyan people today. They clearly reflect the sufferings, the hopes, and the strength of the working class in Kenya in the 1980s when the poems were written.
Here for the first time is shown the demands of workers and peasants. The poems show their total awareness of the forces in society that have moulded their lives. They also reveal the internationalist awareness that their own particular struggles and those of South Africa, Palestine nad Nicaragua are different regional aspects of the same struggle against imperialism.
Here is the voice of the people saying “no” to imperialism in its most vicious form. In that sense Tunakataa! We say no! is the voice of all people in the world struggling against imperialist exploitation.
Time has not lessened the relevance of the voice of the oppressed working people as they struggle daily against forces that seek to suppress them in the interest of foreign and local capitalist interests.
Vita Books
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