Every now and then we put together an issue and the whole editorial team says, “Ah, now this is one satisfying issue” – a short hand way of saying that the essays are deep, urgent, far reaching and also, a sheer pleasure to read. This is one such issue.

The essays are much longer than our usual ones – but we promise they will be worth every minute you spend on them.

At the top of the list is Mahmood Mamdani's incisive analysis of the struggle for land reform in Zimbabwe.

You will find Amiri Baraka arguing that the left outlook on Obama is wrong-headed and that the left risks being left (pun intended) behind by the people. Amiri Baraka thunders at the left and says “the task of the revolutionary is to lead the people by taking what they already know and giving it back to them with the focus of the present the past and the future.” Along the same lines, you will find, Michael Novick arguing that revolutionary resistance cannot be organized against Obama, or alongside him necessarily, but ahead of him.

In contrast, you will find Patrick Bond deriding Obama on his cabinet picks that seem to be taking him further away from the promise of change, bring on board hawks and the neoliberals.

But just as soon you are done with the Baraka and Novick pieces, Doreen Lwanga will ask you: What of the relationship between Africans and African Americans in the US? No one has really looked at the implications of an Obama presidency in the light of this important relationship, subversive but also fraught with contradiction.

AFRICOM is now official and Daniel Volman provides an invaluable comprehensive background piece. And Jacques Depelchin does the same for the food crisis while contextualizing the crisis in the old days of the invisible hand and in the equally invisible equality promised by globalization.

Silence Chihuri looks at the cholera epidemic, the massive economic meltdown and why home affairs remain the gate keepers of Zimbabwe.

While Neville Alexander and colleagues critique the crisis of education in South Africa.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, in the Pan-African Post Card is piercing - as always - cutting through the bubble wrap, this time using Uganda to ask whether we need liberation from the liberators.

And as usual, we have letters, the African blogosphere, and a round up on China in Africa.

But this also reflects the ever growing number of high quality articles being submitted to Pambazuka News, itself a reflection of the growth of critical voices on the African continent.

Can you tell just how excited we are by this issue? Now, be sure to let us know what you thought of it by sending comments to or commenting online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Fatima Hassan, is a prominent South African human rights lawyer who was part of a that in early July visited the Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The delegation undertook the mission in order to: "support those, Palestinian and Israeli, working daily, by non-violent means, to bring an end to the post-1967 Israeli occupation, to end all human rights abuses and breaches of international law, and to move towards peaceful relations and a just settlement...to express solidarity with those who are living in oppressive, restrictive and dangerous circumstances; and to to draw attention to the injustice of the occupation and its devastating consequences." Mukoma Wa Ngugi interviewed Fatima Hassan on the solidarity visit and the implications of the Palestinian struggle for Africans.
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PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Well, let's get straight to it: A Independent Newspaper article quotes you as saying "The issue of separate roads, [different registration] of cars driven by different nationalities, the indignity of producing a permit any time a soldier asks for it, and of waiting in long queues in the boiling sun at checkpoints just to enter your own city, I think is worse than what we experienced during apartheid." But the same article goes on to say that "Ms Hassan herself said she thought the apartheid comparison was a potential "red herring." Can you speak more about this?

FATIMA HASSAN: I think that the debate/discourse about whether this is Apartheid or not is not helpful. Too often people get bogged down in whether this IS Apartheid or not. And then use this as the measure of whether the situation in Palestine and Israel is intolerable from a legal and moral standpoint. Of course there are similarities in respect of the indignity and inhumaneness of the consequences of the occupation. And of course people in Palestine and Israel call the wall the 'apartheid wall' because it is premised on a policy of separation and closure.

But the context is different and the debate on whether this is Apartheid or not deflects from the real issue of occupation, encroachment of more land, building of the wall and the indignity of the occupation and the conduct of the military and police. I saw the check point at Nablus, I met with Palestinians in Hebron, I met the villagers who are against the wall- I met Israeli's and Palestinians who have lost family members, their land and homes. They have not lost hope though ---and they believe in a joint struggle against the occupation and are willing in non-violent means to transform the daily direct and indirect forms of injustice and violence.

To sum up – there is a transgression that is continuing unabated– call it what you want, apartheid/separation/closure/security – it remains a transgression.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you speak about the Palestinians in the West Bank and living under Israeli occupation. Are they struggling for inclusion and equal rights within Israel or for a viable Palestinian state?

FATIMA HASSAN: I think I have realised that physically and geographically --with the massive encroachment of land –that a 2 state solution may not be realistic. But it is not for me to determine the solutions for people who live there.

As for Palestinians, they stressed to us that they are against the occupation, not against Israel or Jews, but against the occupation and denial of human rights. What they want depends on who you speak to and where they live. Of course, everyone we spoke to stressed inclusion, dignity, autonomy.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can South Africa serve as source of instruction to both Palestinians and Israelis? In what ways?

FATIMA HASSAN: In some ways yes and in some ways perhaps not. In SA we agreed to accept each other not as enemies but as people first , then we talked, and still do. As Dennis Davis from our delegation commented – 'they are talking divorce whereas we (SA) talked marriage'. There are ways in which we cannot be instructive because we have limited experience – we had invisible barriers and one road for everyone.

They have barriers, check points almost everywhere and different roads! They have children stoning other children who are trying to go to school (Hebron) – we had Bantu education and a language forced on us but not the scenarios we saw and heard of in Hebron.

We did not have deeply religious views and claims defining the injustice and land grabs. In fact faith based organisations mobilised against apartheid. In SA we have some (limited) experience on race and dealing with racism ---but not a racism rooted in religion.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Is there any instruction for the Palestinians in the South African struggle against apartheid?

International solidarity and exposure of injustice is critical. We used several means to struggle- inter solidarity and sanctions, limited armed struggle and mass moblisation. The Israeli and Palestinian joint struggle is perhaps the best place for us to offer solidarity as our struggle was also inclusive and mass based.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Do South Africans have a special responsibility to Palestinians? Is there historical solidarity between the PLO and the ANC?

FATIMA HASSAN: I think you have to ask the ANC about historical alliances…But of course they were historically linked.

Iowe any community and people around the world solidarity if they face injustice anywhere in the world or in my own country- I owe it as a human being, and as South African - because they provided solidarity to us during years of terrible race based oppression. Yes we have a special obligation to condemn and respond to injustice given our own shameful history.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In the past African states have been very vocal in their support of Palestinians. For example in the 1970's a number of African countries cut diplomatic ties with Israel. What kind of actions can/should the present generation of African leaders take?

FATIMA HASSAN: Several small steps first- build a consensus and voice to condemn oppression and injustice in Israel and elsewhere.

Ensure that companies that benefit from building the wall and benefit from the occupation are not given business.

Ensure that they visit ordinary villagers and peace activists who are engaging in joint non-violent struggles as opposed to only meeting career politicians from one or other 'side'.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Did you get a sense of the ongoing struggle between Hamas and the Fatah movement? What in your opinion is a constructive response from Africans to this split?

FATIMA HASSAN: We only had 5 days of visits so this is impossible to answer properly. When I went to several villages there were activists who were originally part of both movements now working together to feed children, educate them and provide humanitarian relief as well as working with Israeli activists in a non-violent struggle.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What is the effect of the wall-barrier on prospects for peace and on the Palestinians?

On the wall, fence, separation barrier, I think it is the biggest mistake and obstacle to peace-- it's physical presence, its emphasis on increased security, its ability to cut off people from their land, schools, neighbours and homes and from Israelis and Jews, will and cannot make anyone think that peace is even on the negotiating table.

The parts of the wall that we saw, the many demolition orders that had to be taken against parts of the fence/ wall show an absolute failure to understand the livelihoods and lives of people on both sides of the wall- the wall has meant that thousands of Palestinians have lost access to their land and livelihoods (about 250 000 are affected– with 8000 Palestinian families in the safety zone).

The wall cuts off neighbourhoods and to me only protects settlements – might I add that that many of the settlements are actually illegal and are considered illegal outposts. For it to work they have implemented complex permit systems – even a horse needs a permit to get across. It really is a shame.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Do you see a one state or a two state solution? Considering that a one state solution is not even on the table, and it does not seem that Israel will allow for a viable independent and thriving Palestinian state, how do you see one of the two solutions working?

I cannot comment on the prospects because I visited for 5 days only- I do not believe that I can comment on solutions- I went to learn. Off course one must be hopeful for a single state based on human rights for all with dignity and inclusion for all.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Finally, we never get to hear about Jewish/Palestinian solidarity movements yet they exist. Can you speak more about this?

FATIMA HASSAN: There is a growing number of such movements – they may be small and 'fringe' right now but I believe that their message is simple and universal- non-violence and inclusion of all people that make up Israeli and Palestinian communities. They will grow in strength and with our solidarity.

Combatants for Peace, Anarchists against the wall, Breaking the Silence, Bereaved Parents Families Forum are just some examples…And the Popular Committees in villages, Ta'ayush, Children of Abraham as well.

Their greatest strength right now is that they see everyone as human beings in a common struggle for peace; their greatest threat is that they talk about peace and human rights – they often told us that the greatest threat to removing barriers is fear – I think they are right. People are scared in Israel and Palestine – they are scared of peace.

*Interview conducted by Mukoma Wa Ngugi, co-editor of Pambazuka News.

*For more information on the solidarity visit, please click here: .

The primary intention of our visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories was to understand the reality. Rather than attempting to bring solutions, or to spend our time here debating solutions, we came to learn, and to witness first-hand the suffering, pain, anger and human rights abuses. While it is clear to us that there should be freedom and security for all who live here, our deepest concern is that suffering and human rights be addressed as the basis for moving towards a resolution. We have been deeply affected by what we have seen, and intend to engage in this regard, in our personal capacities, with all our communities and constituencies. We intend to be sensitive to the anxieties and perspectives that exist, and to use our visit to promote thoughtful discussion within and between our communities.

We also came to support what we understood to be a new and small movement of Palestinian-Israeli joint non-violent struggle. We found this, and it surprised us. Our hosts have proved that Israelis and Palestinians can and are working together to bring freedom and equality for all people in Israel and Palestine.

This work is characterised by mutual respect, true partnership, and a willingness to take personal risks for each other. We are immensely struck and moved by the courage and integrity of these people. Amidst the increasing difficulties under which all people are living, this work brings hope and the promise of a real peace, with justice, equality and security, in the future.

We would particularly like to recognise the joint work being done in occupied territory in Silwan, Bidu, Bil'in, Budrus, Na'alin and Hebron. This work is being done by the popular committees of these villages and cities, along with organisations including Ta'ayush, Children of Abraham, Anarchists Against the Wall, Combatants for Peace, Breaking the Silence, Active Stills, the Parents Circle, B'Tselem, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Coalition of Women for Peace, and Yesh Din.

*Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49339afrilit.jpgEach generation of writers is confounded by the simple and clichéd paradox – the more the world changes the more it remains the same. The imagination wants to be freed from the hold of the past, and yet it finds that the present and the material worlds are indelibly tied to that past. I believe it is to this tension that James Baldwin was speaking when he wrote that a writer cannot write outside his or her times.

Each generation of writers wants to acknowledge the previous generation, but at the same time it begrudges them an unchanged world while claiming the new for itself. It is these tensions that in the end produce literature, and help draw a blurred line between one generation of writers and the next.

I remember a great moment around 2002 when South African poet and anti-apartheid activist Daniel Kunene read a poem he wrote soon after apartheid fell in 1994. The poem was about taking out the trash from the kitchen. By way of introducing the poem, he narrated how he had felt, after having spent all his life fighting this beast called apartheid, now that it was dead, that he could allow his imagination to work out other concerns - the mundane, the minutiae of day to day existence.

But that was 1994 when all seemed possible in South Africa. In 2002, Kunene was reading the poem as something written in a moment in time, before it was overtaken by change that remained the same. Today thinking about the xenophobic attacks, his poem about taking out the trash has deep metaphorical undertones. It could very well be about cleaning out the trash that the ANC has become.

Let me not put words in his mouth and say this: that in the xenophobic killings we find the paradox that allows the new generation of South African writers and Kunene’s generation to have a dialogue. In the same way that Mugabe’s one-man show and the recent Kenya crisis allows the older and younger generation of writers to have a conversation. If such a national crisis is seen as an occasion to blame, then an opportunity to move history and literature forward is lost. If it is used to build on the past and if we understand history as a process then the stage for the next generation of writers is set.

But let me also say this – that I do not know what it means to be a political writer. Perrhaps more than anything this designation has been used to take the African artist and the writer out of what he or she produces. The friendly critic thus says - the African artist is functional; the African writer is political. Yet, the imagination cannot be moved by ideology otherwise it simply gives the ideology a different form.

Imagination is moved by a profound desire to render tangible that which is around it. The artist is moved by beauty and ugliness, by the senseless and chaotic because deep down the imagination is haughty enough to believe that there is nothing it cannot grasp and make visible. The artist has to make music out of two, three or more dead and dying beats. A novel with ten characters means that the writer had to bring a Lazarus back from the dead ten times.

So the African writer lives somewhere between “making the ordinary extra-ordinary”, making the invisible visible and finding a “voice for the voiceless.”

And I think my generation of writers understands this very well. Look, during the post-electoral violence in Kenya, the Concerned Kenyan Writers did not put their pens down in order to be concerned citizens. They spoke as writers to a political situation without as much as giving a nod to those who see Africans as producing only functional art, or want the African writer to write about the snow caps of Mt. Kilimanjaro while ignoring the politics of global warming. So, yes African writers can be unapologetically political but as artists.

It is precisely for these reasons that I remain very partial, even protective of the work that Kwani? Magazine has been doing for the last 6 or so years. I do not think Kwani? blames; I think it just does. And when it comes to African literature, there is a lot of work to be done.

Consider this, in the United States there are thousands of literary journals, some national, and some local, some in universities and some in high-schools. In Britain, you find the same thing. Yet in a country like Kenya, you have only one literary journal that can be considered national and in Nigeria half a dozen or so. One cannot even think of regional or provincial journals let alone high school journals in Africa. In the whole continent, with an exception of African Writing, there is hardly a literary journal that can considered Pan-African in that it serves the concerns of the whole continent. Considering Africa has a population that is close to 700 million, we are in terrible shape.

Or take the question of literary prizes. Again in the West, there are literary prizes for all ages and regions in addition to national ones. In Africa there are only a handful with the most prestigious being Western. In the US there are state and national art councils with their own budgets: African governments see writing as an act of spontaneous combustion by a few ingrates who should in fact be jailed. This is not to say that we need to emulate the literary traditions of the West, but surely we should be able to use them to challenge our own.

What does this mean? Quite simply that the African child sees writing a book as something he or she can never achieve. To chase after a dream, there has to be a belief that it can be achieved. The African student reads a novel by Achebe or Ngugi as a finished product; there is no process, books just happen to be born.

So the work being done by Kwani?, and other magazines such as Chimurenga and Farafina, is very central to the future of African literature. It is these magazines that demystify the writing process for aspiring writers. They become a magnet and home for national and continental talent. It is around these magazines that Literary Festivals are being held and it is around them that we should build African literary prizes. We need to invest in the creation of more journals till Kwani and Chimurenga become one amongst many.

This is not say that we do not have a few failings some of them bordering on the tragic. T.S. Elliot once remarked that a poet’s responsibility is first and foremost to his or her language. It is only fair to say that on this count we are failing - happily. But if we do not pick up the responsibility for our languages, who will?

*Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness (poems, 2006), Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change and is co-editor of Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org).

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/385/49182mugabe.jpgAfter the African Union issued a statement so tepid that it might as well as have come from a high-school student conference, low expectations have further diminished. The African Union can now be seen in the same light as its predecessor – the OAU, a drum that beats hollow when it most counts for the African citizen.

But nevertheless, Mugabe’s one-man act has irreversibly damaged his reputation. The extent to which Mugabe has misread the continental and international political climate is shocking.African people, who previously saw Zimbabwe as a metaphor of their own countries where the elite exist at the expense of the poor, are abandoning him en mass. Having lost international legitimacy to George Bush and Tony Blair - a remarkable feat considering the extent to which his two adversaries are hated - the African people became his last defense.

But there has always been the African people and their governments. In regards to the African Union statement, Bishop Desmond Tutu dismay by saying that he was "distressed that (AU leaders) have not thought it was important to declare the illegitimacy of the runoff and the illegitimacy of the Robert Mugabe administration.”

In late November of 2007, in a small village in Selingue Mali, I joined over 100 small-scale farmer, pastoralist, organic and civil society organizations from 25 African and 10 non-African countries at a conference that questioned the relevance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation initiative, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

Together with the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation has pledged a total of $150 million "to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger" in Africa. AGRA has promised do this by overhauling Africa's agricultural industry, from planting seeds to restructuring local and national markets.

What struck me during that conference taking place with much of the world unaware was the audacity and courage of these organizations. Abandoned by African governments hungry for the $150 million-purse, it was brave of them to question AGRA – a gift boasting the support of arguably the most powerful philanthropic machinery in world history.

Here was a side of Africa that the rest of the world does not see – Africans gathered not to ask for help from the West, but to discuss alternatives to that help in very serious, informed and fraternal ways, with their own knowledge, science and experiences as a key part of the solution.

AGRA's chairman is former UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, hence AGRA's claim that it is an African initiative. But we tend to forget that Africa is huge – the continent can fit the United States three times and leave room for China, and houses over 680 million people! A truly African initiative needs to have the mandate of those whom it will affect the most.

AGRA with its super scientists is missing the point. Hunger in Africa is mostly a political and economic disparity problem. To end hunger, political stability, proper distribution of food and land within nations, and less emphasis on cash-crop farming and more on food- crop farming will be more effective, friendlier to the environment and less costly than the super-seeds that will require tons of pesticides - and eventually, cost a lot of money.

Also take the example of US farm subsidies that result in African farmers losing millions of dollars each year. Oxfam reports that in 2001 Malian cotton farmers lost $ 43 million dollars while US foreign aid was 37.7 million that same year. Why not lobby for fair competition and equal international trade rather than throw more aid and pesticides at the Malian farmers?

AGRA has not taken a definitive stand against genetically modified seeds. Instead it states that it does "not preclude future support for genetic engineering as an approach to crop variety improvement" leading many to understand it as Trojan horse for GM seeds.

It is important that AGRA takes a definite stand against GM seeds, which if introduced will create mass dependency on corporate engineered seeds, and at the same time make farming more expensive. This in turns means that poor farmers will be perpetually in debt. A similar tightening cycle of dependency on the one hand, and expensive seeds and pesticides on the other has recently led to thousands of farmer suicides in India.

The conclusion here is one that might seem like a paradox of a beggar having choice - AGRA will do more harm than good. Understanding this, the participants committed themselves to, amongst other things, demanding "transparency, and accountability from all Green Revolution institutions and seed, chemical and fertilizer companies."

In this Pambazuka News special issue on AGRA, in addition to our regular features, we are pleased to bring you an article by Galés Gabirondo - a development scholar and food sovereignty activist who looks at the Bill Gates philosophy of philanthro-capitalism. That is philanthropy that is also profit driven. We also interview Mariam Mayet, the director of African Center for Biosafety and Dr. Regassa Feyissa, the co-founder and Director of the Ethio-Organic Seed Action (EOSA).

In the next few issues, we shall be bringing you more interviews with food sovereignty and agra-ecology activists – all conducted at the Selingue conference.

Finally, over the years Pambazuka News has carried quite a number of articles on the Green Revolutions, climate change, agri-ecology and food sovereignty. For you easy referencing we have compiled some of them here below:

Africa: Food sovereignty declaration

Will Bill Gates’ Millions Save Us?
Jacqueline Tanaka

Sacrificing the right to food on the altar of free trade
Jagjit Plahe

African food sovereignty or AGRA
Mukoma wa Ngugi

African Agriculture and the World Bank: Development or impoverishment?
Kjell Havnevik, Deborah Bryceson, Lars-Erik Birgegård, Prosper Matondi & Atakilte Beyene

GM technology: a new panacea or another false dawn?
[email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Mukoma Wa Ngugi argues that rather than being a people power movement, Kenya’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is modeled after political parties that consolidate democracy for International capital and US Foreign Policy. He discusses the differences between a people powered movement and one such as ODM that employs techniques modeled after the Ukrainian orange revolution and the ouster of Aristide in Haiti

One cannot fully grasp what is happening in Kenya and Africa without considering the changing nature of opposition movements and the differences between a people powered movement, or a democratic revolution, and a plethora of movements that consolidate democratic institutions for international capital while flying under the radar of democracy.

Even though here below I am mainly speaking about Raila Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), I could just as easily be speaking about Mwai Kibaki and the Party of National Unity (PNU). It is only because ODM has actively courted the image of being a people powered movement engaged in a democratic revolution that I draw your attention to it. Amilcar Cabral once said “tell no lies, claim no small victories.” It is in that spirit that I write.

Let me begin by pointing to the question of ethnicity and say this: In the same way you ought to be surprised to meet a white American denying the existence of racism in American politics, so should you be when you meet an African denying that ethnocentrism is deeply entrenched in African politics. Racism is a historical creation that serves a function – so is ‘tribalism.’ In the same way that leaders in the West manipulate race and fear for political goals, so do African leaders. Ethnocentrism can be benign or extremely vicious depending on its conductor. Ethnocracy, like a racist power structure, exists to the extent it is able to obscure for the victim and the activist the root causes of economic, political and social exploitation. It misdirects.

Let us also consider Kwame Ture’s (Stokely Carmichael) reminder that we should not mistake individual success for collective success. The majority of Kenyans -- Luos, Kikuyus, Luhyas etc -- are poor. The 60 percent of Kenyans living under two dollars a day cut across all ethnicities. The Kikuyu elite live at the expense of the Kikuyu poor; it is the same for other ethnicities. There is much more in common between the poor across ethnicities, than between the elite and the poor of each ethnicity. Racism, nationalism, and ethnocracy all ask that the poor die in the defense of economic and social structures that keep them poor. It is no surprise that those who have been both dying and doing the killing in Kenya in the past week are the poor. Yet they are killing along ethnic, not class, lines.

And in the same way that over time western political parties come to represent different and contradictory positions, so have African political parties. In the dictatorships of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the opposition parties were the good guys. Progressive international political analysts are still working with that framework, which has blinded us to glaring present-day contradictions. The assumption that opposition immediately means people-power cannot be sustained by an analysis informed by the complex shifts in African politics in the last two decades. Take Zimbabwe, for example. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change is a neo-liberal party. Calling it revolutionary or anti-imperialist would be wrong. In Kenya, both the sitting government and the opposition exchange members fluidly as they position and reposition themselves, eyes on the national cake. William Ruto, a top leader in the ODM was previously a treasurer for the KANU Youth Wing – a political thug organization created by former dictator Moi, who is now in Kibaki’s camp. And the recent church killings that claimed over 50 lives took place in Eldoret, which William Ruto has represented in parliament for many years.

Therefore not all opposition parties are anti-imperialist or opposed to the move by global capital to consolidate the world. At a time when the rich nations and their elite are getting richer, and the poorer nations and the poor within them are getting poorer, some opposition parties will choose the side of global capital. ODM is composed of some of the wealthiest people in the country. For example, the Odinga family owns Spectre International, a molasses company in conjunction with a multi national petroleum and diamond mining company. The international press, which refers to Raila as a “flamboyant millionaire”, is not entirely wrong.

With the above said, analysis of what it means to be a people powered movement is crucial. For people-power politics to be effective, solidarity has to be across ethnicity not along it. In other words, a people power movement has to at its basis be informed by the consciousness of a collective oppressed. Because it has no real grass roots developed over years of working with and for the people, ODM can only rile up discontentment by pointing to one ethnicity rather than organizing the whole country against elite exploitation. Like any populist movement it takes the worst fears of a people (fear of Kikuyu domination for example) and plays them out in the national stage. A people power movement on the other hand peels away these fears to reveal how power and wealth are being distributed. Because ODM has not done this, its supporters have identified the fellow poor Kikuyu as the enemy. A people power movement would have directed its energies and anger at the state not at another ethnicity.

A people power movement declares its solidarity with other marginalized peoples across the world. It is third-worldist in vision. A people power movement, because its vision grows organically from its struggle and engagement with the people, exhibits a stand against exploitative international economic arrangements because its constituents are impoverished through them. ODM cannot be termed as radical pan-Africanist or third-worldist, rather it has a populist consciousness.

Also, the shell – the façade -- of a people power movement can be used by a national elite to seize power for international capital. Rather than use the term populist/people power to refer to ODM, it is appropriate to borrow a term from the International Republican Institute. The term the IRI (www.iri.org) uses is “consolidating democracy,” referring to a technique it used in the Ukrainian Orange Revolution and in Haiti against Aristide. Consolidating democracy translates into bringing together civil organizations (religious, universities, local NGO’s, women’s organizations etc), and uniting various opposition factions into one large electoral force. If missionaries paved the way for colonialism, evangelists of western democracy like IRI pave the way for US foreign policy.

The sole purpose of consolidating democracy is to remove the sitting government. There is no coherent underlying people centered ideology in this goal – no interest in empowering the people, or returning economic and political institutions to them. Rather than develop real roots with the people so that when in power ODM becomes an extension of them, ODM has taken the easy route of consolidating democracy following the IRI model.

We urgently need to distinguish between people power movements (such as those we have seen in Latin America), populist movements, and neo-liberal opposition movements that consolidate democratic institutions for global capitalism. People power movements are a fifth force usually in opposition to the legislature, executive, judiciary and military. When they seize power through democratic means, they immediately attempt to transform the other four forces into revolutionary instruments. Laws nationalizing resources or redistributing land and resources are passed. The army is transformed from an instrument of intimidation into one that helps in times of disasters – in short a people power government places the people at the center of the state. When a movement that has been consolidating democracy gets into power it does the opposite, and the democratic structures become instruments of global capital and US Foreign policy. Liberia, for example, after working with IRI is one of the few countries to open its national door to the US African Command Center.

We should at least consider that the ODM has in the last few weeks not been engaged in the last phase of a people power revolution but rather in the last stage of consolidating neo-liberal democracy - using the people as the battling ram against the state. This is where the neo-liberal party calls for millions to take to the streets with the hope of immobilizing the state. Because consolidating democracy requires the ebb and flow of violence from the state and protest from the people, Raila could cynically tell a BBC reporter when asked whether he will appeal for calm that "I refuse to be asked to give the Kenyan people an anesthetic so that they can be raped."

In case you are wondering, let me say this: for progressives, Kibaki is not the answer. Before the elections, the Kenyan Human Rights Commission released a report implicating the Kenya police in extra-judicial killings of close to 500 young men, all from poverty stricken areas such as Kibera and Mathare, slums currently up in flames. This is a stark reminder that the 6 percent economic growth was not trickling down to the people. Also that vote rigging took place (on both sides it is turning out) is almost certain. Enough doubt has been cast by the electoral commissioners to make a recount of the votes, a reelection, a united government or another suitable solution a matter of democratic principle.

If the country is to heal, reconcile and find justice, progressive voices should call for a UN probe into the December – January post-election ethnic cleansing in Eldoret and other areas. There should be calls and support for a United Nations probe into the 1994 Rift Valley killings in which a reported hundreds of Kikuyus were killed and thousands displaced during Moi’s regime, and The Wagalla Massacre of 1984 (again during Moi’s regime) in which hundreds of Somali Kenyans were shot to death. Finally the non-electoral extra judicial killings of the 500 young men last year should also be investigated.

Progressives should also call for the crisis to be resolved within democratic structures. When Bush won an election that the rest of the world understood as rigged, we did not ask Al Gore to try and overthrow the government through an Orange revolution, we did not ask him to divide the country across racial lines, blacks pitted against whites, whites pitted against Latinos; we asked him to find redress through peaceful and democratic processes. And for that, the United States remains standing, in spite of Bush. Al Gore did not ask for a recount of all the votes, or for a re-election. But both Raila and Kibaki can form a united government; ask for a recount, and even a re-election. Whatever process or option is used to adjudicate this must be one that leaves Kenya standing for generations to come.

My plea to you is this: Let us not find revolutionaries where there are none. A whole nation, where ethnic cleansing has already started, is at stake. International solidarity should be with the Kenyan people and not with individual leaders. The best thing for Kenya right now is a return to a non-violent path governed by principled democratic structures that will outlive both Raila and Kibaki. It is this that will make possible a people powered government through a democratic revolution.

* Mukoma wa Ngugi is co-editor of Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org), author of Hurling Words at Consciousness and a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine.

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