This debate aims to be used as a resource for researchers and activists. The debate is concerned to document and analyse popular protest and direct action on the continent, both as it happens, as a regular feature as well as charting broader patterns and trends in popular protest over recent decades. Broadly the debate considers the relationship between working class struggle and popular protest in Africa over the last ten years as we chart the development of protest movements across the continent. The debate focuses on a broader array of popular forces that challenge not only immediate austerity and repression introduced as part of structural adjustment and ‘economic reform’, but also the legitimacy of the reforms themselves and even, sometimes, the governments that introduced them.
Popular Protest and Class Struggle Across the Continent
‘First Win the Mind’: The Need for a War of Position in Kenya
In the spring of 1845, Karl Marx wrote the now well-known line "philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it". Here, Kenyan journalist and writer Mohamed Amin Abdishukri first interpets recent events in Kenya, arguing protests have been more reformist than revolutionary. He then details how, through the founding in 2017 of Kenya's first socialist library, Ukombozi Library, a group of progressive social justice activists are working to bring revolutionary consciousness directly to the masses and encouraging them to imagine alternative realities that go beyond capitalism.
Workers, protests and trade unions in Africa
ROAPE's Bettina Engels introduces Volume 51 Issue 182 of the journal, about labour organisation, working class struggles and popular protests. The entire issue can be accessed, downloaded and read for free.
Thorn in the Flesh – the unreformable Kenyan police
Kenyan activists Faith Asina and Gathanga Ndung’u deliver powerful and sharp criticism of the role of the Kenyan police as the oppressor of the masses. They explain in detail how police terror has manifested itself on issues such as the crackdowns on activists, the aftermath of elections, state-led campaigns against terrorism and informal settlements. They also take the time to commemorate fallen activists and inform us about ongoing grassroots movements against the violence of the police, which they believe needs radical surgery or a total overhaul.
Revival of the Workers’ Movement in North Africa
We share a second extract from ‘Revolution is the choice of the people: crisis and revolt in the Middle East and North Africa’ by Anne Alexander. The extract provides an astute historic and comparative analysis of the revival of the workers' movement, which played a vital role in the mass protests and revolutions of 2011 and 2019.
Professionals and Proletarians – Class Struggle under Neoliberalism
We share an extract from ‘Revolution is the choice of the people: crisis and revolt in the Middle East and North Africa’ by Anne Alexander. The passage deepens our understanding of the complex class structure of the Middle Eastern and North African societies in which uprisings and revolutions erupted in the 2010s. Neoliberalism produced a crisis and profound transformations among the middle-class and proletariat while propelling them to play a major role in popular resistance.