November 6th 2003
THE PASSING OF GEORGE
ANYONA:
A POINEER KENYAN SOCIALIST
The
After the aborted attempt to form KASA, Mr. Anyona and others were sent to
detention where he languished until the Moi
dictatorship was forced by the multi-party Movement (Saba Saba revolution) to
re-introduce political pluralism in the country in 1990. When Mr. Anyona was
released from detention to rejoin active politics in 1992, the world
situation had changed
dramatically.
Stalinist bureaucracy had just collapsed in the former
collapse of Stalinism was still underway. Considerable sections of the International Socialist Movement which
understood the
degeneration of the Workers' States in the former Soviet Union and other
Eastern block countries recognizes this period as a
turbulent one which not only led to major set backs within the International
Workers' Movement but also undermined the ideas
of Marxism internationally.
Unfortunately, Mr. Anyona and other former Comrades who believed that Socialism
was in the process of being built in the
former
Naturally, the setting up of a Socialist alternative by the Anyona group in the
wake of the collapse of Stalinism failed to get on the agenda. Since the
Stalinist collapse was itself a process that had taken many Comrades in Kenya
off guard, majority of
progressives in the Left joined the populist multi party bandwagon that had
created a lot of euphoria in Kenya as the process of ideological re-thinking
and orientation to the new world situation also continued.
When Mr. Anyona was released from detention, Movements which had a Left wing
outlook like the underground Mwakenya
Movement had already entered into crisis. On the one hand was the collapse of
Stalinism in
political party that could effectively challenge the brand of Capitalism in
mainly been advocating for political pluralism and once this was achieved in
July 1990, the Movement failed to intervene
politically to vie for power because it had not yet prepared for this period.
In the difficult circumstances and ideological confusion, Anyona opted to form
the Kenya Social Congress (KSC), a one man Party without a declared political
ideology and whose formation was purely meant to enable Mr. Anyona to ride on
the fame based on his political persecution to Parliament. Although Anyona did
get elected to Parliament, his political aloofness and calculated gravitation
towards the KANU dictatorship after his election sent worrying signals that he
may have compromised his political beliefs in the face of lack of explanations
and analysis at the local level about political transformations that were
taking place in Eastern Europe.
We believe that after Mr. Anyona emerged from detention, the once Leftist
firebrand began flirting with the corrupt bourgeoisie mainly from the KANU camp
due to lack of a Socialist opposition in Kenya which could rehabilitate him
ideologically, the situation in Eastern Europe and poverty at the individual
level. The KANU dictatorship used poverty effectively to soften its ideological
opponents before compromising them with money looted from the State.
Mr. Anyona, who ascribed to the Maoist tendency, suddenly went quiet on the
ideological plane as he worked out a new political perspective in the multi party
dispensation. Age was also taking its toll as the "benefits of
struggle" remained a mirage.
Many Kenyans must have watched with amazement when Mr. Anyona teamed up with
KANU elements to become a real
stumbling block in
Mr. Anyona "the radical" eventually got trapped with the monetary
rewards that began to flow from KANU and it was not
long before he lost his Socialist bearing. He abandoned the ideological
struggle and took the frontline in defending KANU tricks to stop the tide of
political change in
Despite his human weaknesses, we can hasten to add that Anyona was a very
courageous man. He raised the specter of Socialism in
Odinga were raising the alternative of Socialism in an imperialist arena and the
risks they faced at that time cannot be over
emphasized.
We mourn Mr. Anyona as an articulate speaker and avid debater who took
advantage of the Socialist tools of analysis to tingle the consciousness of his
contemporaries into facing the devastating consequences of the capitalist
system in
Anyona's political life will forever serve as a source of many lessons to
Kenyan Socialists waging struggle within the
framework of capitalism in a permanently revolutionary situation ripe for a
democratic Socialist take-over.
Okoth Osewe
Secretary
Kenya Socialist Democratic
Published by Kenya
Socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA)
email: harakatips@hotmail.com