For Making the Rising Cost Of Living a National Issue, the Social Justice Movement Paid the Price, what’s next?

In Kenya, the scourge of the rising cost of living has been striking fear into the hearts of the ordinary citizens and the political class alike for the longest time possible but for different reasons. The ordinary Kenyans, generally drawn from the working class and rural peasant population are basically worried of their survival amidst the ever rising inflation that is getting out of hand while the political class is worried of the terror they might be faced with should the ordinary citizens say enough is enough and opt to rise against them and demand for a regime change that is more citizen inclined.

The antagonism between these two classes in Kenya has not been a peaceful one. The oppressed and suppressed Kenyans while armed with the constitution after internalizing and memorizing articles 1, 37 & 43 of the Kenya Constitution have on several occasions taken to the streets to demand for the government to act immediately and cushion them from rising cost of living while the insensitive Kenya Kwanza regime not wanting to listen to its own citizens reacted by unleashing its full wrath of monopolized state violence on them.

So devastating was the state terror on the protesting Kenyans that left over 12 dead as a result of police shooting and over 300 were left nursing serious wounds. These are only but a few cases that were documented and reported by Amnesty Kenya.

But who are these article 43 Committee Adherents?

Give it to the Social Justice Movement for making the rising cost of living a national issue. The social justice movement is a consortium of over 80 Community Based organizations spread across the country. In Nairobi, there are over 20 Justice Centres spread across the urban informal settlements. This movement has in the past managed to craft issue based campaigns and engage the state on these issues until they became national issues.

The various campaigns of the movement are organised in thematic groups titled as committees. These committees are the ones mandated to research and report on local issues that are affecting the people within their communities. Thereafter they dissect these issues by looking at the various laws and government policies and expound on the missing gaps and eventually craft a campaign that targets the relevant duty bearers.

The unique thing about these campaigns is that

• They are issues based campaigns that every Kenyan can relate with
• The campaigns are conducted within the legal framework
• They are always sustainable over a long period of time
• They operate on minimum resources

The Article 43 committee is one seven committees of the social justice movement whose mandate is to advocate for the full implementation of the article 43 of the Kenyan constitution on economic and social rights.

Their campaign that is dubbed #NJAARevolution and #FOODSovereigntyNOW has on several occasions been trending and making headlines on the streets, Main stream media and social media

What is the issue around the cost of living in Kenya as articulated by article 43 committee of the Social Justice Movement?

Kenya has totally NO control over the global forces that are influencing rising prices and currency warfare but even with this understanding, Kenya has continued to worsen their critical economic conditions by increasing their meddling and borrowing to the IMF, World Bank and other imperialist countries knowing very well that these organizations main agenda is exploitation. The funds generated from these unsustainable debts end up servicing other bad debts, recurrent expenditure of the bloated government, corruption and very little amount is allocated to development which again is misappropriated. To avert the crisis, the government resorts to taxing and over taxing the already overburdened citizens.

Moreover the Kenyan Government seems incapable of doing anything to help its citizens. This of course is because we have a regime in power that is seeking to be a fully neoliberal government who believe in helping the masses as little as possible, especially the poor. The government has resorted to fully privatized state corporations at throw away prices and handed over critical government sectors to control of the profit driven private sector. The majorly affected sectors with these neoliberal policies are: the Energy sector, Education and agriculture.  This can only mean that the situation will worsen

What is the way forward Social Justice Movement?

Despite the brutal confrontation the movement has experienced form the state, there are two Phrases that can never be used to describe the social justice movement is “giving up” and “abandoning the course”

The resilience of the social justice movement is unmatched, their zeal and determination can only be compared to that of the popular peoples uprising during the struggle for independence.

The government has arrogantly continued to defend their position on increasing the taxes, borrowing and privatization. They have even claimed that the country is run as a company and those with the majority of preferential shares (the political class) will enjoy and the rest are to blame for the decisions they made.

By flipping the calendar to 2024 does not mean that hunger will miraculously disappear and hence we must continue to organise relentlessly until freedom. Yes until we attain freedom for hunger and poor living condition.

Social Justice Movement

Communication Team