By Dr Wandia Njoya
I’m watching progressive politicians around the world and trying to understand why a progressive agenda is so hard to identify here at home. In Kenya, every politician promises healthcare, bursaries, jobs and social services, which they never deliver. But few talk about the details like
a. proper universal healthcare (I don’t consider universal health insurance equal to universal healthcare)
b. good public education whose facilities can be shared by communities
c. workers’ rights and respect for professionals, technicians and care staff
d. quality education (bursaries are not education)
e. a proper minimum wage
f. restructuring of salaries so that we stop this nonsense of paying managers millions for playing golf while the real workers cant afford a decent school
g. end of private ownership of land (title deeds) and land speculation, so that we convert Kenya from a feudal economy into a labour and ideas economy
h. better water planning (not turning Murang’a into a desert so that a private estate in Nairobi can have water),
i. end of settler land ownership especially in the North
j. the end of racism (or what NASA politely called in its manifesto “madharau”), which is the focus on wazungu investors and tourists in policy planning, that is behind the marginalization of areas further away from the railway
k. Real public transport paid for by taxes, with a commuter rail in Nairobi, and mandatory city structures and future plans for walkways, markets, bike paths and parks in every commercial center in Kenya
l. Growth of rural towns to move people off the land and have better land use, and rural cities would ease provision of social services like water, schools and hospitals
Kenyans are already talking about these issues, but I don’t know why we are not easily identifiable as people who would talk about similar issues in other countries. So as I figure things out, I’m keenly following these guys, and wishing for the day that I will see that young Kenyan revolutionary whom I will one day ask: are you the one we have been waiting for?
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