By Takura Zhangazha*
Two recent internationally flagged events could not skip my mind in the last few days.
The first, as an African, was the occurrence of this week’s demonstrations that regrettably turned violent in Kenya over a Finance Bill (2024) proposed by that country’s government but also linked to austerity measures that are generally propounded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).
These protests tragically led to a loss of young lives at the hands of the Kenyan state. With the one political compromise being the fact that, for now, the President of Kenya has stayed the signing of the Finance Bill (2024) as approved by his country’s Parliament.
I am not a Kenyan but as a left leaning person, I can only empathize with the young colleagues who chose to take their struggle to the streets to challenge not only their government, but also by default, the neoliberal agenda of the IMF and WB.
Whether be it based on ideological grounding or a generalized resistance to taxation and the media reported high costs of living in Kenya.
The second ‘internationalized’ development that caught my attention this week was that of the attempted coup de tat in Bolivia.
Because of Africa’s time differences with Southern America, the notices from progressive social media platforms came in quite late at night in Zimbabwe that there had been a section of Bolivia’s army led by the its general commander that had tried to storm the presidential palace.
And that a message from current President Acre and his predecesor Morales had galvanized their supporters to not only outnumber the section of the military at the palace but also had the solidarity of the new Mexican and current presidents of Brazil, Venezuela against the coup.
It has turned out that the incumbent president of Bolivia has successfully foiled the coup thanks to popular support from the masses of Bolivians amidst suspicion of the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America(USA).
This being based on previous allegations of the ousting of Evo Morales before his term of office had been completed as president of Bolivia.
Both incidents are still not completely resolved and we are yet to understand their full import in respect to their domestic or international relations’ impacts.
We know in Kenya, the Finance Bill of 2024 has been withdrawn by President Ruto pending other Parliamentary processes.
We also know that in Bolivia, President Acre remains in power after bravely, at least according to what we saw on social media, standing down his then commander in of the defence forces whom he subsequently arrested.
Now on the face of it, there is no common ground between what happened in Kenya and what happened in Bolivia.
Except assumptions of anticipation of change or resistance to change. And/or the movers of either.
In both cases the most mobilizable were what we are referring to as “Generation Z’s” or “gen Z’s” Even before we talk about the newer psycho-social classification of young cdes as “Generation Alphas”, particularly in Kenya.
I have no idea what these terms are equivalently called in Bolivia. But it is certain they were going to be called upon to defend their re-emerging indigenous and alternatively progressively Bolivarian revolution.
What cuts across both countries is the international attention they both got as to events as they occurred in the same week. And their government’s placements in global international relations. A latter point that needs further explanation.
Kenya is now a very close ally of the USA. Particularly in Haiti before we start debating its newfound relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Bolivia on the other hand is closer to Russia and China. Even moreso after a recent trip by President Acre to recently meet the much maligned Russian president Putin for a state visit.
The key questions become what do these particular political developments reflect that we cannot easily see?
My naïve thinking is that they definitively reflect what the great revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana warned us as to “Neocolonialism: The Last Stages of Capitalism.” He may have written the book many years ago but it is what appears to quite literally be playing out in contemporary international relations.
The contradictions of fighting the IMF and WB in Kenya by young Gen Z Kenyans while simultaneously their government is now a key US ally for the forseeable future are apparent. Together with the resistance to a precedented coup in Bolivia against the backdrop of contestations for lithium resources by Russia and reportedly Elon Musk.
All of this in the same week can only raise both ideological and other eyebrows.
What is apparent is that the politics of the Global South are no longer going to be the same. Any major political devlopments in the global south are now essentially internationalised. And mainly for economic reasons that are easy to either militarise or politicise as has recently happened in Kenya and Bolivia.
I mention 'economic reasons' as the mainstay because whether a superpower such as USA or Russia has a vested interest in your national politics, as of now their ideological standpoint remains çapitalism. With two different versions namely one that is neoliberalism (USA) and the other that is state capitalism (Russia)
But as a final point, which also forms part of the title of this blog.
We are seeing a lot of quasi mass uprisings as led by young people in urban areas. The reality of the matter as learnt from the Arab Spring, “Age is not an Ideology.”
Neither is catharsis.
Both help in the moment but as always, the forces of countereaction tend to be ideologically more grounded.
What is required before age and anger/catharsis become key factors is an equally grounded counter-hegemony.
Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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