Pio Gama Pinto was a Kenyan Goan born on March 31, 1927 in Kenya. He was a key organizer with the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, he was instrumental in the formation of a radical trade union movement in Kenya, an anti-imperialist publisher and journalist in colonial and post-colonial Kenya. As a freedom fighter, he participated in the independence movement of Goa as a founder member of the Goa National Congress that worked to free Goa from Portuguese rule. As a Pan-Africanist, he supported independence movement in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Comoros Island, South Africa, Guyana, Congo and Cabo Verde, and often housed freedom fighters who needed to hide from repressive colonial governments. He was assassinated on February 24, 1965, a few days after the assassination of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965. He was killed shortly after he had met with Malcolm X and they had planned to charge the US government with human rights violations at the UN.

He supported independent journalism by using his skills as a publisher and journalist to unite the working class and shed light on capitalism and imperialism as the main contradictory forces against the struggle for liberation, and not the racial and tribal divisions perpetrated by the colonial media. He aimed to bring the discussion on socialism to the mainstream as the only way in which independence from British colonial rule would benefit every patriotic Kenyan and not just a few. Using his networks as a journalist, he set up links of international solidarity with comrades in the UK, India, USA, which he used to amplify people’s struggle against colonialism, and expose the atrocities of the British rule in Kenya. Moreover, he mobilized these networks for funds to set up  the Lumumba Institute, a school intended for ideological training of KANU party cadres. The school was later shut down by Jomo Kenyatta in 1965, then president of Kenya i

Many factors contributed to his assassination at his home on 6, Lower Kabete Road – now the site of the Sarit Centre Mall. Pinto’s plan to draft a counter document to what was Sessional Paper No. 10, written by Tom Mboya for Kenyatta government, and his exposure of the theft by Jomo Kenyatta of British funds sent to the Kenyan government for the purposes of resettling the landless due to the war for independence, put him in the path of the assassin’s bullet. Pinto proposed a ceiling on individual land ownership of 500 acres, equitable distribution of wealth, and just rewards for Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KFLA) fighters. Together with Oginga Odinga, he had already mobilized support of 98 of 158 Members of Parliament in support of his proposals, thus making Kenyatta and Mboya’s document of unbridled capitalism (erroneously named ‘African Socialism) unpopular. Had he been successful, it would have led to a repeat election where Kenyatta would potentially lose his seat as president of Kenya to Oginga Odinga.

As journalists reporting within our movements and documenting the struggles of common people, we can draw lessons from the life of Pinto. These are that we can use our privileges as writers and access to networks for the benefit of the people. It is easy to be drawn to the lavish life of media personalities who mine ethnic divisions for sensational news stories which are rewarded by imperialism. However, as socialists, it is paramount that we stick to reporting the facts and base our analysis on the class question in Kenya, which is the primary contradiction. At the same time, we must remain politically grounded through study so that our documenting does not end up being co-opted by populist narratives such as a the one currently ongoing about ‘hustler vs. dynasty’. On the surface, it may seem that there is a rising class consciousness among the people of Kenya, but this is smoke and mirrors as the discourse does little to benefit the working classes. It is the ruling class co-opting radical language to settle political scores and further their selfish agenda of super-exploitation of the working class using neocolonial relationships with ‘developed countries’.

Another lesson socialist archivists can learn from the life of Pinto is the importance of an independent people’s media. Pinto mobilized his networks to set up a printing press together with James Gichuru, Joseph Murumbi and Oginga Odinga. The Pan-African press published three newspapers, Sauti ya Mwafrika, Pan African, and Nyanza Times. Prior to this, Pinto had set up and worked in independent African publications that championed the cause against imperialism and British colonial rule. Without these independently run outlets, it would have been very difficult to mobilize patriotic Kenyans towards organizing for independence. History is told from the perspective of the alleged conqueror. Therefore, as socialists working towards an equitable society, we do not expect imperialist media houses owned by the oppressing class to correctly tell our stories. That is why it is important to gather our skills towards establishing blog sites, websites, media pages, print publications that are grounded in class struggle to spread propaganda that is pro-working-class people.

During Pinto’s detention at Manda Island, we get a glimpse of the deplorable colonial prison conditions. in an interview, Emma Pinto recounts how reading Shakespeare helped Pinto not to commit suicide. Unsurprisingly, nothing has changed since independence, and the gulags that the British set up to torture suspected KLFA fighters and sympathizers still exist today. Prisoners in Kenya work in slave like conditions and the Kenya Prisons Enterprise Corporation Order 2018, established the Kenya Prisons Enterprise Corporation, a state corporation, with a board of directors and CEO, operating as a business entity, to increase revenue of the prisons. This had turned prison labor into slave labor subject to capitalist laws of demand and supply. Currently, the prison labor wage is between 10 cents for the lowest paid prisoner, and 20 cents for the highest paid prisoner engaged in skilled work^[1]. Pinto used his media networks and privileges to amplify the deplorable conditions of forced labor and starvation at Manda Island to agitate for better treatment of inmates. Because nothing has changed fifty-eight years after independence, it is still upon us to agitate for better treatment of prisoners, most of whom are remand detainees. We need to agitate for faster hearing and sentencing , alternative methods of justice that are not punitive, and eventually, as we set up socialist and communist societies—abolition of prisons.

Finally, we can draw a lesson in conscious international solidarity from the life of Pinto. Pio Gama Pinto used his friends and comrade to mobilize funds to set up the Lumumba Institute which was meant to train KANU party cadres on anti-imperialist ideology. Despite it being shut down in 1965, we get a brief understanding on the level of political consciousness of Pinto. He understood that the fight against imperialism required a concerted effort of all working-class people, not just in Kenya alone, which is why he was able to convince comrades from different parts of the world to contribute towards the formation of this centre. As socialists, we often get caught up in the ravages of capitalism within our own countries and communities that we forget to see the bigger picture and engage others outside our spheres of influence. This can elongate our fight and dangerously isolate us, making us an easy target for imperialist and neocolonial forces. It is important to remember to unite our efforts for the working class beyond racial and national constraints.

Long live the undying spirit of Pio Gama Pinto!

Application of the life of Pinto

In the social justice movement, the spirit of Pinto lives on through the emergence of groups of cadres synthesizing theory and tactics of liberation based on our experience of the freedom struggle of our time. In a class society, there are two types of intellectuals, those in service of capitalist economy, politics, and social organization, and those in service of socialist economy and political organization as the ideology of the oppressed for liberation from the exploitation of their labor by capital. I reflect on Pinto as an organic intellectual in that he was an individual within the mass base movement for independence in Kenya, Goa, and greater Afrika, who used his knowledge in service of the liberation of workers and peasants towards a communal ownership of the means of production. To do this, an individual must first be educated in revolutionary ideology of the working class. Pinto belonged to a study group called the Kenya African Study Union which was the ideological wing of the Kenya African Union. In the social justice movement, Ukombozi Library, and the Revolutionary Socialist League are spaces for self-cultivation.

It is necessary to have organic intellectuals as it negates hierarchies of knowledge extraction. Where those who have conventional markers of education such as a university degree undermine lived reality of workers. Instead, such elitist individuals will use ghettos and other organized community groups for their own interest of career advancement. This happens primarily in the form of research that hardly benefit the community. Moreover, the knowledge generated is inaccessible to the workers due to language barriers, and expensive paywalls to access academic journals where this information is published. The slums are therefore sites of extraction for universities just like the lands of Afrika are sites of extraction for precious metals and minerals for big oil companies. Not that an organization should not have advanced academics within its space. No. Rather we must have a hybrid approach to knowledge generated based on class consciousness. University students who immerse themselves among the ghetto youth provide an alternative outlook to the hopelessness of poverty and capitalist violence in the slums. In this way, ghetto youth are organized into a critical mass to effect change on their conditions instead of falling victim to drug addiction and ‘horizontal violence’ due to desperation. Instead, through a political instrument that is socialist, understand the reasons for their underdevelopment in contrast to the central business district – the nucleus of the metropolis. In this way, conditions of oppression are demystified from idealistic world view to a dialectical and materialistic world view towards releasing full revolutionary potential of the proletariat. At the same time, the revolutionary potential of university students is maintained through interaction with the mass base, dismantling the hierarchy of bourgeois education in the service of capitalism.

NGOs further hegemonize capitalist knowledge by engaging in labor exploitation where our labor output as social justice activists is not adequately compensated. Moreover, we hardly own our intellectual output as we do not have the rights to the researchers, reports, and data generated for NGOs. NGOs as a ‘compromise’ of capitalism still operate on class basis where a university graduate will be paid more than a community researcher simply for having a degree.

To counter this, within the movement, there exist spaces for independent journalism, memory and reflection in favor of a proletarian revolution. These are, Ukombozi Review, Kenya Socialist, Hood TV, Until Everyone is Free podcast. International platforms such as Review of African Political Economy, and Africa is a Country, kindle the emerging cell of organic intellectuals within the social justice movement. It is an effective alliance based on the common principle of social justice – which helps to amplify workers’ struggle for the purpose of international solidarity. These provide room for knowledge exchange with comrades all over the world, building the spirit of Pan-Africanism while nurturing organic knowledge base of the movement. The Travelling Theatre of the social justice centres, as a theatre of the oppressed, decentralizes learning structure from the rigid classroom, top-down approach of banking knowledge.

To conclude my reflection, individually, it is not possible to address the issue of capitalism and imperialism. Collectively, we need to constantly sharpen ourselves through theory and practice and be part of an organized workers movement. As a writer and activist, to make sure that the work that I generate resonates with the masses towards class abolition. I believe this is no time for liberal poetry and literature that is just hopeless drama of the bourgeois and their liberal lives. Everything we do artistically as artists and activists should be in service of workers. That is the greatest continuity I can give to the revolutionary legacy of Pio Gama Pinto and the struggle for total liberation of Afrika from imperialism