Czech author Milan Kundera wrote that the struggle against power was the struggle of memory against forgetting. Undermining memory is a well-known tactic of the oppressor. The book Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr counters the imperialist conspiracy to silence the achievements of one of our liberation heroes.

Contributions in that book tell the story of the class nature of the Kenyan society. The contradictions between reactionary and progressive forces. The book exposes the international socio-economic, political and economically unjust capitalist system that shatters economies in the name of imperial hegemony. Comrade Pinto saw the liberation struggle as an attempt to overthrow the oppressive system of domination and exploitation. He made a very clear stand on what should happen after independence. We are introduced to a man with capacity for ideological clarity, mass organization, organizational discipline and commitment to the struggle. Not only did he talk the talk but walked the talk.

Franz Fanon writes that the role of the African petty bourgeoisie in the international capital has always been that of compradors. Amilcar Cabral in Weapon of Theory wrote of the historic responsibility of the petty bourgeoisie. In the colonial context, he writes, they could be called revolutionary while other sectors retain the doubts characteristic of their class or ally themselves to colonialists to defend their social status. Durrani’s book gives us the historical context in which Pinto lived. A statement by the last Governor of Kenya confirmed Britain’s support for Kenyatta since he belonged to the moderate camp that supported the status quo. This class became the domestic bulwark of imperialist plunder. They overturned the objective of the liberation struggle. Pinto and his fellow radical petty bourgeoisie comrades chose to side with the makers of history and oppose the successors of the home guards sustained by neocolonialism. He points out that the struggle had been a two-line struggle, either capitalism with rich getting richer and the masses poorer, or socialism with justice and equality.

Most importantly, Pinto took an ideological stand concerning the liberation struggle. He suffered detention for his role in formation of anti-imperialist East African Trade Union Congress. He was clear that the struggle against imperialism was struggle against colonialism as well as class struggle. He took up the banner of socialism, returned to class struggle and sought organizational forms to put ideology into practice. This is seen with the formation of Lumumba Institute to train KANU cadres and make the party a socialist organization with the end goal of making Kenya follow the socialist path.

Pinto was a man with great understanding of the struggle he was engaged in. He analyzed the material conditions of regular people. He was thus able to expose tribalism as a systemic colonial construct that arose out of material conditions and colonial influences. His analysis also enabled him correctly to understand the economic situation of the country. When imperialist puppets presented the reactionary CIA document, Sessional Paper no. 10 of 1965, charting a capitalist path, Pinto prepared a counter socialist policy paper articulating development of socialism in post-independence Kenya.

Counter revolutionary forces and their imperialist masters felt so threatened that they decided to silence him, to silence the pursuit for humanity, the struggle for socialism. This is the cancer of betrayal that Cabral addressed during Asagyefo Kwame Nkurumah’s burial. Cabral warned that the cancer of betrayal had to be rooted out of Africa if we really wanted to crush imperialist domination.

Pinto’s ideological profundity and fidelity to socialist principles is an inspiration to the generation of revolutionary workers and youths in our country. It is a reminder to cadres engaged in mass work of the importance of ideological development of the masses to ensure permanence of the revolution, to stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within our organizations in the interest of our struggle. The workers and youths of today must question the direction the county has taken since independence and use the great historical experiences to advance the working people vision of socialism.

If he has been extinguished yet there arise a thousand beacons from the spark he bore.

Suluhu ni Usoshialisti!^[1]