Uprising in Kenya

Well, the situation in Kenya with the protests well, first of all, we'll say that the president of Kenya has long been regarded as a Western client, if not a puppet. And that's not without reason. He has regularly ingratiated himself with the West. He has been pursuing economic neoliberal economic policies within Kenya that have made the lives of the people increasingly miserable. And so this has resulted predictably in protests that have that began peacefully and turned violent because of the police.

The police shot at peaceful protesters. Now, they're calling for the removal of the president of Kenya, William Ruto. Now, what I would say about, that situation is that it's similar to the situation, before it in Sudan, and it's similar to the situation before Sudan in Egypt, where the people, are protesting against the government for policies that the government is implementing, which the government is held hostage to implement in favor of multinational corporations and international lenders. Chief among them, the International Monetary Fund. In fact, the bill that stirred the protests in Kenya initially is basically an IMF bill, a structural adjustment reform, an austerity measure that is being demanded by the IMF of the Rutto government.

So my opinion, as was my opinion with regards to Sudan, when Sudan when when Omar Bashir was being blamed for the economic policies that were the austerity measures, the austerity economic policies, the neoliberal policies that he was implementing under coercion in Sudan, and the protest against Sisi because of the neoliberal policies that he was implementing under coercion. My position has always been that these leaders, these politicians exist to take the blame for the policies that they're implementing on behalf of private sector power. That's why they exist. That's why I call them effigies. Because they exist to implement the policies that will make them unpopular, and then they'll take the brunt of the unpopularity.

They'll take the brunt of public anger, and then they'll be removed, but the policies will remain. Because the source of the policies is the private sector, is the international private sector. It's the OCGFC. It's the Western multinational corporations and lenders, financial institutions, and so forth. Again, specifically, the International Monetary Fund.

This is your problem. And now, who is the International Monetary Fund doing what it's doing? Who is it doing it for? It's not doing it for Kenya. We all know that.

And it wasn't doing it for Sudan, and it's not doing it for Egypt. So who are they doing it for? And when when you identify who they're doing it for, then those are the private sector players, those are the power brokers that it makes more sense to me that the population should be protesting and should be, directing their activism, and their opposition, towards those actors on the political and economic scene in Kenya, not the government. Now, I I'm not speaking up in favor of William Ruto. There's a lot of problems with his government, certainly, without question.

Just as there were problems with the government of Omar Bashir, there's certainly a multitude of problems with the government of Abdul Fattah Hasisi. But when you're talking about the specifically the way that they're managing the economy, you have to understand that they are not the managers of the economy. Their lenders are the managers of the economy, and the the lenders are managing the economy in such a way as to benefit Western multinational corporations. So for example, in Kenya, you should look at Coca Cola. You should look at General Electric.

You know, you should look at Standard Chartered, you should look at Barclays Bank, look at, Safaricom, Nestle, IBM, and look at Toyota. These are the beneficiaries of the economic policies. These are the beneficiaries of neoliberalism. They are the ones who are holding the government hostage, and they're doing it by means of the IMF. So your your president, and again, whether it's Kenya, or whether it's Sudan, or whether it's Egypt, or whether it's Pakistan, and many other places around the world, and increasingly you can say the same thing about countries in Europe.

These governments, these politicians are hostages and the policies that they're implementing are essentially like when you see a hostage being forced to read a list of demands. You don't get angry at the hostage for the demands that he's making on behalf of the hostage taker, and that's what the government does. That's what your president does. That's what your prime minister is doing. You know?

They're just reading the list of demands that they have been told that they must that must be met, in order for them to, not be eliminated. And the one that's gonna be eliminated here isn't the president. It's your whole economy. Because the IMF has considerable power, to sabotage and cripple your economy if you don't do what they say. That's why it's better for you if you never get involved with them in the first place.

And this is why I've said time and time again that it's much better for Muslim countries, for countries in the global South, for countries in Africa, to do business with China, to do business with Russia, while they still can, while those countries are still interested in investing in Africa, in the global South, Latin America, and the Muslim world, and so on, while they still have the money to spend, you ought to take the money from them rather than taking the money from the IMF. Because the IMF and Western lenders generally are not actually interested in you paying them back. They don't want you to pay them back. Because when they loan you money, they're calling it a loan, and you think it's a loan. But what they're actually doing is buying you.

So they don't want the money back. They want what they bought, which is your whole country.