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1 month ago | 
countercurrents.org | Haider Abbas |Cedric Prakash |Vidyadhar Date |Shiraz Durrani
The film Anora, as it opens, takes viewers for an unbridled voyeurism as a striptease bar is open where topless girls split their legs on silhouettes. Topless girls now are the new norm. Frontal nudity is the new discourse. Anora is recipient of five Oscar Awards 2025, which includes Best Picture. Sean Baker, its Director, won four Oscars for a single film, which is an Academy record.
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1 month ago | 
countercurrents.org | Shiraz Durrani |Haider Abbas |Bhabani Nayak |Romi Mahajan
Class & IdeologyThe political context of African publishing is not given the attention it deserves. The elephants in the room are capitalism and imperialism, which distort every aspect of life in favour of the ruling elite and make policies that are against the interest of working people. Essentially, there are class divisions and class struggles in Kenya (and Africa). It is the capitalist ideology that the ruling class promotes while suppressing the socialist aspirations of people.
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1 month ago | 
countercurrents.org | Bharat Dogra |Shiraz Durrani |Yanis Iqbal |Sanjay N. Parate
By pooling their savings on a regular basis every month self-help groups (SHGs) in many parts of India have improved their economic and social security. However such efforts, particularly of rural women, have been able to achieve more when they have combined this with wider initiatives for social reform.
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1 month ago | 
countercurrents.org | Shiraz Durrani |Onyonge Mengo |Wangui Kimari |Wairimu Gathimba
There has been much attention given to the actions by GenZs and others under the RutoMustGo resistance activities in Kenya . This is appropriate as these actions have been the open face of resistance in Kenya in the last year. However, such resistance is, by its very nature, short-lived and difficult to maintain over the long term as it lacks the foundation for sustained activity. This is not to say that it did not have an impact on events in the country.
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Nov 16, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Wangui Kimari |Shiraz Durrani |Wairimu Gathimba |Kipchumba Ochieng
Since June’s anti-finance bill protests, dozens of people remain unaccounted for—a stark reminder of the Kenyan state’s long history of abductions and assassinations. Ruto’s government is abducting people every day. Literally. There is not one day that has passed since the anti–finance bill protests started in June when Kenyans are not being bundled into unmarked Subaru cars by unidentified persons understood as plainclothes police officers (in all of their shades of vigilantism).
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Aug 23, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Shiraz Durrani |Wairimu Gathimba |Kipchumba Ochieng |Richard Heinberg
Events in Kenya are moving at a fast pace in the year 2024. Resistance to capitalism and imperialism under another comprador government had given birth to a new upsurge in resistance by working people, joined by professionals and activist individuals and organisations. It is sometimes difficult to see fast moving events in their historical and political perspectives.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Binoy Kampmark |Amir Nour |Shiraz Durrani |Bharat Dogra
From his own redoubt of critical inquiry, the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has made fighting the imperialising leprosy of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the UK and the United States a matter of solemn duty.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Shiraz Durrani |Wairimu Gathimba |Kipchumba Ochieng |Bharat Dogra
The on-going resistance in Kenya is sometimes referred to as a revolution. This is perhaps because the hope for change from the status quo is stronger than the reality. It perhaps shows a lack of understanding of relative strengths of the opposing forces in the class war. It is indeed a class war that is taking place in Kenya today, although this aspect is often hidden or not clearly understood. That then leads to not basing one’s thinking on the reality on the ground.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Binoy Kampmark |T Navin |Suresh Nellikode |Shiraz Durrani
Rwanda has become a curiosity as an African state. The mere mention of its name tugs the memory: colonial tragedy, ethnic violence, genocide. Then comes stable rule, for the most part. It is assured, iron fisted, and corporate. Since being elected in April 2000, the country has known one leader. Paul Kagame has kept matters running as smoothly much like a well-oiled corporate machine, aided by his Rwandan Patriotic Front. At times, he treats his country as such.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
countercurrents.org | Shiraz Durrani |Wairimu Gathimba |Kipchumba Ochieng |Robert Hunziker
Comparing war of independence with people’s resistance todayNote: This is a companion article to the author’s ‘Historical Perspective on the Resistance of Gen Z in Kenya’ published in countercurrents.org on 14-07-2024 . Available at https://countercurrents.org/2024/07/historical-perspective-on-the-resistance-of-gen-z-in-kenya/——While there may be many similarities between events from history and current ones, the two are never the same.
