So, do you have a party

SO, DO YOU HAVE A PARTY? Ojijo

Bantu Steve Biko, the martyr and symbol of black resistance to the oppressive Apartheid regime and the founder of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, noted that,

‘The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.’

We not only need ideas, but we also need to be organised, and political parties are the vehicles through which people express their ideas in such a ways as to gain enough members to take over power and implement their ideas, DEMOCRATICALLY.

We must appreciate that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions; rather, we will need collective action for a collective solution, arising out of ‘political action,’ through political parties. Political participation is mandatory, and for Luos, a democratic, competitive participation, is the lifeline.

Mao Tse Tung was right,

‘It is necessary for intellectuals, students, soldiers and the average peasant to pay attention and involve themselves with political work.’

The need to be informed!

Elections are the primary means for citizens to hold their country's officials accountable for their actions in office, especially when they have behaved illegally, corruptly, or ineptly while carrying out the work of the government. But for elections—and the people's will—to be meaningful, basic rights must be protected and affirmed, such as with a Bill of Rights, as in the United States. James Madison, the author of the U.S. Bill of Rights, believed that the very basis for government's responsiveness was the assurance that citizens would have sufficient knowledge to direct it. If citizens are to govern their own affairs, either directly or through representative government, they must be informed about how best to determine their affairs and how best to represent and execute them. If citizens are not well informed, they can neither act in their own self-

Ojijo is a bunch of solutions from Homa-Bay County, Kenya.

Ojijo is AHA Volunteer; public speaker & trainer on financial literacy, personal (talent & career) development & political leadership; lawyer & lecturer on legal rhetoric, e-commerce & e-governance law; performance poet; social entrepreneur & investor; socialist party member; and author of 19 books on religion, sexuality, poetry, politics, economics, medicine, law, history, entrepreneurship, network marketing, retirement planning, languages (Swahili & Luo), financial literacy, investing and personal (talent & career) development. Ojijo is the board chairman of Ojijo Foundation, which supports volunteerism (www.ahainitiative.net); financial literacy & personal (talent & career) development (www.informedinvestors.biz); public speaking & political leadership training (www.allpublicspeakers.com); open religion (www.openreligion.org); and indigenous cultures (www.kycf.org).

interest, broadly speaking, nor have any serious choice in elections, much less offer themselves as candidates. James Madison, the American leader and founding father, noted in 1822 that,

‘A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.’

Of course, to him, Bill of Rights only applied to whites, and the blacks were sill rightly slaves; and second class citizens.

If citizens are to govern their own affairs, either directly or through representative government, they must be informed about how best to determine their affairs and how best to represent and execute them. And Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in 1840, in Democracy in America, agreed when he advised that;

‘...The concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations... in the same proportion as their ignorance.’

Indeed, Bill Gates in his book ‘The Road Ahead’ predicted information to be the most important thing of the modern age.

Political Parties, not violence!

The life we want for ourselves is only possible through political means. At present the capitalists are able to keep their privilege position because they control political power. For the human beings to free them from oppression, economic, political and social, they need to organise into a political party whose aim is to win political power and to use it to replace the oppressors.

Political parties will act as our vehicle to propose our policies, to peddle our propaganda, to ingrain our ideology, and to organise the working class towards progress and democratic worker control of the production process. Only through such organisation can we achieve the ‘peoples democratic dictatorship’, the most ideal form of governance, where the people dictate what is good for them, as a unit, as a community, as a collective. A leadership which the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) calls, ‘from the masses, to the masses.’

Liberation can only be achieved by a liberating conscious, majority, political action can achieve what we want, and not minority action, whether on the industrial or political fields, and not by , elite, educated class, and only.

The way to political power lies through the ballot box. We can use the vote to win power just as today they use it to hand over power to capitalists.

We need no tribal rulers and king pins, such rulers that leaders flourish on the ignorance of their followers. Once the masses understand their interests and know that they want freedom from want and social justice, and then require no rulers, but political organisation.

Freedom from want and social justice cannot be achieved by violence or the act of a minority. It must be the conscious act of the majority of people throughout, through the ballot box. Would it have been possible for Hitler to take over the power in Germany? Anti-democratic forces may have the political power, but if the workers are against them, what can they really do if no one obeys?

We should not just take orders; we must act when something is wrong. Strikes and boycotts are our peaceful weapons; we better not to attend the rallies, than to attend, heckle, and then they send the police to us.

The oligarchy of private capital to enormous power cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights. Unless, of course, they organise as a political group, despite the media, and through collectives, they form a political party, and field their candidate, and take over political power.

We should be reminded of the great advise of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the great pan-Africanist, the first president of Ghana, who advised his people thus,

‘seek ye first the political kingdom, and all the rest shall be added unto you.’

Africans, Luos, the workers, should seek political kingdoms, for, as Ojijo wrote elsewhere,

‘It ís through politics, that a country’s affairs are determined’.

Indeed,

‘Politics is the first law of economics.’

There is ‘easy’ answer form young person, especially in universities, claiming that they ’hate politics’…nothing could be more stupid. How can I hate what determines the amount of tax I pay, the fuel price, the land rates, the education fees and interest rates on bank loans. How shallow minded of university students, to reason in such a market-going fashion.

We cannot afford to be apolitical.

Everyday, in all various social relations, it becomes evident that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, and for class struggles to be correctly fought, there must be groups. It hence behooves every citizen to be a member of a group for full participation and one of the main groups that bring citizens with identical aspirations together are political parties.

Do you have a party?

The question then is, as a Kenyan, do you have a party? And if you do (not), which part of the struggle will you join and support. As a citizen, do you support immigration and multiculturalism or would rather have the society cramped into their various places of origin? Further, as a property owner, do you think that the property and the distribution of wealth should be subject to control by the community (populism) or the elites (eliticism)?

Political issues for party issues for business person

As a business person, do you support the advocacy of fair trade over free trade? A mixed economy consisting mainly of private enterprise, but with government owned or subsidised programs of education, healthcare, child care and related services for all citizens/ Government bodies that regulate private enterprise in the ‘interests’ of workers, consumers and ‘fair competition’? Still, as a Businessman, would you rather argue for the real values public ownership, social equality, trade union rights and democratic liberties, with a foreign policy based on international solidarity between workers of the world, or wars waged for big business profit?

Political issues for arty issues for students

As a student, do you believe in interests as: grants not fees, smaller class sizes, more contact time with tutors and lecturers, or you can comfortably study in a class of 90 students for 3 hours per week and being given half the fees for you to pay at an 8 percent interest.

Political issues for arty issues for individual

As an individual, do you believe in doctrines to reduce the excesses of poverty and inequality of the Industrial Revolution and strictu sensu capitalism while being an advocate for reforms such as the egalitarian distribution of wealth and the transformation of society into small communities (collectivist lines), or would you prefer some people owning hundreds of acres and a nation of tem millionaires and ten million beggars?

Political issues for arty issues for tax payers

As tax payer, would you rather an extensive system of social security, with the stated goal of counteracting the effects of poverty and insuring the citizens against loss of income following illness, unemployment or retirement? Progressive taxation system to fund government expenditure. Do you contend that the conservative administrations have been responsible for far larger budget deficits than any social democratic government?

Political issues or party issues for activists

As an activist, do you support social rights, civil rights and civil liberties? Would you go for a secular and progressive social policy, with issues such as gay marriage and abortion rights? Broadened objectives in aspects of environmentalism, feminism, racial equality and multiculturalism? With preference to issues such as Environmental protection laws, such as combating global warming and increasing alternative energy funding.

You need a party, I need a party, and we all need a political party.

All over the world, interest-group politics have delivered real gains to the concerned, especially group members. This has led to favorable to both growth and redistribution. In Kerala and West Bengal, revolutionary parties implemented land reforms during the early stages of democratization. In Costa Rica, farmers formed the National Association of Coffee Producers to defend smallholders’ interests on prices, taxes, credit and welfare. In Mauritius, the peasantry collaborated with the growing agricultural labour force, which had formed the Mauritius Agricultural Labourers’ Association, and urban trade unions, such as the Engineering and Technical Workers’ Union, which waged active campaigns for labour rights, wage increases and improved working conditions. These spearheaded social reforms. In South Africa, The subsequent struggle for

democracy produced an alliance between the main trade union organization, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the African National Congress (ANC), which resulted in a joint programme for reconstruction and development. Power relations lie at the core of development. And the political party is the chief tool to acquire power. We all should join political parties.

So, Do You Have A Party?