Defund the police
Policing in postcolonial Kenya is at an impasse. What is needed is disinvestment from this system of repression and reinvestment in communities.
18 Articles by:
Wangui Kimari
Wangui Kimari is on the editorial board of Africa Is a Country and participatory action research coordinator for the Mathare Social Justice Center.
What is it about the Kenyan postcolonial state?
The lesson from political economist Rok Ajulu’s academic work and activism: it’s not enough to change the “tenants,” but fight to change both the “state” and all of its houses.
Nairobi’s incendiary displacements
Urban displacements greatly diminish the living conditions of already desperate populations living on the brink of poverty in Kenya’s capital.
As we lose our fear
The Mathare Social Justice Centre mounts a photography exhibition on police brutality and extrajudicial killings in Kenya’s capital.
Making the city possible
Re-visiting Nairobi’s urban history offers a glimpse into the forces that shaped modern life.
The People vs 4G internet and other corona stories from Kenya
This crisis has further emphasized the neglect of Kenya’s poor by the government, and is therefore “a wake up call that we are on our own.”
Waterless scars and pipe dreams in Nairobi
Poor Nairobi residents pay close to four times more for water that is much less clean, adequate or consistent.
Voltamos a Africa
Is emigrating to Africa an option for Black Brazilians in the time of Jair Bolsonaro’s toxic, racist, rightwing regime?
The film about nowhere
Invisible City [Kakuma], a film about Kenya’s largest refugee camps, seems keen on making a point but is anchored on unsteady ground (with some shitty translation).
Is Kati Kati a metaphor for the present crisis in Kenya?
What characterizes daily life in Kenya: a seemingly simultaneous flagrant zest for life and hesitant fascination with death.
How do you write about a flawed film?
The vivid cinematography of “Waithira,” a film about Kenya, aside, the author would have preferred more knots to be tied and a little less untethering.
Days of our lives: Kenya 2017 elections edition
Ordinary Kenyans are tired of the drama of party politics, and are hungry, job insecure and live under the threat of police bullets.
Many Missing Bodies
The many extra-judicial executions that happen in the poor, and predominantly, eastern urban settlements of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.
We will send an insult to your mum
The Mathare Social Justice Center’s activists work to shake off the menacing insults of forced evictions, tenure insecurity, police violence and increasing precarity.
A Monument for the Mau Mau at last, but no land
Kenyans choose to forget that the Kenya Land and Freedom army (also known as Mau Mau) did not fight for a monument. They fought for land.
The Obama Sevens
A complete run-down of all the craziness going down in Kenya ahead of Barack Obama’s visit.