Show Notes
Less than two years after gaining independence, Kenya began killing its own freedom fighters. One of the first political assassinations in the history of independent Kenya was in 1965.
They killed a man who knew too much.
He knew that oppressors will not stop oppressing you if you ask politely, that the only way to defeat British colonizers was through organized violence—so he routed weapons to Mau Mau forest fighters. He knew that stolen land was the root of colonization—so he fought, both before and after independence—to take it back from elites. He knew that colonization was not just economic control, but also mental control—so he supported small, radical newspapers in vernacular languages to spread conversations about freedom. He knew that the struggle of Kenyans was the same as that in India, Angola, South Africa, or in the U.S.—so he created bridges of solidarity across all continents.
In other words, this man knew what freedom was. And he knew how to get it.
In this show, we'll tell you the story of Pio Gama Pinto, Kenyan freedom fighter and socialist. But we tell this story in order to answer a very important question: how did the country of Kenya get freedom.... without the people of Kenya getting free?
More from Until Everyone Is Free
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There's a season for everything, and the time has come for April Zhu, our producer, to sign off. Until Everyone Is Free will continue with our team Stoneface Bombaa, Felix Omondi, and Wairimu Gathimba—bringing history into the living archive of our listeners' minds, hosting discussions on political shifts in the airwaves and, of course, radicalizing people. A luta continua.
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