Documenting Kenya's Youth Uprising in 'From Mau Mau to Ruto Must Go'

• 'From Mau Mau to Ruto Must Go' is a new collection of essays documenting the 2024–2025 youth-led uprisings in Kenya.
• The book addresses systemic issues, state capture, and neocolonialism, facing heavy censorship and state intimidation.
• Despite confiscations and police harassment, activists are organizing public forums and performances to distribute the text.

Key Themes of Sovereignty

• The book criticizes Kenya's incomplete independence since 1963, focusing on external interference:
  • Debt dependence on the IMF and World Bank.
  • Foreign military presence, including the UK's BATUK, US bases at Manda Bay, and recent defense deals with France.
  • Security cooperation with Israel, which provides surveillance technology used against Kenyan dissidents.
• It highlights the successful mobilization against the 2022 Seed and Plant Varieties Act, which would have monopolized the food system.

Challenges and Suppression

• No Kenyan publisher would touch the manuscript due to the controversial title.
• After printing in Uganda, 200 copies were confiscated at the border, though 100 were later recovered through covert means.
• Book launches were targeted by police, with venues being harassed or closed; activists used secret entrances and obscured details to proceed.
• Media outlets largely ignored the launches, forcing organizers to rely on grassroots and social media channels.

Ongoing Resistance

• The state continues to repress dissent, as seen during the June 25, 2026, commemorations where the city was barricaded, and activists were arrested or abducted.
• Organizers report cases of severe torture, including the abduction of community organizer Davis Lichuma.
• Future plans include using a traveling theater to perform excerpts of the book in communities and holding forums at universities to revive student activism.