Bulletins and News Discussion from August 26th to September 1st, 2024 - Ruto Must Go - COTW: Kenya

Image is from this Black Agenda Report article by the Communist Party of Kenya.

In June, large anti-government protests shook Kenya. President Ruto and his parliament were attempting to pass the new Finance Bill 2024, which, among other things, would have hiked taxes on the population, with a 16% sales tax on bread and a 25% duty on cooking oil, as well as new taxes on financial transanctions and vehicle ownership. There would also have been levies on women's sanitary products and digital goods such as phones, among other measures affecting hospitals.

Hundreds of protestors stormed the parliament building and began to tear the place apart. Shortly afterwards, on June 26th, Ruto announced that he was withdrawing the bill, calling the tens of deaths and hundreds of injuries "unfortunate". A couple weeks later, Ruto then fired his entire cabinet (aside from his foreign minister) and communicated his wish to the nation to form a "broad-based government". Funnily enough, in July, it was announced that the majority of positions were to be filled by members of the old cabinet, while other positions were taken by members of the opposition. This has prompted scepticism among the population, including calls to resign, but there haven't (yet) been any major anti-government events to pressure this outcome. The Communist Party of Kenya has been working to get some of their comrades back after they were abducted by the police during the protest period, and have otherwise supported the protests against Ruto.

The measures in the bill were strongly encouraged by the IMF. Kenya's debt is currently around $80 billion, of which about 10% is owed to China for infrastructure projects (such as a railway linking the capital, Nairobi, to the port city of Mombasa, as well as 11,000 kilometers of road throughout the country). The rest is owed to a combination of the US, IMF, World Bank, and Saudi Arabia. More than half of government revenue is going towards repaying the debt - but despite these massive payments, it has only grown. The most recent round of IMF plundering (and the impetus for current events) began in 2021, when they offered a 38-month programme to "help" Kenya, which would involve the usual warfare on the poor and the dismemberment of any useful societal institutions.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Kenya! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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Small 5.3 earthquake in central-south portugal today, I happened to catch it because I woke up at 5:10 to urinate, so far no big damages.
Last big destructive earthquake was an 8 in 1969 and historically everyone learns about the 1755 on in school and some people have kind of a prepper "the next big one is coming" mentality because of it.
- historically everyone learns about the 1755 on in school
  It's fascinating/horrifying stuff. The 1755 earthquake was so fucked it led to the development of seismology because people wanted to understand how the fuck such things were even possible. Also accelerated the end of the Portuguese Empire; getting your capital levelled tends to do that
  
  Also accelerated the end of the Portuguese Empire
  I wouldn't really agree with that. The events that lead to the seccession of the portuguese american colonies only begin half a century later, with the napoleonic wars. Even the Portuguese Empire would continue onward, growing and exploiting its african possessions two decades into the Post-War period.
  You might say, well, isn't that a much smaller empire than before? Kinda. It went from a tradepost empire in Africa that fed Brazil to a second rate territorial empire in Africa itself. More importantly it's not the first time it underwent a transformation. The Portuguese Empire began as a regional encirclement of the transaharan trade routes and the colonization of the atlantic islands; it then eventually became an indo-african trade empire; and then it became an empire centered on the south atlantic and Brazil. The whole thing lasted so long that transformation was the name of the game.
  The funny thing about the Lisbon Earthquake though is that today the entire lusosphere is running articles about that one time Lisbon got hit so hard philosophers started questioning the problem of evil.
  
  philosophers started questioning the problem of evil.
  "Best of all possible worlds!"
  
  "Best of all possible worlds..."
  
  The Portuguese Empire is so interesting to read about, especially the weird colonial things that they were doing in Angola and Mozambique. Then the whole thing with the capital moving to Brazil and not lasting very long. And then the fascists refusing to leave the colonies until the fucking 70s, which even the Brits and the French questioned lmao
  
  And then the fascists refusing to leave the colonies until the fucking 70s, which even the Brits and the French questioned lmao
  bro you don't get it. bro we're pluricontinentalists. bro it's not colonialism, I promise bro
  
  It's rather funny because the portuguese version of the Black Legend was essentially this dutch psyop about how the portuguese deserve to be attacked in India because they are a bunch of decadent, corrupt aristocrats who tend to do mixed race marriages and 'go native'. Four hundred years later and the arcadian fascists were saying that's totally true, but also that means they were more tolerant and not really colonialists.
  What's missing is that sometime in between you have a transformation from an empire of overseas and mostly autonomous dependencies to a centralized nation state in the age of race science. In 1610 you can have a portuguese trade town somewhere in India or Central Africa where the population is made up of a few thousand mixed race people. They speak portuguese, their cousins (and therefore connections) is a white guy from northern portugal and a mixed race guy from Brazil, and their money is in exporting slaves/spice/whatever. By 1910 Portugal is sending illiterate officers from home to rule over these local elites and drawing anger even from them, because of course that's only normal some people are better than others. Nevermind all the people who lived outside those coastal city-states.
  It's insane that this shit lasted to the 1970s.
- just make sure that large furniture is fastened somehow and keep heavy stuff in lower shelves. That's pretty much all the prep you can do.

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