The Speech delivered by Comrade Ajiambo Joyce Ashlyn, in the Congress of the Socialist Movement of Ghana held in Winneba, Central Region- Ghana from the 30th of July to the 3rd of August 2021.
A VICTORY TOWARDS VICTORY
Comrades, I bring revolutionary greetings from the leadership of the Communist Party of Kenya.
Today is a special day not only in Ghana but in Africa at large. It is a special day in the sense that we stand here today. In the land of our beloved Kwame Nkrumah to echo the voices of victory towards victory that are resounding in Africa.
Dear comrades, I stand to convey our heartfelt congratulatory messages on behalf of the Communist Party of Kenya to the Socialist Movement of Ghana. This is a historic achievement towards the struggle to end all forms of oppression and exploitation of person by person in Ghana and beyond. We are encouraged by the fact that the Ghanaian Socialist Forum re-introduced progressive and scientific thinking into Ghana’s population over the years and with remarkable results that have been felt throughout the continent and the progressive world.
The Communist Party of Kenya has had the opportunity to share platforms with the Ghanaian Socialist Forum in several international forums, including solidarity meetings with Cuba, Venezuela, Western Sahara and Palestine. The two organisations have worked together in trying to revive the panafrican movement even at a time when the leadership of the two organisations did not know each other.
Therefore, our presence here is neither accidental nor a mere formality, but an act of true solidarity.
The Communist Party of Kenya has also had its own transformations that were difficult to achieve, but have helped bring back ideological politics and clarity into Kenyan politics, which is still stifled with tribalism, which the owning class deliberately use to divide the masses and to scuttle their ability to organise.
In the 1980s, Communist, Socialists, and pro-democratic reforms activists in Kenya had to organise from the underground, since the dictatorship of the then President Daniel Moi and the KANU Party refused to allow for any progressive, let alone revolutionary organisation to happen. Many patriots lost their lives, many survived with permanent physical and non-physical injuries, and many even lost the will to continue with the struggle.
In 1992, the ruling party KANU was forced to re-introduce multi-partism as was the case in many other African countries, but revolutionary names and identity for political parties were still banned.
Later on, many revolutionaries and progressives decided to hide under the name “Social Democratic Party of Kenya” and over time they converted the party into a proper Marxist-Leninist party, while still maintaining the SDP tag.
In 2010, the Kenyan masses won another victory in the reforms sense, when the new Kenyan Constitution was promulgated, ushering in a new era of democratic and human rights reforms.
In 2019, the Party Congress resolved to change the Party’s name so that it could reflect who we actually are…and we are Communists. And therefore on 5th January 2019, the Communist Party of Kenya was re-born, with its true identity.
However, even though the Kenyan Constitution allowed for such changes to happen, the Government of Kenya refused to accept the change of name, claiming that Communism failed, communism is divisive, communism is illegal in Kenya, and that our symbols were scary (of course, the bourgeoisie must be scared when we remind them that we shall hammer then out of oppression, and sickle them from exploiting the working class and the masses!)
To cut the long story short, the Party, by use of political and legal tactics, eventually won the political and legal battles and we now organise legally as the Communist Party of Kenya.
But why are we sharing this history? We are sharing this history because the struggle of building revolutionary organisations, whether in Ghana, Zambia, Tunisia or Kenya is a difficult process, right from reclaiming our identity, and in doing the difficult work of building the organisation, increasing the political and ideological consciousness of the working class and the masses, and to forming revolutionary alliances and solidarity with communist political parties, socialist governments across the world and all the oppressed peoples of the world.
However, irrespective of all the challenges and persecution that is brought towards us, towards the Socialist Movement of Ghana, we must push on with the struggle for a better humanity.
As a young revolutionary woman, I believe that the adoption of the working program for the Socialist Movement of Ghana, which speaks to the mobilisation of the women and the youth will be of immense value to the Movement. Women and the youth have been the greatest victims of the neo-liberalism that has sunk Africa into the worst of poverty…leaving us with no other option but to fight for a peaceful and classless society.
As I conclude, the Communist Party of Kenya hereby encourages the Socialist Movement of Ghana to accelerate its growth path, so that we can soon be invited here again to launch the Socialist, or better still, the Communist Party of Ghana, CPG!
Political parties are the highest platforms of engaging the masses in their struggle against the ever organised bourgeoisie. Most revolutionary political parties in Africa are still small, but that must not be an excuse for slowing ourselves down.
Viva the Socialist Movement of Ghana!
Viva Pan Africanism Viva!
Down with imperialism down!
-end-
Cde Ashlyn Ajiambo, on behalf of the Communist Party of Kenya
Winneba, Ghana – 1st August 2021