In this episode, Dr. Samar Al-Bulushi and Rene Odanga join us as we explore the ways that Kenya's participation in the global "War on Terror" created mechanisms that are used to this day to suppress dissent, including the widely reported surveillance, arbitrary arrest, abduction, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing during the Gen Z protests of 2024 and 2025.

Following the August 7th 1998 attack in Nairobi, Kenya ramped up its policing against its citizens in Northern Kenya and the Coastal region who had always been racialized as "other" since the pre-independence era.

Supported heavily by the United States, Israel and other imperial powers, Kenya militarized its policing, introducing units such as the Anti Terror Police Unit and the Rapid Response Unit, which used the Anti-Terrorism Act to act with almost absolute impunity against Kenyan citizens.

These are the same forces that continue to be used against dissenting Kenyans today to prop up the government in the aftermath of the #RejectFinanceBill protests and waning popularity of Ruto’s administration amidst unemployment, rising poverty, and other crises in the country.In the conversation, we also touch on the ways in which Kenya has become a sub-imperial power, building its own international image by intervening in other global South states such as Somalia and Haiti.

For those watching from Nairobi/Kenya, Dr. Al-Bulushi’s book, War-making as World Making: Kenya, the United States and the War on Terror, which forms the basis of this discussion, can be found for sale at Cheche Bookshop in Lavington and online here https://www.amazon.com/War-Making-Worldmaking-United-States-Terror/dp/1503640914

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Today, the reality of the climate crisis—and its threat to our very survival—is unmistakably visible across the African continent. Despite contributing only 2%–3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Africa bears a disproportionate burden of the crisis, with 17 of the 20 countries most threatened by climate change located on the continent.

Every year, actors from both the Global North and the Global South meet for the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) to discuss the ever-escalating climate crisis. COPs attract massive media attention but tend not to achieve major breakthroughs, and are frequently a forum for what Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has referred to as “blah blah blah” talks. The crisis worsens, yet governments continue to allow carbon emissions to rise. Instead, false profit-driven solutions such as “carbon-trading” and “nature-based solutions” continued to be peddled at COP and other climate summits as industrialized nations and multinationals continue to exploit fossil fuel and drive up carbon emissions.

These technocratic, market-based, solutions often fail to center the plight of the working people who are bearing the brunt of climate change, especially those in the Global South. Instead, climate change has become yet another arena for what Naomi Klein calls disaster capitalism: “orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting marketing opportunities”. African land, in particular, is increasingly framed as a vast, "undeveloped" resource—its so-called undevelopedness seen by the Global North as a golden opportunity to offset the excesses of its consumerist lifestyle and energy overconsumption. What do we witness as a result? A rush by Global North actors to secure vast tracts of land across Africa, alienating communities who have stewarded that land for generations so as to “conserve” it and offset carbon emissions elsewhere.

What would a different, more just response to the climate crisis look like for the African continent? To help us explore this urgent question, we are joined today by Fadhel Kaboub, a Tunisian development economist and member of the Independent Expert Group on Just Transition and Development, and Irene Asuwa, convener of the Ecological Justice Network here in Kenya.

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In this audio-only episode, we are joined by British author and Guardian columnist Owen Jones, Mumbi Kanyongo of Kenya Comms Hub, and Sungu Oyoo, spokesperson for Kongamano La Mapinduzi, to unpack these developments and contextualize the evolving role of the British Empire in Kenya today. Barely four years after independence, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga warned of an illusory independence for Kenya—one that existed only in name and flag. It was a freedom unaccompanied by the land redistribution and liberation that the Kenya Land and Freedom Army had fought for, and one in which the British Empire continued to exert influence over its former colony, including by ensuring that the country’s leaders remained favourably inclined toward Britain. Under the banner of “from colonialism to cooperation,” the UK initiated various efforts—ranging from drafting technical assistance programs and aid proposals through the Commonwealth Relations Office, to more covert operations such as the Information Research Department, which paid Kenyan writers and broadcasters to circulate articles critical of China and the Soviet Union, thereby shaping Kenya’s global alignment.Six decades later, UK-Kenya “cooperation” endures, with the UK still described as a “key strategic partner,” as President William Ruto reaffirmed after a meeting with British High Commissioner Neil Wigan in March this year.

Nevertheless, British diplomacy and its role in Kenya have shifted significantly, giving way to the dominance of the United States empire in the neoliberal era.

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African countries are drowning in debt. 21 countries on the continent are either in debt distress or teetering on the brink of it, while 4 countries (Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Chad) have defaulted on their loans in the last 5 years.

As a result, public debt has become a subject of critical examination as nations grapple with its far-reaching implications on their economic stability, growth, and development, as thirty-two of the continent’s 54 countries spend more on interest payments than on health, while 25 spend more on debt than on education.

Who does the continent owe? How did we find ourselves in this situation? This latest episode of A Certain Amount of Madness explores the origins of public debt, its colonial roots, to the global financial architecture that sustains its permanent existence on the continent.

Joining us for this discussion are Jason Braganza, a Kenyan Economist with over ten years of experience working on international development in Africa, who currently serves as the executive director of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), and Zambian economist Grieve Chelwa who is presently the Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Associate Professor of Political Economy at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, and a member of the Papal Commission on the Debt and Development Crisis in the Global South.

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In this episode, we’re joined by Congolese activist and researcher Kambale Musavuli to explore the complex role of African states in Congo’s ongoing crisis. While Western powers have long exploited Congo’s vast resources, the past 30 years have also seen regional involvement—particularly from Rwanda and Uganda—accused of fueling conflict and extracting wealth.

Kambale walks us through the historical and geopolitical forces at play, raising urgent questions about intra-African power, accountability, and solidarity. What does Pan-Africanism mean in the face of such contradictions—and how might Africans support a just and lasting liberation for the Congolese people?

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In this episode, we are joined from Nigeria by Jaye Gaskia, a Marxist political analyst specialized in labor policy, and Natalia Navas who researches migrant labor policy at Cornell University, USA, to answer the question: is Africa’s current labour exportation frenzy nothing more than state-sponsored slave-trade?

Today, every territory experiencing labour shortages due to dwindling populations is looking to Africa to fill its quota. Even Russia and Israel, amidst labour shortages caused by the Ukraine conflict and the Gaza offensive, are looking to Africa for labour. At every turn, African leadership obliges, with labour emigration now forming a significant policy pillar in addressing unemployment in many countries. This is despite numerous reports of the abuse and exploitation African migrant workers face across the world.

Our governments do not seem interested in or capable of implementing interventions to develop the productive capacities necessary to absorb the bulging youth population, or to require importers to enact robust migrant labour protection policies.

We ask, are the bodies of our young, strong, our best and brightest, yet another outflow from the African continent that can be quantified as part of the “hidden transfer of value” which Samir Amin describes as taking place “subtly and almost invisibly, without the overt violence of colonial occupation”, and therefore does not provoke protest?

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In this episode, Vincent Bevins, author of If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, and Lewis Maghanga, General Secretary of Kenya’s Revolutionary Socialist League, join our host, Mamka Anyona, to examine the record of protests in Kenya and across Africa, situating these within a broader global rise in mass protests. The guests critique the horizontalist, “leaderless, structureless” approach of recent mass mobilization efforts which have been effective in disruption but short on securing the desired change. They argue for disciplined, ideological organization while warning against repeating the authoritarian pitfalls of past leftist movements.You can purchase Vincent Bevin's book "If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution" here; https://vincentbevins.com/book2/?amp

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In the debut episode of "A Certain Amount of Madness," we discuss the upcoming U.S. election and its importance for the people of Africa. With the elections just days away, I am joined by David Adler, the General Coordinator of Progressive International and Kiritu Chege of the Communist Party of Kenya to explore the ways in which U.S.-Africa relations are likely to evolve, if at all, in response to the electoral outcome. We take a critical look at the historical ties between U.S. foreign policy and African development and consider the potential consequences of either potential administration on issues such as the economy, debt justice, war and peace, democracy and governance and environmental justice.

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