Witnessing the Saba Saba marches in Nairobi this year, it struck us that there has not been to date (at least we have not seen one) a compilation of the experiences of individuals and institutions that have taken part in these struggles which have transformed the face of Kenya since the first Saba Saba event in 1991. That motivated us to research and present ‘Saba Saba – the story of an Iconic Struggle’ as our cover story. We do realise that we have only just scratched the surface of the Saba Saba story and we hope that this special issue of AwaaZ will inspire scholars to further research this uniquely Kenyan history; from which many lessons can be learnt on how to snatch victory from dictatorial states against seemingly hopeless odds.
We reached out to almost 40 people from the past and present out of which 15 responded. This issue is a collection of their voices, struggles and triumphs and we thank each one of them individually. We have also been fortunate to be able to access documents by various scholars and institutions that have written and documented their views on the Saba Saba struggle. Fortunately, some organisations have made videos of their participation since those days and we have included links to them too. We acknowledge that we have probably left out stories of individuals and organisations that have shaped Saba Saba over the years and apologize in advance. We tried within our limited resources to contact and cover as many stories as possible and would be willing to run additional stories in future issues to add to the archive. No intentional omissions were intended.
Happy reading and wishing all good health as we come to the end of the year. May 2021 bring better fortunes for all.
The Editors
Zahid Rajan and Zarina Patel.
