Sixty years ago, the Soviet Union became the second country in the world to recognize the sovereignty and independence of Kenya and establish diplomatic relations with it. The entire history of relations between Russia and Kenya clearly shows that its main characteristic is the natural mutual attraction of both nations to each other.
Even before the liberation from inhuman and racist colonial yoke of the British Empire, a considerable number of Kenyan intellectuals were fascinated with the Russian Revolution and its whole philosophy and practice of human freedom and unprecedented emancipation of the working people, empowerment of women and minorities, as well as Soviet Union’s support to progressive liberation movements around the world. In the 30s, some of the Kenyan freedom fighters made their way to Moscow to study the Russian experience and make it relevant for their own struggle.
The Victory of the Soviet Union and allies over Nazi Germany and militarist Japan and their satellites opened a new chapter in human history consisting in the global defeat of the system of colonial oppression of the hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Again, the main driving force behind the liberation of the oppressed nations was my country, and the Kenyans, of course, knew it and appreciated that it was the Soviet Union who, in 1960, initiated the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, and made decolonisation part of modern international law (UK, US, France, Belgium, and some others abstained). This undoubtedly accelerated the achievement of independence by Kenya.
Since then, the Soviet Union and Russia have made every possible effort to support the independent development of the formerly colonized nations by providing them massive assistance to build their states, economies and human capital. Kenya was, and is now, also part of this effort in the measure that it needs it.
But soon after the fall of the colonial system based on brutal oppression and open robbery was replaced by a much more subtle and “civilised-looking” system of neocolonial exploitation of the Global South, which, however, did not change its predatory and racist nature. Today, it took the form of “rules-based” liberal globalization in the interests of the few. It is this system that is at the root of all the global economic, financial, social, environmental, and demographic evils of the modern world.
But there is certainty that this system will not last long either and, rather sooner than later, will collapse. Africa is again rising against its oppressors. More and more countries claim their right to independent development, equitable cooperation, and free choice of international partners.
Not only Africa, the whole world is rapidly changing.
BRICS is an embodiment of those changes and the hopes and aspiration of the Global Majority. The principles on which BRICS is based are international law, sovereign equality and full respect of each other’s legitimate interests with all the decisions being taken by consensus. No wonder that the group is growing and the list of those states, including in Africa, who want to join it or partner with it is getting longer and longer.
What we witness is the emergence of a new multipolar world, which opens entirely new horizons and opportunities for development for the Global Majority without the diktat of the old declining and decrepit hegemons.
Africa has everything to be among the drivers of development and progress within the new world, and Russia will always stand by its African friends in their efforts to become more self-reliant and assertive.
The writer is the Russian Ambassador to Kenya