“Pambana” (Kiswahili:”Kupambana”-“to struggle”) became the national call for change in 1982. Pambana was the title of an underground newspaper that fired the imagination of a whole new generation. Pambana set new standards in politics as well as in publishing and communication… The editorial in the first issue of Pambana is important as it deals mainly with the role of publishing in their struggle. Entitled Cheche: A Spark can light a prairie fire, it reads:

The first issue of PAMBANA marks a major milestone, indeed even a turning point in our country’s first history. It is the first truly people’s newspaper. It constitutes a step towards creating our people’s own voice and our institutions. The government-controlled, foreign-owned press, as well as the laughable Voice of Kenya; lie to us always. They misrepresent Kenya’s reality and praise every crime and evil act the ruling class commits…Our people want change, revolutionary change.

…

PAMBANA is similarly neither free nor neutral. It will accept no apologies for oppression or thievery and will forcefully represent the truth as seen from the majority poor, dispossessed Kenyans who have hitherto been so fully ignored. PAMBANA will therefore be militantly and proudly partisan. The current regime, like the previous one, is fully exposed as unable to solve the political and economic problems facing us.

…

When the first issue of Pambana came out in May 1982, the people of Kenya recieved it with great joy. It filled Kenyans with hope, great expectations. It made them see that it was possible to change the prevailing oppressive conditions and to create a better life for all Kenyans. That is what they had always looked forward to- an organ which would unite the poor and the exploited against the Kenyan ruling class and their foreign masters. Such a unity is what Pambana stands for.”

p.76-77  Durrani, Shiraz. Information and Liberation: Writings on the Politics of Information and Librarianship. Duluth, MN: Library Juice, 2008. Print