You have all seen it being flashed by Honorable Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine and the top brass in the National Unity Platform (NUP). I am talking about the raised front-facing fist with the elbow bent at 90 degrees. Yes, that one.
It is a political symbol whose history is steeped in communism. The sign is believed to have been first invented and introduced to political symbolism by Vladmir Lenin in 1903. During the time he led the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1924, he popularized the same fist as it was his trademark symbol. In 1925, the fist became the official symbol of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party.

So what if it is the symbol of Communism? What’s the harm in that? you ask. Well, it matters where you derive your inspiration because it determines where you go and what you do in future.
Under communism, the government owns all the businesses and properties, eliminates the free market, outlaws freedom of speech and controls every part of your life. A full grown communist government controls every part of the society, including what you buy, what you eat and how many children you can have. It is a dictatorship from hell. There is reason to believe that the antichrist will be a communist.
The question then is, does Bobi Wine and his political party subscribe to the main tenets of communism, or are they just using the symbol ignorantly? Going by how members of NUP silence those who disagree with them online, and sometimes offline, one might be forced to see a correlation.
In the US, the Black Lives Matter organization (BLM) also uses the first symbolism. They call it a Black Power salute, and they raise it to fight racism and clamor for equality. But many believe that BLM is being used by powerful forces to further weaken the black community in the US. And the cherry on this ghastly cake is that the leaders of BLM have confessed on video (under no duress) that they are Marxists by training, which is a known first step to communism.
I am not saying that NUP is a communist party. I am saying that if they are to use known communist symbolism, they should be aware of the message they are sending to those who know. While there are politicians who have used it without being communists, like Nelson Mandela who flashed the symbol upon his release from prison in 1990, most people who have used this symbol have been communists. Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez ruined their countries irreparably among others.

The raised right fist is used by officials in China when being sworn into office. China is a communist country of the first degree. Just saying
![NUP and the communist salute [Editor’s Opinion]](https://www.kenyanpulse.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/66Uk9kpTURBXy9mZjliOGVlMThhN2JiOTljZjQ4N2ViNjFlYjlmNzhlMS5qcGeSlQMAOM0HCM0D9JMFzQKAzQFAgaEwBQ.webp)