Showing 21–40 of 124 results

  • Beyond the Internet: Radical Voices of Dissent

    The title of our book is open to multiple interpretations, and purposely so, with the deliberate insertion of ‘beyond.’

    For example, on a philosophical level, the word beyond means to examine the metaphysical character of the relationship between the Internet and dissenting voices. This isn’t abstract, because metaphysics is based on searching for the nature of reality, identity, of understanding causality, theorizing time and space.

    So, the ‘nature of reality’ is to examine the relationship between the Internet and Dissent, which then allows us to understand ‘causality’. ‘Identity’ speaks for itself, and ‘time and space’, for example, is central to many indigenous peoples’ thinking in Latin America with regards to ancestral issues, colonialism, and relations with nature.

    It also includes issues concerning potentialities (dissent and activism), which connects to our central question: What is the relationship between the Internet and dissent?

    On a concrete level, we know that the relationship between technology and resistance differs according to the context of each struggle. Many resistance groups and individual dissenting voices embrace the Internet, whilst others do not, and this is what we are seeking to explore and understand.

    The perfect dream of technolibertarians or cyberlibertarians that the Internet would enhance freedoms, free from state authority, is over, if ever it had begun.

    In many cases, the Internet has become a form of State surveillance over the activities and thoughts of political activists forcing groups to move ‘offline’, or to use old fashioned terminology, ‘take to the streets.’

    But conversely, many dissenting voices embrace the Internet and social media, and it’s our purpose to explore the uses the Internet may or may not have in specific contexts.

    Thus, our aim is to listen to the voices of those at the sharp end of resistance, and to inquire what role, the Internet plays, in their respective forms of resistance.

     

    CONTENTS

    When Radicalism Becomes Dissent (David Berry)
    The Internet & Dissent (David Berry)
    The Cheran Insurrection: Peoples’ Grassroots Democracy (Victor Alfonzo Zerthuche Cobos)
    Kurdish Resistance & Homeland (Name Pending)
    New Weapons of Resistance in the Amazon (Sue Branford & Mauricio Torres)
    Burmese Guerilla Warfare, Technology & Identity (Maran Ja Yi Ma)
    Struggles for Nationhood: Comparing the Mapuche of Chile & the Welsh (Franco Ramos Guiterez & David Berry)
    In Conversation with Caoimhghin O’ Croidheain: Radical Irish Artist (Iglika Gerganova)
    An Interview with Iranian Artist Roshi Rouzbehani (David Berry)
    Defenders of the Land: The Colombian Minga (Valentina Murillo)
    Grassroots Journalism in India: the story behind Khabar Lahariya (Rosa Sylvia Parks)When Radicalism Becomes Dissent (David Berry)
    The Internet & Dissent (David Berry)
    The Cheran Insurrection: Peoples’ Grassroots Democracy (Victor Alfonzo Zerthuche Cobos)
    Kurdish Resistance & Homeland (Name Pending)
    New Weapons of Resistance in the Amazon (Sue Branford & Mauricio Torres)
    Burmese Guerilla Warfare, Technology & Identity (Maran Ja Yi Ma)
    Struggles for Nationhood: Comparing the Mapuche of Chile & the Welsh (Franco Ramos Guiterez & David Berry)
    In Conversation with Caoimhghin O’ Croidheain: Radical Irish Artist (Iglika Gerganova)
    An Interview with Iranian Artist Roshi Rouzbehani (David Berry)
    Defenders of the Land: The Colombian Minga (Valentina Murillo)
    Grassroots Journalism in India: the story behind Khabar Lahariya (Rosa Sylvia Parks)

  • Singing to Liberation: Songs of Freedom and Nights of Resistance on Indian Campuses

    Student activism and cultural activism go hand in hand on Indian campuses. Over the last few years, especially after 2014, student movements in the country against social injustice have increased in numbers and tenacity. Cultural modes of expressing dissent have played a key role within this new wave of student movements that have gripped the nation. This book takes the reader through a journey into the ways cultural activists analyse cultural modes of protest, especially in the context of student movements in the Global South. The book delves into the political and ideological contours set by organisations such as the Indian Progressive Theatre Association (IPTA) and the Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA), and by figures such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Habib Jalib, Hemanga Biswas and Safdar Hashmi. The book locates them within the contemporary wave of cultural protests, analyses their continued relevance and argues for a revival of theoretical and practical engagement with the early progenitors of the progressive cultural movement in India.

    It would be difficult to capture in mere words the … joy of seeing young faces beaming with excitement and joy, the sense of community and togetherness as people sing together. The myth of a people so bamboozled by religion that they could not appreciate poetry, music, and performing arts lay shattered before our feet. And the myth that the people were too ground down by poverty to appreciate art and literature proved to be nothing but an elitist prejudice. We sang, we laughed, we danced, we joked with the people. We felt the walls of class, caste, privilege and hatred crumble in those moments of ecstasy. — Taimur Rahman, Associate Professor, Lahore University of Management Sciences and Lead Guitarist and Spokesperson of the Marxist Band ‘Laal’

    This book is a reminder that we need to turn towards each other in revolutionary siblinghood. It is a call to revive a rich tradition of cultural activism across India and a celebration of emergent critical vibrant grassroots, people-centered student movements. Very importantly, this is also a book in the art of revolutionary dreaming, of embracing new possibility. —Ndindi Kitonga, Professor, Longy School of Music of Bard College, New York


    Singing to Liberation is a highly provocative and timely work by Suddhabrata Deb Roy. The struggles, crises, violence, and resistant movements inside the university campuses in India have been openly spoken out without any unnecessary jargon and rhetoric. Each and every page of this book is a powerful archive of sociopolitical crises, censorships, and bloodshed that India is currently experiencing” – Sayan Dey, Author, Green Academia (Routledge) and Performing Memories and Weaving Archives (Anthem Press)

  • Afro-Asian Poetry that Changed the World

    “It is unclear when ‘Lotus’, a literary magazine of progressive Afro-Asian writers largely funded by the USSR, published its last issue after a successful run spanning two decades (1968-1991); but it was certainly a voice of the Palestinian people.

    Professor Tariq Mehmood Ali teaches English at the American University of Beirut and is an award-winning novelist and a documentary filmmaker. A few years ago, he launched a project to restore the magazine’s legacy. The project involves curating, saving, preserving, and digitizing old issues, offering historical depth to the Palestine movement and potentially making the magazine accessible to a new generation of readers from Palestine and the rest of the Global South.

    “‘Lotus’ resolutely opposed Zionism, seeing it as a racist tool of imperialism,” says Prof Ali, who has pored over innumerable issues of the magazine. He suggests that Palestinians would not have had such a raw deal if the publication was still in circulation.

    ‘Lotus’ championed the cause of the Palestinian Liberation Operation (PLO) and even passed a resolution on Palestine at its third Afro-Asian conference held in Beirut (1970-71). These and other details find mention in Prof Ali’s book ‘Afro-Asian Poetry that Changed the World, scheduled for a spring 2024 release.

    ‘Lotus’ was a trilingual quarterly magazine published in Arabic, English and French – and then translated into numerous languages of formerly colonized countries.

    “The writers of ‘Lotus’ as well as the journal itself had a huge cultural impact at the time, affecting tens of millions of people. This was the first time writers of Africa and Asia were able to talk to each other, across their vast continents, outside the prism of their colonial and imperial usurpers,” says Prof Ali, who is currently busy digitizing and archiving the magazine. …

    Some of the prominent writers who contributed to ‘Lotus’ included Youssef El Sebai, Abdel Aziz Sadek, Edward El Kharrat (Egypt), Mouloud Mammeri (Algeria), Mulk Raj Anand (India), Hiroshi Noma, (Japan), Dr Soheil Idriss (Lebanon), Sononym Udval (Mongolia), Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Pakistan), Mario De Andrade (Portuguese Colonies), Mohamed Soleinian (Sudan), Alex La Guma (South Africa), Anatoly Sofronov (USSR), Adonis (Lebanon) and Mahmoud Darwish (Palestine).

    The magazine instituted the Lotus Prize and among its recipients were Pakistan’s Faiz Ahmed Faiz and India’s Harivansh Rai Bachchan (whose son Amitabh is a well-known actor). Translation bureaus were launched in many countries of the two continents – so that people could read each other’s works.

    By Lamat Hasan, an independent journalist based in Delhi.

  • Heroes of the African Revolution: Colouring Book

    We made this coloring book in order to expose African children to their authentic history. Malcolm X told us decades ago that we had to take responsibility for our children’s education because he understood that our people had been intentionally robbed of their true history. We can no longer rely on institutions to educate our children and must take it upon ourselves to equip our children with the truth so that they can bring a positive contribution to our people’s struggle for justice and freedom. This book highlights some of the key figures within the struggle to achieve Pan-Africanism which is the total liberation and unification of Africa. All of the brave women and men featured in this book were Pan-Africanists. They understood that people of African descent throughout the world faced the same issues and therefore had to unite in order to overcome those issues. We hope this book can inspire the next generation of African children to become Pan-Africanists and to join the struggle to liberate and unite Africa.

     

    USD $ 11.50
  • The revolutionary ecological legacy of Herbert Marcuse – 2nd Edition

    This new edition includes an Afterword by Nnimmo Bassey: System Change Will Not Be Negotiated.

    The author appeals to the energies of those engaged in a wide range of contemporary social justice struggles such as ecosocialism, antiracism, the women’s movement, LGBTQ rights, and antiwar forces. As the dialectical counterpart of Marcuse’s Great Refusal, the book, which culminates with the ‘EarthCommonWealth Project’ is keyed to what we are struggling for, not just what we are struggling against. The author argues that regressive political forces must be countered today, and this is best accomplished through radical collaboration around an agenda recognizing the basic economic and political needs of diverse subaltern communities. System negation must become a new general interest. The author discusses core ethical insights from African philosophical sources, indigenous American philosophy, and radical feminist philosophy. Humanity’s first teachings on ethics are to be found in ancient African proverbs. These subsequently served also as a critique of colonialism and neocolonialism. Long-suppressed indigenous American sources supply a philosophical and political critique of Euro-centric economic and cultural values. They also offer an understanding of humanity’s place in nature and the leadership of women and attest to modes of cooperative and egalitarian forms of community. Feminist anthropology furnishes an historical context for understanding the origins of patriarchy and how to move beyond dominator power to new forms of partnership power. The book envisions the displacement and transcendence of capitalist oligarchy as such, not simply its most bestial and destructive components. This is a green economic alternative because its ecological vision sees all living things and their non-living earthly surroundings as a global community capable of a dignified, deliberate coexistence. It is searching for a new system of ecological production, egalitarian distribution, shared ownership, and democratized governance, having its foundation in the ethics of partnership productivity with an ecosocialist and humanist commitment to living our lives on the planet consistent with the most honorable and aesthetic forms of human social and political fulfillment.

     

  • Política e cultura no pensamento emancipatório africano

    A atual ausência de uma visão emancipatória para a África está no centro dos nossos problemas políticos relacionados à opressão racial capitalista e colonial. Qualquer tentativa de repensar a emancipação política no continente africano deve ser capaz de localizar uma concepção universal de liberdade no interior das experiências culturais singulares que as pessoas vivem. Quando esteve baseada nas tradições populares, a política emancipatória exibiu tais traços dialéticos, independentemente da maneira específica na qual cada luta pela liberdade foi pensada em diferentes contextos históricos. No entanto, apenas alguns intelectuais militantes compreenderam a importância dessa dialética no pensamento. O presente volume esboça e discute dois pontos de vista particularmente importantes sobre o papel e a relevância da cultura popular na política emancipatória em África. Cada um deles resulta de formas distintas de exploração capitalista e colonialista: o primeiro viu a luz do dia em um contexto colonial, enquanto o segundo é diretamente confrontado pelo estado neocolonial. Todas as políticas emancipatórias são desenvolvidas em confronto com o poder estatal, e todas começam com um processo de discussão e debate através do qual um sujeito coletivo começa a se formar. No continente africano, a construção de tal sujeito político coletivo tem sido informada, de maneira fundamental, pelas culturas populares. Os dois autores cujos ensaios estão aqui incluídos entenderam isso e colocaram a cultura popular no centro de suas políticas. O primeiro, Amílcar Cabral, aborda o papel central da cultura popular na luta pela independência da Guiné-Bissau nos anos 1970; o segundo, Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba, aborda a centralidade da cultura popular africana para uma política emancipatória endereçada à atual República Democrática do Congo. Apesar das décadas que os separam, tanto Cabral como Wamba-dia-Wamba desenvolvem, no centro de sua política, uma dialética que ativa os universais da cultura no presente. É essa característica que confere às suas visões uma importância central para o pensamento emancipatório contemporâneo.

  • Politique et culture dans la pensée émancipatrice Africaine

    Au cœur de nos problèmes politiques issus d’un capitalisme racial et d’une oppression (néo)coloniale en Afrique aujourd’hui se trouve l’absence de toute vision émancipatrice véritable.  Toute tentative de repenser une politique émancipatrice en Afrique doit pouvoir situer une vision universaliste de la liberté parmi les expériences culturelles singulières que les gens vivent. Les politiques émancipatrices quand elles existaient, bien que pensées dans les luttes pour la liberté ayant lieu dans des contextes historiques particuliers, mettaient toujours en vue une dialectique de ce genre quand elles étaient vraiment basées parmi les traditions populaires. Cependant, seulement une minorité de dirigeants intellectuels et militants comprenait l’importance d’une telle dialectique pour la pensée et l’action.

    Ce petit livre trace le contour et discute de deux points de vue très importants sur le rôle de la culture populaire dans la politique émancipatrice en Afrique. Chacun d’entre eux émane de formes d’exploitation capitalistes coloniales distinctes : le premier a vu le jour dans un contexte colonial classique tandis que le second est directement issu d’un contexte étatique néocolonial.  Toute politique émancipatrice est développée vis-à-vis le pouvoir d’état et toutes commencent avec un processus de discussion ou est formé un sujet collectif.  Un tel sujet politique doit être fondamentalement informé par et conçu en relation avec les cultures populaires.

    Les deux auteurs ci-inclus ont compris ce principe et mettent la culture populaire au centre de leur pensées politiques.  Le premier, Amílcar Cabral se réfère au rôle principal de la culture dans la lutte contre le colonialisme au Guinée Bissau dans les années 1970 ; le second, Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba insiste sur le rôle central de la culture populaire pour une politique émancipatrice dans la République Démocratique du Congo aujourd’hui.  Malgré la distance temporelle qui les sépare, tous les deux développent au centre de leurs politiques distinctes, une pensée dialectique qui déclenche des pensées universalistes depuis la culture populaire dans le présent.  C’est pour cela que leurs points de vue sont d’une importance capitale pour la pensée de la politique émancipatrice en Afrique aujourd’hui.

  • Sphères politiques et contrôle étatique : Les structures politiques de 
l’état néocolonial en Afrique

    Il s’agit d’une brève tentative d’orienter l’étude de l’État néocolonial en Afrique à travers une évaluation de la manière dont il gouverne son peuple.  On soutient que l’État produit différents modes de contrôle étatique en déployant différentes politiques sur différentes parties de la population. De cette manière, il peut combiner une règle véritablement démocratique à l’image de l’Occident sur certains tout en soumettant la majorité à des formes coloniales de domination.  Les subjectivités politiques importées de l’Occident et son obsession du discours sur les droits de l’homme sont largement réservées à une sphère de la société civile dans laquelle le droit d’avoir des droits est conféré aux citoyens.  Dans les domaines de la société incivile et de la société « traditionnelle », le droit aux droits n’est pas respecté par l’État, de sorte que différentes subjectivités, y compris régulièrement la violence, régissent la manière dont les problèmes politiques et leurs solutions sont abordés à la fois par l’État et par le peuple.  En conséquence, des subjectivités politiques distinctes prévalent dans la conceptualisation de la résistance populaire dans chacun des trois domaines, et il devient difficile de rallier des préoccupations et des conceptions aussi différentes au sein d’une lutte anticoloniale nationale.

    “Une dissection concise, dense et éclairante des rouages ​​de l’État africain post-indépendance qui trace également une voie vers l’imagination et le travail pour une véritable politique de libération.” — Ndongo Samba Sylla, chercheur principal, Fondation Rosa Luxembourg.

    USD $ 10.00
  • Politics of Turbulent Waters: Reflections on Ecological, Environmental and Climate Crises in Africa

    For the past 10 years, the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has been on the front line of the struggle for environmental justice, climate justice and food sovereignty in Africa and the globe. It has been a decade of non-stop probing of the exploitation of resources, peoples and nations, which has given rise to numerous environmental and climate injustices. HOMEF has had a decade of witnessing and standing against the injustice, the powers and structures (industries and policies) suffocating the rights of the people to a healthy environment and standing with the neglected to take charge of their once self-managed food and agricultural systems. The struggle has necessitated the reawakening of communities’ consciousness to the injustices that besiege them and to their ‘people power’ – power to be utilized in seeking the desired change.mPolitics of Turbulent Waters is a compendium of selected articles in the 36 issues of the Eco-instigator published from 2013 to 2022. The Eco-instigator is yet another tool used by HOMEF to pull together thoughts and reports of activities that advance environmental justice and food sovereignty. Issue by issue, these thoughts and reports flow from within HOMEF and other environmental/climate justice and food sovereignty advocates from across Africa and the globe.They form this rich assemblage (Politics of turbulent waters) to commemorate HOMEF’s 10th anniversary. The title of the book is one of Nnimmo Bassey’s (the director of HOMEF) numerous articles that have graced some pages of the different issues of the Eco-instigator. The article cum title encapsulates the messages that the book intends to convey to you, the reader. It crystallizes the dire condition of Africa and its waters and the power imbalance together with the spatial disposition that plunged the continent into the calamitous environmental situation it faces. It speaks of the politics of economic development and market fundamentalism that avows to maintain the status quo in terms of destructive exploitation of Africa’s marine and other natural resources.

    USD $ 20.00
  • Domains of politics 
and modes of rule
: Political structures of the 
neocolonial state in Africa


    “A concise, dense and illuminating dissection of the workings of the post-independence African state that also charts a path towards imagining and working for a true politics of liberation.”Ndongo Samba Sylla, Senior Researcher, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.


    This is a brief attempt to orient the study of the neocolonial state in Africa through an assessment of the manner in which it rules its people.  It is argued that the state produces different modes of rule by deploying different politics over different parts of the population.  In this manner, it can combine a genuinely democratic rule in the image of the West over some while subjecting the majority to colonial forms of domination.  Imported political subjectivities from the West and its obsession with human rights discourse are reserved largely for a sphere of civil society in which the right to have rights is conferred upon citizens.  In the domains of uncivil society and ‘traditional’ society, the right to rights is not observed by the state so different subjectivities, regularly including violence, govern the manner political problems and solutions are addressed both by the state and by people.  In consequence, distinct political subjectivities prevail in the conceptualization of popular resistance in all three domains, and it becomes difficult to rally such different concerns and conceptions within an overall anti-neocolonial struggle.

    USD $ 10.00
  • Anticapitalist Economy in Rojava: The Contradictions of Revolution in the Kurdish Struggles

    This book looks at the anti-capitalist economy and the organization of social relations in the context of the revolution and autonomy of Rojava (Kurdistan-Syria). It questions both the limitations and the historical problems of the phenomenon of revolution, and the conflicts and contradictions that emerge in this process. It also draws from the conflicts and contradictions the author has consistently felt as a “political subject” who wants to change the world, especially through her experience in the Kurdish struggle and the Kurdish Movement. For this reason, every question she raises and attempts to answer in this book—about the Kurds, Rojava, and the world in general, involves what she says is her own subjectivity.

    The idea and dreams of revolution have existed since humans created systems of domination. Indeed, revolution, meaning the liberation from systems of domination, has undoubtedly been one of the most discussed subjects in history. There have been moments when the possibility of revolution has been clearer, and there have also been certain agreements on what it is and how to get there, but it has never been something completely definable. This continues to be true today. This book does not intend to define this great phenomenon, rather it looks at the revolutionary practices that create emancipating realities and embraces revolution as an undefined, contradictory and dynamic process. Although the rulers have traditionally written history, the history of social struggles has been and is still being created by many revolutionary and transformational processes. The future is being shaped based on desired revolutions and the struggles that, in turn, transform their actors, the people. Therefore, the desire and quest of the Kurdish people for liberation from the colonial rule of the nation-states of the Middle East—the subject of this book—has always been directly linked to the phenomenon of revolution.

  • Hindutva and its relationship with Zionism

    The text of this pamphlet was written in December 2022, based on a lecture given earlier at the invitation of the Institute of Palestine Studies. Since then, the relationship between Israel and India has deepened further. Meanwhile, atrocities have skyrocketed in both countries. On 5 April 2023, Israeli forces stormed Al Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and attacked worshippers inside. As we go to press (May 2023), Israel is ruthlessly bombing Gaza and targeting Palestinian women and young children while settlers are going on killing sprees in Palestinian villages in the West Bank. At the same time, Israel is facing internal turmoil in a battle between a diverse group, including those who think the current settler colony is a democratic nation and want things to remain as they are, and those who stand even further to the right. Significantly, the BJP, India’s ruling party, supports the latter.

    Meanwhile, India, too, has seen a horrific escalation of violence. Not a day passes without Muslims being killed, young children brutally beaten up and humiliated, Mosques being burnt down or attacked, and homes being destroyed. At the same time and on a very different note, Gautam Adani and his Adani Group, which has long bankrolled the Modi regime, have been exposed as perpetrating the biggest fraud in corporate history. Once the third richest man in the world, Gautam Adani’s family fortune has continued to plummet and is currently only 50% of what it once was. However, despite projects falling through, stock and bond prices continuing to fall, and lenders leaving in droves, the one international figure who has continued to stand by him and publicly acclaim him is Netanyahu. The Haifa Port deal … Is going ahead as planned.

    The subject of this pamphlet is Zionism, the ideology of the Israeli apartheid state and Hindutva, the ideology which drives the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In this era of rising fascism, these two remarkably similar ideologies are crucially important in cementing the economic and military alliance between two of the world’s most repressive right-wing states – while helping to legitimize them in cultural arenas. Israel is, of course, a settler colonial state, but it is also, like India, a fascist state, not only because of ‘the extremist parties that [are] part of the government’ but also because of ‘their enablers – Netanyahu and his chauvinistic Likud party which long strove for a Jewish state dominating both sides of the Jordan River’. In the words of Marwan Bishara, Netanyahu is ‘the godfather of modern Israeli fascism’. This essay focuses primarily on Hindutva, discussing Zionism mainly to highlight its similarities, links and increasing alliances with Hindutva.

  • Dark PR: How corporate disinformation harms our health and the environment

    “A real tour de force. Bringing together road safety, food, and global warming makes the nefarious patterns clear. Dark PR will help students and public health advocates recognize what they are up against as they confront the commercial determinants of health so we can make social justice real.”
    Dr. Lori Dorfman, Director, Berkeley Media Studies Group and Adjunct Professor, University of California, Berkeley

    “The struggle for health is a struggle against powerful vested interests – the corporations that produce harmful commodities, that damage our environment, and that trample over human rights. Yet, in so much of what we do they remain invisible, even though they have often succeeded in framing the narrative that defines and constrains our responses. Grant Ennis has shone a light on these shadowy forces and challenged us to take them on by organising and demanding change.”
    Dr. Martin McKee CBE, Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Past President, European Public Health Association, Author of Issues in Public Health: Challenges for the 21st Century

    “We know a lot (and are learning more all the time) about how the tobacco and fossil fuel industries engage in deception, and manipulate policymakers and the public. Dark PR takes us down many different and new byways to explore the “Devious Frames” used by many harmful industries. It makes good use of less well-known examples too, while maintaining a firm grip on the evidence. Dark PR is a highly readable, compelling, and often-alarming account of the complex corporate systems which drive disinformation and their associated harms.”
    Dr. Mark Petticrew, Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Director of the Public Health Research Consortium, Author of Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide

    “This book is a masterpiece of demystification. Ennis examines every given wisdom in public health and related fields as he reveals how capitalist corporations frame the problems that we perceive and the solutions that we advocate. Any efforts to change these conditions must recognize the importance of corporate framing. Now that this book illuminates our situation so clearly, the next steps focus on the revolutionary transformation of capitalism itself, and moving beyond the capitalist state that protects the corporative framing of what is and what must be done.”
    Dr. Howard Waitzkin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico, Author of Social Medicine and the Coming Transformation

    “People who care about health and sustainability already know that consumerism defeats both. But the corporations that sell us consumerism also sell us all the most conspicuous “solutions” to it – responses that just keep the consumerist treadmill turning. As Grant Ennis reveals, they win both ways. Through diverse examples, Ennis shows us how the treadmill turns and how the usual responses are part of its mechanism. Ennis shows us how to spot ineffective responses so that effective, independent opposition can escape the treadmill, organize and act. Conscientious consumption, the search for corporate enemies, and atomized advocacy cannot avail, but Ennis also shows us what actually has worked. The stakes could not be higher. Dark PR is a refreshing and revealing departure from appeals to conscience, demonization of villains, misplaced optimism, and expressions of hopelessness. It is therefore a necessary and important book.”
    Dr. Peter Norton, Associate Professor, University of Virginia, Author of Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving

    “Ever wondered how big oil has subverted efforts to cut global warming? Or how the tobacco industry thwarted attempts to ban smoking? Grant Ennis reveals how Dark PR enables big business to rig the political debate. A thought-provoking book.”
    Mick Hamer, Founding Director of Transport2000, Author of Wheels Within Wheels: A Study of the Road Lobby

    “In public health, we were hoping for a better world after the COVID-19 pandemic. Corporations and their invisible hands – public relations agencies – nevertheless took the opportunity to double their efforts to sell us unhealthy commodities. So much so that disinformation and misinformation are now more than ever part of our daily lives. In his book, Grant Ennis leads us through these practices that shape our modern world. A book to put in all hands!”
    Dr. Mélissa Mialon, Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, Author of Big Food & Company: How the pursuit of profit at all costs undermines our health

    “It would be an under-statement to say that this is a hugely important book. It is. It shines a very bright light into some very dark corners and exposes the culpability of corporations, governments and economic systems in promoting products that damage our health and do so to make huge profits at the expense of a global health crisis, a crisis defined by 153 million deaths every 25 years. It must be read and must be followed by citizen action and political transformation.”
    Dr. John Whitelegg, Professor, Centre for Mobility Culture, Kassel, Germany, Author of Critical Mass: Transport, Environment and Society in the Twenty-first Century

    Dark PR is an enjoyable read. Importantly, it brings together a strong analytical view on many of the mechanisms critical to understanding transport and road injury.”
    Dr. Marco te Brömmelstroet, Professor, University of Amsterdam, Author of Movement: How to take back our streets and transform our lives

    “Grant Ennis shines a strong light on ‘dark PR‘. In the process, some truly exploitative tactics of the PR industry are exposed, which have huge implications for people’s health and wellbeing – and not before time.”
    Dr. Deborah Lupton, Professor, University of New South Wales, Centre for Social Research in Health, Author of The Face Mask In COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis

    “The health of our communities is in no small part determined by the economic interests of multinational corporations that have a duty to their shareholders to maximise profit from sales. Governments across the world and of all shades have pursued public health policies rested on the notion of personal responsibility, this has delayed any product reform or industry regulation. The methods used have been well documented but in Dark PR Grant Ennis demonstrates how the whole narrative into which health policy is set is a construction of those very industries that harm us, and wilfuly designed to delay, denude or avoid regulation. This happens across multiple industries, we know it was invented by the tobacco industry but perfected by many others. Ennis highlights how this process works in wonderful detail setting out the strategies used, pointing us to counter strategies and an organising framework. For anyone interested in the commercial determinants of health, at any level, this is an essential read.”
    Greg Fell, Director of Public Health in Sheffield, President, Association of Directors of Public Health

    “Our interlacing health, environmental, and climate crises often seem overwhelming, even insurmountable. The gift Grant Ennis provides each of us is an unveiling of the corporate capitalist hegemony over our health and our biosphere. Ennis fixes his analytic powers on the insidious ways government-backed corporations shape how our culture normalizes and problematizes the pressing social and environmental challenges of our day. From his deep investigation of corporate deflection and blame tactics, to his sharp treatise on citizen activism and social movements, Ennis has written both an indictment of the corporate-strangled status quo and an invocation for everyone to transcend the vote by organizing to co-create a better society. A phenomenal and motivating book.”
    Seth LaJeunesse, Assistant Director, National Center for Safe Routes to School, UNC Highway Safety Research Center, Author of Factors and Frames That Shape Public Discourse Around Road User Safety

    “This book encourages readers to critically re-examine the information they have been given about key issues affecting the wellbeing of communities and their environment. Ennis provides frameworks that would be helpful in doing this in a methodical and analytical way. Whether you agree with his insights or not, they will get you thinking and reexamining your assumptions, which is always stimulating.”
    Dr. Sharon Beder, Professor, University of Wollongong, Author of Global Spin and This Little Kiddy Went to Market

    “Painstakingly researched and full of real-world evidence, Dark PR shines light on how seemingly innocuous and well-established messages (like “save energy” or “drive safe” or “eat healthy”) have long been systematically co-opted and weaponised by private corporations – to further their agenda, establish ‘alternative facts,’ and diffuse democratic citizen action towards a better world. By chronicling these tactics as Devious Frames, Ennis’s investigation serves as a powerful reminder to always be on guard and critically look at who exactly benefits from our governments’ subsidies, our public policies, and the taxes we pay.”
    Nikhil Chaudhary, Cities Advisor, European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s Climate Knowledge Innovation Community (EIT Climate-KIC), Co-Founder and Board Trustee, Equal Streets

    “This is a blockbuster of a book. Ennis uses his experience as an academic and public health programme organiser to analyse the policies exacerbating climate change and diet-related obesity, as well as road deaths. It is not just a blast at the corporations behind the problems, but a study of the structures involved in how things have become the way they are: he sets out a typology of ways in which problems are framed, showing how the cultural assumptions we share work against addressing many grave problems societies face. This book avoids conspiracy theorizing, as he says: “…most of the problems we face result not from the absence of regulation, but from political structures designed to benefit powerful actors. These structures are not held in place by a cabal of evildoers; rather, they are maintained through incentives that lead mostly indifferent stakeholders to carry out innumerable small bad acts.” Finally, Ennis puts forward strategies to actually change the issues he has outlined. Will they work? I don’t know – but I suggest that anybody seriously concerned with the major problems facing humanity that he discusses should read this book and carefully consider his arguments.”
    Dr. Robert Davis, Chair of the Road Danger Reduction Forum (UK) and author of Death on the Streets: Cars and the mythology of road safety.

    “Across automobile, oil and food industries, Grant Ennis itemises and adds detail to what so many people in consumer protection, public health, wellbeing and liveability have felt for some time. And that is the enormous hold corporates have over government and public thinking and the millions they are prepared to spend to get their way. He categorises the ways in which corporates both singularly and collectively condition our governments to support their aims against public benefit and he lifts the lid on the dark tactics and techniques used. This book will empower us all to see through their greed and demand better of our politicians.”
    Rod King, Founder & Campaign Director, 20’s Plenty for Us

    “For so many of us across communities we understand how critical it is that we prioritise the things that really matter most – the long term health and wellbeing of all our children, the ecosystems that sustain us, the care we have for each other. While we collectively know that it makes absolute sense to prioritise these things, re-lay the tracks we are on, many of us struggle to understand who has the most power, the most responsibility to make changes that would most effectively do so, and the barriers we must pull down. Books, stories and narratives like Dark PR help explain how people in some industries shape the narratives and stories in our society with the goal of undermining people’s understanding and reasoning about the causes of the collective problems we face and the solutions that will make the biggest difference. Books like Dark PR are critical to providing clarity to the public, advocates, and decision makers about how change can and does happen. The importance of rejecting the corrosive narratives spread by people in damaging and harmful industries that we are simply and only consumers. and the power in building our own more meaningful stories about how we, and our decision makers can act together in our role as citizens to prioritise what really matters most.”
    Dr. Jess Berentson-Shaw, Author of A Matter of Fact: Talking truth in a post truth world.

    “This could be a book that changes the world, or even ‘saves the world.’ That’s a big call, but Dark PR has convinced me that we (cities and society) must change our strategies for dealing with our challenges, especially global warming.”
    Dr. Paul Tranter, Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Canberra, Author of Slow Cities: Conquering our Speed Addiction for Health and Sustainability

    “This book is excellent. I kept nodding while reading it. And saying “yes, exactly” out loud. So well-articulated. I particularly love the way Grant describes Silver Boomerangs and Magic as harmful, when they divert effort from more urgent policy shifts. This is exactly my problem with electric cars. Not evil of themselves. Pretty darned cool actually. And that’s the problem. I hear over and over that policy makers say we need a ‘balanced’ approach and that electric cars are ‘part of the solution’. There’s a reason car companies are drooling all over themselves to promote electric cars. They’re a huge (literally huge) shiny (literally shiny) excuse to keep the consumption wheels (literally) spinning. Intentionally duping humans to believe we can drive and pave and park our way out of planetary crises. Let’s not be slaves to corporate PR any more. This book is a brilliant lesson in why and how we need to un-dupe our collective selves.”
    Dr. Bridget Doran, MRCagney

    “Reading [Dark PR] was very instructive, I enjoyed it … Framing, counterframing, organising, individual vs structural … Well done!”
    Dr. Nason Maani, University of Edinburgh and Author of The Commercial Determinants of Health

    “Grant Ennis’s [Dark PR is] completely perspective-altering … A truly compelling documentation and critique of power, offering insightful analyses of the public relations tactics often used (by corporations) to undermine collective organizing and demand for meaningful responses to global and local public health, safety, environmental, and general well-being challenges. Particularly timely considering the accelerating climate and ecological crises.”
    Dr. Festival Godwin Boateng

    “Much enjoyed reading this book… one of those books with the potential to change the way you see the world – for the better. With a special focus on global warming, unhealthy food environments and car dependence, it’s a brilliant articulation of the corporate framings which, seemingly forever, are stalling our progress towards a socially and environmentally just world. In addition to equipping us with the knowledge of how these ‘dark and devious frames’ work and how we unwittingly help them with some of our well meaning practices, the book shows us the way forward. Thank you for taking the time to write this book, Grant Ennis, it’s a gift to us all.”
    Dr. Hulya Gilbert, Lecturer at La Trobe University

    “If you are looking for activism at the national level, we have to take into consideration the reality and understand the nuance of corporate influence and continued massive government subsidies bestowed on Motordom. For this, I highly recommend the book Dark PR by Grant Ennis.”
    John Simmerman, Active Towns

    “[Dark PR is very relevant] not just alcohol policy but tobacco, cannabis, gaming…”
    Dr. Raymond Walley, Vice President of the European Doctors Association

    “Could not agree more [that Dark PR is very relevant for those working in alcohol policy]. It’s a great read and a reminder to focus on the big stuff that will make a difference.”
    Elinor Jayne, Director, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP)

    “Provocative … I encourage everybody to pick up a copy…. A very helpful tool for advocates”
    Doug Gordon, Host, Host of the War on Cars Podcast

    “Grant Ennis exposes corporate tactics in “Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Harms Our Health and the Environment,” highlighting how industries maintain a harmful status quo. Valuable insights for advocates.”
    California Bicycle Coalition

    “We all know car culture distorts the way we talk about the world, but I don’t know if I’d ever seen a really thorough accounting of how that happens, exactly, until I read Grant Ennis’s book… and now I can’t stop seeing corporate spin everywhere.”
    Kea Wilson, StreetsBlogUSA

    “Grant Ennis’ call for action on global health crises challenges perceived notions of corporate propaganda, government culpability, and political organization. Dark PR asks us to reconsider the public discourses we see on key issues such as global warming, obesity, and road deaths. Ennis systematically reveals the ways in which corporations mislead, misdirect, and lie to protect their interests. … Ennis is gentle but firm in discussing how even well-intentioned people unwillingly or unknowingly play into corporate interests. … the incensed writing builds towards a powerful call to action. The path to genuine political change is treacherous. The devious frames utilized by corporations to suppress activism often plays on individualism and consumerism. The only way forward is organized, collective, and policy-focused action. Dark PR swings between carefully researched yet devastating facts and determined aspirations for a healthier collaborative future.”
    Mayaluna Bierlich, Montreal Review of Books

    “A terrific book!”
    Professor Samantha Thomas, Deakin University

    “In this challenging but fascinating read, Ennis utterly rejects the received wisdom that if enough individuals change their behaviour, we can change the world. For Ennis, “be the change you want to see in the world” is, at best, a distraction. Instead, he argues that we need to direct all our attention and energy to attacking the perverse incentives of government subsidies and corporate welfare.”
    Dr. Margaret Steele, University College Cork

    “Grant Ennis has a fantastic take on [the diabetes pandemic] in his book Dark PR. I highly recommend it.”
    Dr. Marek Vanzura, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, George Mason University

    “Excellent”
    Melissa & Chris Bruntlett, Authors of Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality & Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our Lives

    Dark PR is a very powerful read and excellent commentary also on alcohol industry which uses very similar techniques to frame discussion on alcohol and thwart the evidenced based policy measures which are known to reduce harm from alcohol.”
    Dr. Sheila Gilheany, CEO, Alcohol Action Ireland

    “One of the best books I read last year.”
    Martina Mullin, Health Promotion Officer at Trinity College Dublin

    “For all of us who are working on inflammation and chronic illness, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome and food, [Dark PR] by Grant Ennis is a must read!”
    Dr. Ioannis Zabetakis, University of Limerick

    USD $ 6.99USD $ 21.00
  • Left Alone: On Solitude and Loneliness amid Collective Struggle

    Left Alone brings together 15 authors and seven visual artists from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and North America to individually and collectively reflect – in words and images – on an urgent psycho-political issue that has not yet been explicitly addressed through a left-political lens, that is, Left Loneliness. Combining academic and more personal-political texts, including an interview, poetry, rap and a powerful short story, the book explores the contributors’ personally and/or vicariously lived experiences of Left Loneliness from a variety of genres and left political currents: Marxist, Feminist, Anti-/De-Colonial, Anti-Racist, Queer, Post-Soviet, Anarchist, Anti-Ableist and others. Says Feminist writer Sara Ahmed: “Loneliness might be what we are threatened with if we persist in being or doing what we are being or doing.” In this sense, Left Loneliness is neither a metaphor nor a secondary contradiction and definitely not a type of petty bourgeois ‘personalism.’ Rather, it might be considered one of the rank-and-file psycho-affective elements that both shapes and results from our myriad, intersecting, unremitting, yet always fragile and potentially shattering political attempts to revolutionise our inner and outer worlds. Given its (growing?) existence in our everyday left subjectivities, the book argues that Left Loneliness and related states of solitude, isolation and alienation, among others, have both debilitating and productive (epistemic) dimensions, with very concrete psycho-somatic repercussions for Left Mental and Physical Health and hence our capacity to persist and build on “being or doing what we are being or doing.” Given that continuing and deepening our multiple ongoing struggles for liberation will depend on our constant ability to (re-)create, sustain and care for both our individual selves and the communities that we are a part of, the aim of Left Alone is to contribute to the strengthening of these personal collectivities in action in-against-and-beyond capitalism, colonialism and heteropatriarchy by inviting comrade-readers into what we hope will be a deeply stimulating and enabling personal-political engagement with texts and images hailing from Argentina, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey/Kurdistan, Jamaica, Italy, Switzerland, the UK, Germany and the USA. In short, in the words of one of the book’s authors, Lena Grace Anyuolo from Kenya, “My sisters and brothers, Come, Let us gather, To lay the structures for a joyous existence.” Yes, let’s.

  • Breaking the Silence on NGOs in Africa

    But, it is important to note that in this multi-authored collection whose contributors are deft students of history, NGOs are seen as one articulation of a more pervasive and sinister system. Many of the authors in this collection draw a strong connection between the racial capitalism launched 500 years ago with the twin practices of enslavement and colonisation, to this current moment of neoliberalism. Drawing on local experiences, pan-Africanism, socialism, feminism, and, above all, learnings and sharings from popular education, the contributors illustrate – through their bodies and discussions and the bodies and discussions of their elders – how NGOs have long imperial genealogies. … This delicate ‘dance’, between NGO aid and substantive action, persists, and many of the contributors’ vocalise this without any blinders; they unpack these contradictions while also speaking to the realities of their political and economic conjunctures and conditions. For these reasons, Breaking the Silence on NGOs in Africa is an important complement to the critical works of the same focus that precede it … And it remains an important testament of the determination of struggling peoples to powerfully, historically, yet in complex movements, name, interrogate, and challenge the state of affairs about which they are expected to be ‘silent’. — Wangui Kimari, Wangui Kimari (2023) Breaking the Silence on NGOs in Africa, Gender & Development, 31:2-3, 758-760, DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2023.2261763

     


    Edited by

    LEWIS MAGHANGA NJUGUNA and NICHOLAS MWANGI MACHUA,
    Members of the Organic Intellectuals Network are active organizers in the struggle to achieve social justice. They have experienced the contradictions of the NGO discourse and, just like others before them, have found themselves in the struggle versus survival dilemma. To get a clear picture of our contemporary struggles and the despair brought about by NGOs operating in the proletarian movement, comrades decided to reflect, study, and analyze Prof. Issa Shivji’s book Silences in NGO Discourse: The Role and Future of NGOs in Africa. For the authors, these analyses and reflections are based on personal experiences in their day-to-day organizing. In summarizing the authors’ observations regarding the impacts of NGOs in organizing, this book calls into question the fundamental question, ‘why do NGOs exist?’ To answer this question, the authors provide a historical chronology of the resistance in Kenya, Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa, relating those to the subjective factors in existence at every period. Through this, a scientific relationship can be drawn between social movements and NGOs in our current epoch. From their experiences with NGOs, the authors, representing grassroots social movements, highlight the dangers associated with donor funding. Often, donor funding ends abruptly after making people dependent on them, creating severe strain on grassroots organizations. The more one engages with NGOs, the softer one becomes to critique NGOs, particularly in highlighting their relationship to imperialism. Further, NGOs usually help in driving reforms. However, they play no part in revolutionary work. As a result, they merely preserve the present order and help exacerbate the frustrations arising from massive inequality in our society. In the long run, NGOs play a critical role in stifling the development and independence of grassroots social movements. This publication also includes two previously published essays by Prof Issa G Shivji, Silences in NGO Discourse: The Role and Future of NGOs in Africa, &, Reflections on NGOs in Tanzania: What We Are, What We Are Not and What We Ought To Be.
    Two great interviews with the authors:

    https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/millennials-are-killing-capitalism/id1292638162?i=1000618277192

    Breaking the Silence on NGOs in Africa

  • White Saviorism in International Development: Theories, Practices and Lived Experiences

    This captivating volume dives into the complexities of racism and White Saviorism in North/South relations. With contributions from 19 experts across the Global South, this book examines its prevalence within Western initiatives for international development. Through a blend of theoretical topics, testimonies, stories and personal experiences these contributors shed light on implicit as well as explicit forms of White Saviorism – all with sensitivity to broaden an understanding through multi-dimensional approaches that truly transcend borders.

    Edited by: Themrise Khan, Kanakulya Dickson, Maïka Sondarjee

    Combining praxis-informed theorization and accounts grounded in authors’ own experiences in the White Savior Industrial Complex, these succinct and accessible chapters bring the realities of racial capitalism in international development to life. I was both educated and enraged! — Alana Lentin, author of Why Race Still Matters

    This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to understand how many people contribute to upholding an oppressive White supremacist global system. — Amiera Sawas, Researcher and Advocate

    This is a terrific work of deep unmasking and engagement with the proverbial but the always invisible elephant in the room of international development, that of the White gaze—correctly rendered here as the “industrial-colonial-patriarchal-White savior complex.” Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, author of Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization

    White Saviorism in International Development unveils the hypocrisies undergirding development projects led by the Global South for the Global South. … It examines the intimate linkages between coloniality, development, and White Saviorism.— Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores, Texas Tech University

    White Saviorism in International Development is an important and timely book that should be read by all international development students and practitioners. — Dylan Mathews, CEO Peace Direct, Chairperson CIVICUS Alliance

  • Black Anarchism and the Black Radical Tradition: Moving Beyond Racial Capitalism

    I am glad to see that there is a second wave of Black anarchists since 2015, arriving on the scene. I support the rights of all Black anarchists to build their movements, and I defend the rights of Anarkata. I don’t agree with everything in this book, but that is immaterial. This is an excellent book and well written. —  Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, activist and author of Anarchism and the Black Revolution and The Progressive Plantation. During his over 50 years as an anarchist, Ervin was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and Concerned Citizens for Justice. He founded the first Black anarchist federation in North America, Black Autonomy.

    This revolutionary book reveals the political power of “stretching” the classical anarchic tradition to critiques of racial capitalism. Bagby-Williams and Suekama deliver an accessible, thought-provoking analysis of two waves of Black American anarchism: that which arose from 20th-century politics of Black liberation and the later reanimation of anarchism triggered by 21st-century killings by American police. The authors layer deep class criticism with insightful case studies not just to retrace a history of Black Anarchism but to make a compelling argument about the diversity of thought that influences the radical tradition. With this book, the historical and continuing contributions of feminist thought, queer activism, and anti-colonial struggle to the movement are made clear. Readers will learn that Black Anarchism has not died due to “progress,” but rather proliferated in light of the American tragedy that is capitalism, imperialism and brutal, carceral control. This book has nuance. Read it now!” — S.M. Rodriguez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Gender, Rights and Human Rights, London School of Economics, and author of The Economies of Queer Inclusion: Transnational Organizing for LGBTI Rights in Uganda. www.smrodriguez.com

    A necessary and accessible historical analysis of the often overlooked Black anarchism. Bagby-Williams and Za Suekama demonstrate that any revolutionary movement truly committed to a post-capitalist world must constructively engage with this Black radical tradition. — Toni Harrison, Black Canadian writer, community organizer, and host of the podcast Actually Existing Socialism (https://podbay.fm/p/actually-existing-socialism).

    Thank you for sharing the pamphlet. Once we started reading it we could not put it down. It was refreshing to learn about the different texts, approaches and experiences of Black anarchism. What stood out the most for us was the inclusion of feminist and queer perspectives moving away from the ableist heteropatriarchy lens. The authors recognize the importance of pan-Africanism as one source of Black anarchism. They also emphasize the Black anarchist insight that all forms of oppression must be fought, to better address the challenges across all oppressed and Black bodies. In an era where movements are advocating for the abolition or reform of oppressive systems, this text helps reflect and reimagine what new inclusive systems may look like. It also makes an important analysis that highlights the complexity and diversity in Black anarchism, which is essential if we are to confront the white savior complex and complacency in addressing inequities and dismantling racial capitalism. —Tinashe Goronga, medical doctor and public health leader in Zimbabwe; coordinator of EqualHealth’s Global Campaign Against Racism affiliated with the international Social Medicine Consortium; and Mandela Washington Fellow for 2022; and Yeukai Chikwenhere, pharmacist and global health researcher in Zimbabwe, co-founder for the Centre for Health Equity, and community organizer for EqualHealth’s Global Campaign Against Racism.

    This geography of Black anarchism succeeds in outlining its tendencies, champions, and contradictions. It reminds us that the children of Maroons don’t need no lessons in liberation. That we’ve always used things that confine to redefine. We beat plowshares into swords. And then we rob gun stores, cause who uses swords anymore? —Ben Passmore, comics artist, political cartoonist, creator of the Daygloayhole Series, and author of My Black Friend, which in 2017 won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic.


    This work Is an important achievement in clarifying the history and current importance of Black anarchism. The information that the book presents will be new to many readers. For instance, one important component involves the explanations of how hierarchical principles within the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army helped generate the emergence of Black anarchism among key party members who later developed their ideas and strategies while in prison. Likewise, the book breaks new ground in demonstrating that Black anarchism has emerged not from the European/ North American anarchist traditions but rather from roots in Pan-Africanism, the Black radical tradition focusing on racial capitalism and the work of Cedric Robinson, and grassroots struggles partly in the U.S. South. An in-depth analysis of the somewhat different but complementary focuses within the two generations of Black anarchism also is very helpful. Finally, the book highlights concrete, contemporary implications for revolutionary strategy, including a perceptive analysis of the compatibilities between socialist and Black anarchist approaches to current transformative struggles. This publication will become widely known and used, because it brings enlightening new ways to understand and to act on the intertwined structures of racial capitalism and the capitalist state.

  • Slave King: Rebels against empire: A Novel

    A fictionalised account of a slave rebellion in Roman Sicilia more than sixty years before Spartacus, it tells the story of the slave Younis from Afamia (now in Syria), a mystic and seer who led a great uprising sustained much longer than Spartacus’s. As with Messinian rebellion against Spartan oppression centuries earlier, the West has been slow to take such events seriously and reinstate their presence in popular culture as expressions of human spirituality and resistance. The role of seers as leaders is reminiscent of Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Healers on ancient Africa. This book is a fascinating and brilliant telling of popular struggle. It is a minor classic.— Michael Neocosmos, Emeritus Professor in Humanities, Rhodes University, South Africa, author of Thinking Freedom; Towards a theory of emancipatory politics

    I highly recommend Basem Ra’ad’s compelling and deeply researched historical novel about the fire-breathing Syrian slave who challenged Roman might in the second century BCE, seeking independence for his thousands of followers. This little-known story of resistance deserves wide attention … an amazing and important story. — Adrienne Mayor, Department of Classics, Stanford University, author, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy

    What Basem L. Ra’ad has done in this remarkable novel about slave uprisings is to demonstrate how ‘the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.’ He shows why the dominant discourse needs to be revised. A moving story that casts light on many strifes in our times. — Tariq Mehmood, author, Song of Gulzarina, Associate Professor, American University of Beirut

    Slave King disrupts two millennia of malign stories about one of antiquity’s original slave revolts. Not cannibals, not demons, but slaves, farmers and herdsmen created a kingdom of equality and compassion. In vivid prose and deep knowledge, Ra’ad re-imagines freedom emerging from Mediterranean multicultural shores. It is a profound re-creation of history in thrilling fiction. —Hilton Obenzinger, author of Witness 2017-2020 and American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania

    Slave King recreates a major slave revolt in Sicily led by a Syrian magus turned leader, circa 140-132 BCE, decades before Spartacus. He forges a coalition of slaves, farmers and herders to defeat Roman legions and establish an egalitarian entity. The novel uses biased ancient sources but challenges them to speak for the oppressed and provide alternative cultural-historical perspectives relevant to the present. Among its chapters are scenes of exorcism, crucifixion, ancient marriage customs, a play, and several battles.

  • Post Capitalist Philanthropy

    In Post Capitalist Philanthropy, Ladha and Murphy walk us through the deep logic of neoliberalism, the foundations of globalisation and the ideology of corporate free trade… [they] dissect philanthrocapitalism, and they indicate the possibilities of reclaiming the true, economics of the gift, of caring and sharing.— Vandana Shiva, from the Foreword to Post Capitalist Philanthropy.

    Ladha and Murphy conduct a “sweeping and engaging ethnography of the archetypal, mythopoetic, institutional, and philosophical territories of capital as a worlding agent and as a carceral dynamic obscuring transformational possibilities…We would need to move and think with our feet again, experimenting beyond money as a paradigm of control. We’ve already begun.
~ Bayo Akomolafe ~
Author, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home and founder of The Emergence Network

    This book asks a daring question: can wealth be reappropriated to restore balance to our broken world? A key resource for anyone eager to rethink philanthropy and“ economics in the 21st century. ~ Jason Hickel ~ Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, author of The Divide and Less is More

    Each page contained in this text“is a reminder of what my heart already knows is true, with information and inspiration that lifts the sense of possibility for making deep change together.
    ~ Gail Bradbrook ~ Co-founder, Extinction Rebellion

    Post Capitalist Philanthropy is an essential mystical revolutionary handbook that should be required reading for anyone involved in philanthropy.
    V (formerly Eve Ensler) —Author of The Vagina Monologues

    ***

    Transition Resource Circle thanks Daraja Press, the non-profit Pan-African publisher focused on social justice, for their collaboration in making this book a reality. All proceeds from the book are evenly split between Daraja Press and Transition Resource Circle’s solidarity fund.

  • Episodes from a colonial present

    Postcolonial critique deconstructs global inequality in its epistemic and material dimensions. This collective comic project illuminates everyday life’s coloniality as well as the decolonising potential of everyday struggles in the spaces, discourses and practices of so-called ‘global development’.