-
Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 20.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 20.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageJackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi
Mississippi is the poorest state in the U.S. with the highest percentage of Black people and a history of vicious racial terror. The concurrent Black resistance is the backdrop and context for the drama captured in the collection of essays that is Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, Mississippi. The long-awaited release of this seminal anthology will unveil the strategies and methods being pursued by this ongoing movement for Black community control and people-centered economic development.
“Jackson Rising is an exploration of our experiment in radical social transformation and governance that is directly challenging the imperatives of neoliberalism and the logic and structures of the capitalist system in Jackson and beyond.”
—Kali Akuno of Cooperation JacksonUndeterred by the uncertainty, anxiety and fear brought about by the steady deterioration of the neoliberal order over the last few years, the response from radical activists in Jackson, Mississippi has been to concentrate on building a radical anti-capitalist alternative from the ground up. Inspired by the rich history of struggle and resistance in Mississippi and committed to the vision of the Jackson-Kush Plan, these activists are building institutions rooted in community power that combine politics and economic development into an alternative model for change, while addressing real, immediate needs of the people.
The experiences and analyses in this compelling collection reflect the creative power that is unleashed when political struggle is grounded by a worldview freed from the inherent contradictions and limitations of reform liberalism. As such, Jackson Rising is ultimately a story about a process that is organized and controlled by Black working people who are openly declaring that their political project is committed to economic democracy and radical participatory governance.
“Jackson is rising and emerging as a model for resistance and visioning beyond the challenges of the present. It stands as the dynamic counter to economic redundancy, political marginalization, and systematic state violence.”
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Weaving Our Stories: Return To Belonging – An Anthology
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 26.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 26.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageWeaving Our Stories: Return To Belonging – An Anthology
Weaving Our Stories is a Hawaii-rooted abolitionist program that utilizes storytelling as a vehicle for liberation. Our mission revolves around teaching storytelling as an act of resistance, dismantling harmful existing narratives, and nurturing our ability to weave counter-narratives that acknowledge and celebrate the inherent beauty and brilliance within our storytellers. Through our stories, we advocate for justice and liberation.
This anthology follows the trail of esteemed works such as “This Bridge Called My Back: Writings of Radical Women of Color” and “Na Wahine Koa: Hawaiian Women for Sovereignty and Demilitarization.” This anthology includes poetry, essays, visual art, and narratives penned by authors and artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color from Hawaii and beyond. While our contributors span a diverse spectrum of experiences and identities, they all share a common commitment to individual and collective well-being. Our contributors astutely showcase how their expressions of resistance and liberation, whether through visual art or written text, align with one or more of the central themes of Weaving Our Stories: resistance through cultural memory, accountability, resisting false binaries, and countering hegemony.
In tandem with the community collection of stories that revolve around resistance, this anthology also highlights the remarkable achievements of our six accomplished Black youth organizers. These young individuals dedicated a year to the Weaving Our Stories Youth Series during the pandemic, delving into the power and relevance of storytelling in our journey of resistance and liberation. Each of the six youth activists provides an overview of their Community Impact Design Projects.
These culminating endeavors addressed community issues by proposing interventions that harness our resistance themes and our three Pillars of Liberation—namely, institutions, structures/methodology, and people.
This anthology offers celebrations of our triumphs, our joys, and our unwavering resilience. Simultaneously, they advocate for our ongoing resistance, insisting on justice and a sincere confrontation with the often-overlooked lived experiences that deserve acknowledgement.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Religion, Politics and Society: A progressive primer (Hardback)
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 55.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 55.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageReligion, Politics and Society: A progressive primer (Hardback)
Written by Karim F Hirji, a retired professor of Medical Statistics, Religion, Politics and Society focuses on the four major global religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam—together with minor religions like the Ahmadiyya, Confucianism, Sikhism, Seventh Day Adventism and Traditional African Religion as well as on Secularism, New Age beliefs and the ancient Paleolithic and Neolithic era belief systems to explore the origin, spiritual import and social function of religion in human society. Utilizing the canons, beliefs, practices, history, eminent personages, institutions of the diverse faiths, it tackles matters like: How did the social function of religion evolve over time? How does religion relate to the power structure of society? Does religion promote or hinder social harmony, justice and equality? Under what circumstances? Is religion necessary for morality? What are the roots of interfaith conflict? How do modern religions and neoliberalism interact with each other? Does religion have a future? Can religion and secularism be harnessed for resolving the globally vexing yet pivotal concerns of human society? If so, how?
These and related issues are tackled with the help of a variety of past and contemporary individual level and broader type of richly illustrated examples. The role of women in religion a topic of focus throughout the text. The varied functions of religion under slavery, feudalism, capitalism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism. socialism, and neoliberalism are also attended to.
The foundational premise of this book is that while spiritual beliefs differ, all humans are equal in dignity and have equal rights. No religion is more exalted than others; there are no chosen people. We all belong to the global human family. Our religious and cultural diversity is a cause for celebration, not conflict.
Respectful in style and targeted towards the general and knowledgeable readers, Religion, Politics and Society is the first of a two-book project. The second book, Religion, Science and the Pandemic, addresses the relationship between religion, science and mathematics. The key objective of these books is to help uplift the quality and tenor of the current discourse on religion and explore how faith can promote human dignity, equality, social justice and harmony. A genuine consensus and peaceful coexistence cannot emerge from diluting the truth.Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Religion, Society and the Pandemic: A complex entanglement (Hardback)
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 50.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 50.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageReligion, Society and the Pandemic: A complex entanglement (Hardback)
In nearly three years, starting from early January 2020, the coronavirus directly and indirectly consumed the lives of nearly 20 million people worldwide. This book explores the interplay between the coronavirus pandemic and religion on the theological, institutional and societal dimensions. It focuses on Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and secularism, but some minor faith systems are also covered. Exploring the evolution of the pandemic in seventeen nations, it asks: Was religious belief an obstacle or a positive factor in understanding the scientific basis of the coronavirus pandemic? Did religious institutions, leaders and laity facilitate or block the implementation of the official pandemic control measures? Was the role played by religion in the coronavirus pandemic affected by historical, social, economic and political factors? How did secularism operate in the coronavirus pandemic? Did the coronavirus pandemic enhance or undermine religiosity? The basic aim is to draw lessons from this pandemic that will facilitate how humanity may deal with future pandemics in a just and egalitarian social order.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Post Capitalist Philanthropy
“Post capitalist philanthropy is a paradox in terms. A paradox is the appropriate starting place for the complex, entangled, messy context we find ourselves in as a species.” This is how long-time activists, political strategists, and accidental philanthropy advisors Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy start their treatise on Post Capitalist Philanthropy. This book is a result of decades of practice and research, including a hundred plus interviews with leading activists, philanthropists, philosophers, social scientists, cosmologists and wisdom keepers.
The authors take us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism to the lived possibilities of other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. This “ontological shift”, as they call it, is at the heart of the text – creating new-ancient-emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or “fight power”, but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to a dynamic, animistic world and cosmos.
This book is made available by Daraja Press on behalf of the Transition Resource Circle.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
“Not Bad for a N—, No?” / «Pas mal pour un N—, n’est-ce pas? »
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 11.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 11.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page“Not Bad for a N—, No?” / «Pas mal pour un N—, n’est-ce pas? »
Written during the seventy-fifth anniversary celebrations of the publication of Frantz Fanon’s Peau noir, masques blancs (“Black Skin, White Masks”), “Not Bad for a N—, No?” offers reflections on the circumstances of the publication of this classic work with Fanon’s insights on what he called the attempted “murder of man” and the urgent need for humanity to become “actional.”
Écrit lors des célébrations du soixante-quinzième anniversaire de la publication de Frantz Fanon de Peau noir masques blancs, «Pas mal pour un N—, n’est-ce pas? » offre des réflexions sur les circonstances de la publication de cette œuvre classique avec les idées de Fanon sur ce qu’il a appelé la tentative de «meurtre de l’homme» et le besoin urgent que l’humanité devienne «actionnelle».
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Domains of politics and modes of rule/ Sphères politiques et contrôle étatique (en/fr)
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 10.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 10.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageDomains of politics and modes of rule/ Sphères politiques et contrôle étatique (en/fr)
This work consists of 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 that 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.
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 nationSelect options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Domains of politics and modes of rule : Political structures of the neocolonial state in Africa
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 10.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 10.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageDomains 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.∴Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Aufbruch in Jackson [German edition of Jackson Rising: Black self-management and solidarity economy]
German translation of Jackson Rising: The Struggle for Economic Democracy and Black Self-Determination in Jackson, MississippiHow black activists are building liberation practically from below: Departure in Jackson documents the history of one of the most exciting revolutionary experiments in the USA Present.
Since the 1970s, black liberation movements in majority-black Mississippi have taken change into their own hands. The Deep South should become the center of their independence – “Free the Land!” In the 2010s, the election of Chokwe Lumumba as mayor in the capital Jackson took an important step towards implementing the vision of assembly democracy, solidarity economy and an end to racial inequality. Lumumba dies unexpectedly in 2014, but his son Antar and the Cooperation Jackson continue to move forward.
We learn about the pitfalls of radical local politics and struggles for housing and land, democratic economic models and ecology, internationalist solidarity and the parallels to the Rojava Revolution and the Zapatistas, about encouraging experiences in which different concerns go hand in hand.
-
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britain
In his introduction to this new edition of From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britain, Mahmood Mamdani reminds us that long before 1972, most Ugandan ‘Asians’ had already been disenfranchised by law, both Ugandan and British. Despite a global industry that insists otherwise, Uganda Asians are a poor fit as victims: there was no large-scale loss of life during the expulsion, nor were there massacres of Asians, only of ‘indigenous’ peoples. Asians in Uganda, as in East or Southern Africa, he argues, were immigrants, not settlers: immigrants are prepared to be a part of the political community, whereas settlers ‘create their own political community, a colony, more precisely, settler colonialism.’ Mamdani insists that there is no single Asian legacy. there are several and they are contradictory. The Asian question in Uganda remains, but it is no longer the original Asian question. But it does allow us to think more broadly. Just as US law recognizes African Americans as Americans of African descent, so too must those of Asian origin in Africa consider themselves, and be considered, Asian Africans. It is in his bittersweet and touching book on the Asian expulsion from Uganda that one can trace the beginnings of author and intellectual Mahmood Mamdani’s world-view.. … In From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britain Mamdani offers portraits of people reduced to a vegetative existence in refugee camps, feeling the burden of not being fluent in English and struggling with the uncomfortably cold weather. Not surprisingly, these few months played a pivotal role in shaping Mamdani’s theoretical and political leanings, and it is here that one can locate his preoccupation with the formation of racial, ethnic and class identities during the colonial era and his overarching concern with issues of citizenship.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
A Mutiny of Morning: Reclaiming the Black Body from Heart of Darkness
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 15.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 15.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageA Mutiny of Morning: Reclaiming the Black Body from Heart of Darkness
Nikesha Breeze has taken pages from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, taken his words, and forced them to leave his colonized mind. She has made the words her own in poetic form. She illuminates the invisible Black voices inside, a radical, surgical, and unapologetic Black appropriation, at the same time as a careful birthing and spiritual road map. The resulting poems are sizzling purifications, violent restorations of integrity, pain, wound, bewilderment, rage, and, sometimes, luminous generosity. This is a work of Reclamation. The author, Nikesha Breeze, has slowly, page by page, reclaimed the text of the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This racist turn-of-the-19th-century book was pivotal in the continued dehumanization of Black people and in particular of African people, as it painted an image of bestiality on the Congo people and the continent. It is laced with racist imagery and language. The author has reappropriated the book, page by page, making “BlackOut” poetry for each page, isolating methodically the words to create new poems of power and black voice within the text —stealing the language and reappropriating the power.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
MATHARE: An Urban Bastion of Anti-Oppression Struggle in Kenya.
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 15.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 15.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageMATHARE: An Urban Bastion of Anti-Oppression Struggle in Kenya.
History is written by the victors of any war. But what happens when the victors forget to write down their history or omit the cog of the struggle? This is the untold story of Mathare Slum that has never been told to the world: of the role it played in anti-colonial struggle and the planning ground for the Mau Mau struggle which culminated with the fall of the British Colonial Empire in Kenya in the midnight of December 12th 1963. Mathare has also played a critical role in anti-oppression struggle against the four regimes that we’ve had since independence and continues to do so up to date. This history has not been documented and has only been done piecemeal. This has overtime eroded the rich history of Mathare and led to a distorted history of once a planning ground and a bulwark of Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KFLA). The current generation are not cognizant with the critical role Mathare played in the independence of our country. Presently, Mathare is majorly known for all the negative reasons and its proximity to Mathari Mental Hospital has contorted its image to the outside world. My story tries to re-tell the history of Mathare from an informed insider perspective by threading the struggles from the colonial era to the present day and the role it has played in agitating for social justice. My story brings to view the past history of this informal settlement in the heart of Nairobi, the present struggle and the promising future through community organizing.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Mental Health and Human Rights in Palestine
From: USD $ 5.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageMental Health and Human Rights in Palestine
This is a biography of the life of Dr Eyad El Sarraj, Gaza’s pioneering psychiatrist and founder of the Gaza Community Mental Healthcare Programme, written by his son, Wasseem El Sarraj. It is also a history of Palestine with a focus on Gaza. Eyad’s life was intimately intertwined with Palestine’s struggles so his choices and reactions reflected many of the major historical moments of the last 70 years. The book is an effort to provide a perspective on how the forces around him impacted his life, and how he took control of what he could achieve in an intractable situation. The book is interspersed with Wasseem’s own reflections as a mixed-race Palestinian, and as someone who has lived under occupation in Gaza.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
International Brigade Against Apartheid: Secrets of the People’s War That Liberated South Africa
USD $ 27.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageInternational Brigade Against Apartheid: Secrets of the People’s War That Liberated South Africa
We hear for the first time from the internationalist secretly working for the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), in the struggle to liberate South Africa from apartheid rule. They acted as couriers, provided safe houses in neighbouring states and within South Africa, helped infiltrate combatants across borders, and smuggled tons of weapons into the country in the most creative ways. Driven by a spirit of international solidarity, they were prepared to take huge risks and face great danger. The internationalists reveal what motivated them as volunteers, not mercenaries: they gained nothing for their endeavours save for the self-esteem in serving a just cause. Against such clandestine involvement, the book includes contributions from key people in the international Anti-Apartheid Movement and its public mobilisation to isolate the apartheid regime. These include worldwide campaigns like Stop the Sports Tours, boycotting of South African products and black American solidarity. The Cuban, East German and Russian contributions outlined those countries’ support for the ANC and MK. The public, global Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigns provide the dimensions from which internationalists who secretly served MK emerged. Edited by Ronnie Kasrils. First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2021, ISBN: 978-1-4314-3202-8, this Daraja Press edition is available in North America and East Africa.
Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Life Histories from the Revolution: Three militants from the Kenya Land and Freedom Army tell their stories
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 18.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 18.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageLife Histories from the Revolution: Three militants from the Kenya Land and Freedom Army tell their stories
In the early 1970s, Donald Barnett — who worked with Karari Njama to produce Mau Mau From Within (published by Daraja Press) — also worked with three militants of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army to enable them to tell the story of their experience in fighting for freedom and against British colonialism. These rarely acknowledged militants were Karigo Muchai, Ngugi Kabiro and Mohamed Mathu. Their stories were published in 1973 by LSM Information Center (Richmond, British Columbia, Canada) as part of a series entitled Life Histories of the Revolution, as The Hardcore: The Story of Karigo Muchai; The Man in the Middle by Ngugi Kabiro; and The Urban Guerrilla by Mohamed Mathu.
As part of its mission of Nurturing reflection, sheltering hope and inspiring audacity, Daraja Press is please to republish the three booklets as a book that will help a new generation of activists — Kenyan and international — reflect on a history that might inspire audacious struggles to continue the struggle for freedom that was the goal of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army.
Donald Barnett’s introduction to each booklet contained the following text:
The life histories in this series have been recorded and prepared as historical documents from the revolutionary struggles of our time. The techniques and methods employed at each stage of the process, from initial contact to final editing, have therefore been chosen or fashioned with the purpose of guaranteeing the authenticity and integrity of the life history concerned. These stories, then, to the best of our ability to make them so, constitute a body of data and testimony as revealed by a few of those history-makers normally condemned to silence while others speak on their behalf.Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page