Showing 1–20 of 37 results

  • Aufbruch in Jackson [German edition of Jackson Rising: Black self-management and solidarity economy]

    Translated from English by Michael Halfbrodt & Michael Schiffmann, with a foreword by Mason Herson-Hord

     

    How 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.

    USD $ 24.00
  • Banana Girls, The

    The Banana Girls chronicles 2003 days in the lives of two bosom friends, Rehema and Fatuma, and millions of days in the existence of the banana, the fruit which, eaten either ripe or cooked, the girls at some point determine will be the only solid component of their daily diets. The banana becomes not only the symbol of ideal nutrition but also, by turns, of social engineering and neo-imperialist exploitation. …Rehema and Fatuma are Tanzanians by nationality and brainboxes by genetic coding, with an enduring monopoly of either the first or second position in any examination for which they sit. They excel in Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics particularly and are always the first two to solve any mathematical or scientific challenges that are presented to their successive year groups and, by extension, to readers of the book.

    … As the days go by, Rehema and Fatuma abandon junk food forever, they also adopt wholesome tastes in what they watch and what they listen to, and they make a good friend, Alice, who, unlike them, is from a rich family but who is adequately informed to join them as committed activists in the BLF, the Banana Liberation Front. Their activism lands them in jail. All three girls see through the machinations of their own government to oppress their own people and of global capitalism to bring about régime change, the better to sustain a stranglehold over poorer economies and to prop up aptly named ‘banana republics’. One malevolent operator is pointed out by name: he is President Ronald Grump of the United States of America.

    … Karimi Hirji’s three heroines in The Banana Girls certainly lead young minds to confront, intellectually, the problems which need to be confronted for our societies to progress, with integrity and selflessness as defining features, and to become adequately mobilized, again intellectually, to consider themselves tasked by fate to provide viable solutions to those problems in the future. —John Sibi-Okumu
    _____________________
    Karim F Hirji is an award winning retired Professor of Medical Statistics who has published many statistical and biomedical research papers together with articles on education, politics and other issues, eight nonfiction books and one novel.
  • “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».

  • Some Of Us Are Brave (Vol 2): Interviews and Conversations with Sistas in Life and Struggle

    A society born of white supremacy and patriarchy must, by definition, ignore the voices of Black women. We know that unfortunately, such an attitude will also naturally seep into every stratum of that society

    Part of the contribution to correct that was the centering and airing of Black women’s voices through Some of Us Are Brave: A Black Women’s Radio Program that aired on Pacifica’s Los Angeles radio station  (KPFK) from 2003 until 2011.

    The program covered a myriad of issues by amplifying the voices of a broad cross-section of Black women. Some of those voices have been preserved here in this volume. In addition to capturing various moments in time with a ­variety of women, this is also a means of taking the intellec­tual production of and about Black women out of the hands of institutions that are both fundamentally ­anti-Black and anti-woman. 

    Volume 1 contains interviews under the headings The Shoulders on Which We Stand and Black Lives Have ­Always Mattered.

    Volume 2 covers Black Women’s Health, Bruthas on ­Sistas, and Sistas in Struggle.

  • Some of Us Are Brave (Volume 1): Interviews and Conversations with Sistas in Life and Struggle

    This is the literature of liberation! The truth. It waters the roots of a strong and timeless tree and bears the fruit of freedom. In the tradition of Ida B. Wells, Thandisizwe Chimurenga writes for the people because she is the people, and she loves the people. The interviews and conversations in Some Of Us Are Brave include Black women and Black men on Black women. This book will educate, inspire and strengthen the mind and spirit of Black women and those that love them. —Dr. Alice Nicholas, Africologist, Assistant Professor, Poet

    Some of Us Are Brave is a courageous exploration of Black feminism within the Black left, offering invaluable insights and igniting much-needed conversations. It is a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of this vital aspect of our history and the transformative power of Black feminist thought. In a media landscape that often falls short when it comes to representing the voices of Black feminists, this series is a breath of fresh air. — Piper Carter, Detroit-based Arts & Culture Organizer
    Host of “Beyond Breaking Barriers” podcast on Black Power Media


    A society born of white supremacy and patriarchy must, by definition, ignore the voices of Black women. We know that unfortunately, such an attitude will also naturally seep into every stratum of that society

    Part of the contribution to correct that was the centering and airing of Black women’s voices through Some of Us Are Brave: A Black Women’s Radio Program that aired on Pacifica’s Los Angeles radio station  (KPFK) from 2003 until 2011.

    The program covered a myriad of issues by amplifying the voices of a broad cross-section of Black women. Some of those voices have been preserved here in this volume. In addition to capturing various moments in time with a ­variety of women, this is also a means of taking the intellec­tual production of and about Black women out of the hands of institutions that are both fundamentally ­anti-Black and anti-woman. 

    Volume 1 contains interviews under the headings The Shoulders on Which We Stand and Black Lives Have ­Always Mattered.

    Volume 2 covers Black Women’s Health, Bruthas on ­Sistas, and Sistas in Struggle.

    “This latest offering from journalist Thandi Chimurenga is something that Florida Governor Ron DiSantis would ban in a heartbeat and try and create a law banning Thandi and the powerful women she features in this book. To put it simply, this book is fiya and will cause a lot of discomfort to those who hate Black women and want to see Black history and Black liberation be erased. This won’t happen on Sister Thandi’s watch. She’s the Ida B Wells of our time who carries keen insight, unapologetic love for our people and lots of receipts to  chin check haters and institutional racists.”—David “Davey D” Cook, Professor, Africana Studies, San Francisco State University. (Host, Hard Knock Radio, KPFA, Pacifica-Berkeley)

    Watch Shaunelle Curry Founder, Media Done Responsibly

     

    USD $ 23.00
  • 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)

  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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’.
  • Homestead, Homeland, Home

    This is a collection of observations and meditations by Ghanaian Professor Emeritus (York University, Toronto) and philosopher Ato Sekyi-Otu on events, issues, people and ideas culled from recent history and the world, from the US and Canada to Ghana. If there is a persistent thread in these entries, it is this: Virtually all of them testify to the ironic truth of the saying that there is no place like home, no place, that is to say, which looks like the lodestar called home or comes close to approximating its promise of being a just space of human flourishing. Most of the entries are, therefore, harsh, particularly those on the USA. That is because that nation, in his view, has, in recent history, made a major contribution to rendering the world and every homestead we inhabit unhomely and sabotaging attempts to better it. But no one or place is spared, certainly not the author’s native land, Ghana. Canada appears intermittently in these pages in rather fragmentary and contrastive observations. That paucity of comments may be taken to be the complement the author pays to Canada as a place of relative civility and glimmers of decency in a mad and cruel world. It is a short work of predominantly gloomy pictures. But there are a few countervailing images and invocations of hope here and there. There are 166 entries of unequal lengths arranged around 14 headings. These epigrams are contrapuntal variations on the philosopher’s searing imprecation and visionary invocation: unfinished ode, resounding with intermittent fury, to the dawn of human existence set free from all tyrannizing enclosures.

    This is the work of an unusually awesome intellect and flawless scholarship. As Ato himself may agree, if our scholars and writers have to do their work using the English language, then we of the neo-colonies are doing that language a whole lot of good. If the book was about nothing else than Professor Sekyi-Otu’s merciless dissection of the wretched story of the life and career of Kwasi Kwarteng, an arch-conservative member of the British Conservative Party, that alone makes the book a compelling read.

    — The late, Ama Ata Aidoo,
    author, poet, playwright and academic, author of
    Changes: A Love Story and Dilemma of a Ghost

    More precious, untimely observations from the most important black political philosopher writing in English. Read, learn, savor, be provoked, read again, repeat.

    Paul Gilroy,
    author The Black Atlantic

    The echoes of Fanon pervade this incisive analysis that spares no one, refuses any postulation of idyllic longings, and interrogates our responsibilities in every aspect of the histories that live within us. This work offers a powerful and incisive reflection on human freedom and responsibility in an affirmation of dignity that can only fully emerge upon recognition of the cruelty of the inhumanities that pervades our histories and their geographies.  It is an existential call to lay bare so that we might understand the biting complexity of indignity and reach through its morass to discover the depths of our humanity no matter how deeply that humanity is assaulted.  Homestead, Homeland, Home charts this journey with biting clarity and takes irony as a “vital organ of truth and justice” to the apogee of its power.

    Jacqueline M Martinez, Professor of Communication, College of Integrative Sciences and Arts

    Arizona State University,
    Vice-President, Caribbean Philosophical Association

    I lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud reading this book and the number of times I had to put it down in chest-tightening anguish. Ato Sekyi-Otu long ago demonstrated that he was a first-rate scholar. With these meditations, though, these ‘peeves’ as he hilariously describes them, he reveals himself a member of an even more remarkable group – those who dare attempt to rouse a world lost in shadow gazing. Homestead, Homeland, Home dissects global society and reveals a malignant inhumanity. It is a challenge and resource for those who can be shaken and a damning indictment on those who will not. It is bracing, severe, funny, heartbreaking, brilliant and very, very cool.’

    Bryan Mukandi, Senior Research Fellow,
    School of Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Queensland, Australia

    This is a book of peeves well worth peeving about. It is testimony from a great elder of political thought whose heartfelt commitments to dignity, freedom, justice, and humane existence irritate his soul as a witness to the continued cruelty, degradation, and double standards unleashed against the Damned of the Earth; it is erudite outrage at so many ignored opportunities to make good on political responsibility to build a better world, a world otherwise. Every sentence, every paragraph, every page, every chapter is a Sankofic demand against historic amnesia and an encomium to re-member and, in doing so, courageously embrace our shared responsibility to build institutions for the urgent repair of nothing short of humanity’s homestead in which we are, in Sekyi-Otu’s words, “compelled to recognize that only we can save ourselves.”

    Lewis R. Gordon, author of
    Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization and
    Fear of Black Consciousness

    Homestead Homeland Home: Critical Reflections is political-philosophic tour de force by Ghana’s leading public intellectual Ato Sekyi-Otu. Each chapter brims with insight, irony (humorous and often indecent, like the George W. Bush highway in Accra), and analytical precision as he subjects the homesteads, Canada and the USA and the homeland, Ghana, to his partisan universalist critique. Ee weaves his reflections with the thoughts of philosophers, thinkers, and sages of the human condition and the poets, songwriters, and dreamers of human liberation.

    Nigel Gibson, author of
    Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination

    Raging against the solitary confinement of despair into compartmentalized finitudes and possessive particularisms, Ato Sekyi-Otu continues in these epigrammatic reflections to put his unmistakable mixture of resentment and fury at the service of a new principle of hope. In search of a place to call home, untethered to any exclusionary metaphysics of difference, he makes short shrift of the willful amnesia surrounding the criminal junction of capitalism, slavery, colonialism, and anti-black racism, with their interlocking systems of subjugation; refuses the preaching of collective guilt and abject misanthropy alike; and instills in the reader a concrete utopian belief in freedom from the dominion of race, egalitarian self-determination, and partisan universalism as common sense. These fragments of a vision of humanity unbound will leave no one untouched by their relentless tarrying with the world’s prose and intermittent poetry.

    Bruno Bosteels, author of The Actuality of Communism

    For those familiar with Sekyi-Otu’s work, Homestead, Homeland, Home is another instalment of what are gift offerings of his extraordinary mind and intellect. And for those not familiar, they better start reading these reflections right now, and don’t stop until you are fully done with them. Here is something to arouse the consciousness with beauty, poise, and quiet brilliance.

    Ato Quayson, Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Stanford University


  • From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britiain

    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.
    — Bhakti Shringarpure, Associate Professor, University of Connecticut, Editor-in-chief, Warscapes, Founder, Radical Books Collective

    USD $ 15.50
  • Settler Colonialism

    Settler Colonialism examines the genesis in the USA of the first full-fledged settler state in the world, which went beyond its predecessors in 1492. The text originates from Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (2021) “Not A Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion.

  • Religion, Eugenics, Science and Mathematics: An Eternal Knot

    Religion, Eugenics, Science and Mathematics by Karim F Hirji examines the dynamic relationship between religion, on the one hand, and science and mathematics, on the other, on historic and conceptual grounds. It focuses on Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam together with various shades of secularism, including Marxism. Where relevant, other faiths are integrated into the analysis. The questions it addresses include:

    • Are religion and science mutually exclusive, opposing entities?
    • Do divine beings and divine realms exist? Are science and religion valid but different forms of truth?
    • What are the societal roles of science and religion?
    • Can science provide a tenable, exalted code of ethics? What are the futures of religion and science?
    • Can religion and science cooperate in resolving the daunting, existential problems facing humanity today?

    All issues are explored in an interdisciplinary, historical manner. Examination of the religious dimension of the doctrine of eugenics, which culminated in the Nazi era extermination pogroms, forms a major case study in the book.

    Among other things, the book peruses scriptures, explores practice, enjoins analysis with anecdotes, and contraststhe beliefs of scientists and religious luminaries. Though directed at the general reader, its novel approach, broad consideration of social and economic factors, and the nature of the evidence it has marshalled, makes it of interest totheologians and scientists as well.

    The present book builds on the foundation laid in Religion, Politics and Society, also by Karim Hirji. By relating religion to mathematics, genetics, neurology, climate change and other issues, the book reveals that the relationship between religion and science is like a complex, entangled knot, not reducible to a simplistic summary.

    Religion, Eugenics, Science and Mathematics provides a thought-provoking examination of the historic and ongoing linkage between religion and science. It challenges the dichotomy that science and religion are mutually exclusive and presents a paradigm shift on how they can interact and contribute to society’s well-being.

    The ultimate message of the book is that science and religion can exist harmoniously on the moral plane and that the primary obstacle facing human progress today is neither religion nor science but the dominant neoliberal system that generates vast inequality, deep social divisions, including religious divisions, and a callous disregard for the global biosphere. It is a valuable read for both general readers and scholars who seek to understand the social and philosophical impact of science and religion.

    USD $ 7.99USD $ 37.00
  • Hand On The Sun: A passionate and powerful novel of race and class in England

    Forty years after Tariq Mehmood’s first novel was published by Penguin Books in 1983, a new and expanded edition is being published. The book charted the experience of the second generation migrants to the UK. Set in the declining textile industry of the North of England, it is a raw story of pain and anger at the relentlessness of British racism, from the street to the state – a story of an unquenchable desire for justice, and reclaiming human dignity. A dignity that is wrapped around new questions of Identity, a crossroad between religion, language, history and resistance. It is a little big story, that talks to the extremities of social, political and literary issues today? Can stories of a generation be appropriated? How important is religion in identity? If all you have is a story to tell, who should you tell it? Are the issues of today, just the issues of today or can we learn something from the past? In these stories, friendship is not defined by religion or colour, but by humanity. And racism is much more than skin deep.

    The new edition has a preface by Tariq Mehmood in which he reflects on how the book came to be written out of the experience of his comrades Bradford 12 and himself being detained and charged with acts of terrorism, charges of which they were acquitted. He reflects on the real-life people on whom each character in the novel was based. He discusses what has happened over the subsequent forty years, some of which was predicted in the pages of the original novel. But what makes this new edition vibrant is the addition of five new chapters in which the original characters reappear, only now forty years older. Had he written the novel today, how would it be different? To what extent did the surge in popular struggles of the 1980s inform the novel, and what has been the effect of neoliberalism and the downturn in popular movements in the current period? Today, every act of protest or organizing faces the threat of being accused of being acts of terrorism by the state, especially if you are viewed as Muslim.

    An exhilarating read that bears witness to the urgent 80’s battles against state and popular racism. As important now as then.— Peter Kalu, novelist

    It is a novel that paved the way for other novelists. Nikesh Shukla wrote:

    I love this novel. I think it’s exceptional. It changed my life. It helped me deal with my anger about the injustice our community faced when I was a teenager. I read this when I was 14, having found them amongst my teenager uncle’s things when he vacated our shared room. It changed me, it made me a writer. We deserve a canon of British South Asian literature that speaks to the history of this country, that speaks to now and to the far right’s emboldened coming out from the shadows of recent years, that speaks to this country’s unwillingness to confront racism, that also speaks to a period of history that is not archived properly.

    As the late A. Sivanandan, Director, Institute of Race Relations and Editor of Race and Class, wrote in his review of the book in Race and Class , (25 (2) 100-1, 1983: “This is the first authentic novel of the Asian experience in Britain – written in the taut, tense style in which that experience itself is lived in the interstices of a racist society. Inevitably it is a novel written by someone who – from his arrival [in the UK] as a boy of eleven from a Pakistani village to his arraignment as a conspirator against the British state at twenty-five – has had his life forged on the smithy of his race [and] finds therein the conscience of his class … the author charts the political journey of black youth in Britain”