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The Green Book – Gaddafi

The Green Book – Gaddafi

The former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi explained his political philosophy in The Green Book. The Green Book is a short work (the English translation is 92 pages) presented in short chapters on a wide range of topics, organized into three parts. The first part is a critique of Western forms of democracy and a proposal […]

Tags: #Democracy #Gaddafi #Green Book #Just Share #Socialist Society

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Sankara, An African Revolutionary

Sankara, An African Revolutionary

If you have heard of Thomas Sankara but don’t know much about him and his life, Ernest Harsch’s “Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary” (2014) is a useful introduction. However, the book is quite brief (152 pages in a small sized book) – it is part of the Short Histories of Africa series. For a more […]

Tags: #Casino capitalism #Neocolonial society #Relationship of equals #Revolution #Sankara

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An African Renaissance: Ngugi wa Thiong’o

An African Renaissance: Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Ngugi wa Thiong’o is one of the most important voices on language and decolonization. His works include Decolonizing the Mind (1986) and Theory and Politics of Knowing (2012). This post shares some notes on his 2009 Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance (copy appears available here). “colonialists did not literally cut off the heads […]

Tags: #decolonization #decolonize #Language #Ngugi wa Thiongo #postcolonial

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Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book on the Obama years (We Were Eight Years in Power, 2017) attracted the scorn of Cornell West. Coates’ earlier book, Between the World and Me (2015), is a bestseller. In the form of a letter to his son, the book tells his journey of his own experiences and reflections of being Black […]

Tags: #America #Between the World and Me #Race #Racism

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A Dying Colonialism – Fanon (1959)

A Dying Colonialism – Fanon (1959)

Fanon is well known for his Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and Wretched of the Earth (1961). Another of his works, A Dying Colonialism (1957), seems less spoken about (originally titled L’An Cinq, de la Revolution Algerienne). The first chapter reminded me of Said’s Orientalism, which was written much later (1978). Going back to Orientalism, […]

Tags: #Colonialism #decolonization #Dying Colonialism #Europeanization #Frantz Fanon

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Nkrumah – The Struggle Continues

Nkrumah – The Struggle Continues

This is the third of Kwame Nkrumah’s publications I have shared notes on. The first was the Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare (1968) and the second was Class Struggle in Africa (1970). This post shares some notes from The Struggle Continues (1973), a collection of short publications that were written between 1949 to 1968. A reprinted […]

Tags: #Capitalism #Kwame Nkrumah #Neocolonialism #Positive Action #Socialism

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