Campaign Iran
Just came across the The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran site, which together with the Stop the War Coalition, are probably quite timely sites to visit if you live in the UK at the moment. Apart from Lenin's Tomb, that is, which has compiled an important post about the current situation in Egypt. Also check out The Sharp Side on Iran.
posted by Snowball @ 11:57 am
3 Comments:
Hey Snowy,
You're a historian. What is a good contemporary Marxist history of post-colonial Africa? The only pan-African histories written in the last few years that I can find all seem to be written by journalists [sic] from the Economist, like:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Africa-History-Fifty-Independence/dp/0743232224/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/202-0285861-1888618?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175520527&sr=8-2
Decent-ish Marxist books on Latin America are a dime a dozen (weeelll, I say Marxist, but I mean Tariq Ali, really), but no one (not Verso, not Pluto, not Black Rose, AK Press, Haymarket or Bookmarks) seem to have anything.
The problem with this, obviously, is that the neo-liberals thus get away with very widely promulgating the 'Well, it's terrible, Africa, yeah, but it's all down to corruption, innit?' analysis.
Cheers,
Victor S.
Well, quickly and off the top of my head, I'd point you to Dave Renton's site -
Dave has co-edited a recent book on the Congo http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/books/congo.html so ask him perhaps.
Leo Zeilig's edited collection 'Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa' http://www.newclarionpress.co.uk/08African%20res.html is probably the single best relevant collection of articles - perhaps you could find out more about the contributors to that and what else they have written.
There seems to be a lot of good Marxist writing on South Africa, but in terms of the rest of the continent, decent easily available books in English that are not Stalinist in orientation seem to be harder to come by, agreed. Other readers to this blog should feel free to add other books etc to this list...
Thanks, Snowy. The Zeilig book looks a good start, although focussing on a just a handful of states rather than Africa as a whole (other than the first couple of essays). What I'm really looking for is a good Marxist analysis of 'what went wrong' with African socialism, and you're right. anything that isn't Stalinoid or neo-liberal, or only looking at South Africa is as rare as hens' teeth.
I'll email comrade Renton as well, but yes, if anyone else has any further ideas, I'm all ears.
Cheers,
Vic.
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