Pambazuka Press Fahamu Books
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Collection of ebooks published by Pambazuka Press, an imprint of Fahamu Books, purchased by Globethics. The mission of this publisher makes it a very important partner for Globethics: "Through the voices of the peoples of Africa and the global South, Pambazuka Press and Pambazuka News disseminate analysis and debate on the struggle for freedom and justice. With bases in Nairobi, Cape Town, Dakar and Oxford, Pambazuka Press publishes a growing list of book titles on human rights, social justice, politics and advocacy in Africa, written by well-known African academics, public intellectuals and activists."
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MaldevelopmentIn this updated edition of his 1990 book Samir Amin explains with great clarity the complex changes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including the transformations in Eastern Europe and in the world economy, the growth of capitalism in China and, despite the West riding on the crest of new technologies, its materialist goals being increasingly questioned by new social movements including the Greens. In this context, Amin examines the failure of development from a political stand-point. He addresses problems specific to the Third World, with particular emphasis on the crisis of the African continent. The capitalist state in the peripheries is unable to provide a basis for further development; it can only exacerbate inequalities. This means, says Amin, that the world needs to be remade on the basis of an alternative social system that is national, popular and based on South-South cooperation and that delinks the South from the North. This could lead to a genuinely polycentric world that provides Asia, Africa and Latin America with real scope for development.
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Tax Us If You CanThis lucid introduction to tax justice in Africa sets out the causes and consequences of tax injustice and offers options for a fairer future. Although tax revenues are essential for establishing independent states of free citizens, taxes in Africa are often regressive, tax administration ineffective and many commodity exports from Africa are tax exempt. The influence of multilateral agencies on tax policy in Africa has, in many countries, decreased government revenues. Multinational companies exploit tax loopholes while secrecy jurisdictions enable tax evasion. So what is the role of governments, parliaments and taxpayers? What needs to be done to achieve tax justice? The solutions suggested in this important book include raising awareness about tax issues, promoting a culture of tax compliance, increasing tax transparency and enhancing international cooperation on tax matters.
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The Agrarian Question in the Neoliberal EraFood security and asset possession of small producers in developing countries has been severely undermined over many years. The old primitive accumulation of capital – by seizing resources from colonies – was only temporarily halted by independence struggles. Today the advanced capitalist world, whose large scale agriculture cannot meet its own consumption needs, angles to control the superior productive capacity of developing countries for both food and agrofuels. Monopolistic control of food distribution, increased prices of foods and farm inputs, and transnational capital's concessioning of land for food and agrofuel production have created a new scramble for land. At the same time neoliberal reforms have increased unemployment, deepened debt, led to land and livestock losses, reduced per capita food production and decreased nutritional standards. The dominant response to this agrarian crisis has been to reinforce the incorporation of the peasantry into volatile world markets and to extend land alienation, increasing import dependence. This book shows how the peasantry's increasingly active resistance has the potential to undermine political stability in third world countries.
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To cook a continentPeople in Africa argue that natural resources are a blessing; it is the way these are plundered and used that can turn them into a curse. The continent has plenty of experience of such plunder. Rich in resources, Africa is a net supplier of energy and raw materials to the North. The climate crisis confronting the world today is rooted mainly in the wealthy economies' abuse of fossil fuels, indigenous forests and global commercial agriculture. But, without agreement about how to tackle this reality, the question often becomes what can be done about Africa. Or, sometimes, for Africa. This book looks at what has been done to Africa and how Africans should respond for the good of all. Bassey examines the oil industry in Africa, probes the roots of global warming, warns of its insidious impacts and explores false 'solutions'. Crucially, his intelligent and wide-ranging approach demonstrates that the issues around natural resource exploitation, corporate profiteering and climate change must be considered together if we are to save ourselves. What can Africa do? And can the rest of the world act in solidarity? If not, will we continue on the path laid out by elites that brings us ever closer to the brink? Many live in denial even as ecological and social disasters increase, but this is not inevitable and Bassey suggests how Africa can overcome the crises of environment and global warming.
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India in AfricaMajor changes are taking place in the global economy and polity. While China's relationship to Africa is much examined, knowledge and analysis of India's role in Africa has until now been limited but, as a significant global player, India's growing interactions with various African countries call for detailed analysis of the Asian giant's influence and its relations with the African continent. In this original book, which enables readers to compare India to China and other 'rising powers' in Africa, expert African, Indian and western commentators draw on a collection of accessibly written case studies to explore inter-related areas including trade, investment, development aid, civil society relations, security and geopolitics. Contributors: Padraig Carmody, Fantu Cheru, Alex Gadzala, Dave Harris, Paul Kamau, Emma Mawdsley, Gerard McCann, Dorothy McCormick, Renu Modi, Sanusha Naidu, Cyril Obi, Zarina Patel, Luke Patey, Zahid Rajan, Alex Vines, Simona Vittorini
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African SexualitiesThis groundbreaking volume, the first of its kind written by African activists themselves, aims to inspire a new generation of students and teachers to study, reflect and gain fresh and critical insights into the complex issues of gender and sexuality. It opens a space – particularly for young people – to think about African sexualities in different ways. This accessible but scholarly multidisciplinary text, from a distinctly African perspective, is built around themed sections each introduced by a framing essay. The authors use essays, case studies, poetry, news clips, songs, fiction, memoirs, letters, interviews, short film scripts and photographs from a wide political spectrum to examine dominant and deviant sexualities, analyse the body as a site of political, cultural and social contestation and investigate the intersections between sex, power, masculinities and femininities. The book adopts a feminist approach that analyses sexuality within patriarchal structures of oppression while also highlighting its emancipatory potential. As well as using popular culture to help address the 'what, why, how, when and where' questions, the contributors also provide a critical mapping of African sexualities that informs readers about the plurality and complexities of African sexualities – desires, practices, fantasies, identities, taboos, abuses, violations, stigmas, transgressions and sanctions. At the same time, they pose gender-sensitive and politically aware questions that challenge the reader to interrogate assumptions and hegemonic sexuality discourses, thereby unmapping the intricate and complex terrain of African sexualities.
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Earth GrabThis three-part book 'pulls back the curtain on disturbing technological and corporate trends that are already reshaping our world and that will become crucial battlegrounds for civil society in the years ahead.' Vandana Shiva, Founder, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology 'Geopiracy' analyses how Northern governments and corporations are cynically using growing concerns about the ecological and climate crisis to propose geoengineering 'quick fixes'. These threaten to wreak havoc on ecosystems, with disastrous impacts on the people of the global South. As calls for a 'greener' economy mount and oil prices escalate, corporations are seeking to switch from oil-based to plant-based energy. 'The New Biomassters' exposes how a biomass economy based on using gene technologies to reprogramme living organisms to behave as microbial factories will facilitate the liquidation of ecosystems. This constitutes a devastating assault of the peoples and cultures of the South, accelerating the wave of land grabs that are becoming common in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 'Capturing Climate Genes' shows how the worlds largest agribusiness companies including Monsanto, BASF, Dupont and Syngenta are pouring billions of dollars into, and claiming patents on, what are claimed to be 'climate-ready crops'. Far from helping farmers adjust to a warming world – something peasant farmers already know how to manage – these crops will allow industrial agriculture to expand plantation monocultures into lands currently cultivated by poor peasant farmers. These crops are not a solution to growing hunger, they will feed only the gluttony of corporate shareholders for profits.
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African AwakeningThe tumultuous uprisings of citizens in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seized the attention of media analysts who have characterised these as 'Arab revolutions', a perspective given weight by popular demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere. However, what have been given less attention are the concurrent uprisings in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Western Sahara and Zimbabwe. The uprisings across Africa and in the Middle East, the book argues, are the result of common experiences of decades of declining living standards, mass unemployment, land dispossessions and impoverishment of the majority, while a few have engorged themselves with riches. Through incisive contributions from analysts and activists across the continent, the essays in African Awakening provide an overview of the struggle for democratisation which goes beyond calls merely for transparent electoral processes and constitutes a reawakening of the spirit of freedom and justice for the majority.
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From Citizen to RefugeeExpelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972, Mahmood Mamdani arrived in a cold and overcast London, Mamdani to join his compatriots in a camp run by the UK government's resettlement board. As he recounts: 'On the face of it, life in the camp, with its surface calm and order, presented a sharp and favourable contrast to the open terror of living in Uganda. But it was the Kensington camp, and not Amin’s Uganda, which was my first experience of what it would be like to live in a totalitarian society.’ In one of his first books, republished here with contemporary images, Mamdani begins to explore the theme of political identity – the colonial politicisation of racial identity and its reproduction after independence – which has been the subject of much of his subsequent work, notably the groundbreaking Citizen and Subject. With a new preface written especially for this edition. Mamdani also touches on his personal and intellectual journey since From Citizen to Refugee was first published. This gripping and highly readable story of the Asians’ last days in Uganda interweaves the stories of Mamdani’s friends and family with an examination of Uganda’s colonial history and the subsequent evolution of post-independence politics. The British colonial policy of divide and rule ensured that race coincided with class, effectively politicising the category of race. This vivid autobiographical account is as pertinent now as when the book was first published in 1973 in its telling of a story that will be familiar to refugees and those seeking asylum in Britain today.
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La vérité aux puissantsLa mort prémature du Dr Tadjudeen Abdul-Raheem, le jour de la commémoration de la libération de l'Afrique 2009, a frappé de stupeur le monde panafricain. Cette sélection de cartes postales panafricaines qu'il a écrites entre 2003 et 2009 montre quel brillant orfèvre des mots il fut, son engagement sans faille envers le panafricanisme, et sa détermination à dire la vérité aux puissants. Il fut un analyste clairvoyant des développements dans le monde global et panafricain, et avait une foi ardente dans le potentiel de l'Afrique et des Africains; il a écrit ses cartes postales pendant plus d'une décennie. Ce livre démontre la capacitlé de Tadjudeen Abdul-Raheem à exprimer des idées complexes d'une façon engageante. La philosophie panafricaine sur des thèmes variés mais transversaux présentée dans le livre offre un legs de sa pensée poltiuque, sociale et culturelle. On y trouve son respect fondamental des capacités, du potentiel et de la contribution des femmes à la transformation de l'Afrique; des vérités pénétrantes aux politiciens africains et sur leur conduite, et des réflexions sur les progrès accomplis par les institutions en vue de l'Union africaine. Il réfléchit sur la culture et met en exergue les points communs des peuples africains. Sont également représentées ses dénonciations des institutions financières internationales, du G8 et des ONG en Afrique, accompagnées d'une analyse incisive des manifestations de l'impérialisme et de son impact sur la vie des Africains, et sa passion pour l'élimination de la pauvreté en Afrique. Sa personalité rejaillit de la page - on entendrait presque sa voix passionnée disant: "Ne vous tourmentez pas! Organisez-vous!"
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The Crash of International Finance-Capital and its Implications for the Third World"The Crash of International Finance-Capital and its Implications for the Third World" was first published in 1989 in response to the financial crisis of 1987. Professor Nabudere’s analysis of the causes of that crisis has extraordinary parallels with the contemporary financial and economic meltdown that has caused panic in the west and devastated the lives of millions in the Third World. Nabudere traces the historical evolution of money and finance-capital and demonstrates the inevitability of periodic crashes of finance-capital. Although the first edition was published before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the analysis of the causes of the periodic crisis of capitalism is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago. In this second edition, Professor Nabudere provides an updated analysis of the crash of international financecapital of 2007–08 and draws out the likely implications for the Third World, a perspective that has received little attention elsewhere. This book is a damning critique of a system that has paid trillions of dollars to bail out international banks and financial institutions, the very institutions that were responsible for creating the crash, while the rest of humanity – especially the majority in the Third World – suffers its devastating consequences. Capitalism, Nabudere argues, has lost all moral and ethical claims to be a means for progress; it is, he believes, an indefensible system.
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My Dream is to be BoldFor nearly everyone in South Africa, 1994 was a time of hope. Women's struggles and organizing efforts meant women occupied positions of power. However, the truth today is that capitalist patriarchy is still intact and gross inequalities continue to divide and haunt women. Feminist Alternatives (FemAL) is a group of feminist activists in South Africa working against sexism and oppression. They are committed to helping unite the voices and actions of women in poor and working-class communities across national boundaries amd borders. This book is the fruit of their collective efforts and provides a unique insight into the lives and thinking of 19 South African-based activists who bring a feminist perspective to their work and daily lives. From differning vantage points they offer a critique of women's position in South Africa today and give new meaning to women's knowledge, analysis, vision and actions for change. They suggest that rights and freedoms for women are the litmus test of meaningful change, and assert that any notion of sustainable transformation must insist on radical ruptures with patriarchy.
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No Land! No House! No Vote!Many outside South Africa imagine that after Mandela was freed and the ANC won free elections all was well. But the last two decades have led to increased poverty and inequality. Although a few black South Africans have become wealthy, for many the struggle against apartheid never ended because the ethos of apartheid continues to live. Early in 2007 hundreds of families living in shacks in Cape Town were moved into houses they had been waiting for since the end of apartheid. But soon they were told that the move had been illegal and they were kicked out of their new homes. They built shacks next to the road opposite the housing project and hundreds organised themselves into the Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign, vowing to stay on the road until the government gave them permanent housing. This anthology is both testimony and poetry. There are stories of justice miscarried, of violence domestic and public, of bigotry and xenophobia. But amid the horror there is beauty: relationships between aunties, husbands, wives and children; daughters named Hope and Symphony. This book is a means to dignity, a way for the poor to reflect and be reflected. It is testimony that there's thinking in the shacks, that there are humans who dialogue, theorise and fight to bring about change. http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100888310
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Women and Security Governance in AfricaIn the field of international security, there is a tendency to relegate discussions on women and children to the margins. This book addresses a broader debate on security and its governance in a variety of contexts while arguing that human security cannot be achieved without placing women at the centre of this policy agenda. But this is not just a book about women. Rather it is about inclusive human security for Africans, which cannot ignore the central place of women.This book fills a gap in the growing field of gender and security. Its African-centred perspective – both analytically and through derivative experiences – builds a corpus of approaches that will shape future interventions, policy advocacy and programmatic methodologies.This book is aimed at policymakers, NGOs, development agencies, activists focusing on women’s rights, peace and security, as well as scholars in Africa, Europe and North America.
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SMS UprisingSMS Uprising provides a unique insight into how activists and social change advocates are addressing Africa’s many challenges from within, and how they are using mobile telephone technologies to facilitate these changes. This collection of essays by those engaged in using mobile phone technologies for social change provides an analysis of the socio-economic, political and media contexts faced by activists in Africa today. The essays address a broad range of issues including inequalities in access to technology based on gender, rural and urban usage, as well as offering practical examples of how activists are using mobile technology to organise and document their experiences. They provide an overview of the lessons learned in making effective use of mobile phone technologies without any of the romanticism so often associated with the use of new technologies for social change. The examples are shared in a way that makes them easy to replicate – ‘Try this idea in your campaign.’ The intention is that the experiences described within the book will lead to greater reflection about the real potential and limitations of mobile technologies. Edited by Nigerian activist Sokari Ekine, who runs the award-winning blog Black Looks, the book brings together some of the best known and experienced developers and users of mobile phone technologies in Africa, including Juliana Rotich from Ushahidi in Kenya, Ken Banks of kiwanja.net, and Berna Ngolobe of WOUGNET in Uganda.
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Speaking Truth to PowerDr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem’s untimely death on African Liberation Day 2009 stunned the Pan-African world. This selection of his Pan-African Postcards, written between 2003 and 2009, demonstrates the brilliant wordsmith he was, his steadfast commitment to Pan-Africanism and his determination to speak truth to power. He was a discerning analyst of developments in the global and Pan-African world and a vociferous believer in the potential of Africa and African people; he wrote his weekly postcards for over a decade. This book demonstrates Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem’s ability to express complex ideas in an engaging manner. The Pan-African philosophy on diverse but intersecting themes presented in this book offers a legacy of his political, social and cultural thought. Represented here are his fundamental respect for the capabilities, potential and contribution of women in transforming Africa; penetrating truths directed at African politicians and their conduct; and deliberations on the institutional progress towards African union. He reflects on culture and emphasises the commonalities of African people. Also represented are his denunciations of international financial institutions, the G8 and NGOs in Africa, with incisive analysis of imperialism’s manifestations and impact on the lives of African people, and his passion for eliminating poverty in Africa. His personality bounces off the page – one can almost hear the passion of his voice: ‘Don’t agonise! Organise!’
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Global HistoryResponding to the need to take a fresh look at world history, hitherto dominated by Eurocentric ideologues and historians in their attempt to justify the nature and character of modern capitalism, Samir Amin looks in this book at the ancient world system and how it has influenced the development of the modern world. He also analyses the origin and nature of modern globalisation and the challenges it presents in achieving socialism. Amin examines the role played by Central Asia in determining the course of world history as well as the different roads taken by Europe and China. The book looks closely at a theme that has been primordial to his contribution to political and economic thought: the question of unequal development. This is a refreshing and creative work that is necessary reading for anyone wanting to understand the real process of history.
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Where is Uhuru?The neoliberal project, led by the IMF and World Bank, promised to correct many of the distortions in the African postcolonial environment. It pledged to engineer liberalisation and expand democratic space through competitive multiparty elections. For a people who had suffered years of statism, these promises were persuasive. Indeed, they accorded this project a level of legitimacy it otherwise would not have enjoyed. However, several decades down the line, Issa G. Shivji aptly asks, Where is Uhuru? Few people, if any, can testify to the success of the envisaged reforms. Instead, neoliberalism failed to guarantee a sustainable basis for freedom, rights and prosperity. These essays show that the reform period opened the continent to greater privation by a more emboldened local political class who, under pressure from or by acquiescing to foreign imperialist forces, undermined the struggles for democratic transformation and economic empowerment. Whether one is examining the rewards of multiparty politics, the dividends from a new constitutional dispensation, the processes of land reform, women’s rights to property, or the Pan-Africanist project for emancipation, Shivji illustrates how all these have suffered severe body blows. Shivji not only calls for a new, Africa-centred line of thinking that is unapologetic of the continent’s right to self-determination, but through these essays sets out examples of how such thinking should proceed.
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Silences in NGO DiscourseThe distinguished scholar presents perspectives on the historical, political and philosophical contexts that govern the evolution and place of NGOs in Africa today. In two extensive essays, he argues the role of NGOs in Africa cannot be understood without clear characterisation of the current historical moment: that to ‘make poverty history’ we must first ‘understand the history of poverty’ and ‘make imperialism history’. Shivji argues that despite some good intentions, NGOs have uncritically situated themselves within neoliberal and donor-driven discourses. Issa G. Shivji is one of Africa’s most radical and original thinkers. He has written several books, including the seminal Concept of Human Rights in Africa (1989) and, more recently, Let the People Speak: Tanzania down the road to neoliberalism (2006).
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Reclaiming African HistoryAfrican history has too long been held hostage to European and US historical intellectual frameworks, argues Jacques Depelchin. In this collection of essays from the award-winning website and newsletter Pambazuka News and the Ota Benga Alliance, Depelchin seeks to break that mould. To understand African history requires, he argues, questioning the politically motivated and ideologically dominant discourse about Africa as well as contending with the murderous and bloody impact that capitalism has had on its people – from slavery, colonisation, mass killings and genocide, to the hegemony of international financial institutions dominating the continent. Depelchin challenges global citizens to reconnect poor and dispossessed people across the world, both historically and in the present day, the people who have been forced to look at their own histories through a shattered mirror, deliberately and forcefully crushed so as to render the exercise impossible. These essays – on healing humanity, Haiti, Brazil, South Africa, DR Congo, the food crisis and the genocidal drive of capitalism – testify to the fact that the organic intellectual in Africa or of Africa has to make the choice. The choice is either to continue to perpetuate the silencing of Africa and Africans, by only researching and publishing what is acceptable to the powers that be in academia and the ruling establishments generally, or making a choice in favour of liberation scholarship.