The Mantle Of Struggle

A little-known figure in Canadian radical Black politics in the 1960s and 1970s: Rosie Douglas.

Rosie Douglas, former prime minister of Dominica, had a life unlike any other modern politician. After leaving home to study agriculture in Canada, he became a member of the young Conservatives, under the Canadian prime minister’s guidance. However, after he moved to Montreal to study political science his politics started to shift. By the late sixties he was an active civil rights supporter and when Black students in Montreal began to protest racism in 1969, he helped lead the sit-in. He was identified as a protest ringleader after the peaceful protest turned into a police riot, and served 18 months in prison. After his deportation from Canada in 1976, having been named a danger to national security, Douglas participated in political movements around the world building global solidarity. He became a leader of the Libyan-based revolutionary group World Mathaba and supported Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. Once back home in Dominica, he led the movement for Dominica’s full political independence from Great Britain, then served as a senator in the post-independence government, an MP, party leader, and finally prime minister. Relying on family sources, interviews, newspaper articles, government documents, and Douglas’ own articles, letters, and speeches, Irving Andre has drawn a rich and riveting record of this important Black revolutionary.

This work examines both the emergence of African literature and its institutionalization within nationalist African academies. Amoko analyzes the relationship between such institutions of literature and the processes of nationalist legitimization and between colonial and postcolonial school cultures and national cultures.

Judith Merril was a pioneer of twentieth-century science fiction, a prolific author, and editor. She was also a passionate social and political activist. In fact, her life was a constant adventure within the alternative and experimental worlds of science fiction, left politics, and Canadian literature. Better to Have Loved is illustrated with original art works, covers from classic science fiction magazines, period illustrations, and striking photography.

Revolutionaries, counter-revolutionaries, and reformers the world over appeal to democracy to justify their actions. But when political factions compete over the right to act in "the people's" name, who is to decide? Although the problem is as old as the great revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, events from the Arab Spring to secession referendums suggest that today it is hardly any closer to being solved. This book defends a new theory of democratic legitimacy and change that provides an answer. Christopher Meckstroth shows why familiar views that identify democracy with timeless principles or institutions fall into paradox when asked to make sense of democratic founding and change. Solving the problem, he argues, requires shifting focus to the historical conditions under which citizens work out what it will mean to govern themselves in a democratic way. The only way of sorting out disputes without faith in progress is to show, in Socratic fashion, that some parties' claims to speak for "the people" cannot hold up even on their own terms. Meckstroth builds his argument on provocative and closely-argued interpretations of Plato, Kant, and Hegel, suggesting that familiar views of them as foundationalist metaphysicians misunderstand their debt to a method of radical doubt pioneered by Socrates. Recovering this tradition of antifoundational argument requires rethinking the place of German idealism in the history of political thought and opens new directions for contemporary democratic theory. The historical and Socratic theory of democracy the book defends makes possible an entirely new way of approaching struggles over contested notions of progress, popular sovereignty, political judgment and democratic change.

The book examines several models which have been advocated for a workable and acceptable solution to the Kurdish problem which would be absolutely necessary for stability in the West Asian region. The book evaluates how the more than two-decade long experience of Kurdish self-rule in a democratic framework in Iraqi Kurdistan affects the debate over the other Kurdish regions in West Asia. With Turkey’s European Union accession process contributing to the opening of the political space to ethno-nationalism, there is a need for a non-military solution to the Kurdish issue. The book analyses the role of Kurdish diaspora which plays a significant part in placing the Kurdish question on the European political agenda. It also examines the role of the Kurds in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the changing geopolitics in the region. Now, the Kurds maintain the strongest platform in battling against the ISIS terrorists.

In the 1930s and 1940s the early roots of the Chicano Movement took shape. Activists like Jesús Cruz, and later Ralph Cuarón, sought justice for miserable working conditions and the poor treatment of Mexican Americans and immigrants through protests and sit-ins. Lesser known is the influence that Communism and socialism had on the early roots of the Chicano Movement, a legacy that continues today. Examining the role of Mexican American working-class and radical labor activism in American history, Enrique M. Buelna focuses on the work of the radical Left, particularly the Communist Party (CP) USA. Buelna delves into the experiences of Cuarón, in particular, as well as those of his family. He writes about the family’s migration from Mexico; work in the mines in Morenci, Arizona; move to Los Angeles during the Great Depression; service in World War II; and experiences during the Cold War as a background to exploring the experiences of many Mexican Americans during this time period. The author follows the thread of radical activism and the depth of its influence on Mexican Americans struggling to achieve social justice and equality. The legacy of Cuarón and his comrades is significant to the Chicano Movement and in understanding the development of the labor and civil rights movements in the United States. Their contributions, in particular during the 1960s and 1970s, informed a new generation to demand an end to the Vietnam War and to expose educational inequality, poverty, civil rights abuses, and police brutality.

How do I find greater wholeness in my life and in my family's life? "To appreciate the importance of the Bible and gain insight about ourselves from it, both Jews and Christians can use the process of midrash: The attempt to find contemporary meaning in the biblical text. The term midrash comes from the Hebrew root darash which means to seek, search, or demand (meaning from the biblical text). The starting point of our search for personal meaning is the Bible itself.... Each generation, each reader, can approach the text anew and draw meaning from it." --from Self, Struggle & Change The stress of late-20th-century living only brings new variations to timeless personal struggles. The people described by the biblical writers of Genesis were in situations and relationships very much like our own, and their stories still speak to us because they are about the same basic problems we deal with every day. Learning from Adam and Eve, can we find the courage not only to face our other side, but to draw strength from it? Learning from Leah and Rachel, can we stop competing with our loved ones, and begin to accept them and find ourselves? Sarah, Hagar, Lot, Ishmael and Isaac, Rebekkah, Joseph and his brothers, Jacob and Esau...this vibrant cast of characters offers us new ways of understanding ourselves and our families and healing our lives. A modern master of biblical interpretation brings us greater understanding of the ancient biblical text, and of the insights its characters give us about ourselves and our families today. By bringing the people in Genesis to life--husbands and wives, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters-- Self, Struggle & Change shows us how to find wholeness in our lives.