Rights of Man [abridged]

This book (available as a free .pdf on that link) is a 1792 pamphlet by Thomas Paine, or at least a substantive squashed version of the same edited by Glyn Hughes (the original text is 90,000 words, he makes it 7,200ish). As Paine's reputation and its year of publication suggest it is chiefly concerned with the political fallout across Europe of the French revolution.

   Part one opens with a dedication of the work to George Washington; so far so good, I guess. He then dives straight into a no-holds-barred critique of Edmund Burke's reactionary take on the whole affair - defending the revolutionary French Constitution, with support from a restatement of his view on the unhelpfulness and illegitimacy of all hereditary power. Next he copies out the seventeen articles of the universal rights of man as enshrined in aforementioned French Constitution: these aren't as comprehensive as those we currently have under the United Nations, but one can see clearly that for the time they were invoked they were true game-changers in civil and political liberty. He concludes this first part with a prolonged case for liberal, internationalist, democratic values being the chief product and essential safeguard of public Reason; writing "my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

   Part two opens with a brief letter to one M. de la Fayette. He goes on to praise the American revolution and its core values as an example to all nations. Then follow several chapters on society and government; these are delightfully anarchistic, with Paine dropping bangers like "the more perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it for government" and "it is impossible that such governments as have hitherto existed in the world, could have commenced by any other means than a total violation of every principle sacred and moral." Based as fuck. Next he discusses the nature and purpose of constitutions - which, he says, is nothing more than to concretize and safeguard the true purpose of governments, which is to promote the common good. In his ensuing internationalist ramble there is a possible prophesy of the EU: "for what we can foresee, all Europe may form but one great Republic, and man be free of the whole." I have no surety which side he would have landed on but I know Thomas Paine would have had a great deal to say about Brexit if he were still kicking about. The final chapter is a heartfelt polemic for the need of reform in the taxation system, with the derived benefits going to support the poor. And in his concluding paragraphs there are a couple of sentiments that undeniably pre-echo the writings of Marx and Engels half a century later - he says "the iron is becoming hot all over" and closes on the lovely image that "it is... not difficult to perceive that the spring is begun".

   Overall this is a punchy little pamphlet. Okay, maybe too little as I could have stood to read the full version, but I feel Hughes's editing made a good job that this felt like a complete set of well-put ideas rather than a Sparknotes summary. Anyone interested in the political history of the modern west should at least give this a once-over - it's one of the most controversial and influential texts in aforesaid history and so cannot be ignored, and many of its arguments still hold water as things that we need to pay close heed to today.

Common Sense

This book (available from that link as a free .pdf file) is a 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine, and it is no understatement to say that it's probably one of the most influential and important texts in the history of the modern west. Britain and its north American colonies were fighting a breakup war at the time, and Paine threw his weight into the ring of public discourse with the profoundly optimistic statement that "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." He was an ardent advocate of democratic, egalitarian freedom, and as such a key figure for the ideological discussion around the Great Experiment of American society.*

   He begins with a cogent socio-political definitional outline of the nature and necessity of government, arguing that reason leads us to claim representative democracy as the most stable and reliable way to preserve moral value. Next he launches into a scathing critique of the British constitution, as complex and vague as it is, with specific vitriol reserved for the monarchy and hereditary power, which he argues are not only immoral** but impractical and inefficient. What follows is a pragmatic and passionate defence of the case for American independence; a profound strength of internationalist cosmopolitanism*** pervades these passages in ways that often feel far too modern to be from the 18th century. He completely destroys the morally bankrupt commonplace British objections to America's desire to be free of its "mother nation" - as what kind of good mother wages war against her children who wish to fly the nest? An interesting side point here is that he claims it a fact of divine providence that America was discovered by Europeans just when it was, as it provided a perfect new home of promise and plenty to the many tens of thousands of refugees generated in the decades following the Reformation. In his closing passages he considers the necessity and opportunity of America developing its as-then-yet infant naval forces. Finally there is an appendix, added for the third circulation of this most-inflammatory pamphlet, in which he full-on attacks a recent statement by the King on the American situation, and restates the urgency and human potential of the experiment trying to take shape across the Atlantic. In one of his final lines he sentimentally declares, "let each of us hold out to his neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension" - which strikes me as just as politically ideal as authentically Christian.

   Ultimately this is a text that you will recognise as being as rightly controversial as it was at the time if you have even the smallest grasp of its historical context - but its dogged and clearly-put rhetoric about self-determination and moral government is just as relevant today as it was then. Well worth a read for anyone interested in western history and timeless politics.

* I dread to think what he would've made of the state of things 250 years later.

** His points herein are unexpectedly biblically grounded (he describes the divine right of kings as "the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry"), and robustly supported by cursory glances at the history of these institutions.

*** On not only nationality but creed too; he writes "I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us".

the Art of Disruption

This book, part autobiographical reflection and part political manifesto, is the first book by Magid Magid, who frequently made global headlines* when he was Sheffield's Lord Mayor a couple of years ago.**

   In it, Magid develops the "ten commandments of Sheffield", a sequence of generally agreeable but radical in intentionality diktats rooted in his ethical thinking (originally put together as a poster for Tramlines, then kind of just started circulating around activist and youth circles of their own volition). These are as follows:

1. Be kind
2. Don't be a prick
3. Do epic shit
4. See the good
5. Don't lose hope
6. Do it differently
7. Always buy your round
8. Don't kiss a Tory
9. Tell your ma you love her
10. You've got this!

   Obviously there is a lot of wiggle-room in the actual applicability of these principles, but as guidelines for personal conduct and attitude I think they're a solid contribution to the discourse on how we should behave in relation to politics and society in the 21st century. Magid's book is not so much an argumentative justification for these commandments, nor speculations as to how they may be enacted - it's more a process of thinking through the values underlying them and looking at how everyone can grasp and engage with such principles in their own life contexts. It's not so much a true manifesto then as it is an inspirational primer to show people how and why they should care about positive liberty and the common good; an affirmation that we can change things. All of this is rooted in Magid's discussion of where/when these values have prompted developments in his own life, which has been a vibrant one to say the least - Sheffield's first Muslim/black Lord Mayor, his experiences growing up as a refugee, his dalliances with international media furores, and his election as a Yorkshire & Humber MEP during the whole Brexit debacle - man's had some interesting grit in his life.

   The prose is not particularly dazzling, but I kind of liked that - it almost hardly feels like reading a book, it's so casual and conversational, and therefore extremely easy to read. I finished it in two or three sittings. You really get a feel of Magid's personality and passion through the course of the ten chapters (one for each commandment obvs) and for this reason alone I would recommend this book - for if everyone in the world had someone like Magid in their life, democratic societies would be immeasurably healthier and happier. I wouldn't call this a must-read, but it's a provocative and heartwarming take on and against the cynical culture of our day, and there are anecdotes and wisdom-bits in there that could genuinely propel the apathetic into active sociopolitical concern. Not that he specifically needs it for that reason but I've decided to give this book to my eldest brother as I think he'll resonate strongly with the ethos at the core of the book, which is no singular monolithic ideology, but rather an open-minded personal quest for truth and justice - and that is what we should hope to expect from all our legislating representatives.***

* Perhaps most notoriously for calling Donald Trump a "wasteman" & subsequently (and hilariously) banning the then-President from Sheffield.

** Not to name-drop or owt but I met the guy a few times. Truly lovely chap.

*** I'm really hoping he gets the Green Party nomination for Sheffield Central in the 2024 general election, as Magid has enormous name-recognition value among the youth - here's me crossing my fingers that despite his last elected role (as MEP) falling apart in the ruins of Brexit he gets a chance to shine in Parliament proper.

Guerrilla Warfare

This book - well, closer to a textbook really - by Ernesto Che Guevara, is the book about how to do guerrilla warfare. I mean, it's in the title. And its credentials are borne out by the reputation of its author, I would hope. Unlike the last book I read about how to do war well, this one is less full of mystical apothegms and more full of profoundly practical advice - stuff along the lines of:

• How to build a windproof bivouac shield for a campfire: here's a diagram
• Ideal places to take cover in an open bushy field
• Ideal places to take cover in a wooded hillside
• Ideal places for fireteams to cover each other moving through town streets
• Make sure you're kind to the local peasants; never steal from them, always pay them back for food and shelter when you can - and obviously never sexually abuse them or we will execute you as a traitor to the revolution
• Ensure you are familiar with revolutionary dogma in simple language so you can share it with any disenchanted locals we might befriend
• Steal every single bit of ammo from every single enemy that we kill, they have more of it than us
• Don't try and fight that tank you moron
• See that dug-in bunker? This (see diagram) is the angle you need to throw a grenade
• Develop simplistic hand-signals for silent communications when on covert action
• If you're a sniper move after every shot - obviously
• A disarmed and disoriented enemy is better for us than a dead enemy if we're behind their lines
• Get used to sleeping in mad, horrible places
• Keep moving
• Keep believing
• Keep your shoes empty, there are spiders
• Etc

   All sounds rather helpful if you're a minority force trying to overthrow an incumbent government, doesn't it? I will admit I currently have no violent revolutionary intentions - I was reading this to see if I could metaphorically derive any sociocultural tactics for making my spoken-word night (which is literally called Guerrilla) more impactful and authentic. Which is probably one of the faffiest reasons for reading this book anyone's ever had. But I still enjoyed it and learned a lot, and feel a tad more prepared if I ever do need to take up arms against the Tories some day. Which, you never know. But seriously - my list above may have taken a bit of a light-hearted slant towards the end, but I can't summate all the practical wisdom contained in this book in one blogpost - even though it's a short book, Che packs a lot in. As you would expect, from someone who took over Cuba with nothing but two notepads and an AK47.

Realist Manifesto

This text by Naum Gabo is as it says on the tin; a potently concise and polemically clear statement of the philosophy of a school of artistic performance/criticism - that of realism. Certainly a thought-provoking read should anyone be interested in that kind of thing; I read the text initially live at the Tate in St Ives.

100% unofficial Jeremy Corbyn annual 2019

This book was a Christmas present last year from my youngest brother. I don't think he's read it. As its title suggests, this is a kids-style hardback annual book chock-full of puzzles and trivia and exactly the kind of funny, weird graphics you wouldn't expect your eight-year-olds to be getting Marxist-propaganda'd by the Ultimate Boy from. Of course, I am also writing this after the December of the year which the annual was for and so it comes with an added, six-foot-deep skin of painful nostalgic irony. Maybe next time...

Feminism for the 99%

This book is a manifesto by Cinzia Arruzza, Nancy Fraser and Tithi Bhattacharya - and I'm going to be honest, I think if the ideas contained herein got popular traction it could have the kind of impact in the twenty-first century that Marx & Engels' Communist one had on the nineteenth/twentieth - albeit, given the nature of the internal cohesive integrity and built-in safeguards that such a well-developed feminism comes with, I'd hazard it may do so with massively lower risk of spilling out into less-than-ideal post-revolutionary autocratic orders.

   Alongside the postscript chapter which explores the co-current crises of capitalism, ecological sustainability, and heteropatriarchal normativity - and lays out some really helpful pointers for how our ongoing efforts for global lasting justice & peace must involve reimaginings of these things as well as the socioeconomic means of reproduction; the book is comprised of eleven straightforward theses:

1. A new feminist wave is reinventing the strike
2. Liberal feminism is over - it's time to get over it
3. we need an anticapitalist feminism - for the 99%
4. What we are living through is a crisis of society as a whole - with capitalism at its root
5. Gender oppression in capitalist societies is rooted in the subordination of social reproduction to production for profit - this needs turning back the right way up
6. Gendered violence takes many forms - all of them entangled with capitalist social relations. We vow to fight them all
7. Capitalism tries to regulate sexuality - we want to liberate it
8. Capitalism was born from racist & colonial violence - feminism for the 99% is anti-racist and anti-imperialist
9. Fighting to reverse capitalism's destruction of the Earth - feminism for the 99% is eco-socialist
10. Capitalism is incompatible with real freedom & peace - our answer is feminist internationalism
11. Feminism for the 99% calls on all radical movements to join together in a common anticapitalist insurgency

   Pretty radical no?

   I found the arguments and evidence laid out as they were herein mapped extremely congruently onto my current thinking, so it's likely that if you're a sympathetic/regular reader here you will too - certainly a book to be digested and thrown [with generous accuracy and a context-apt gentleness] at Marxists, liberal feminists, those rare but pesky anarchists who aren't also anti-racists & radical feminists, etc.

the Roadmap to Negotiations

This book, the third volume of prison writings* by Abdullah Öcalan, was produced as a negotiation document between himself and the Turkish state's military intelligence tasked with talking through ceasefire options with him. It comprises a concise explanation of his ideological system (see other posts about his books) couched in a critical discussion of the history of Turkey's (admittedly very patchy) democratization, and thus generates proactive and reasonable compromises for the Kurdish question in Turkey in the context of the PKK's shifting away from militant separatism toward grassroots autonomy.

   Unlike the majority of other dissertation research books I've done minimal posts for, this one wasn't from the university libraries - I found a super cheap copy at the last anarchist book fair in Sheffield, and have only just noticed having held it at a funny angle against a sunbeam that there is the imprint of some biro writing on the front cover from where someone (a previous owner?) had written an address in Leeds: this is almost certainly meaningless but I like noticing little details like that on books.

   For some reason (and yes I am sure of this I've just tried fixing it like nine times) this post is refusing to justify its text body, which is annoying, but I'm assuming you don't mind having a jiggly-edged paragraph for just one post. For some even more inscrutable reason, this very paragraph has now decided that it is going to justify the text body anyway! Urgh. I don't know.

* He has been in solitary imprisonment on Imrali, an island just off the Turkish coast, since 1999, for being the founder and leader of the PKK - while there, he has written extensively trying to change the wider dialogue around the Kurdish struggle away from separatism toward democratization and peaceful compromise.

the PKK and the Kurdish Question in the 21st Century

This book, the second volume of prison writings* by Abdullah Öcalan, is probably (given its author's personal experience at the origin and around the centre of developments) the best book one could read to learn about the PKK in broader geopolitical, social, and historical context. It introduces the theoretical frameworks of Öcalan's ideas clearly, then tracing a cogent and clear overview of how existing dynamic power structures originated in ancient societies (from the Neolithic up to capitalist nationalism), and also presents his ideology of 'democratic confederalism' as a cohesive response to the historical critique: the arguments he makes are interesting, if not compelling, certainly moreso in light of adherents of Öcalan's ideas working to implement them in Turkey and Syria - and these practical activities are the core focus ultimately, as the rethinking of the PKK could never be merely academic, as the PKK existed as an organisation at war with the Turkish state: its rethinking was a pragmatic as well as moral decision to reformulate strategy to best and most peaceably work toward a resolution to the Kurdish question in Turkey, which (on their side, at least - Turkey still seems happy violently suppressing the crap out of pretty much every Kurdish political organisation, PKK-affiliated or not) is an enormously positive step. Most interesting from this book I think though are Öcalan's first-hand accounts of several major events and developments - these obviously include the international plots surrounding his abduction and illegitimate trial, but also go into relatively detailed discussion of how the PKK suffered severe internal power struggles, from loss of control over tribalist and ethnonationalist elements prevalent among its large and disparate militant body, which corrupted its liberation mission and saw leaders exploiting their positions to effectively conduct organised crime or petty warlording - which exacerbated militant and civilian death rates and attracted enormous military reactions from the Turkish state; conspiracies and fear dominated the party's leadership in those years as betrayals, subversions, infiltrations by the authorities, and such, came to swamp Öcalan's day-to-day concerns while the PKK itself devolved into a disorganised terrorist gang. Interestingly this seems to have changed a great deal for the better since his imprisonment, as the programme of democratization as opposed to separatist struggle came increasingly to characterise the wider party's leadership and was heavily promoted among the guerrillas too. If you read one book about the Kurdish question, it should probably be this one.

* He has been in solitary imprisonment on Imrali, an island just off the Turkish coast, since 1999, for being the founder and leader of the PKK - while there, he has written extensively trying to change the wider dialogue around the Kurdish struggle away from separatism toward democratization and peaceful compromise.

Democratic Confederalism

This book (available from that link as a free pdf, how good is that) by Abdullah Öcalan is an outline of the core of his political philosophy - essentially the development of post-nationalist democratic structures that do not seek to overthrow or secede from existing states but to operate with complete autonomy to provide security and liberty for those living within their bounds. It has yielded some pretty interesting results in Syria. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested in sociopolitical options of pursuing peace in the Middle East, or generally revolutionary pragmatic ideas.

Consensus Handbook

This book, the handbook for consensus decision-making published by Seeds for Change, the group who run training workshops about all that jazz, is literally what it says on the tin. I don't really have any substantive thoughts of my own on it - it's just a really helpful book for anyone engaged in community-level organisation or activism, or any group that could potentially benefit from making decisions using consensus (could be interesting for groups of church leaders/elders - whole congregations even maybe). As such, if you're currently involved in a group that makes decisions and you feel that that group's method of making decisions often doesn't take full account of everyone's viewpoints or concerns, and would be open to investigating a super-democratic super-inclusive surprisingly-streamlined method of decision-making that is great for effective solutions and group cohesion (speaking from experience as someone who's been part of a couple of groups that use consensus decision-making for over two years), check consensus out. The whole book is available for free as a .pdf from the link at the head of this post.

   It walks through, in helpful terms and constantly setting its principles in the context of its values, how to do consensus decision-making, how to facilitate meetings using it, techniques and activities that can be helpful in consensus-facilitated meetings, and common troubleshooting problems that may arise when trying to make decisions or run meetings by consensus. (if you've got this far through the paragraph and you don't know what consensus decision-making is, I'm not going to bother to explain it, click here.) There's a fairly thought-provoking chapter at the end too about some of the problems we have in the lack of democratic decision-making in wider society, and how community organisers starting to favour consensus plays a role in slowly changing that.

the Green Party manifesto

Okay, so this isn't technically a book, but it's long enough and interesting enough and important enough that I'm going to do a post about it anyway. The full document, outlining and explaining the Green Party's policies for the UK's general election of earlier this month, is freely available here as an 84-page pdf file. As an avid supporter of the party, I'd accrued a strong familiarity with their policymaking intentions, and I already had a substantial overlap between the visions and values underpinning them and the relevant aspects of my worldview. Of all the prominent parties in the UK the Greens alone are presenting concrete steps toward a complete philosophical overhaul of our broken system, showing the roads we might take to an alternative future for the way we construct our society and economy. I know it's a bit late to persuade anyone to vote for them now, since the predictable bunch of established interests held and even expanded their powerful grip on our unfortunate society. But today I'm having the weekend off uni work (following a horrific exam on Friday) and was feeling glum about the state of current events so I reread the manifesto in its entirety to remind me of some of the things I believe can and should be done, and the reasons why. I'm not going to list them or even overview them here. There's a link to the full manifesto above, go give it a read if you, like me, are disillusioned with the 'main parties'.
   Political engagement is an act of freedom, an act of collective hope and progressive change. Environmental and international global peace is achievable, sustainable economic prosperity for all is achievable, social liberty that empowers and includes everyone is achievable. But we need to start voting for it, and we also need to push for the way we vote to change (check out the Electoral Reform Society, who do some great prominent campaigns to this end), and most importantly we need to realise that democracy is more than just voting. To be an active citizen is to be an activist; organise, educate, mobilise, protest, be involved in problem-solving and reproaching our leaders, we must as a society learn how to create and maintain stable communities, to challenge oppression of all kinds, to run markets and institutions in ways that benefit the most people rather than a few and without ruining the planet, we must be willing to learn new ways of thinking about and doing things and ready to implement them. And yes, this model of being an active citizen sounds like a lot of work, because unfortunately it is. Society is thoroughly messed up and since democracy is (ostensibly) the best form of government it falls to all of us together to try and get it back on track. But this transition is doable. Many are held back by selfishness, laziness, short-sightedness, or most commonly, the pressures of their own place in this broken world, from properly engaging with the struggle for justice. You probably won't agree with everything in the Green Party manifesto (even I don't) but you may agree with enough of their analysis of the wrongs of the world and the need to right them, and to do this, we need the widespread and active support and engagement of people, and giving that to humanity is far more important than giving your vote to any particular party.*


* Although the Green Party's policy aims make it the most consistent with the general struggle for justice, and so as an activist I do still urge you to support them.