Communities of Resistance

‘There is no socialism after liberation, socialism is the process through which liberation is won.’ Each of the essays in Communities of Resistance acts as a critical reaffirmation of socialist politics as the context for questions of race and resistance.

The left itself is under scrutiny here—from a black perspective. A series of powerful interventions covers many of the issues which have confronted radical politics in the 1980s: inner-city uprisings, the demand for black sections in the Labour Party, local government anti-racism, the move to a common European market. This collection included incisive critiques of contemporary Marxism (‘All that Melts into Air is Solid: The Hokum of “New Times” ’), of post-colonial development, and of the Eurocentric assessment of imperialism.“You can agree or not agree with Sivanandan (I agree nearly all the time) but what you certainly can’t ignore is the voice with which he writes. It has the warmth of the passion of those who know they will never live to wield power, and the clarity of a demand for justice that cannot be silenced. His is a voice that relays the voices of the poor, the salt of the earth and the proud. The colour of his voice cannot be dismissed. Its unique tone carries a reminder of what wealth inevitably loses, of what power based upon injustice fears. Read, listen …”
—John BergerA. Sivanandan is director of the Institute of Race Relations in London, editor of the journal Race and Class and author of A Different Hunger.