Leo Zeilig – författare

While the revolutionary leftist movements of the 1960s and '70s in Europe, the United States and Latin America have been the subject of abundant literature, similar movements that emerged in Africa have received comparatively very little attention. This book sheds new light on these political movements.Africa's left were extremely active in these years. With pro-Soviet movements, Maoism, Trotskyism, Guevarism, Pan-Africanism and the Black Panthers, the rumble of revolution was felt across the continent. From feminist student rebels in Nigeria to pro-democracy moments in Liberia, the exciting and complex interplay between these many actors changed Africa forever.Can we see echoes of these movements in African politics today? What can we learn from the people who lived through these decades? This unique collection will open the eyes of leftists across the world who will find new and important insights into an important chapter in global history.

Frantz Fanon was one of the twentieth-century's most influential theorists and activists, whose work fighting against colonialism and imperialism has been an inspiration to today's decolonization and anti-racism movements. As the author of essential texts such as The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks, his impact on today's activists - from Rhodes Must Fall to Black Lives Matter - is indelible. Leo Zeilig here details the fascinating life of Fanon - from his upbringing in Martinique to his wartime experiences and work in Europe and North Africa - and frames his ideas and activism within the greater context of his career as a practising psychiatrist and his politically tumultuous surroundings. The book covers the period of the Algerian War of Independence, national liberation and what Fanon described as 'the curse of independence'. Highlighting Fanon's role as the most influential theorist of anti-colonialism and racial liberation, this book is an essential read for those interested in the roots of the modern day anti-racism and decolonization movements.

A groundbreaking analysis examining the gains, contradictions and frustrations of 21st century pre-democracy struggles across Southern Africa.

A leading light of the anti-colonial revolts of the 1960s and '70s, Frantz Fanon also prophetically explored the dangers of post-colonial power. Voices of Liberation: Frantz Fanon is a rich exploration of Fanon's life and times, combining interviews with those who fought alongside him with selections from his work. This book gives and giving new insight into the extraordinary life and ideas of one of the twentieth century's most important revolutionaries.Leo Zeilig is a lecturer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London; Senior Visiting Fellow, South African Research Chair in Social Change; Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg; and editor of Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa.Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France is the president of the Frantz Fanon Foundation and the daughter of Frantz Fanon.

Walter Rodney was a scholar, working class militant, and revolutionary from Guyana. Strongly influenced by Marxist ideas, he remains central to radical Pan-Africanist thought for large numbers of activists’ today. Rodney lived through the failed –though immensely hopeful -socialist experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, in Tanzania and elsewhere.The book critically considers Rodney's contribution to Marxist theory and history, his relationship to dependency theory and the contemporary significance of his work in the context of movements and politics today. The first full-length study of Rodney’s life, this book is an essential introduction to Rodney's work.

Walter Rodney was a scholar, working class militant, and revolutionary from Guyana. Strongly influenced by Marxist ideas, he remains central to radical Pan-Africanist thought for large numbers of activists’ today. Rodney lived through the failed –though immensely hopeful -socialist experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, in Tanzania and elsewhere.The book critically considers Rodney's contribution to Marxist theory and history, his relationship to dependency theory and the contemporary significance of his work in the context of movements and politics today. The first full-length study of Rodney’s life, this book is an essential introduction to Rodney's work.

The evolution of student activism in sub-Saharan Africa is crucial to understanding the process of democratic struggle and change in Africa. Focusing on the recent period of 'democratic transitions' in the 1990s, Leo Zeilig discusses the widespread involvement of student activism in democratic struggles across contemporary Africa and focuses on two case studies, Senegal and Zimbabwe. He provides an historical examination of the student-intelligentsia on the continent that played a crucial role in the independence struggles across much of Africa, leading and organising nationalist movements and outlines the development of grass-root activism. Zeilig demonstrates how students shape and are shaped by national processes of political change and popular protest and reveals both the continuities and transformations in student activism in an era of austerity, crisis and poverty.

Since well before Henry Morgan Stanley's fabled encounter with David Livingstone on the shore on Lake Tanganyika in the late 19th century and his subsequent collaboration with King Leopold of Belgium in looting the country of its mineral wealth, the Congo's history has been one of collaboration by a minority with, and struggle by the majority against, Western intervention.Before the colonial period, there were military struggles against annexation. During Belgian rule, charismatic religious figures emerged, promising an end to white domination; copper miners struck for higher wages; and rural workers struggled for survival. During the second half of the 20th century, the Congo's efforts at disentanglement from Belgian rule, the murder of the nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba and the long dictatorship of General Mobutu culminated in one of the bloodiest wars the world has ever seen.At the start of a new millennium, this book argues that the West has plundered Africa to its own advantage and that unrestrained global capitalism threatens to remake the entire world, bringing violence and destruction in the name of profit. In this radical history, the authors show not only how the Congo represents and symbolises the continent's long history of subordination, but also how the determined struggle of its people has continued, against the odds, to provide the Congo and the rest of Africa with real hope for the future.

An Ounce of Practice is a richly populated and original novel about the toll of fighting wholeheartedly for a political cause.Viktor is angry about the injustices he sees around him. Railing against social, racial and economic inequalities, he is obsessed with radical ideas which he believes would make the world a fairer place. Living in a hotbed of revolutionary thinking where friends and lovers spur him on, as his family life disintegrates, he decides to travel to Zimbabwe to put his ideals into practice. However, it is more difficult and dangerous than he imagines.

Patrice Lumumba had been prime minister of the newly liberated Congo for only seven months at the time of his assassination in 1961. As news of his execution spread, his image was brandished in demonstrations around the world along with those of Che Guevara and Mao Zedong. He would go on to become an icon of anti-imperialist struggle and perhaps the most famous leader of the African independence movement. Lumumba’s life and the freedom that he sought for the Congo exposed ongoing Western colonialism and the problematic nature of the independence granted to huge swathes of the globe after 1945.Leo Zeilig’s concise, direct biography tells the story of the Congo in the dying days of colonialism; of Lumumba’s transition from nationalist, to revolutionary, to international symbol of African liberation; and of the role of Western powers in his murder.

Employing Marxist theory to address the postcolonial problems of several different countries, experts analyse such issues as the renewal of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt, debt relief, trade union movements and strike action. Includes interviews with leading African socialists and activists.