Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan-African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation

Rating:
Summary: Opens challenging questions for people seeking social change
Review: I finished this book a few weeks back. It is excellent. Most of it consists of posing devil's advocate type questions from a principled pacifist perspective to people who led anti-colonial struggles and held state power in a number of African countries.
It brings to the fore many questions regarding pacifism, nonviolence and the state that today's anti-globablization activists need to consider. The discussions with Kenneth Kuanda and Julius Nyrere stand out in my mind. These were people who had to deal with key questions of justice, power, compromise and violence. (Incidentally I was not even aware these fellows were still alive.) These are uncomfortable questions that some folks in movements here in the North spend a lifetime evading. Straight from primary sources it is a little rough in places and better organized bibliographic references, perhaps assembled at the end of the text with more information, would be a big plus. But a great and important book nonetheless. If you are serious about revolution you should not ignore this book.
mcapri