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Songs for the Cold of Heart by Eric Dupont named Giller Finalist
Max Forte reviews “Patriots, Traitors and Empires” by Stephen Gowans
(Max Forte, author of Slouching Towards Sirte, NATO’s War on Libya and Africa, has reviewed Stephen Gowans’ recent book Patriots, Traitors and Empires, The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom. Also below you can listen to Brendan Stone’s excellent interview with Stephen Gowans.)
Book Review: Patriots, Traitors and Empires—The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom, by Stephen Gowans
Review of: Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom, by Stephen Gowans. Published by Baraka Books, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 6 x 9 inches. 280 pages. ISBN No 9781771861359. Paper, $24.95 CDN; PDF/EPUB, $19.99 CDN.
“It is easy to lose a country, but difficult to win it back”.
—Kim Il-sung (quoted in Gowans, p. 65)
In 2018, on September 9, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea), will mark exactly 70 years of existence as a nation-state. How did Korea come to be partitioned? Why has the partition remained in place? Why did communism become the political, economic and social program of North Korea? How did the North come to be an ally of the Soviet Union? What does Korean patriotism really mean, what is its substantive content? What are the practical, social, economic and political meanings of Korean nationalism? What are the prospects for peace between North and South Korea, and between Korea as a whole and the US?
Given the time and circumstances in which I read this book, it could not have been without a keen interest in re-examining the sources of the Korean–US conflict, and the prospects for successful peace talks, beginning with those that took place in Singapore on June 12, 2018. In North America we live in an environment saturated with US propaganda, whether official or otherwise, which advocates sanctions, silence, or war, in order to “tame” an “evil, thug regime” ruled by “psychopaths” (which if anything is dangerously ill-advised propaganda: it can easily apply to the US). Getting past the propaganda, of either side, is obviously an immense challenge—for all of us.
Having received a copy of the book for review purposes, I have to alert the reader to the fact that I could not evaluate it as an expert on Korean history. Instead, all I could do is to read the book just like any educated member of the public would, the same public for which I think this book was intended. For those who know little about the history of the DPRK, and would like a text that is free of the West’s official thinking that has locked away the DPRK behind a veil of obscurity, contrived mystery, and the subject of some of the most awful representations, then Stephen Gowans’ Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom will be an informative and thought-provoking volume that synthesizes some very interesting historical analyses. In a futile attempt at brevity, I chose to focus this review on the strong points of the book, particularly those that allow us to extend the material into current debates and focal points of public interest.
Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom is Stephen Gowans’ second book in a year, with the last one (reviewed on this site) also published by Baraka Books, which dealt with US intervention in the war on Syria. As readers may recall, Stephen Gowans is the author of the What’s Left web magazine.
After reading this book, most readers who have been steeped in the North American media environment will likely come away with one important realization: that virtually every single thing they have heard or read about North Korea is either an outright lie, or an exaggeration or other error, or at best a representation that is so selective that it constitutes wilful inaccuracy. For those interested in developing an independent perspective on North Korea, this book might serve as a useful starting point. If, on the other hand, you are comforted by the customary recitation of notions of North Korea as a “rogue state” led by “dictator” who is a “thug”…then perhaps reading books was never your interest to begin with.
Read the rest on Zero Anthropology
Listen to Brendan Stone’s interview with Stephen Gowans conducted in Hamilton following the booklaunch in that city.
4th of July Poem by Carolyn Marie Souaid: LET’S PUT THE GUN IN OUR HANDS
LET’S PUT THE GUN IN OUR HANDS
By Carolyn Marie Souaid *
“Am I allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush,
the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands?”
– Ben Metcalf, Harper’s Magazine, June 2006
Let’s wave the flag, once, for the record.
Let’s show some initiative.
Let’s stare down the cold, ugly barrel.
Let’s pray.
Let’s pull the legs off every neuron
and revel in the fireworks.
Let’s shoot first, and never ask why.
Let’s dance with the smoking gun in our hand.
Let’s powder the air with the Fourth of July.
* Poem for Fourth of July 2018, first published in 2008 Paper Oranges by Carolyn Marie Souaid (Signature), whose most recent book is Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik (Baraka Books, 2017)
© Carolyn Marie Souaid
Einstein and Racism: The Truth is a Bigger Story than his Travel Diaries
By Rodger Taylor and Fred Jerome* (Listen to interview with Fred Jerome on Einstein’s anti-racism)
Einstein’s racist description of people he observed while visiting China and the Middle East in 1922 definitely needs to be reported and criticized {“Einstein Travel Diary Teems With Racism and Stereotyping” – New York Times, June 15, p. 9). There is no excuse for ignoring such racism—especially today as right-wing (“populist”) parties throughout Western Europe and Trumped-up U.S.A. are whipping up anti-immigrant racism—the old divide-and-conquer technique used so often by fascist parties in the past, showing again and again that a frightened population is an easily-controlled population. At the age of 42, Einstein certainly should have known better.
But the whole truth is a much bigger story that should receive—but so far has not received—at least as much media coverage as Einstein’s travel diary. Here’s a 4-question Einstein-quiz for readers and reporters (and editors) of the New York Times (and other papers that ran stories about Einstein’s travel diaries). They might help:
- True or False?: In 1937, when the great diva Marian Anderson was invited to give a concert at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, but The Palmer House Hotel refused her a room, Einstein invited her to stay with him, his step- daughter and housekeeper. The great diva and the great scientist became good friends, and whenever she returned to Princeton she stayed at Einstein’s house on Mercer Street. (SEE: Marian Anderson’s autobiography “Lord, What A Morning!” )
From l. to r., Henry Wallace, Albert Einstein, radio commentator Frank Kingdon, and Paul Robeson at Einstein’s home in Princeton, October 1947.
- True or False? In 1946, a wave of lynching in this country, targeting especially black GI’s returning home from World War II, killed 56 African Americans. More than a million African Americans had risked their lives in the war to defeat fascism abroad and were now returning home, many to Southern States where fascism remained undefeated. (SEE: the movie “Mudville.”)
On July 27, 1946, the Times’ lead story reported: Georgia Mob of 20 Men Massacres 2 Negroes, Wives, One Was an Ex-GI. The next week, Einstein agreed to co-chair (with Paul Robeson) the American Crusade to End Lynching and to organize a protest in Washington, DC to demand a federal anti-lynching law. Thousands attended the Washington protest and a delegation met with President Truman in the White House. (Einstein‘s illness prevented him from traveling, but he sent a letter (with Robeson) to Truman.
- True or False? In 1951, when W. E. B. Du Bois was indicted by the Federal Government for “failing to register as a foreign agent,” Einstein publicly offered to be the first defense witness for the great historian. When Judge Mathew McGuire heard that, he looked around at the reporters from all over the world who were covering the trial, and then dismissed the case. (SEE: Du Bois biographies by Shirley Graham Du Bois and David Levering Lewis.)
- Select one: All of the above events were a) widely covered; b) partially covered; or c) not at all covered by the NY Times and most other mainstream media. (SEE: Reports on each of the above events in several African American newspapers.)
*Rodger Taylor and Fred Jerome, New York are co-authors of Einstein on Race and Racism, Rutgers University Press, 2005. Fred Jerome is also author of The Einstein File, The FBI’s Secret War on the World’s Most Famous Scientist published in a new updated edition with forewords by Ajamu Baraka and David Suzuki.
THE TAYLOR REPORT INTERVIEW
Einstein’s Egalitarian Political Vision Wasn’t Welcome in the USA: Featured Guest: FRED JEROME, author of the new updated edition of The Einstein File.
Description (30 minutes):
Albert Einstein is often portrayed as a fuzzy minded genius. But he was in fact a committed peace activist and champion of racial equality.
As such he befriended Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson and W.E.B. DuBois, and opposed the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.
For his principles and activity, he was stalked by the FBI. Jerome points out the Democrats and Republicans connived at trying to control Einstein.
Echoes from Kuujjuaq about Yasmeen Haddad and Joanasi Maqaittik: Ida L. Saunders
Ida L. Saunders of Kuujjuaq (Nunavik) met Carolyn Marie Souaid, author of Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanais Maqaittik, in Montreal. She 
read Yasmeen, wrote her a note, and has kindly agreed to allow us to publish it.
I have been telling my friends about your book. I want to say “bravo” and thank you. You have a keen eye on spirit and culture.
Yasmeen exists in many forms and Joanasi’s treatment of her evokes memories of my own personal journey in a sadly unsuccessful marriage. Her inevitable realization of the nature of her relationship with Joanasi is agonizingly sharp. Even Pasha, Joanasi’s mother, made me reflect on women I have met and known in my life. She does what many a mother of a Joanasi would do in real life.
Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed your book.
You had me in your fictional “every community in Nunavik” community and wanting to know how each of the characters’ stories end by the end of the book… because, alas, most books do have an ending.
– Ida L. Saunders, Kuujjuaq
Thank Ida Saunders. The book is available here.
Rwanda: The Muses of Freedom Will be Heard – Phil Taylor, winner of the 2018 Victoire Ingabire Award
Acceptance speech for the 2018 Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Award by Phil Taylor*
The Arusha Accord was martyred along with the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6th, 1994. The UN and the so-called great powers allowed Arusha to be negated, eclipsed by an army bent on stealing power away from the people and their designated representatives. The Arusha consensus was thrown away. All parties and leaders supporting the Arusha process were demonized and criminalized. The people were robbed of their right to choose.
I want to thank the International Women’s Network for Democracy and Peace for presenting me with this award named for the inspirational leader, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. I hope I will be a worthy recipient.
All who support peace and freedom are indebted to the International Network because it has become an institution that works fearlessly and consistently to bring peace and freedom to the Great Lakes Region of Africa. By establishing this annual award you endorse the courage and example of an extraordinary political leader. Your diligent and conscientious activity, the website, the public meetings and rallies guarantee that Ingabire Umahoza is not alone. Because of your initiative, all of us can rally to her cause in challenging tyranny. The principles she embodies must inevitably win. “There is no hero, without brave followers” says the proverb. Thanks to everyone here, supporters around the world, and in the Great Lakes Region Ingabire Umuhoza has a brave following indeed.
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza is in prison in Rwanda for the crime of having run for president of Rwanda against dictator Paul Kagame.
Victoire Ingabire has been in prison for 8 years. It is an international scandal that a strongman government is afraid of a soft-spoken civilian woman. Our common cause of political freedom is so much enhanced by the fact Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, unlike her tormenters, does not have an appetite for power, but rather an appetite for justice. Her goal is a workable political system that respects the rights of all Rwandans, most especially freedom of speech.
As a defense investigator and broadcaster I have spoken to Rwandans from all walks of life including many former close colleagues of Paul Kagame. They share the goal of Ingabire Umuhoza, and also let us add Diana Rwigara, for a system that protects freedom of conscience and political choice. And from my many contacts with Rwandans I can state that those calling for a representative system free of intimidation, they are not driven by vengeance or hatred.
Now, let us remember that there was a moment in the early ’90s when Rwandans made a clear choice on what form of government they wanted. After negotiations they reached a national consensus. It was called the Arusha Accords of 1993. After years of warfare, political parties representing distinct political opinions agreed on a multi-party system, with an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, and a popular vote. These Accords had the support of all mass institutions and leading personalities of the nation.
And, for all of us here, it is important to underline that the Arusha Accords had the support of all the foreign embassies. The US, France and the Organization of African Unity took particular responsibility to bring the promise of a multiparty system into being. Everything was in place for a democratic order. What we are calling for today, was in that agreement. It was our common goal and responsibility.
Winners of the 2018 Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Award, Charles Onana and Phil Taylor
But, the Arusha Accords was martyred along with the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6th, 1994. The UN and the so-called great powers allowed Arusha to negated, eclipsed by an army bent on stealing power away from the people and their designated representatives. The Arusha consensus was thrown away. All parties and leaders supporting the Arusha process were demonized and criminalized. The people were robbed of their right to choose. A terrible price has been paid, most of you here know the tragic details far better than I do.
Without the principles of Arusha, we have an imposed order, an order of “victor’s justice”. Even at the UN Court which promised to bring to justice anyone guilty of crimes against humanity, no one from the RPF was charged, let alone tried. Victor’s justice is no justice. This can only be corrected by a proper judicial system, as envisioned by the Arusha Accords, established by a system of popular representation.
The Accords were the right path, and we must call to account governments and statesmen who connived at allowing militarism to prevail over the international values of democratic rights and freedom of speech. We have to insist that international bodies return to the working plan for democracy, the one endorsed by the people of Rwanda.
Lastly, let’s remember Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza is an advocate for peace. You know the saying “When the guns are silent, the muses are heard.” Ingabire calls for peace with Congo and Burundi, and an end to military incursions, or threats of incursions. Rwanda to have a civilian run democratic society. Then the muses of freedom will be heard.
*Phil Taylor is host of The Taylor Report, CIUT 89.5 Toronto and was a defense investigator a the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. A supporter of Baraka Books, Phil wrote the preface to Dying to Live, A Rwandan Family’s Five-Year Flight Across the Congo and an important contribution to the anthology Justice Belied, The Unbalanced Scales of International Criminal Justice. He was awarded the 2018 Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza award in Brussels on March 10. This is his acceptance speech. Journalist and writer Charles Onana also received the Award.
For more on Rwanda, see Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa, From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction.
Thomas Pynchon lauds Fred Jerome’s forthcoming updated edition of The Einstein File
(Montreal, 5 Feb. 2018) – Celebrated novelist Thomas Pynchon has kindly read and lauded Fred Jerome’s The Einstein File, The FBI’s Secret War against the World’s Most Famous Scientist to be published in a new updated edition on May 1.
Thomas Pynchon:
“This carefully researched and reported account of Einstein’s surveillance by the FBI adds new, what Einstein might call ‘dimension,’ not only to his personal history but maybe even to our own present-day character as a nation, conceived as it was in the moral vacuum of the McCarthy era, shaped by the Cold War and too many ill-conceived adventures overseas, come to maturity in this current precarious hour. Sometimes what worries the FBI can also serve as a clue to what, somewhere back in our national soul, lingering and toxic, has been eating away at us. In redeeming from the forces favoring general amnesia this essential set of connections, Fred Jerome has given us back a piece of our history, and hopefully of our conscience as well.”
The new edition of The Einstein File, first published in 2002 by St. Martin’s Griffin of New York, contains a 25-page author’s update. Since the book first appeared, Fred Jerome has pursued his research and published two other books on Einstein and his political activism, particularly in opposition to racism but also in opposition to political Zionism and the founding of a Jewish State.
Ajamu Baraka and David Suzuki have written forewords to this edition. Ajamu Baraka is a grass-roots organizer and educator and was the Green Party’s nominee of Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election.
David Suzuki, a Canadian geneticist, broadcaster, and environmental activist, is a unique figure in science and television.
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Source: Robin Philpot, 514-808-8504; info@barakabooks.com
www.barakabooks.com
NATO’s Slaves in Libya: Interview on RT Watching the Hawks
RT’s program Watching the Hawks interviewed Publisher Robin Philpot on the resurgence of the slave trade in Libya based on Max Forte’s seminal book Slouching Towards Sirte, NATO’s War on Libya and Africa (Baraka 2012). Firefighter arsonists like Emmanuel Macron have shown up too quickly on the scene of the crime. It is time to revisit the defiant Libya that Muammar Gaddafi had built and the goals he set to make Africa free and independent until he was overthrown and assassinated. Robin Philpot is also author of Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa, From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction (Baraka, 2013)
German Publisher Acquires Rights to The Raids by Mick Lowe
Baraka Books is pleased to announce that The Raids, Vol. I of The Nickel Range Trilogy, by Mick Lowe of Sudbury will be published in German by Verlag Edition AV in time for the Frankfurt 2020 Book Fair which will showcase literature from Canada.
“We are very encouraged by the international interest in this great working class story with its backdrop of Cold War scheming and brutality,” said Robin Philpot, publisher of Baraka Books. “Mick Lowe has brought to life a cast of characters from Sudbury’s hard-rock nickel mines in the 1960s and a story based on real events that might otherwise have disappeared from our memory.”
Andreas W. Hohman of Verlag Édition AV added: “We at Verlag Edition AV are delighted to have finalized a contract with Baraka Books to translate into German the title The Raids: The Nickel Range Trilogy, Volume 1 by Mick Lowe. We are planning to launch the German edition in time for the Frankfurt Bookfair 2020, when Canada will be the Guest of Honour at the bookfair. The book is a great addition to a number of books by Canadian authors that we have published in recent years.”
Following The Raids (2014), Baraka published Vol. II The Insatiable Maw (2015), which tells how Sudbury miners and smelter workers fought the company in the early 1970s to clean up the poisonous air they had to breathe and at the same time change the city’s lunar landscape from red-brown to GREEN. Wintersong (2017), third and final volume of The Nickel Range Trilogy, is a fictionalized account of the epic 1978-79 strike pitting some 12,000 workers and their families against the nickel giant Inco. Covers art and illustrations are by Sudbury artist Oryst Sawchuk.
Mick Lowe, born in the United States, is a prolific journalist, writer and newspaper columnist who adopted Sudbury as his home.
Baraka Books is a Quebec-based English language publisher specializing in creative and political non-fiction and fiction. QC Fiction, headed by Fiction Editor Peter McCambridge, is our imprint dedicated to publishing the very best of a new generation of Quebec storytellers in flawless English translation.
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Source: Robin Philpot – Baraka Books
514-808-8504 (info@barakabooks.com)
Contradictions of Quebec’s Far North Subject of New Novel; launch 24 Oct. 7 pm – La Vitrola
(Montreal, Oct. 10, 2017) – Robin Philpot, publisher of Baraka Books, is pleased to announce the launch of Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik, the unsettling debut novel by acclaimed poet Carolyn Marie Souaid.
Tuesday, October 24, 7-9 pm
La Vitrola 4602, boul. Saint-Laurent, Montréal, QC
Indigenous Canadian author Tomson Highway, best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, has praised Souaid’s “brave honest voice” and “love for northern Canada and its people that is genuinely moving to read about.”
The novel traces the journey of a young Syrian-Canadian woman, whose appetite for adventure leads her to a teaching job in the imagined Northern Quebec village of Saqijuvik. The author, who also taught school along the Hudson-Ungava coast of Nunavik during the 1980s, admits the novel will be “challenging for some readers.” That’s because “instead of the ideal, pristine Arctic of her fertile imagination, the main character uncovers a contradictory world of igloos and pool halls, Sedna and Jesus, raw caribou and alcohol,” explains Souaid. The novel has already received a Starred Review from Foreword Reviews.
A tale of powerful love and potent lust, and of self-discovery in the face of the unknown, the book also explores the attempt to bridge worlds and cultures. Set in Northern Quebec, it pushes past the standard narrative of southerners bringing ‘civilization’ to a people who have survived in the most unforgiving of environments for over a thousand years.
According to Souaid: “The North may be great and white, but only in the minds of some is it always pretty.”
Information & interviews: Robin Philpot: (514) 808-8504; info@barakabooks.com
View the book trailer: HERE
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Carolyn Marie Souaid is the author of seven previous books. She has performed at festivals and literary events in Europe, Canada and the U.S. and her work has been translated into French, Arabic, Spanish and Slovenian. Blood is Blood, written and produced with Endre Farkas, won a top prize at the 2012 Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin. She has been shortlisted for the A.M. Klein Prize For Poetry and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and is the recipient of numerous arts grants, including a seven-week residency at the Banff Centre in 2013. Her poems and short stories have appeared in magazines including The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, and the Literary Review of Canada, and have been featured on CBC-Radio. She lives in Montreal, where she works as an Academic Counsellor to Inuit students from Arctic Quebec who have come down from the North to attend college.
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