 Good afternoon. Thank you very much for joining us, so very warm welcome to each and every one of you to the next Development Studies seminar. I hope you had a good reading week. Today we're hosting Dr. Panda Andrews from Birmingham City University and he will be delivering a talk titled Black Revolution, The Global Politics of Black Radicalism. Dr. Andrews is an Associate Professor in Sociology at Birmingham City University and was previously a lecturer in working with children, young people and families and criminology at Newman University. He completed his PhD in Sociology and Cultural Studies entitled Back to Black Black Radicalism and the Black Supplementary School Movement at the University of Birmingham. In 2013, Panda published his first book Resisting Racism, Race, Inequality and the Black Supplementary School Movement and copies of his latest book are also available outside of DLT at discounted price if you're interested. He is now Director of the Center for Critical Social Research and he's the founder of the Organization of Black Unity and co-chair of the Black Studies Association. So we will hear from Dr. Andrews for about 40-45 minutes and then we will have about 10 minutes of remarks from our discussant who is Shabir Laka. Welcome to him as well. He's a writer and activist. He organizes with a number of national campaigns including against war, austerity and racism and for justice for Palestine. He has been centrally involved in the anti-Trump movement and was part of organizing the demonstration against Trump's visit to the UK earlier this year. So after his remarks then we will open the floor to your questions and two more quick announcements. If you are on Twitter and you would like to tweet about today's seminar, please do so with a hashtag SOASDefstudies and ESRC. After the seminar you are all welcome to join us for some refreshments, refreshments upstairs at SCR. So thank you very much and the floor is yours. Thank you. Why what Black Radicalism is? Why Black Radicalism is necessary? And actually for a number of you this is a really dishoferly resume. How many of you in the development studies series? How many of you are studying development? You're going to love this. All right, so the premise of Black Radicalism of the book of the outlook that you're going to hear today is simply that it's already too late. It's already too late, sounds a bit pessimistic. It's already too late for stock. But it actually is anything but. That really is the mantra of radical politics. That is a part, I've taken that from Malcolm X. I will give you a trigger warning. There's a lot of Malcolm X that's going to be today. In fact there is a drinking game where if you drink every time I say Malcolm, I would recommend it will end up very, very inebri. So I've already started. It's already too late. What does he mean by it's already too late? What he means is he's not saying it's already too late for that to be changed. He's saying it's already too late for there to be any real change within athletes school and economic system. They go back to Batman, he talks about how the freedom just in equality for Black people is just as impossible in this system as it is for a chicken to lay a duck egg. It's just not meant to do. And what we're trying to do all the time is we're always trying to make a chicken lay adopted. Always trying to find equality and freedom in a system which is never built for us to have equality or freedom. Racism is the political system. You can't separate. You literally cannot separate racism from the political system. So how on earth could you possibly imagine you could have an anti-racist system? Not possible. And I took my chocolate. I wasn't going to do it by myself because I thought I needed this lovely muffin. But you should mind it. Chocolate is the perfect example. There was I'm from Birmingham and there was lots of hows and average. One when Cadbury's was taken over by Americans. The Americans are far more economically various than British people. This makes a big difference. And two what did they do after they took over? They stopped doing fair trade. So fair trade Cadbury's no longer buys fair trade. Chocolate. What's the problem with that? Fair trade is a complete and utter nonsense. There is no such thing as fair trade. How would you possibly have fair trade in this system? And chocolate is the perfect example. So I went to anybody who's been to Birmingham. Anybody been to Cadbury World? Cadbury World? If you go to Cadbury World, I recommend you go. Because it is the best description of neo-colonial economics. You will never see anyone. It's literally a celebration of neo-colonialism. The Atlus Museum where they talked to you about history of the company and how chocolate is made and all this stuff. And it starts off where they found chocolate. So where they came across chocolate was the Spanish and Aztecs. And they sort of mentioned, they kind of mentioned that the Spanish may have killed the two of the Aztecs. They sort of glossed over the fact that it was the best way to learn and we don't talk about that. Well they killed Montezuma in the 70th century. Then after they discovered chocolate just like they discovered the world. They kind of fast-forwarded. Like slavery has no mention. Imagine a chocolate factory with no mention of slavery. What is the second most important ingredient for chocolate? Sugar. I don't believe the sugar grows in Birmingham. Sugar was the very first thing that was refined using the steam engine. And where did they get the sugar from? They got the sugar from slavery. You can't tell the story of chocolate. Really, the story did. Without the story of slavery. Because this is where they came from. However, they managed to do this completely to slavery. Because Capri's family had to slavery for 4 million yen. So obviously it doesn't really matter. Same as with Tate and Lyle. It wasn't the Tate. It wasn't the Tate recently. I didn't even realize the Tate was the Tate for sugar people. Then they had this similar argument. It was founded after slavery so we don't have anything to do with it. Where did they get the money from? Where did they get the resources from? How do we even get sugar into this? So slavery is absolutely important to the story. But it's also completely missed out from the Capri world experience. I guess it wouldn't really be that much of a attraction for slavery as one of the key parts of the story. Anyway, after the finding of the chocolate, they go into the establishment of the factory. So Capri's have a very good reputation in Birmingham because they were a really good employer. So Bourneville, in Birmingham, Bourneville is still one of the nicest parts of the 60s. It was purposely built for the factory workers. They had a swimming pool. They had a six-day win, which was good for those times. They had health care. It was like a garden city paradise for their workers. And because of that, Capri's has lots and lots and lots of ratings and credibility within the city of Birmingham. And they celebrate this hugely in the museum. So 19th century, great conditions for factory workers. But guess who they completely and utterly ignore in the chocolate chain? The Ghanaian farm workers. They basically produced the cocoa, picked the cocoa in conditions very similar to slavery. This shows you one of the very limits of social democracy. So you have this great working class, wonderful conditions for white workers, secure up the back of exploiting resources. That is what social democracy really is. A warning about Jeremy Corbyn. I say both Corbyn. It's definitely better than the alternative. But if you believe that social democracy is a tannisy of the racism, my dad came to this country under social democracy. If anything, there was more racism than it is now. Social democracy does not end the racism in any way. In fact, social democracy has often had to reshare the spoils of our colonial inventions better. That's the discussion that we have. And Capri was a perfect example. So anyway, they shared that. They had these whole categories, aren't they? Wonderful, blah, blah, blah. Then they come to nowadays, modern-day period. And I'm not joking. You have to go and watch this. And the video has been the same for the last, at least the last 30 years. I went the first long time. And it's this black and white video with a white gentleman with one of those colonial... I don't know, white hats on, those colonial white hats on. Narrating how, he doesn't say this, but he may as well say this, the happy smiling Africans chopped down the cocoa and they put it on boats and it goes over to Britain, right? So the people who paid pittance, they literally paid nothing to chop the cocoa down. This is Garner's resource, right? This is Garner's natural product. He's chopped the nothing, sent off to factories in Birmingham and somewhere else north. It's then processed, it's made into a chocolate, it's made into a commodity. A commodity that you average cocoa farmer could never afford to buy in their entire life. That's that little money they make. They can't give a room to buy a bar of chocolate, right? That is neo-colonial economic. We, Britain, make money from the resources of Africa and actually it's right to then sell that stuff back to everybody, right? Taking the cocoa, processing it, making it into a product, and making billions of billions of billions of dollars. So yes, Birmingham's doing well, Britain's doing well, but what about Garner? Garner's doing terribly, yes. That's why I say, if you talk about fair trade in that context, you're talking down to this notion that it's not possible to have fair trade with that relationship. That is a neo-colonial relationship which, in Krumah, the first president of Garner said he had an Alice in Wonderland craziness of that. And if you look at the actual African continent, that is one of the ways in which inequality is perpetuated. Again and again and again and again. Why is Africa so poor? Africa is so poor? Because it's natural resources are literally stolen out of the ground. When it is some Nigeria, all of its oil fields are owned by shit. I mean, Nigeria doesn't even own its own oil fields, it's mad. And I just think about that for a second. This is the world we live in. So, if we're in this political economic system, how can you possibly expect this to provide you with equality? And this is why I say it's already too late, it's not possible. The West is built on racism. It is built on the actual, what is the founding moment of the West? The 1492 Columbus sale of the ocean loop. When Ford was going somewhere else, opted to the Americas, and that really is the founding point of the West. With that happening, there is no Western industrial capital. It doesn't happen. It was important for expansion, it was important for materials, it was important for slavery, it was important for money. That really is the founding point of the West. And at that founding point in the West, what happened? When Columbus stumbled onto the Americas, is there a, you know, a trading relationship formed? Is there like, you know, we'll have a nice, we'll use the land, you use the land. No, there was a complete genocide extermination of a huge amount of people. This is one of the things that we don't teach well at all. I was surprised. I'm currently writing a book about it. And they reckon the midpoint estimate of people who lived in the Americas, from Canada to South America, from the Caribbean, is 100 million people. That's the midpoint. So it could be higher, it could be lower. 100 million people. Within a generation, 96%, 96% of people were dead. This is a genocide which is unparalleled. This is just dead on a scale which you've never seen. My family's from Jamaica, and there are no native people there. People say, no, there's not. Literally gone. Just Columbus. So Columbus was probably, when he went back, went to what we think of as Dominican Republic and Haiti. Within 10 years, the population would reduce from 8 million midpoint estimate to less than 20 billion. What do you think? Imagine the scale of death and torture. That's huge. So that's the founding principle of the West. Then you have slavery, remember slavery? Sugar? We don't, all the wealth that we have today is built on this trade. We literally just, and again, we have the three, what they call the golden boys, James Watt, Matthew Bolton, somebody else. I'm sorry. But they have a statue in the city and it's one of their anniversaries next year, but they all look alike to me, so I don't know. I think it's the same one. And they're going to have this whole celebration and you will learn about their industrial history. They actually did a little history and learned about the industrial revolution. I was actually told when I asked, well, when did they get the cotton from? Seems to be suspicious, but I wasn't told. I was actually told that, you know, don't forget that, forget the slavery stuff. It's not in the textbooks, so why are you thinking about it? That's the level of education we get in our schools. But in the narrative of Birmingham, you would never hear anything about slavery. Because Birmingham wasn't a port, it was not Bristol, it was not Liverpool, it was not London. We don't hear that, right? We used to live in industries because it means there's great, great men with these great things, wonderful things. And mishap the fact that all of their money, all of their business, all of their profit, how did they do this? It was slavery. 300 years of that trade produced all the wealth on which we currently reside, right? I mean, the maddest thing that we came across in the last few years was the reparations. So slavery was so economically beneficial to the West, to Britain, particularly. When slavery ended, they did actually give reparations, right? To the poor, damaged slavery. You had to give up their property, which was so primitive. And reparations was in two forms. One form was the enslaved actually had to work for free for four years. What they called impringes you. So they actually paid reparations themselves. Imagine that you were enslaved and you were paying reparations yourself. The other way reparations were paid was with the biggest payment made outside of wartime by the government until the financial crisis. It was a grand about 20 billion yen in today's money. But it was huge. For that time, it was a huge payment. The payment was so large that they had to loan the money back from the bank of England. And did anybody know when they finished loaning the money back from the bank of England? The government finished paying the money back with reparations to slavery. 2016. 2015. Which means that every one of you in this room paid reparations to slavery. Imagine that. Imagine that. You actually paid. I paid. My parents paid reparations to slavery. That's the system of which we live in. So don't tell me that slavery happened a long time ago. That doesn't mean it happened a long time ago. We used our paying reparations to slavery today. And then loan reparations for the people who actually suffered from slavery. So I say on this to remind us that we have a system which is fundamentally built on racism. It cannot do anything other than it's done. The radical analysis is an analysis that is broadly two ways over the world. It's more than complicated in this book. Generally you have a liberal tradition that will, I can list up statistics about racism. I think we all agree that racism exists. Hopefully we will never know. Never know. Never know. I think we all agree that racism exists. One of the ways to explain this is to say let's look at employment figures. Let's look at health. Let's look at all these things. Look at all these things. And we can say this is because the system doesn't work. This is a liberal tradition. There's something wrong with the system. And if we fix it, we tweak it and we can eventually the system will work properly and everything will be fine and we can have employment. That's the liberal tradition. That is, if one is, most of our political endeavor. Something can be fixed and changed. Usually that looks like access. So can black people get access to the system? Can we get a black president maybe? Can we get black CEOs? Can we get black people in politics? Can we get black people into the system? So often there's a focus on voting rights etc. And once we're in the system then we do things differently. The black police commissioner obviously act differently than the white police commissioner. In this logic, at least. So that's the idea. You can do what you think. So the radical analysis is very different. The radical analysis looks at this problem and says that the reason you have these inequalities is not because the system is broken but because this is the logic of the system. In fact, the inequalities we continue to see and haven't really got better in any meaningful way in the last 50 or 100 years is because that's what the system is supposed to do. And when you realize the system isn't broken it's actually functioning at a very high level then there is only one thing to do. Revolution. Get a new system. Do something else. Stop having faith in a system that isn't there to exploit you. That's why I mean bias. It's already too late. It was already too late for... I mean let's take Africa for example which is the richest continent on the planet and the most resources by this is anywhere else. Yet somehow it's the poorest continent on the planet. In fact, if you look at any indicator of global inequality it will maps on most perfectly to racial hierarchy from the 19th century. What was racial hierarchy? Basically I did it. Europe, white people at the top, white supremacy, black people are at the bottom. People like Linnaeus, who is a Swedish bottomist whose name is actually on a university in Sweden. He's also a very respected Swedish bottomist. In his book, System of the Torah was written in the 18th century. He was looking at plants and the species and then going through all the species of plants and as part of that categorized human beings into species. Instead, at the top was Europe's eldest, sanguine, white, liberty loving, governed by law. Then you had America's rediscous, tanned and irascible, governed by custom, Asiatic Laredas, the next step down, yellow, melancholy, governed by tradition. And at the very bottom of this hierarchy you had aphrodite, crafty, lazy, black, governed by the arbitrary will. The master, right? That's racial hierarchy. But as I said, look at any map of global inequality and that's pretty much what it looks like. In vast industrial countries, apart from Japan, the rule white and lazy, Africa's the poorest place. And in between, you have these different steps. Look at these what it looks like and at some point you have to realize that's not a coincidence. That didn't just happen randomly. That is by design. Our global economic system is built up by diplomacy. That's the point of it. So why are you expecting to do something other than the things meant to do? It does it very well. So it's already too late for the three million children to die in South East Africa every year because there's no reason other than their poor. That's it. It's neither their poor. It's already too late for the people to die. We talk about refugees. Economic refugees should be a category of refugees. We have people fleeing. So the Mediterranean crisis which we've got not suppressed because of Syria has been happening for years. This is the majority of people fleeing countries which are stable. They don't have wards. They're just so poor they can't provide for people. Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal. Fleeing is what's happening in the countries. Taking the risk to cross the Sahara desert which is risking it up as it is. Crossing through Libya which is actually as risky as anything as well. And then taking the risk to cross the Mediterranean on these makeshift boats. And even then crossing Europe to get here. And that's a level of desperation that's going to be over there where, you know, the system, right? That's something that's deeply got wrong in the stomach of this family. Or something hasn't got wrong. That is actually the logic of our system which makes that fact that they've come here. So when we have this discussion about should we be treating migrants better? Of course we should treat migrants better but the problem isn't how we treat migrants particularly. The problem is the fact that they need to flee the country for no other reason than poverty in the first place. So how do we fix that problem in a certain way? So that's why it's already too late for me. Now really not asking about your development of studies is because one of the what do you think one of the key mechanisms of neocolonialism today is how do you call it education? How do you call it school? How are you a school? How are you trained? How are you taught? How do you know the things that you know, right? That is one of the main ways. Alongside colonialism, racism, slavery, etc. Always had two facets, dude. We're going to root forward. We're going to kill us people. We're going to chain you. We're going to last a little bit. The other thing was soft power. It was we're going to teach you. We're going to train you. We're going to de-Africanize you so you won't feel like you're connected to something else. We're going to give you a version. This isn't really an anti-Christian argument. It's an anti-Western version of Christianity which is given to us an argument which was very much a plan. Pacify English and keep it in our place, etc., etc. And we're teaching you to hate everything African or hate everything radical, and learn a particular way of going through it, right? And really importantly the schools are part of that but universities are just more complicit. More complicit. Where is it you get the knowledge from that you have in school? Of university. When the university teaches what my school teacher was telling me don't do that it's not in the textbook. Who's putting the stuff in the textbook? Who decides what goes on in the curriculum? That comes from a university education. There's a reason why teachers teach about different parts of the world don't teach it because none of the universities they went to taught it to them so they don't know anything about it. They just teach what they know. You're a small euro. And maybe better. That's still euro. So so the university is a really fun actually one of the things to happen now with neoclonalism and if you attract neoclonalism worse today where do we even lead? So we can there's lots of problems with neoclonalism or the possible. Where do they get their training from? Here. It's one of the main places people come from. One of the main places here. This actual university people come from Asia, Africa, Canada, and probably people in the room today. You probably come from one of these parts of the world to learn how do you develop your economy. I tell you right now that's the worst possible thing people ever do. It's a positive agent in the development of the country. And as well as the west is the problem. If you actually track why these countries are poor it's because of the west. The idea of the west is that what is it? What did Rostow say? Do you still do Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and Rostow and This is like the mobile phone, it's always the best it's ever been. How do you have a smartphone? This is amazing technology. How is it so cheaply available? Because companies will go into the Congo and literally steal the resources out of the ground. Actually, oftentimes get children to go and steal them for them. And this makes your commodities very cheap. If the Congo was really at mass high consumption, really had all this high standard living and could charge a proper weight for the materials to make this phone, the phone would be too expensive. So you would have a phone, right? Your whole economy is based on this. You look at your clothes and your future produce. Everything we have is based on that basic, simple premise. We exploit from other parts of the world and we get rich profit. But there's no possible route in that relationship with other parts of the world who become rich in the same way. And I can already hear that India, because everybody is in India. India is great. It is wonderful. India is a massive economy. In conditions that we could imagine, India is so big, I think people oftentimes would get just as big as it is. And yes, India has got better. I wouldn't make the argument that things haven't changed. Things have changed, right? So one of the things that changed in India is there's no longer famines in the same way it was previously on the colonial route and that's managed better. There's a political class of Indians who do quite well. There's some people who do very well, right? What hasn't changed is that fundamental relationship to Britain. So a good example would be when you call... How many Barclays? When you call Barclays bank, where does it go through? India, right? You want somebody to talk back and back to India? Where does the train say? Many, many companies say it, right? Why? Let me ask you. Why do we send route pools from the UK all the way to India and all the way there? Why? Because it's cheaper. Why is it cheaper? Why is it cheaper? Right? We're just telling you something. We're telling you the standard of living in India is cheaper, right? If you actually look at much of the development in India, it's based on the idea that the standard of living is lower, so we'll export our services over there and they can make money off that, right? So that's a very continued way of developing your economy because what does that mean? That means if the standard of living actually rose to the level in Britain, you'd stop sending your services because it wouldn't make any sense. You'd just get people in Britain, right? So the actual economic in India is based on the fact that it's not quite African. Remember, ratio hierarchy is in the middle. You can be okay, but you can't really get to the top. It's not possible because the whole economy is based on being a cheap service sector. It's all right. So even though you can look at it and say, well, families are gone and maybe things are going to be enough, can you solve the problem of the 400 million desperately poor people in India through this way? No. Stop thinking that you can. And the other thing I would say about this is even though families may have disappeared, a child across the world dies every 10 seconds because they have enough food. A number of other children are in India. So basically, you just have a family that you can take. That's basically what you have. I guess the existence of the 400 million poor people in India is family. So don't tell me that families have gone and this is better. You just replace it with something different, which is somebody's words, right? So that's the point, right? So what do we need to do this? According to the... I've been very negative so far, I think. And this black radicalism isn't a negative tool. No, it's a negative narrative, but it's positive. So the argument when it's already too late isn't to say it's already too late to do anything, it's just to say we need to do differently, like revolutionary politics. The reason the book is called Back to Black, because the argument I'm making is that 50 years ago the world was a very, very different place. The world was on the precipice of an actual revolution. It wasn't 100% certain that the West would survive. It really wasn't. You had communism, you had an abritism, you had movements in Asia, you had the Third World Movement. There was a real moment where people were talking this talk and it was definitely possible, right? And there are two things which happened. One of those is violence, and not revolutionary violence, reactionary violence, right? A lot of people were killed, right? Because they were dead. This is a huge thing. It killed lots of people. The second thing that happened was, and this is more important, there's soft power, remember there's two ways. Power, like hard, let's secure people power, and there's soft power. And this is the more dangerous thing though, is that, excuse me, we became incorporated, right? 50 years ago, there was absolutely no chance I would be standing in front of you as Professor of Black History. That is impossible. There were laws, well, 50 years ago, there was no racialization legislation, right? I could be told you got a job because you're black, right? In fact, it's pretty unlikely I'm attending it today, but 50 years ago, impossible, right? But now you have racialization legislation here in the West, in America, or in Europe. You have a growing bit of class. You have the illusion that we have been included, right? When I don't make professors, everybody's celebrating. Why are you celebrating? It's good for me, but I don't know what you're having. But we have that idea because, you know, we have the black president, it's good for all of us. We can make it, right? We're kind of dreaming that we are now included, which is simply not true. And in the rest of the world what happened was, you had independence. You had independence, right? Make it independent, I'm independent, all these countries are now, it is independent, and that's one of the arguments, independence is better than not being independent. But are these countries actually independent? This person's really my answer. And as I gave you the example of chocolate and garnet, you give me the example of rice and garnet, you give me the example of India's service. Is it really? It's not. Not if that's independent. It's not independent on the exploitation of the West. As much today as it was ever. There's a reason why for most of British colonialism, there was no revolutions in these places. Queen, just wait there as it is. Have your independence. Why not? Because it's not dangerous to us. We can just keep you in the Commonwealth, keep you babbling and subservient, and you carry on. In fact, Jamaica, where my family's from, was made independent in 1962. There's no coincidence that it's the same year as the Commonwealth Immigration Act, which did what? It said that if you are from a newly independent country, you have no right to migrate from that country into the United Kingdom. That's one of the main reasons we granted independence was to stop us coming into the country. But then before this independence, Jamaica was part of Britain. Like it was part of Britain. You couldn't really stop people coming. Because it was one part of the empire, two parts of the empire. So independence is one of the key tools to stop migration. And if you look at what's happened with the Windrush migrants, that's just the logic of that. In 1962, every single year, there's been more successive, successive, successive, more restrictive migration policy from Labour, Conservative, all of them. And that's part of that logic. So I'm not sure why we're celebrating independence. I thought I said I was going to be positive. So I'm going to be positive. So what's the positive side? The solution to this is to rethink. Completely rethink. One of the ways to rethink is definitely beyond the nation-state. The nation-state is a massive problem. You think of British, all right? I mean, it's happening in the Windrush scandal, right? But how can they treat citizens like this? Do you not understand the historical relationship? I mean, I don't know what you mean, but we have never been citizens. We have always been colonial subjects. And we are still treating like colonial subjects. So at least it's a wake-up call to understand our historical relationship to Britain. And what Blaradik is based on is saying that the root to our salvation, and the book is really kind of a, it's theoretical, it's actually a practical guide to the root to what we need to do. It's to see ourselves as the global black nation. It's to get the nation-state. The nation-state is completely and utterly imposed upon. So even so, my family's from Jamaica. My dad calls Jamaica back home. I'm not sure how he's home. His ancestors were taken there in chains. We're not supposed to be there. It's not home in any way, shape or form. It's the place we were enslaved. I know there's a whole movement to claim black Britishers. I understand it. I guess what you want to know, I have my family's maximum contribution to Britain. Of course you do. But my family contributed to a slave plantation. I don't know if I'd say I want to own a slave plantation. Right? As someone that we have to say, what is the thing you're trying to claim? And Britain is generally just terrible. I think it worked. And it really has started being encouraged. So Blaradik is based on saying that we need to have a radical unity that goes across the nation-state. And really it says that blackness, blackness itself, and that's why it's called Blaradikism, is the revolutionary category. Because what does this do? If I say this, blackness is defined in a political sense. A political sense is not political blackness. In a political sense it's saying, why do I claim blackness? Because of the way slavery happened, particularly positive ways, we were told to hate our African self. We were told to hate the colour of our skin, the tips of our heads. We were told to hate it. And essentially by embracing that and what that means, we've come up with a different political framework. Because once I say that I'm black and connected to all other black people, and that puts me in the political category of those three million children who die inside of East Africa every year, right? If I have a national black race framework, I don't get that. I'm just like, well, how do I get black? How do I get black visitors? How do we stop the police attacking us, etc.? But to really get into transformed fascinations that you need and can't really do that, I'm blackness, doesn't it? That puts us with the wretched of the earth. Now, many of us in this world are black. Some of us, like I said, we've been incorporated, but most of us are not. Most of us are self-conditioned, which we cannot even consider. And child death is the one which is like the most start, but it's the biggest reminder, right? Children die here. It's a tragedy for years and years needed. Children die here if possible. That child dies every 10 seconds. That's the condition of reality for many of us, right? So before I was in that same category, that's our political framework. So if you embrace blackness, you have to embrace the revolutionary politics, because you can't solve that problem with any other means, you're abiding with different political and economic systems. Ten minutes. All right, so you can't provide, there's no way to provide this platform. So, quick, yeah, quick, before I had it this time. Jamaica is a perfect example of how the problem of the nation-state, and particularly because you do development, this is quite important. If you think about how developing countries are trying to address their problems, their stocking is now a nationalistic framework. So Jamaica, for example, is 3 million, just over 3 million people. The only thing that's kept Jamaica afloat is the fact that there's been more Jamaicans outside Jamaica than in Jamaica. It's literally migration, right? People are migrating to Britain, people are migrating to Canada, America, and because of that, one, there's not so many people on the island. Jamaica is very small, and most of it's, and the other thing that keeps Jamaica afloat in terms of migration is that the single biggest thing in Jamaica's economy is remittances. People spend the same money. That's pension in Jamaica now, for example, and that is bigger than anything else, bigger than tourism, let me put together. It's like 60% of GDP. Again, if Jamaica has a neoclonial space, it's tourism industry. 60% of the money that goes into tourism in Jamaica goes straight. It never even goes into Jamaica. It goes to some foreign countries because they actually own the beaches, own the hotels, and another 20% probably leaks out in general. So even this big thing in tourism doesn't have any control over it. I think about reggae, Jamaica's main expo, Jamaica makes no money in reggae at all, right? There are six more, six rare companies that control it. I'm guaranteed you've got one in Jamaica, right? So even big, it doesn't make any money for it. The only thing in Jamaica not being the poorest country in the world, one of the poorest countries in the world is the regions, which is only because of migration. But what's happened over the last 20 years in migration policy? You can't migrate to Jamaica, you're American, you're American, you're Canada, you're Britain, we certainly know what you're like. There goes close, I know. So what's going to happen to Jamaica over the next 15 years? Population is going to go up. I don't know what you're going to go down. I just need to make, I just need to, after my dad passes away, why am I sitting in Jamaica? I don't know anybody there. And so this is a huge problem for Jamaica as a kind of, and many countries are in the same basic position because they rely on differences in the same way and migration is very different. So what's the solution? Now, in the Jamaican national narrow framework of nationalism solution, it is brand Jamaican. Let's support brand Jamaican. If we could make money apparently, brand Jamaican. Get more tourism. Where does the tourist money go? Don't go to Jamaica. Go somewhere else. The other plan, and this at least is at least a plan which is transnational is to get me to feel like I'm Jamaican. So people like me, parents come to Jamaica. I can vote in Jamaica. I probably have more rights in Jamaica than in the national Jamaican. Right? Have you heard of that? Because they want it. They understand that. At least on that level you need people like me to feel Jamaican national pride. They want to invest support. I mean that's a dead end. 100% that's a dead end. What I just say is happening in Britain, that bridge. You don't want to know about Jamaica. That's bad. That's not bad. I don't know. Right? It's nice to visit maybe. Have a plantation waiting. You don't plan on waiting with a slave at least. Anyway, that's a side note. But yes, that's one of the policies. And in the other policy where did Jamaica just go back to for money? Anybody guess where Jamaica just went back to for some money? Making some money because Jamaica was in money. Where do you think it went? The IMF. Yes, the IMF, which was like the worst thing that ever happened to Jamaica in the first place. And now they're going back to the IMF. Right? I guess more money. And you actually have commentators in Jamaica that were saying, I was spending too much money on social welfare reforms. You should cut that and try and make some industry which only Jamaica can produce. And they're like, what? There's nothing there. And Jamaica barely has a social safety net anyway. That's one of the lowest spending on social safety and social security in the world. But those are the policies because they only see Jamaica. They can't see even a pan-Caribbean idea. It's all about Jamaica-Jamaica-National-National-National. Now, Jamaica is also interesting because one of Jamaica's national heroes, and you should often listen to your hero, is somebody called Mark as God. Anybody know of Mark as God the solution was to make this problem? I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. It's a creation of course. So, Gaby taught around who saw black American marriage the same things. Look, black people will win that. This is a board. This is not going to work. We need to go read redeem Africa. That's the African revision, which is really at the heart of black American. Say, that's really the solution here, right? Oftentimes when we get focused on these things, the symptoms of our problems. Symptoms would be unemployment, police brutality, even child mortality. It's a symptom, right? It says produced by something. But once it's produced by, it's produced by the disease and the disease. It's the worst, the racism. The disease is racism. But you can't solve that within this system. You have to change it, right? And so, Gaby is a good and so much as bad at it. It's good because it gets that basic idea, right? This is a good. It's good in the sense that Africa is Africa's religion. You need to... The utopia of your life after that revolution is the African revolution. Africa is, like I said before, the richest continent in the world. Has the resources? No, probably no other place in the world could do this. If you had a planned economy in Africa, you could actually take Africa out of the world. Because Africa has everything you need. You can trade within each other. You can have everything. You say, yeah, why? See, we're not part of it. It says it's impossible. The only place is probably impossible, right? So you think about utopia. Where's the end point like that? And that sounds all crazy. Well, 50 years ago, this was a proper discussion. People were having these discussions in independence. Should we have that nationalized country? Should we go to the United States of Africa? Should we kick out the western companies, etc., etc.? Those are the real conversations. And 50 years is not that long ago. You will most likely will be here in 50 years time. So the point I'm saying is if we change our framework and change the way we are doing this, and another 50 years, we could be back on the president of religion. It's only because we've gone down this other route where we become comfortable, we've become resigned to the fact that this is the only way that we could be. We've got stuck in this national identity, but we haven't really thought about this. What's happening? We can do something else, right? So the mechanism for this, and I was teaching this, I teach this on Black Studies today, this morning, and the students are like, well, that sounds good, but you know, it's a bit new talk. It's not going to work. This is gold, right? Let's actually have the conversation. I'll pick it up next week. But the mechanism is clear, right? This is what I think we have to understand now. There are blueprints for this. So as I mentioned, the Guardian Room was 5 million people across 50 countries, 100 years ago. Given the population of the world, there's probably more like 20 million people in there, right? It was the hardest thing to do. How does an organization build? That's the biggest Black organization ever possibly existed. If they could do that then, with no smartphone, no Twitter, no other desktop, how can we not do that? The mechanisms are there. They're more easily there than they were before. So what we've said is, let's start. Let's do it, let's do it, let's start. So we started the Ramley Organization of Black Unity based on Malcolm X's organization from the American community, which essentially garbaged with radical politics. And we said, let's do it, let's start. Let's start, let's put that back into practice. This is where we need to go. If you want to check out the organization's website, unity.org.uk, and one of the first projects is about political education, because we need political education because you don't get any of this stuff in schools, right? The stuff which I teach about now, right about now, none of it is in schools. Absolutely every single part of it. It's about communication, family, library, etc. So we can't teach ourselves over the top. So, while you are over here poisoning your mind, we've got a question for you. There's a whole range of... You can be reading and getting involved in doing it, right? The degree is important, but the education you can get outside of it, it's far, far, far, far worse. So we have a crowd from the government for the markets by the educators, and we want to do stuff, kind of put this all into practice. As the time has passed, I want to finish this. But just to remind people, that revolution is possible. It's always been possible. And the only thing that really stops us from is that we have to remind us that we actually have the power, right? Slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, that we're not making this for taking our power away, right? And that's what the West is going to want. All we have to do is re-frame, re-think, re-moving in a different manner, and we can take that power back and have a completely different book. So revolution is possible. And don't give up for destruction. Thank you. Very much for the talk. And just a reminder that the book is available. If you want to read more, for £15 on a discounted price. So please take advantage of that. And you can also maybe get it signed at SRC afterwards. Now we'll hear about, you know, five, ten minute response from Trudeau. Can anyone hear me? Yeah. So firstly, yeah, thank you very much, Kinde. I thought that was a brilliant talk. And I think your arguments around colonialism and the horrors of colonialism what they represent is very sophisticated. And I think particularly its centrality to capitalism and to the global capitalist order and indeed to the development of capitalism over the last several centuries. I think what's really important in what you've highlighted is, A, I wholly agree with you that revolution is possible. So let that be the takeaway of today, if anything. But I think you also made a really good point in terms of the limits of social democracy and you kind of tackle the kind of reform versus revolution debate. I did an economics degree which included a module in development. We do still study Rosto. It is ridiculous. And I think what you mentioned about neocolonialism is absolutely right and it is the way the global power structures still operate today. And we see it in terms of our so-called free trade and other relations with Africa, policies like the EU's CAP, et cetera. And in fact, there's been recent developments in terms of British aid where they've unashamedly been moving towards a direction of saying that we shouldn't be giving aid to African countries. Our aid money should be going to British companies in African countries. So just laying that out very nakedly. And I think what you mentioned about the comfortability that we have in Western societies, I think that is a product particularly of neoliberalism in the last 30 years where we have been, during the boom cycles of capitalism been made to feel like we can share in those spoils. And just one other thing is that I grew up in Kenya and when we talk about the limits of education here and what we're taught here and what's missing from our education here, I can tell you it's very much the same in Kenya. I grew up in Kenya and the only part of Kenyan history that I learnt was how the British colonialists were so great in building railways for us and those lovely people and we were told to be sad for those who got eaten by lions. But anyway. But I think, if I can pose a couple of points and a couple of questions to you. You talked about Cadbury and chocolate and the exploitation there which I think is a good representative of how capitalism continues to exploit Africa and the global south. But I think one thing I'd want to pose to you is that capitalism is as dependent on the exploitation of labour here in Britain for the production of the raw materials that it steals from African nations. And so where do these workers fit into the idea of this black revolution? What role can they play in that? I also think that you mentioned independence and I think you slightly discounted the role of independence movements, the rebellions that took place and the vast sacrifices that people made in fighting against the British Empire which ultimately made it too expensive for Britain if not anything else to maintain colonialism and they understood that they needed to shift that narrative and frame it in a different way. Of course it's still ongoing but as you mentioned. But yeah, so I think that's one thing and I think you mentioned about the nation state and I completely agree with you. I'm someone who believes that all Buddhists should be torn down there. They are a product of capitalism and a means of division of working people and people in general. But what I wanted to ask is that how in an ideal scenario where there is this black radical movement that crosses borders which is united to some degree how does that confront capitalism? How does this movement across different nation states dismantle capitalism within their countries and outside of their countries if you could elaborate a little bit on that. And the last thing is that I think you mentioned about Marcus Garvey and obviously he was a great intellectual with some brilliant ideas and also as you mentioned had one of the biggest movements in history but I think towards the end of his life and in terms of the trajectory of the movement that he founded you see that there was a real lack of appeal for the movement as it progressed in the United States which resulted in Marcus Garvey for example resorting to meeting with the KKK to try and work out mutually beneficial policies with white supremacists which in my mind is extremely reactionary so just to understand how you square that circle and where that comes in. But yeah so I don't have much to add other than that but just to say that yeah revolution is entirely possible Thank you very much. Yeah thanks for the questions, good questions. So there's a whole chapter in the book on black Marxism because you know black people have been absolutely at the forefront of Marxist struggles for a very very long time people like Claudia Jones, George Padmore you could just go through it at least always because Marxism has always offered this promise of revolution etc etc but most black people who have joined the Communist Party have eventually left the Communist Party like really because they realized that there's such a Eurocentric notion Marxism still has Eurocentrism at its core so Cedric Robinson who actually writes the book Black Marxism and he would call himself a Marxist critiques Marx and says what Marx imagined the European proletariat was industrial worker was the saver of history and then built a theory around it and this is not really true so actually if you look at how Marxist revolutions have happened it's like nothing the way that Marx said they would happen it's been a peasantry, it hasn't been in Europe it's been in China, it's been in African countries it's been in the Caribbean, it's been completely opposite to what Marx has said and why is that? Because these workers in the West you're talking about have always been and we're part of that now have always been protected from the worst oppression always, how does Marx come up with the theory of oppression at a time of slavery doesn't really account as slaves as the most oppressed talks about the working classes that they press because the workers in the West have always been protected in that sense, even when their conditions were terrible they weren't slavery and that Cabbage is an perfect example we treat our workers in Birmingham okay but we won't treat our workers in Africa okay at all and so there is this idea that we are the 99% that you get from Occupy which is really a Marxist idea the 1% of owners and everybody else come on that's nonsense I mean look at the amount of money you get if you earn the average salary in Britain you're in something like the top 95% of earners in the entire world how does that put you in the same position as somebody who's struggling to eat it just doesn't right, I mean in a very real way and that's why social democracy is so appealing because what is social democracy talking about is talking about how do we share out these spoils better that's what we do at some point more tax say tax the rich that just means tax the spoils of imperialism and give it to the workers in the West that the workers in the West can join in that revolution I'm just saying I've never seen any evidence of that happening and so Franz Fanon talked about waiting for sleeping beauty to wake up and by that he meant the industrial workers and I say you ain't got time for that you just need to do what we need to do maybe they come along independent, no I know definitely it brings you up but there were definitely independent struggles but also in many places there weren't really that big independent there was kind of like this handle over a power and even when there were independent struggles it was still the same, they still worked out a way to keep the same basic relationship in fact they were all in the Commonwealth the fact they were all still in the Commonwealth tells you something as well so it's not to play down independent struggles independence is important certainly but I just argue that none of these countries are actually really independent and didn't get what they were really fighting for and instead got bought off with the Commonwealth, country, motorcade etc how does it come from capitalism so if you have this if the black revolution happens and you have nationalized resources in Africa that's the end of capitalism and literally capitalism depends on the fact that you can exploit resources from Africa literally depends on it, you can't do that anymore the whole economic, it falls apart in the same way it depends on the cheap labor that you have in Asia to produce stuff so if that ends then again you can't have capitalism so that's how you can't have a prosperous unified Africa and have capitalism the two things just don't go together that's why Africa is so poor and yeah, Gaviism didn't die because of lack of appeal Gaviism died because of the biggest problem in black movements and actually Gavi even talks about it himself the greatest weapon used against the Negro is disorganization we have these messiah figures and Gaviism, this is the thing about Gaviism I don't really talk about Marcus Gavi particularly people like Amy Jakes Gavi Amy Jakes Gavi is probably more important than Marcus Gavi particularly in how we remember the Gavi movement Amy Jakes who writes all this stuff you've got 5 million members, this huge movement but it still becomes too dependent on his figurehead of Gavi and when they arrest him and they challenge him for a male fraud it's still there but it's because he had that black messiah figure it still just kind of disappears same with Malcolm's organization of Afro-American unity that nobody knows about because once he dies it disappears this is why you have to build an organization and not build it around a person and yeah, certainly Gaviism was reactionary many ways like that I would never say Gaviism is particularly radical in his politics the mechanism of that global black nation that's the mechanism and then what Malcolm essentially picks that up and makes it radical, gives it different analysis with the OAU Thank you very much So we will now open to questions we'll take about 3 at the time so if you would like to pose a question to either of the speakers please raise your hand high and we'll wait for the microphone so we'll start over here Thank you You mentioned that I think you agree with Gavi's idea that the solution is to move back to Africa How does that take into account the fact that there are very now strong different cultural identities how does that take into account will Africans be welcoming to, I don't know how many millions of Caribbean and black Americans go into Africa and won't there be clashes Thank you Hi You mentioned neocolonialism and there was no mention of neocolonialism within say developing countries at the moment so you look at like say the Turkish state or like the Indian state for example I just take the Indian state I just wanted to get your opinion on that because I mean there is a revolution is supposed to be required but there is also a revolution required internally within previously colonized states basically because of the colonial ways in which they are still colonizing their own people the political elite that got transfer of power from the British Empire to now to the United States and say in Asia or maybe even Africa so just maybe some comments on that and how potentially people of color can then like link up together to maybe you know fight this fight together against capitalism Thank you and we'll take a gentleman over there Thank you Ken, I can't wait to read your book I was just touching on your solution so the sort of Gaviati solution and you spoke about how 50 years ago there were talks about the United States of Africa I wanted to just get your view on the fact that people often talk about that and Kwame Nkrumah so if we're taking Ghana for example what people often forget is for every Nkrumah you had a JB or maybe a coffee so you had a black conservative and I think there's often an assumption that somehow Africa wants what you're talking about I mean if you actually think about it there's a strong case to make that black conservatism at the moment is a stronger political case in Africa so I want to know how your grass root solution can if you want fight that black elite, that black business that if you want black political class alright do you want one more question ok we'll take one more so I really enjoyed your talk on all of this I'm just wondering if you can touch upon the dangers of maybe like black nationalism and just like not seeing the intersectional identities of and not depending solely on race but also maybe how like masculinity can play into nationalist movements especially black nationalist movements homophobia transphobia etc and if you can maybe give your thoughts on that yeah so first question was back to Africa so I'm not saying that we should go back to Africa today in fact that's one of the problems with the Garvey movement as it jumps to the long term solution too quickly there's no solution just get on boats and go to Africa you have to have a movement and the movement is just as important in Africa as it is here that global black nation thing that political education education in Africa is probably worse in many ways than it is here so there needs to be that has to happen first so that we understand and it's not just about education it's also about the conditions I mean Africa is currently the poorest continent in the world you can't take millions of people and put millions of people in Africa that would be absolutely disaster so this is part of a process of building once you change the conditions and you create and work the truth about Africa is it's the only part of the world which is underpopulated because of slavery because of because of the conditions actually there's not enough people if you did have this development in Africa you'd actually need people this wouldn't even be that crazy an idea you need people people in Caribbean need jobs why not come to Africa so it's about making those conditions definitely not just jumping on and just going straight away yeah neocolonialism I mean like one of the key way that neocolonialism is done nowadays is through the elite right so the elite are put into these positions they act in the same way maybe in worse ways in many ways and yeah they're the problem the elite are the problem the elite are just generally the problem in many ways the elite are the problem and so you have to deal with that colonial elite because they are in the way they're properly in the way because I was in Nigeria earlier this year and I was talking about this and I was like what about the elite they just kill you they don't care they don't mind political freedom doesn't exist so you do have to work away around that right also though I'd say countries like Turkey India as well China remember that hierarchy blacks at the bottom whites at the top and this is middle ground and what you've seen in many countries in the middle ground is they've kind of embraced anti-blackness and they use anti-blackness to promote their own agenda. China is a perfect example I mean China is terrible in Africa I mean China it's difficult to say it will end up worse than Europe because Europe is so bad but but China may actually like China may settle a colonialism in Africa that's a possibility you don't know right which is why that's one of the problems in the third world movement and the people of color thing is in the same way I don't really trust the white working class to wake up I'm not 100% sure I trust Chinese to do the right thing I think that's why there's a lot of independence of Africa to have some power so you can say well actually let's have this conversation on a level because there are people in China suffer racism same root that people in Africa suffer racism but I think that independence is really important because there are ways that this doesn't end well for African black people more generally I'd say black conservatism is stronger with the elite I don't know if it's stronger with the people I don't know the man when we talk about Africans we're often talking about the elite right you can afford that tends to be the elite I'm not sure I don't know I think it's certainly things like churches you think why so many people have embraced a church in the masses because it's like what else do you do it's just terrible so we're just going to go to the church I think one of the other things that's happened which I think makes the argument for black radicalism is the spread of extremist Islam why are people joining Boko Haram why are they joining Al-Shabaab it's not because they really support Muslim extremism it's because they understand they get it they know why their countries are poor they know the west is the problem and the only people fighting back against the west want to end the west who is it it's the extremist Muslim right it's not something I agree with but I can see why people would be attracted to that because what else are you going to do you should watch the documentary what's it called Robert Beckford made it about Ghana there's a documentary Robert Beckford the professor of theology went to Ghana and he's talking about chocolate and rice production and he's in this place, Birame in Ghana they used to have booming rice production short story because the IMF basically destroyed it flooded the market with American rice now there's no rice production in Ghana almost everybody's poor, their daughters are running off to the village to go and try and make some talk to the town to go and make some money and he's talking to this guy and he has a picture of Assam bin Laden on his phone he's not even a Muslim, he's not even got his phone and his actual answer is he's the only person fighting against the west so because you have this vacuum where there are no real radicals, these people would have been in radical they would have been in the pan-Afric movement they'd have been, let's have revolution because there's gun, they're stuck with they're stuck with terrorism right so actually if you want to end that problem just have some radicalism, let's give some people actual alternatives I think the grassroots get it they just don't have a funnel for it because I think they understand better than I understand in many ways and black nationalism, oh certainly the big chunk of the book is about that problem black nationalism has been way too restricted, way too masculine way too in many versions of black nationalism it's just this kind of a more extreme version of European patriarchy has been hugely adopted so the book is to say let's take that out of the black radical tradition and let's say what black radicalism is based on the unity of all people of African descent and all people means all people you just can't be putting in barriers to this because they don't make any sense particularly women, particularly if you're LGBT it's all people the theory of this is very very clear so unfortunately the practice of that has not been the case in many ways you can see there's lots of problems and misogyny et cetera differently because if you actually look back at this history while there have been these figures who have been hugely problematic there have also been women in mass women are part of the Garvey movement like I said Amy Jakes Garvey is probably more important than Marcus Garvey the Black Panther Party was 60% female 60% female, hugely so we kind of have this patriarchal lens of looking back as well where we look back and find the men and go oh yeah look at those male movements actually the history of this is not true, right without women and one of the things that really gets me is when people start to say nationalism and violence these are male things I was asked recently who would I want to meet have anybody in history it actually wasn't Malcolm X I feel like I know Malcolm, I don't need to be as Nanny, Nanny of the Maroons Queen Nanny of the Maroons for me I just love to talk to her she'd be fascinating, she didn't really write anything so you don't really know but in terms of leading the Maroon Rebellion in Jamaica it's hugely important warrior, could take down a whole battalion of British with six people six maroons her brother sold out actually sold out to the British and she stayed firm, said no we're going to be independent we're not going to sell out, we're going to do something women who are massively important in the Black radical division usually we need to go back and pick out and reclaim those stories because they're there we just don't look for them enough we're really scared to the issue of African ruling classes because I think this is a problem ultimately if you are talking about the united movement that can confront global capitalism you do have to very necessarily get over that problem of the ruling classes of these African countries which are subservient to Western countries and part of the capitalist system and I think relating slightly to what you said about Marxism being a Eurocentric alien you probably know more about Marxism than me but I mean as far as I understand that Marxism was never the idea that European working classes must rise up against their countries first and then maybe show some leniency to other countries but it was very much about workers of all countries and in any country opposing capitalism through the labour power that they have which is a central feature of capitalism and that necessarily revolution would have to be global and the downside of revolution starting in a country not at the top of the power structures of global capitalism is that they will be defeated by the global as we've seen in numerous countries including in Russia years ago and the ones you've mentioned and so I think when we look at the working class here in Britain today I think it has obviously vastly transformed in the last 100 years and the picture of the working class here in the UK today is a diverse working class it isn't just white people it is very much most ethnic minorities especially our working class and I think that I don't know in my opinion and I want you to come back to this if you can but I think that we have a role to play as a working class in this country to undermine our country's capitalism such that in Africa and other places they can do the same without facing the reactionary backlash I think just one final anecdote is I remember this during the so-called Arab Spring speaking to a friend of mine who is involved in the Bahrainia Revolution and I said you have such a huge percentage of your population coming out on the streets not working, striking resisting, why is this not working and she told me very simply in our country when we revolt we're not just revolting against our country, we're revolting against the Gulf powers we're revolting against the Western powers we're very much crushing us at the moment and I think that it's a nice idea but like I said the practice of Marxism is just not that like it really isn't that look at the communist party couldn't care less about any other part of Europe it was a really Eurocentric thing Lenin tried to make the communist international broader and nobody was interested there's a reason why people joined the lift because actually it was more about this European project and actually one of the things that happened with true proletariat work well that's not really here anymore that's kind of been exported out in the different parts of the world and so I just think the conditions are so much different and I include Oz in that so Oz in the working class here and whenever and when Marx at the end of the communist manifesto writes workers of the world unite I actually don't think he was including the enslaved I really don't like you read the book it don't sound like he is and there's people who enslave it at the time it is a very European idea and I think about it let me be clear about the African ruling class they just need to go that is the solution there's no other solution to this they just need to go across Africa so millions of people in Africa in this organization and you get rid of them they are counter-revolutionary forces they need to be moved thank you we'll take more questions so if you'd like to pose a question please just rest your hand and go past Mike going back to this idea of the black radical revolution also in African states there's a danger and I'm sure you've probably spoken or thought about this and maybe you could explain of assimilating the experience of Africans and of black people in other countries through the platform which I feel like could be an easy trap to fall into and even here when we're comparing the kind of oppression that occurs through the elites within African countries and also the oppression that is visible in the West how do we make sure to how do we work against not falling into a space that isn't nuanced and also creating an identity that often happens that is completely shared or assimilated in a way that might not be true thank you there's a question ma'am you had a question today yeah you're saying that I remember reading the poem after the Napoleonic Wars there was a village in Yorkshire with a whole of the village signed a petition saying do not re-enslave people because that was the rumour that was going round now that was a working class village who may never have seen an African person but understood the issues and prepared to stand up and say we think it's wrong and we don't want to be part of it so surely there are opportunities for people who maybe have never met each other to understand each other's issues and to know that if something's wrong it's irrelevant whether it's happening to you or not it's wrong and you support people in objecting to it and can there is a gentleman down here in the village hi thanks very much for the both speakers as well and Kenya's amazing talk that you gave just a quick question about Libya and sub-Saharan Africa kind of the northern part of Africa if you'd comment on his removal was it about Pan-Africanism and was it about perhaps the use of getting away from the petrodollar thank you we read Rosto here to critique him by the way not because he's a great policy guy but I'd like to push you even more on the Marxism stuff in that the early 20th century European communist parties were terrible on race and colonialism but as you said there's been some fantastic black Marxists and movements to try and decolonize Marxism, CLR James dependency theory world system theory, Kevin Andis and recently going back to Marx saying actually Marx was writing about India's slavery problem so do you think it's kind of both analytically and politically valid to be using Marx in a kind of non-neocolonious way or would you just say we've got to check out Marxism? Thank you First of all I want to say I enjoyed your talk thoroughly on the point on Garveyism from someone like myself who's lived like in different part of Africa what do you see as like the first step for the lower class or like your everyday people to like make change for themselves to start this revolution that we're talking about because in countries like Zimbabwe Gambia and like many others where like rulers refuse to leave it's kind of hard to start a revolution when the rulers are in power and the locals don't know much or can't do much about it. Thank you Thank you Is there a name? Sorry I'm not ignoring it Hi Thank you for your talk I wanted to ask a question about what would you say to those who will reply to development in regards to developing Africa the only way to do so is with European influence it has very neocolonial roots I think but the idea that African people never were even given the resources or the tools or the infrastructure to create politically or socially about like sort of valid governments and so how can we really develop Africa without having an idea of what development means and I think it's rooted in European colonialism so for example a writer Ethiopian German writer his name is I believe Asfawosin Asaret wrote about the need to cooperate with European countries in order to move forward in Africa so I'd like your response to that Thank you Would you like to? Yeah I guess the first question about assimilating experiences the whole point is to say look you have made different experiences but they are produced by the same thing that's the key thing right often times in literature we're even someone like Stuart Hall or Fanon I realized I was black when I came to Europe before we were all black so it wasn't really a thing I guarantee you you were still black when you were in Martinique or when you were in Ghana and the same thing which is structured in my life here is the same thing structured in your life there there is a reason why skimble each one is more prevalent in majority black countries than it is in the diaspora because whiteness frames the whole thing it explains your existence so even if you don't realize it no one means it's not impacting on you and the same root cause of why you have these experiences in Ghana are the same roots cause of why we have the experiences here that's the central point of the argument that's not to say the experiences are the same but the cause is the same and because the cause is the same then we should unify around identity it's a political identity it's to say that we're part of a shared nation we're part of a shared political and economic unity now Europeans have no problem with saying this this is the basis of the West France don't like England, England don't like France America is different there's loads of differences but on the basic premise of the political economy everybody agrees there's a shared set of frameworks about how things are agreed so there's no reason why you can't have a unity across this fundamental belief about how we organize what the economy should look like and still have massive variety of differences because it's solely a political what we call a political essentialism it's not about cultures etc there's a difference between the working class supporting things and the working class being involved in a revolution it's easy to say let's not have slavery you can have anti-slavery movements people do that all the time I'm not saying that the working class hasn't been an ally in some ways I'm just saying I haven't seen any evidence that they want to have true revolutionary politics what I'm saying is that even the working classes and even us in the working classes here derive some benefit from being here my children are not a risk of dying because they can't eat they're not a risk they're ever going to experience as long as I'm here if I was in somewhere else that can't go it would be an actual risk there are certain things that we benefit from from being here all of us I haven't seen any evidence I haven't seen any evidence of the black working class this is about all of us here any of us here are really interested in changing that dynamic but I could be wrong again I would like to be wrong I'm just not going to put together a political idea that relies on it because it's probably a bad idea I don't really think the West needs that many excuses to get rid of Gaddafi I don't really like Gaddafi Gaddafi was a problem for many reasons was it about potentially I mean certainly his influence over Pan-Africanism is overplayed I think actually if you look at Gaddafi is hugely important in the African Union and the African Union is terrible I mean the African Union is important it's basically a mechanism of neocolonialism so there's not that much evidence that he's that committed to this kind of revolutionary Pan-Africanism at all but certainly possible that he's changing economics that was one of the reasons why he wanted to get rid of him certainly for lots of reasons one of the reasons North Africa is interesting is because part of what we have to do is dissenter Europe a lot of the time and how we think about things so Africa for the Africans is first used in the 7th century by Dahir al-Kahini in Tunisia who's actually against Arab invasion North Africa looks like that because of the Arab invasion into Africa around about the 7th century even a slave trade Europeans didn't just make up the idea of a slave trade, a slave trade existed beforehand so when Columbus comes back from the Americas first he brings a gift to the Spanish queen and this is a gift of people that he's enslaved and where's he going to sell these slaves on the Arab slave trade markets in fact he won't explain why slavery happens that's one of the main reasons not just this European crazy idea there's also these other factors which Europe is always a center that goes back to this Marxist critique where I'm not against it actually I sounded quite like I was against Marxism not really, not actually Marxism and not just Marxism dependency theory it would sound very similar to a lot of the stuff of the analysis which I gave you about society some very very good analysis but in Marxism and some very very good ideas and I quote Marx quite a lot actually but I think fundamentally it's still a Eurocentric idea, really easy I don't know to what extent you can dissent I think the fact that it's Marxism I don't that's the best way to do it but so in black Marxism Cedric Robinson makes the argument that Marx was basically right but he got the subject wrong so actually where are you going to find and he's right and this is where revolution actually happens is in the third world where you actually have those real conditions, the real conditions of the proletariat exist there, they don't exist here so he's basically saying look therefore we should rethink about Marxism really a third world movement etc etc I don't typically think of Marxism into Marxism, so the Haitian Revolution for example, but why would you do that the Haitian Revolution happened before Marx we wrote anything, right partly what we do is we just give European thinkers far too much credit, so the idea that anti-capitalism is Marxism, that's nonsense the idea that a social division of the needs is that's nonsense, this is before we can have these same basic framework of ideas which are Marxism that's what I would say, I don't think it probably is too Euro-centric to keep as the basics, but again I'm not against it why not, anyway but I know this is a really important point because what I'm actually saying here is that black radicalism is a particular form of politics and it isn't of the things, so it isn't black Marxism but I'm not saying black Marxism is bad necessarily, I'm just saying it's not black radicalism that's a different project which might be aligned in ways and maybe you can connect but it's a different project and the first step there has to be political education for everybody political education, people don't know stuff and this is again, this sounds very Marxist as well also basis of Marxism, consciousness people need to understand the conditions which they are in that's really important and organization you have to have when we talk about this organization, it has to have organization across the Africa where people can be part of and it is and also improving their lives so in many ways you hear me talk about revolution is the key and I do say that but you can't just have revolution you have to build the small steps the Black Panther Party talked about survival pending revolution no one is going to join your organization if you're not solving the problems on the doorstep, no what made the Black Panther Party successful firstly was they got a stop sign put up on a busy road, then they started feeding children then they started doing healthcare none of those things are revolutionary in themselves so you have to do that if you're going to get involved in an organization it doesn't solve the problems so that's the first step as well but that has to be tied into a much bigger political analysis thank you we'll take more questions thanks so I think partly thanks Cahinde for that talk I think in your defensive of Marxism in a sense it would be good to include Marx's view of some of the major rebellions that were taking place at the time of his writing including the Tai Ping Rebellion the Indian Mutiny the support for the Irish and so on he really did sort of change his view or his view kind of evolved over time as you would expect but he very much supported a lot of these rebellions and in a sense a kind of coherent theory a kind of living theory that said yes the agent of change is going to be this working class but in all its diversity so that process of workers becoming conscious of the power that they hold because of the same experience that they go through across borders the experience of exploitation the experience of alienation and so on they can to pick up that women's point up there they can actually become increasingly conscious of the fact that if they get involved in a revolution or if they get involved in supporting other people's struggles that they themselves will benefit from that so that there is that that sort of consciousness taking place and so I don't think in a sense you can kind of write off the working class in that sense you know the working class today isn't the kind of white male worker in overalls working in the factory it is often the black migrant woman from the global south that is the kind of sort of epitome of the working class so telling a worker here I suppose that well at least you're not telling a poor person or a working class person who is really suffering in a kind of relationship of exploitation that actually well you're not as bad as you're not that bad off as someone in Africa isn't really going to you know that is not going to be an empowering thing I think the empowering thing is that how can we build bridges and alliances through mass movements across borders and I think that's the thing that's going to be you know that's the sort of real empowerment for you there was one question in the middle to your left okay so I wanted to ask that just saying that we do we do get this utopia and that we all go to Africa and we have unity there what do you think would be the reaction of the west of America places like that what do you think would be the reaction when we start to when we start to get this and also like there's the question of those who are currently residing in Africa though white people who are there people of all races that are there at the moment like what would their reaction be thank you hi just a quick question I agreed like 100% with your analysis I think it's so damn good though that I feel like it actually undermines a little bit what you say as a solution at the end you mentioned a lot about migration and you talked about how today we're actually in a sort of a new moment rather than in 1968 the thing that comes to my mind is climate change and I'm from the states where right now there is a new form of class organization it's absolutely heroic brave courageous and utterly moving a transnational migrant caravan from Honduras which is marching thousands of kilometers to the border of the United States this is an anti-imperialist anti-border movement and if your argument is true I mean if the argument that you're making is that the argument that you're asking us to embrace is that we're not all in the same boat I don't feel like that argument gives us the politics necessary to actually fight for their freedom and to break the border I mean it seems like the argument that we have to be making and I think this is going to be a really really important question for us into the next couple of decades is that borders destroy working class people on either side of them and the only way for us to actually win is to tear them down and it seems like just that this argument ultimately lets the white ruling class white ruling class in the global north off the hook and it seems like that was one and you mentioned the panthers earlier I mean the panthers didn't want to move back to Africa they wanted a Haitian revolution style in the United States and I agree that's the only thing that's going to be necessary you kind of you keep talking about this like racial hierarchy with whiteness being at the top blackness being at the bottom of the pyramid and then everything in between so I kind of want to ask about your opinions on like blackness as a political identity as opposed to like a racial identity and how like is it possible to form or how do you think coalitions with non black people of color can happen if those people of color can sometimes conform or give into anti blackness and so we keep talking about the Black Panther Party and that was one of their kind of philosophies was forming coalition with people of what they call like the third world people and not necessarily black or African people but other people of color yeah so just your thoughts on that also you didn't answer the development question what was the question in the other round there was one on like Africa and Europe and development you know I wrote it up here thank you hi I'm a British Brazilian Brazil you haven't really talked about South America I'm quite interested, Brazil's like massively complex very unequal and I just wanted to hear what you thought about it's related to what this guy said kind of racial consciousness it's something that is like super complex in Brazil and I'm kind of thinking about how do you get people who consider themselves white which is a really bizarre term in itself in Brazil to be to be part of this fight as it were because this is this is everyone's fight certainly for most liberal people and I think that it's convincing in somewhere like Brazil convincing the white people that they need that this is something to even start to think about thank you hi so you spoke earlier of a system perpetuating and being built on a system of oppression and exploitation if you do not sort of agree or see a Marxist feminism working what sort of alternative political and economic system do you imagine hi thanks for talking I agree with the vast majority of what you said just speaking on a few points for example you said that you don't really identify as a Jamaican simply because Jamaica is massively like it's not really home for Africans it's not really in chains in the same way I sort of believe that the black race is sort of a construct of the white man and so how do you think you can motivate a mass of black people to something that's entirely a construct where authors like Chinua Chabee say that tribe is the most authentic form of identity for Africans so how do you think that the indigenous population in Africa accepts and allows assimilation of like a mass of black people who have no idea about their ancestry, their tribe when they come back to Africa which is essentially your solution hmm alright I'm going to ask the answer I'm going to forget what it is alright yeah so back to the first question which was a long time ago so I'm going to do my best yeah no I get it like I said look Marxism and the left in general has said some good things about the Brailleans certainly right like in theory it's very good like I said I quote Neo-Marxist Marxist a lot of the time right but I do think I guess empowering so this thing was is it empowering to tell somebody that they're not, that they're in a different class they're in a different fight probably not but I guess that's the point like I think partly one of the things I'm trying to push in the book is that these conversations are supposed to be uncomfortable and they're realizing that actually you get your will from the exploitation of other people is uncomfortable that has to be said so one of the stories in the book actually there's a whole chapter about black Marxism because of this and it opens up with I was at an event in Birmingham, Black History Month event and there was a strike taking place in South Africa farm workers and the socialist workers party always come to black events forget the police and the spies it's always socialist workers party I'm spying on not somebody from a socialist workers party here today usually they're here and they're making this case that the strikes for teachers pensions at the same time in Britain were the same fight as a strike for South African farm workers that's a ludicrous statement where do teachers get their money from? taxation where do we get a large part of our taxation? the political and economic system impoverishes those South African farm workers if you want to explain why they're so poor it's because of the taxes the money that's raised from taxes that pays teachers pensions these are contradictory movements because what the teachers are arguing for is a better share of the exploitation of those South African farm workers that might not be empowering but it is true and you have to have that conversation to understand what does the real political connection look like if you want to build a meaningful political connection that's what I said what's the reaction of the West? we already saw what the reaction of the West would be to Pan-Africanism it's just killing a lot of people so that's why one, you have to have a proper organization that doesn't rely on individuals two, actually one of the reasons why the diaspora is really important in this struggle it's more difficult to do the terrible things the West would want to do with millions of us in America millions of us in Britain we actually have a power base that's why actually moving straight to Africa that's the wrong thing because you need to have some kind of power base here to disrupt what will happen and it will definitely happen this is one of the other reasons why China is more dangerous because there aren't many of us in China you don't have that power base whereas here you have a stronger power base but no, we know what will happen it won't be good I guess the thing about in this political framework the United States isn't the solution at all it's not going to be the place where revolution happens it's not going to be the place where the change happens so I guess I just disagree I just I don't know does it leave the West off the hook I just say I can't see this just understanding what the nature of the system is I think we have to understand that even Black Masters makes this basic argument that revolution happens elsewhere because that's where their conditions are and their conditions aren't really here and what will happen here and what has happened here and what will happen here again the welfare state happens because inequality gets too big and then people aren't stupid so they know they're terrified of revolution so they give you a welfare state this is what will happen in the West there will be a crisis, poverty and then there will be a resetting and benefits and that will probably be enough to buy after masses of people and even those people migrating here I mean we're the worst of the worst people jeez we migrate here and then make those same arguments I just need a better standard of living and now you've got Black people saying I'm not pro-Eastern European migration let's forget the migrants so we tie into that as well I think that's really important Blackness, non-Black Blackness, non-Blackness question how do you have unity across the Third World no I think that's important but again, and I think if you actually look at the Black radical movements who are the ones who have made those connections who went to Bandung who was part of the Third World movement this was Black radicals so why am I pro-Palestine it's because I embrace Black radicalism because it shows you a way of understanding the world so once you understand the world that way you have to be pro-other movements absolutely essential but again the independence part of it is important because anti-Blackness is a real thing and it is a real route to prosperity for some other place so you can't just rely on that it's not just because people are white that they will exploit you it's an Arab slave trade that was the first slave trade do you need this question about European development do you need a European development model no, no, no and a lot of these things we think about as being European democracy for example, is that really European like are we sure it's European you got to Egypt, you got these pyramids which are what else are the pyramids but one of the most marvels of science and mathematics that ever existed the idea that's European that's crazy, right clearly these things came before Europe even possibly existed so I don't think you need a European framework you need a different framework effectively Brazil, yeah Brazil is a place where the country where the most enslaved Africans went by distance about 40% of enslaved Africans went to Brazil massively important in terms of diaspora and Brazil had Universal Negro Improvement Association chapters Afro-Brazilian politics is really is a growing thing as well in Brazil I guess I just disagree that you need the white people I don't think you do but again I'm not against allies allies are good they're always good no but yeah I think that especially as well as Brazil Brazil is the country with the most black people in it as apart from Nigeria so usually you have a mass population of people who really could do something very different and change black radicalism in Brazil is a real positive, it's the majority of people which could fundamentally change many things in that country alternative economic system I guess the difference is I don't when we talk about shared resources and socializing the wealth that's not common that communism embraces those ideas but you can have those ideas without Marxism and without communism in fact those ideas existed prior to Marxism and communism so I think what the exact economics and political framework looks like I cannot tell you but I shouldn't be able to tell you because you can only really develop that through the process of putting it together those are the next set of questions we should be asking and the final question was about blackness is not a concept of white people 100% there's a whole chapter on the book on blackness blackness is our thing you think when Europeans walked into Africa do you not think that we went you look different at that point there's different ways of how that difference gets interpreted the European way of that is race, it's the Negro it's we're inferior, it's we're substandard and they create this idea of the Negro and the Negro is that social construct we aren't really people, we haven't got civilization that's the Negro our response to the Negro is blackness it's for us to say this is meaningful this is a connection that we embrace that is actually anti-European ideas of race it's not about genetics it's not about superiority and inferiority it's about how this thing connects us together into a political project so I would always say blackness it's not always been called blackness it could be different things but this brings us together we're part of something cohesive and collective it's not a European idea at all it's not a European idea at all this is the basis of radical collectivity because it says that we are that global diaspora and it's been really influential on the African continent so Gavi is one of the most important political projects in Africa even though Marcus Gavi never went to Africa but look at the flags of Ghana the flag of Kenya, the flag of Namibia the flag of there's another country, Southern Africa I'm forgetting my country but look, anytime you see red, black and green on any flag you see a black star that's Gavi's zoom Gavi's hugely important so the idea, this is just like a diaspora it's not true these ideas when in the Kenyan Kenyan revolution they would take the Negro world it was Gavi's paper and they would run from village to village looking at this paper in the different tribal languages massively important these ideas are hugely important in the African continent and when I've gone and talked to this is not the elite anytime I've gone and talked to these regular people they understand they understand what's happening to you and you understand what's happening it's not simple because obviously things like tribe is one of the barriers to this because if you have a tribe you're not the same, you're not connected and Krumer is a good example of this where Krumer understands that tribal leaders are hugely important so it works that way pan-Africanism which incorporates tribalism I'm not sure I have I'm definitely not saying you have to get rid of tribe or ethnic identity but see it as an ethnic identity you can have your tribe but our political identity is different to Europe France is a tribe Britain is a tribe America is a tribe but on a basic political identity it's whiteness and they do it very well and they essentially agree on basic everything even at times when they were at war so thinking about France and Britain two of the major slave trade nations competing, having wars during slavery massively competition you could say are completely different not a system Britain and France were actually having wars over slave colonies half of all of the enslaved Africans in French plantations came on British ships French slavery could not have survived without Britain at the same time Britain and France are fighting that's the kind of unity we're talking about you can have your tribe, you can have wars but you basically agree on the central premise and that's how you build your unity and why is that not possible in Africa because we have kind of this idea that our tribes are so central to African people you can't possibly, it's kind of a savage idea that's how we are we're so fundamentally tribal that we can't possibly go past that and have unity across something else which is fundamentally not true thank you very much, I'm afraid we're out of time but you're welcome to ask more questions afterwards, any final comments would you? no, we just want to get a book, get a book, I'll sign it you know, we'll be nice to you thank you