Simultaneously scholarly and righteously impassioned.
A speech delivered by the author in September 2023 at Columbia University, with an afterword on Gaza.
“The Palestinian struggle for freedom,” writes British Palestinian novelist Hammad, author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost, “has outlasted the narrative shape of many other anticolonial liberation movements that concluded with independence during the twentieth century, and it is becoming more difficult to hold fast to the old narratives about the power of narrative.” The author opens by referencing Edward Said’s 1975 book, Beginnings, addressing her choice to begin in the middle of stories, specifically “the shifting narrative shape of the Palestinian struggle in its global context.” She views Said, primarily, as a literary scholar, crediting his “engagement with fiction as an heir to a particular kind of humanism…that commits itself to crossing boundaries between cultures and disciplines.” Acknowledging that most of her own writing has been about Palestine, Hammad illustrates this with a story that also demonstrates anagnorisis, which Aristotle described as “a movement from ignorance to knowledge.” She interweaves her thoughts on narrative structure and aims—e.g., “The material we draw from the world needs to undergo some metamorphosis in order to function, or even to live, on the page”; “Literary anagnorisis feels most truthful when it is not redemptive: when it instead stages a troubling encounter with limitation or wrongness”—with examples of comparative literature as well as Palestinian history, including her great-grandfather's life and the continued persecution of Palestinians by Israel. “Narrative shape can comfort and guide our efforts,” writes Hammad, "but we must eventually be ready to shape-shift, to be decentered…in the project of human freedom, which remains undone.” The anti-Zionist afterword addresses Israel’s attack on Gaza nine days after the author’s speech and the ongoing war: “Do they really believe they can obliterate the Palestinian will to life?”
Simultaneously scholarly and righteously impassioned.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780802163929
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Black Cat/Grove
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Deliberately provocative, with much for left-inclined activists to ponder.
A wide-ranging critique of leftist politics as not being left enough.
Continuing his examination of progressive reform movements begun with The Cult of Smart, Marxist analyst deBoer takes on a left wing that, like all political movements, is subject to “the inertia of established systems.” The great moment for the left, he suggests, ought to have been the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd and the accumulated crimes of Donald Trump should have led to more than a minor upheaval. In Minneapolis, he writes, first came the call from the city council to abolish the police, then make reforms, then cut the budget; the grace note was “an increase in funding to the very department it had recently set about to dissolve.” What happened? The author answers with the observation that it is largely those who can afford it who populate the ranks of the progressive movement, and they find other things to do after a while, even as those who stand to benefit most from progressive reform “lack the cultural capital and economic stability to have a presence in our national media and politics.” The resulting “elite capture” explains why the Democratic Party is so ineffectual in truly representing minority and working-class constituents. Dispirited, deBoer writes, “no great American revolution is coming in the early twenty-first century.” Accommodation to gradualism was once counted heresy among doctrinaire Marxists, but deBoer holds that it’s likely the only truly available path toward even small-scale gains. Meanwhile, he scourges nonprofits for diluting the tax base. It would be better, he argues, to tax those who can afford it rather than allowing deductible donations and “reducing the availability of public funds for public uses.” Usefully, the author also argues that identity politics centering on difference will never build a left movement, which instead must find common cause against conservatism and fascism.
Deliberately provocative, with much for left-inclined activists to ponder.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781668016015
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
A powerful guide to national reconciliation.
In this nonfiction book, an activist and scholar shares strategies for peace and reconciliation based on her experiences in West Africa.
More than a decade ago, Hoffman listened to her internal “soul-whispers” calling her to help facilitate peace in civil war–torn Sierra Leone. Drawing from her successful collaboration with local activists, she not only provides a contemporary history of a successful West African peace movement, but also offers a tested strategy for national reconciliation. “The answers are there,” as the book’s title suggests, if only people heed the “larger whispering echoing through our world—a part of our collective, unconscious, awakening, wanting us to listen and receive.” Indeed, listening lies at the center of the volume’s strategy. Fifteen years ago, Hoffman co-founded the nongovernmental organization Fambul Tok with John Caulker, a human rights activist from Sierra Leone. Meaning Family Talk in Krio, Fambul Tok centered on the voices and perspectives of those directly impacted by the nation’s civil war. The organization facilitated more than 200 “tradition-based community bonfire ceremonies of truth-telling, apology, and forgiveness,” involving more than 2,500 villages, 4,500 speakers, and over 150,000 witnesses. Though these events required Sierra Leone to confront “difficult truths,” they became the “taproot…of community healing” and are featured not only in this book, but also in Hoffman’s award-winning 2011 documentary, Fambul Tok. To the author, a former political science professor, they also reveal an alternative solution to Western involvement in Africa, which has traditionally manifested as a top-down, money-centered approach that failed to tap into the “real reasons for peace—healthy and whole communities.” While the volume could have used visual aids like maps and photographs, its account carefully balances an astute scholarly analysis of African geopolitics and Western aid with an intimate portrayal of Sierra Leone’s citizenry. With forewords by the country’s current minister of state in the Office of Vice President and the British director of the Institute for State Effectiveness as well as an afterword by Caulker, this volume has much to teach about the ways in which Western organizations and activists can effect positive global change through humility, listening, and empowering local communities.
A powerful guide to national reconciliation.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9862030-1-0
Page Count: 313
Publisher: Blue Chair Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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