Some Must Read Literature

A Short Revolutionary Reading List

Sista Nefertiti, my good friend and comrade, posted on Assata Shakur Forums that she is reading Sun Tzu on the Art of War! Sun's teaching resembles Tai Chi: attack when the enemy is weak; fall back when he is strong; kno the lay of the land and never give the enemy the defensive advantage. Not only is Sun Tzu a great tactician, he gives us rules for living, working and playing. That's an awesome read!

As I went over some of those posts, there are so many authors that I need to revisit! George GM James, the inestimable Diop. I don't kno if these authors were posted, but they produce some great writing: JA Rogers, Drusilla Dunjee Houston, Bobby Seale, Na'im Akbar. A personal acquaintance and friend, Abdul Alkalimat has an excellent Primer on African American History. Some more great authors from the US include classics like E Franklin Frazier's The Black Bourgeoisie, Harold Cruse's The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, Huey P Newton's Revolutionary Suicide, George Jackson's Blood in My Eye, and my introduction to revolutionary organizations, Gene Marine's The Black Panthers.

About the same time, I got into a conversation with Gen. Peter Castro Okema-Otika on Facebook about African literature. He told me, "Okot P'Bitek is a Luo/Acholi poet and writer who wrote intriguing books like Song of Lawino, [and] Song of Ocol, etc. He was friend with Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Chinnua Achebe who wrote Things Fall Apart. Okot comes from my village/town of Gulu in Northern Uganda (RIP)."

Since Peter also suggested listening to the music of Geoffrey Oryema and mentioned Ngugi wa Thiong'o, plus Chinua Achebe, you can google them as I surely will. Being a great enthusiast of Ngugi, I had read his Decolonising the Mind and Barrel of a Pen years ago in Dennis Brutus's class on African literature when Brutus was professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. Ngugi is a giant of African letters. He, Chinweizu, and Chidi Amuta are the very best critics of anti-imperialist literary art that I have ever read. And don't forget to go over the poetry of that anti-apartheid, anti-imperialist stalwart, my friend and mentor, Dennis Makhana Brutus.

Jean-Paul Sartre ("Sart"), a Frenchman, philosopher and everlasting anti-imperialist, wrote the "Foreword" to Fanon's major work, Wretched of the Earth. Sartre opposed the French-Algerian War and exposed its atrocities, and played a similar protagonistic role when both the French and then the US were in Vietnam. His anti-imperialist stance on all major questions of the Twentieth Century earned him the hatred of the US foreign policy ideologues; Sartre was honored by liberation movements everywhere. No matter how "black" you are, this is one European who deserves a ton of props.

Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh's general and architect of the Vietnamese wars against the French and US, wrote a number of bad ass books on Vietnam military history. Giap or Vo, don't kno which is his family name, must be one of the greatest military strategists of the last 100 years.

Mao Zedong (formerly spelt "Tse Tung") wrote down his Selected Military Writings, which have more emphasis on the political discipline of the Red Army. Like Mao, Amilcar Cabral wrote a number of books during Guinea-Bissau's guerrilla conflict with Portugal but, again, Cabral deals very little with battlefield tactics and stratagems. Same approach applies to writings by Fidel and Che Guevara. Why? Because these revolutionaries focused upon transforming society and the military solution was regarded as only a transitional and limited tool for that task.

Hence, for an understanding of the battlefield tactics and political structure of guerrilla movements in 20th Century Latin America, Regis DeBray catalogued a number of instances in interviews with Che, and DeBray also followed Che's command.

There is a book by a guy at the local library. Don't remember his name or the book title. But it essentially discusses military battles which changed history. At first I was like, what, no Hannibal crossing the Alps?! Then I caught on to what he was getting at: military battles that changed history (that might be the title, sumpin like that) are those in which the balance of power shifts, or a power vacuum is created. In any event, a new period of history begins (or ends) because of the turning point based a particular battle. So instead of the brilliant Hannibal crossing the Alps, the author featured the Battle of Zama, which determined who would rule the Mediterranean, the Carthaginians or Rome. Plus he discusses other battles of the ancient world and thru medieval times, colonial times and right up to Dien Bien Phu. A great read for military enthusiasts.

Eduardo Galeano wrote The Open Veins of Latin America. Galeano is a must read; his writing is poetic and a polemic tour de force; he exposes Bush family forerunner Herbert Walker and his role in the United Fruit Company. Galeano covers everything from Nicaragua on thru Peru and Argentina. His writing style makes reading history extremely interesting. Anybody who wants to become a good writer should read his work. But the way he puts it down will make you weep. And then it will make you outraged.

In this class, which elaborates upon Karl Marx's theory of primitive accumulation, you will find Walter Rodney's How Capitalism Underdeveloped Africa, Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery, and Manning Marable's How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. Then, CLR James wrote The Black Jacobins, which details the only successful slave revolt in history; speaking of Haiti, check up on Randall Robinson's recent book, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President, which details the sordid US policy in that island country. For the history of resistance, Herbert Aptheker does a fine job in American Negro Slave Revolts.

Have you read Credo Mutwa? His play Nosilimela taught me rudimentary Zulu. There is a website on UFOs and mutis dedicated to him. Almost comical, but his writing gets you involved.

Also, for work on anti-imperialist struggle by some giants try getting ahold of Fanon, Cabral, Cesaire (who collaborated with Pablo Picasso on one of his books), Nkrumah, Nyerere, Brutus, Biko, Lessing, Fugard (not really). Wadada Nabudere is a must read. Haven't read Facing Mt. Kilimanjaro. On my list, too.