Meshell Ndegeocello

– Pour une âme souveraine:

A Dedication to

Nina Simone

 

By Damian Rafferty on October 3, 2012

Submissions

Submissions are open for the Winter 2012 MEMOIR / PERSONAL NARRATIVE echapbook from October 1 through November 25, 2012.

The Winter 2012 echapbook will feature one author.

Prose narratives should be based on personal experience. They may be flash or longer, from 500 up to 3,500 words each, totalling a minimum of approximately 8,000 and a maximum of 16,000 words for the collection.

These narratives should belong together for some reason, be it theme, location or people. They can be funny or serious, or both, but something should have changed for the narrator or have been learned in the process of reshaping that experience.

At least one-fourth of the collection should be previously unpublished, either in print or online. (But no stories need be previously published.)

Click here to submit to Wordrunner eChapbooks via submishmash.

General guidelines:

Submit ONE FILE (Word doc, RTF, ODT or WordPerfect). (Please do not send docx files, thank you!)

Please do NOT include identifying information anywhere in the manuscript, as readings are blind.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but only one submission per author. Please notify Wordrunner eChapbooks if your work is accepted elsewhere. We prefer that you withdraw the submission from your Submittable account. Alternately, you may write directly to editor@echapbook.com.

There is no fee for open submissions.

Payment: varies, up to $65

All rights revert to authors.

Note: By submitting to Wordrunner eChapbooks, you are also signing up for the quarterly emailed announcement of newly published echapbooks. We will never give out your e-mail to anyone else. You can always opt out of the mailing.

Click here to sign up online for quarterly email reminders of each issue and upcoming submission deadlines.

Call for Papers:

Writing through the Visual/Virtual

—Inscribing Language, Literature,

and Culture in Francophone Africa

and the Caribbean

The Center for African Studies 2013 Conference, “Writing through the Visual/Virtual: Inscribing Language, Literature, and Culture in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean,” will be held at Rutgers University on March 7‐9, 2013. The deadline for proposals is November 1, 2012.

Description: This two‐day conference at Rutgers University (New Brunswick) is designed to foster trans‐disciplinary understanding of the complex interplay between language/literature/arts and the visual and virtual domains of expressive culture in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. It will explore the varied patterns of cultural, and especially writing, formations and practices arising from contemporary and historical forces that have impacted on the cultures and peoples of this trans‐Atlantic region that includes countries such as Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Comoro Islands, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (DR), Dominica, Guadeloupe, Guiana, Haiti, Louisiana (USA), Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Seychelles. Special attention will be paid to how scripts, though appearing to be merely decorative in function, are often used by artists and performers in the production of material and non‐material culture to tell “stories” of great significance, co‐mingling words and images in a way that leads to a creative synthesis that links the local and the global, the “classical” and the “popular” in new ways.

Possible topics for the conference include (but are not limited) to the following: Graphic symbols and collective memory; politics of fashion/political pagnes/proverbs on pagnes; gendered spaces of writing (on walls, cooking pots, the ground, taps‐taps); comics/bandes dessinées, books, film and literacy; body art (tattooing, scarification) using henna, ink; reading relief, surface scripts, vèvè et vaudou; inscribing orality: history, Hip‐Hop, and rap; scripts: Bagam, calligraphy, graffiti, ideograms; creation, publication, consumption, consumerism; langue vernaculaire/langue véhiculaire : Kreyòl, Wolof, Lingala/French, Arabic; intracultural/Intercultural communication and new technologies : blogs, Facebook, Twitter; and languages in contact: creolization, translation, and transnational dynamics.

Proposals from all disciplines will be accepted for individual papers or for panels. Paper proposals must include the author’s name, the paper title, an abstract, and the author’s brief biography. Panel proposals must include a chair, list of no more than 4 presenters, a one‐page summary of the session theme, short bio and abstracts for all papers. In addition to papers, we also invite artists to submit their work for display. The conference will also include film screenings, art exhibitions, fashion shows.

Please submit electronically a 100 to 200‐word abstract and panel proposal by November 1, 2012 to the following address: writing_through_the_visual_virtual_2013@email.rutgers.edu

For more information, please visit the http://ruafrica.rutgers.edu/

Image: Edouard Duval Carrié’s “Erzulie-Dantor,” 1999

At-A-Glance: Short Story Contest

AndWeWereHungry is delighted to announce that Gregory Colbert, the artist and nature advocate behind “Ashes and Snow” (the most attended exhibition by any living artist in history), is sponsoring our inaugural short story contest.

The Flying Elephants Short Story Prize is now open for submissions!

The Flying Elephants Short Story Prize is meant to showcase the work of outstanding short story writers who have not yet published a novel or short story collection. Four winning short story writers will share a $5000 cash prize. The online submissions deadline is Friday Nov. 30, 2012 11:59 p.m. ET. The winners will be announced in Winter 2013 and the winning short stories will be published in our inaugural issue here on this website.

The Flying Elephants Short Story Prize Guidelines-at-a-Glance

• Short Story Length: No length restrictions, but longer manuscripts (8,000—10,000 words) or shorter manuscripts (less than 2,000 words) will have to be truly exceptional to be shortlisted.

• Entry Fee: None.

• Eligibility: Writers must 18-years of age or older, and short stories must be original and previously unpublished.

• Theme: “AndWeWereHungry. . . .”

• *Top Prize Theme: “AndWeWereHungry for Nature.” (*Grand prize reserved for the story that connect the theme with nature.)

• Entry Instructions: A writer may submit only one story. Although simultaneous submissions are accepted, entrants must immediately notify AndWeWereHungry if the piece is accepted elsewhere. An excerpt from a novel in progress must stand alone as a short story.

• How to Submit: Online submissions here only.

• Deadline: Friday, November 30, 2012, 11:59 p.m. ET.

• Prize: Total prize fund $5.000 USD. One writer will receive $2,000, three writers will each receive $1,000 and eight writers will be shortlisted. All will be published in our inaugural issue.

If you have any questions regarding AndWeWereHungry’s Flying Elephants Short Story Prize, the contest’s complete terms and conditions can be found here.

More on our submission theme can be found here.

If you are ready to submit your short story, you can access our general submission guidelines and submit your work via our online submissions manager here.

We are all Revolutionaries...

whether we see it or not, to see we must open our eyes to our greatness.... and oh what great things we will see.

 

Ask me a Question

twitter.com/JasVicious:

noggy73:

Gaye McDonald - One Magazine

(via justmihaywood)

 

http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/0985_revolution-starts-at-home.pdf

READ THIS BOOK! "

mayachapina:

fuckyeahfeminists:

bidyke:

The Revolution Starts at Home - in PDF!

EPIC WIN.

http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/0985_revolution-starts-at-home.pdf

READ THIS BOOK!

Source: bidyke

Burundi's female ex-combatants' life after war

By IRIN

| Tuesday, September 18  2012 

Ms Odile Nibizi and Ms Annabella Nshimirimana: Many women in Bujumbura Rurale were forced into war. Others who stayed in the villages ended up performing chores either for the army or the FNL.   JUDITH BASUTAMA | IRIN

By age 15, Annonciata Nduwimana was an accomplished fighter for Burundi's opposition Forces Nationales De Liberation (FNL) and knew how to kill in battle.

"My father was killed, accused of sheltering rebels. We [her mother and two elder brothers] then fled to Bujumbura to seek safe haven," she said.

Life in the capital, however, proved tough for a widow with three children. Unable to pay rent, the family returned to their village of Muyira in Bujumbura Rurale Province.

The area was an FNL stronghold. "The army was convinced that we pretended to be school pupils by day but turned into FNL fighters during the night," Nduwimana told IRIN.

"I knew by staying here, I would be killed. I chose to die on the battlefield."

That was 2003. Two weeks after joining the FNL, she had completed basic training and was deployed on the battlefield.

"I was afraid, I couldn't figure out I could kill people," she said. "But there was no way out - you either killed or you were killed. The choice was clear."

Now 21, Nduwimana is back to civilian life in Muyira, but with little to show for her time as a combatant. She is traumatised, has not been fully accepted by society and lacks capital to start an income-generating activity.

Like Nduwimana, many women in the province were forced into war. Others who stayed in the villages ended up performing chores either for the army or the FNL.

While some took food to combatants, others fetched water or firewood, or sheltered the fighters in their houses.

 

Ambushed

"We used to leave home carrying food at around 8pm in the night and walk and walk; we arrived at their [FNL] hiding places at dawn," Annabelle Nshimirimana, 20, said.

"The next night we walked back home, taking care nobody observed our absence," she added. "It was a difficult task because it was a long way through the mountains. Sometimes we were ambushed and forced to fight."

Nshimirimana's neighbour, Odile Nibizi, 34, remembered one night when FNL fighters knocked at her door, asking for shelter. Although she did not know any of them, the men stayed at her home for a whole year.

"I was providing them [with] everything; this cost me my beer business because I ended up with nothing at all," the mother of six said.

"We were caught between two fires: If we sheltered the FNL, the army targeted us; if you refused, you were also killed," She said.

The three are among thousands of women in Burundi who are trying to pick up the pieces after the FNL gave up their military struggle and became a political party in April 2009.

With Burundi now largely calm, female ex-combatants like Nduwimana, Nshimirimana and Nibizi are trying to integrate back into civilian life.

However, it is a difficult journey for most of them as they struggle on their own to heal their wounds, get over the trauma of being an ex-combatant, fight stereotypes and get accepted in a society not accustomed to female ex-combatants.

"They [neighbours] call me names. When they see me passing, they say, 'look, she was a solider'; they still believe I am a bandit; all cases of banditry are blamed on us," Nduwimana said.

 

Shunned

Another ex-combatant, who declined to be named, said ex-combatants who were impregnated by other combatants were worse off, and they were shunned by the society.

"They tell us to take the children to their fathers, but how can we?" she said.

Many women are struggling to make ends meet.

"I saved $3.6 and used it as capital; I sell cooking oil. Up to now I have only three litres. I can get soap and food," said Nshimirimana, who was forced to leave school at an early age.

With no parents, her five brothers and sisters are taken care of by relatives at Rumonge in the southern province of Bururi.

Ex-combatants have also formed economic empowerment groups which also help with their social integration process.

The group is also setting up a savings and loan scheme, and awareness is being raised among women of the importance of working in associations.

Many have now formed solidarity groups that aim to save money weekly, with a view to offering loans to members.

The group also wants to bring together, with the ex-combatants, women who did not get involved in the fighting.

According to organisers when they are working together, they talk about their past experience; they can understand each other. Those who have had not been accepted in the community can get a listening ear in the group."

Black power - reading guide

Libcom.org's reading guide on the American black power movement of the 1960s-70s and its key groups as well as some readings on the civil rights movement.

General recommended reading

• Black particularity reconsidered - Adolph L. Reed Jr. - In-depth analysis of how the management of black dissent by the black American middle-class/professional elite helped restructure capitalism to its own advantage.

• A disgrace before God: Striking black sanitation workers vs. black officialdom in 1977 Atlanta - Case study of the betrayal of the African American working class by the Black political class brought to power by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960's.

• Black Autonomy: Civil Rights, the Panthers and Today - Interview with two anarchist ex-Black Panthers about their involvement in the civil rights movement, the Black Panther Party and the relevance of anarchism to black struggle.

• Martin Luther King, Jr - Martin Glaberman - Short article about MLK's legacy of non-violent tactics.

• Reflection on Doctor King - Lorenzo Komboa Ervin - Article on the distortion of MLK's legacy as a tool for disarming the black working class as well as propping self-serving community leaders.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defence

Maoist-influenced black nationalist political party, whose combination of community organising projects and militant image made it arguably the most important of all the Black Power groups at the time. It would eventually become subject to some of the heaviest repression in post-World War 2 America.

• The Black Panther Party for Self Defense - Short and clearly written introductory history of the Black Panthers.

• James Carr, the Black Panthers and all that - A look at the life of James Carr, a life-long gang member turned Black Panther who developed an anti-Leninist revolutionary criticism of the BPP and would eventually be assassinated in mysterious circumstances. The article, used as an afterword for his book, Bad, gives an excellent critical history of the Panthers and their relationship to the prison struggles and wider social movements of the 1960s.

• War against the Panthers: A study of repression in America - Huey P Newton - Analysis of the development and growth of the BPP, as well as the state's response to them, from leader Huey Newton.

• Seize the time: The story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton - Bobby Seale - Book on the BPP and Huey Newton, written by a co-founder of the party while he was in prison.

• Explaining the demise of the Black Panther Party: The role of internal factors - An anti-authoritarian analysis of the Black Panthers' demise.

• "No one ever asks what a man's role in the revolution is": Gender and sexual politics in the Black Panther Party 1966-1971 - Article by Trace Matthews on the gender politics of the Black Panthers in the context of competing ideologies, namely Black cultural nationalism and White feminism.

• Lumpenization: A critical error of The Black Panther Party - Essay arguing that the BPP's fetishisation of the lumpen class and their failure to reform the more criminal/ anti-social elements, as the Nation of Islam did, contributed to the party's demise.

The League of Revolutionary Black Workers

Black workers' organisation formed in 1969, based largely in the car factories of Detroit, it was formed of different Revolutionary Union Movements (RUMs) such as DRUM (based at the Dodge Main factory), FRUM (based at Ford) and others, they took on both management and United Autoworkers Union in fighting against racism and for better conditions on the shopfloor.

• Detroit: I do mind dying - A study in urban revolution - Excellent book on the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and League of Revolutionary Black Workers. One of the most important books on the black liberation movement and American workers' struggles, includes interviews and accounts from participants. Highly recommended.

• 1968-1971: The League of Revolutionary Black Workers - A.Muhammad Ahmad - Short history of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. The article includes other information about the car industry, race and struggle from 1910 onwards.

• DRUM: vanguard of the black revolution - Luke Tripp - A short history of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, detailing their beginnings as well as their opposition to the United Auto Workers union, written in 1969 by a founding member.

• Black cats, white cats, wildcats: Auto workers in Detroit, 1969 - Martin Glaberman - Introductory article and account of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and its activity in Detroit in the 1960s and 70s.

• The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement - Martin Glaberman - Analysis on the formation of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement.

• Dying from the inside: The decline of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers - Ernie Allen - A key account of the organizational issues of the LRBW taken from the book They Should Have Served That Cup of Coffee: Seven Radicals Remember the 60s.

Nation of Islam

Islamic black separatist organisation which was one of the major actors in the early civil rights and black power movement.

• A proletarian critique of the Nation of Islam - Melancholic Troglodytes - Pamphlet looking at the Nation Of Islam's history and evolution, the way it exploits its membership and its promotion of anti-working class, sexist, homophobic and racist ideology.

• The transgression of a laborer: Malcom X in the wilderness of America - Ferruccio Gambino - Analysis of Malcolm X's development, from prison and the factory to the Nation of Islam, and his deviation from the traditional state-allocated path of ethnic leadership.

Other media

• The murder of Fred Hampton - Documentary depicting the brutal murder of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, killed in his bed by FBI agents. This film provides an excellent snapshot of the kind of repression faced by the Panthers.

• Finally got the news - Documentary about the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. Includes interviews with members, supporters and opponents, the film documents their attempts to build a radical black workers' organisation to take on both management and the union and fight to improve conditions for all workers, black and white.

• Eyes on the prize - 14-hour documentary series telling the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary people whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life.

• X - Spike Lee's biographical film about Malcolm X, covering his life from his time as a petty criminal, his political awakening in prison and eventual assassination. Starring Denzel Washington.

• Panther - Film by Mario Van Peebles about the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, focusing largely on the government's COINTELPRO programme of repression.