Judy Rebick launches “Transforming Power” – essential reading for activists!
The Left has always been a fractured and fragmented place rife with disagreement and conflict about how best to challenge oppression and change the world. Can the days of disagreement between neo-Marxist-Leninist Communists and Third wave post-Anarcho-feminist radicals finally be over? Yes, according to Judy Rebick, who descended on Montreal recently with to promote her new book Transforming Power: From the Personal to Political which she claims is her best-written and most important yet. Activists in the 21st Century are putting aside their differences to focus on inclusion, dialogue, networking, solidarity, and critical praxis because they “understand that the crisis is too great for differences of ego or ideologyto divide us from others who share the goals of social justice, equality, and environmental sustainability. (9)”
On Wednesday March 25 at 5 pm Judy Rebick began the eastern leg of her book tour in Montreal. The Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy in collaboration with the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University sponsored the launch. Ironically, in contrast to the book’s activist message of hope, the event was held in the in the brutalist concrete Samuel Bronfman Building, which is named after one of Montreal’s most prolific bootlegging capitalists.
Judy Rebick is a well-known social justice activist, educator , writer, and speaker. An activist at least from the age of 16 when she rejected religious beliefs, Judy has worked hard for social change in various Leftist circles such as feminism, socialism, and arts activism. She was recently arrested for occupying the Israeli consulate in protest against the bombing of Gaza. Judy Rebick is the founder of rabble.ca, helped create the New Politics Initiative, and is the author of several books and articles, most recently Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution (Penguin 2005). Her other books are Imagine Democracy (Stoddard 2000) and Politically Speaking (Douglas & McIntyre 1996). Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political is her fourth book.
“Transforming Power” looks at social developments such as the election of President Obama, the rise of democracy in Bolivia, and the success of Wikipedia, and analyses key processes at work: “bringing communities of people together to produce something new; building a movement from the bottom up; sharing experience, knowledge and wisdom; emphasizing co-operation and consensus over confrontation and political partisanship.”
Before launching into her talk, Judy Rebick gave a slideshow presentation to the gathered crowd about the places she visited, people she met, and activist struggles she encountered while writing the book. Her speech focussed on the circumstances behind her new book and why she is championing “new ways of achieving political goals by emphasizing co-operation and consensus over confrontation and partisanship.” Realizing the need for more inclusion in the Left, Judy Rebick advocates doing away with the divisions of yesteryear and working towards solidarity and convergence on activist issues.
Judy Rebick is calling for meaningful responses to the environmental crisis and social injustices across the planet. She notes that substantial, sustainable change is needed at every level, and suggests this “can only come through building power from the grass roots, from the people most impacted.” Her book is designed to help us “discover the ideas, the people and the practices that can provide the paths to the change we need.”
Even the book’s website is designed to empower. The Transforming Power website is meant to be a continuous epilogue for the book. Readers of “Transforming Power” who wish to dig deeper into the book’s content will find tools and information necessary to begin the work that Judy urges throughout her book; work against oppression and injustice that has already begun across the globe.Visitors are encouraged to read and respond to Judy’s blog, and even post their own entries about where they see power being transformed in their very own community.
According to the site: “One of the most important things that one can do to transform power is to become organized and connected with others who share similar goals. In order to facilitate this, we have provided a forum for visitors to the site to explain the work they are doing in their community and to help aid in the networking that Judy discusses throughout the book.”
Judy Rebick is an inspiration to theatre activists, and her theories on the importance of inclusion and the need for activism to be “fun” are very much at play within local organizations such as the infringement festival. By following the same grassroots principles as LINUX, existing systems can be challenged and replaced with more viable and less oppressive alternatives. The Optative Theatrical Laboratories heartily recommends getting a copy of this book and starting the journey towards a better future, another world where injustice and oppression are stamped out and humans live sustainably and in peace. To buy the book online, click on the Octopus Books website here.
March 27th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Thanks for the plug Donovan. Glad your are enjoying the book.