In response to The Verso Book of Dissent Edited by Andrew Hsiao, and Audrea Lim
What's missing from The Verso Book of Dissent?
Verso’s cutting room floor is cluttered—with statements from strong movements that lacked eloquent leaders, and revolutionaries whose later abuses of power cast a shadow back across their earlier years. To ensure that the Book of Dissent spanned the ages and reached around the world, we limited it to one extract from each writer, leading to many agonizing choices. But there are undoubtedly mistakes, gaps and missed opportunities—please help us to plug these holes in time for the next edition!
In response to The Verso Book of Dissent Edited by Andrew Hsiao, and Audrea Lim
8 responses
I'll be a little provincial and just mention some Brazilians I didn't see in the book (they might be there, I just don't have a copy now to check). I'll just put some quotes and Wikipedia links in case people don't know who that person is.
1 - Chico Mendes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Mendes
* Environmental activist assassinated in 1988. Thirteen days before being assassinated he did an interview. One of the questions he answered addressed the threats on his life:
Q: "With prizes and international recognition, would you then be a 'delicate' cadaver?"
CM: "If an envoy from the heavens came down and gave me the guarantee that my death would strengthen our fight, it would be worth it. But experience teaches us the contrary. So I want to live. A public act and crowded funeral wont save the Amazon. I want to live."
2 - Carlos Marighella - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Marighella
* Revolutionary killed during the Brazilian dictatorship. He wrote the Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla. An OK translation in English can be found here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marighella-carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urban-guerrilla/index.htm
3 - Frei Betto - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frei_Betto
* Liberation theologist involved in several campaigns in Brazil to help empower the poor and segregated from society. He spent time in prison during the dictatorship and his letters were published (which is were the following quote comes from):
"Whoever wants to help his neighbor has to be willing to fight against numerous difficulties. Even in prison: here, to show concern for someone else's problems and to take on collective aspirations is almost a crime! It's strictly prohibited by the rules. As if individualism could lead us to socialization.
In the world that we live it's like this: normal is for man to love one person; whoever loves two is immoral; whoever loves more than three is subversive. The first, they bless; the second, they censor; the third, they arrest or kill. But who can defeat a man that loves disinterestedly? They can mutilate him, to the point where he no longer has hands to extend, voice to console or excite, eyes to mirror his kindness and joy — at least there will still remain a heart to love an pray. They can kill him. The Name will remain. And that no one can erase. No one."
Thee are some that just popped in my head. Zumbi dos Palmares and Antônio Conselheiro are really interesting figures, but I don't know what the situation is as far as finding legitimate quotes from them...
Great collection of dissenters, but I’m disappointed you missed out a whole continent! Here in Australia (as well as in Aotearoa / New Zealand and other countries in Oceania), we have a great tradition of dissent, so for your next edition, you may want to add a few great characters:
William Cooper (1861-1941)
Copper was a Yorta Yorta man and a leading campaigner for Aboriginal rights. In 1936, Cooper, who was already in his seventies, founded the Australian Aborigines League (AAL), gathered signatures for a petition to King George V, and organised protests on the 150th anniversary of colonisation in January 1938.
The experience of racism and eugenic policies in 1930s Europe resonated with indigenous communities in Australia. A month after the Nazi pogrom on Kristallnacht in Germany, on 6 December 1938, Cooper led a delegation of Aboriginal protestors to the German consulate in Melbourne (“The German consul, Dr Walther Drechsler, must have felt deeply offended by a horde of ‘savages’ who dared to criticize Hitler, Göbbels and Göring, and he did not open the door”.) Cooper’s march was one of the few public protests in Australia against the fascist persecution of the Jews.
The Argus newspaper (7 December 1938) reported "A deputation from the Australian Aborigines' League, which visited the German consulate yesterday, with the intention of conveying to the consul (Dr R.W. Drechsler) a resolution condemning the persecution of Jews and Christians in Germany, was refused admittance.” The resolution voiced, 'on behalf of the Aborigines of Australia, a strong protest at the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany, and asks that this persecution be brought to an end'."
Source: Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2004)
Jack Patten (1904-1957)
Another great indigenous Australian campaigner in the 1930s was Jack Patten of the Aborigines’ Progressive Association (APA), who worked to organise the 1938 Day of Mourning Protest. Protesting the 150th anniversary of colonisation, Patten said:
“The fact remains that our people are not getting a square deal and have never had a square deal at any time in the last 150 years. We now ask for freedom and equal citizenship. ..We don’t want to be given charity. We do not want you to study us as scientific curiosities. What we do want is this. We want to be regarded as normal, average human beings, the same as yourselves. We ask you not to treat us as outcasts, but to give us education and equal opportunity, which is our birthright. Don’t forget this, we are the real Australians and we ask the invaders of our country who brought new ideas to our land, to give us the chance to share in modern progress.”
Source: Radio interview with P.R. Stephenson, January 1938, in Bain Attwood and Andrew Marcus: The struggle for Aboriginal rights – a documentary history (Allen and Unwin 1999)
Edward “Ned” Kelly (1854 – 1880)
The iconic Australian bushranger was Ned Kelly, who escaped capture because of strong support from poor Irish selectors in the north-east of Victoria, who were opposed to the colonial police force and the (largely Anglo-Protestant) establishment.
Kelly maintained a fine line of invective against the police, as shown in this extract from his February 1879 Jerilderie letter:
“I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who was has no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat-headed big-bellied magpie-legged narrow-hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police who some calls honest gentlemen but I would like to know what business an honest man would have in the Police as it is an old saying It takes a rogue to catch a rogue and a man that knows nothing about roguery would never enter the force and take an oath to arrest brother sister father or mother if required and to have a case and conviction if possible any man knows it is possible to swear a lie and if a policeman looses a conviction for the sake of swearing a lie he has broke his oath therefore he is a perjurer either ways a policeman is a disgrace to his country and ancestors and religion…”
(Source: original Jerilderie letter in the State Library of Victoria : http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/our-collections/treasures-curios/jerilderie-letter )
William Cooper (1861-1941)
Copper was a Yorta Yorta man and a leading campaigner for Aboriginal rights. In 1936, Cooper, who was already in his seventies, founded the Australian Aborigines League (AAL), gathered signatures for a petition to King George V, and organised protests on the 150th anniversary of colonisation in January 1938.
The experience of racism and eugenic policies in 1930s Europe resonated with indigenous communities in Australia. A month after the Nazi pogrom on Kristallnacht in Germany, on 6 December 1938, Cooper led a delegation of Aboriginal protestors to the German consulate in Melbourne (“The German consul, Dr Walther Drechsler, must have felt deeply offended by a horde of ‘savages’ who dared to criticize Hitler, Göbbels and Göring, and he did not open the door”.) Cooper’s march was one of the few public protests in Australia against the fascist persecution of the Jews.
The Argus newspaper (7 December 1938) reported "A deputation from the Australian Aborigines' League, which visited the German consulate yesterday, with the intention of conveying to the consul (Dr R.W. Drechsler) a resolution condemning the persecution of Jews and Christians in Germany, was refused admittance.” The resolution voiced, 'on behalf of the Aborigines of Australia, a strong protest at the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany, and asks that this persecution be brought to an end'."
Source: Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2004)
Jack Patten (1904-1957)
Another great indigenous Australian campaigner in the 1930s was Jack Patten of the Aborigines’ Progressive Association (APA), who worked to organise the 1938 Day of Mourning Protest. Protesting the 150th anniversary of colonisation, Patten said:
“The fact remains that our people are not getting a square deal and have never had a square deal at any time in the last 150 years. We now ask for freedom and equal citizenship. ..We don’t want to be given charity. We do not want you to study us as scientific curiosities. What we do want is this. We want to be regarded as normal, average human beings, the same as yourselves. We ask you not to treat us as outcasts, but to give us education and equal opportunity, which is our birthright. Don’t forget this, we are the real Australians and we ask the invaders of our country who brought new ideas to our land, to give us the chance to share in modern progress.”
Source: Radio interview with P.R. Stephenson, January 1938, in Bain Attwood and Andrew Marcus: The struggle for Aboriginal rights – a documentary history (Allen and Unwin 1999)
Edward “Ned” Kelly (1854 – 1880)
The iconic Australian bushranger was Ned Kelly, who escaped capture because of strong support from poor Irish selectors in the north-east of Victoria, who were opposed to the colonial police force and the (largely Anglo-Protestant) establishment.
Kelly maintained a fine line of invective against the police, as shown in this extract from his February 1879 Jerilderie letter:
“I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who was has no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat-headed big-bellied magpie-legged narrow-hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police who some calls honest gentlemen but I would like to know what business an honest man would have in the Police as it is an old saying It takes a rogue to catch a rogue and a man that knows nothing about roguery would never enter the force and take an oath to arrest brother sister father or mother if required and to have a case and conviction if possible any man knows it is possible to swear a lie and if a policeman looses a conviction for the sake of swearing a lie he has broke his oath therefore he is a perjurer either ways a policeman is a disgrace to his country and ancestors and religion…”
(Source: original Jerilderie letter in the State Library of Victoria : http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/our-collections/treasures-curios/jerilderie-letter )
Nic Maclellan
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31 October 2010
Good suggestions Nic, thank you! And here's Nicholas Lezard from the Guardian review:
"Unsurprisingly, if a little disappointingly, it's heavily weighted towards the modern era: it takes a mere 40 pages to get to the 19th century, and there are still 320 pages to go. One may usefully ask oneself why this is the case; and why there is nothing from the Bible, which, unless I have completely missed the point, contains an enormous amount of dissent."
And on the other side of the balance sheet: "... we have a quotation from Valerie Solanas's 'Scum Manifesto', the only entry in the book I've found that really shouldn't be there."
(He's otherwise very positive: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/30/verso-dissent-nicholas-lezard-review)
Jacob Stevens
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01 November 2010
Just reading Maclellan's comment that there are no dissidents from Aotearoa. Are we just invisible to the rest of the world? Why isn't John Minto on there?
For all those of you who don't know who John Minto is, he was the leader of HART (Halt All Racist Tours). This was of course that group behind the protests against the 1981 Springbok Tour to New Zealand. Many contempories refer to this event as almost a civil war: the entire country was divided and there was high levels of violence between the riot police and the protestors. In 2009, Minto was offered an award by the South African Government for his work in helping bring down Apartheid. He however, refused stating that they had been fighting for a better South African not for a 'select few blacks to become millionaires'.
On top of that there are all the great Maori dissidents such as Hone Heke, Potatau Te Wherowhero and Te Whiti (who adopted non-violent resistance long before Ghandi), plus all the Australian dissidents. Why are they simply ignored.
For all those of you who don't know who John Minto is, he was the leader of HART (Halt All Racist Tours). This was of course that group behind the protests against the 1981 Springbok Tour to New Zealand. Many contempories refer to this event as almost a civil war: the entire country was divided and there was high levels of violence between the riot police and the protestors. In 2009, Minto was offered an award by the South African Government for his work in helping bring down Apartheid. He however, refused stating that they had been fighting for a better South African not for a 'select few blacks to become millionaires'.
On top of that there are all the great Maori dissidents such as Hone Heke, Potatau Te Wherowhero and Te Whiti (who adopted non-violent resistance long before Ghandi), plus all the Australian dissidents. Why are they simply ignored.
Nick Merrington
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02 November 2010
It looks like a really interesting book. Interesting title too. Hmmm the blanketty 'Book of Dissent'. Now where have I heard that before? Not the 'Chatto Book of Dissent' surely? And then its paperback version the 'Vintage Book of Dissent'...edited by Michael Rosen and David Widgery.
Looking forward to seeing if a) this predecessor is mentioned and b) if any of the pieces that either Dave or I found that had never been published before are to be found in this new 'book of Dissent'..
Michael Rosen: a pleasure to have you on the site! The Vintage Book of Dissent was indeed one of the early inspirations (as we mention on page xvi), as well as an invaluable resource in putting together the book. The Verso office copy has been well-thumbed-through. You'd be pleased with the poor shape it's now in -- a shame copies are no longer available! But while we did use and acknowledge a handful entries, the vast majority of the Verso book is based on many months of original research, including a number of newly translated or previously unpublished extracts. We hope you enjoy it!
Audrea Lim
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04 November 2010
i was hoping that frantz fanon's teacher and activist-politician aime cesaire would make an appearance. his powerful discourse on colonialism deserves to be quoted (in full even, should there be no space constraints).
Yu Qing Liu
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19 March 2011
i was hoping that frantz fanon's teacher and activist-politician aime cesaire would make an appearance. his powerful discourse on colonialism deserves to be quoted (in full even, should there be no space constraints).
Yu Qing Liu
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19 March 2011