POSTED ON July 2, 2020 BY admin
PADKOS NO 101
Few people around the world have a better sense of how militants and activists are thinking and doing right now, than Firoze Manji. He’s been conducting an extraordinary series of interviews into how people are experiencing, thinking and organising “in the time of Covid-19”. Despite a punishing schedule, Firoze graciously agreed to an extended interview with us to reflect on what’s emerged from the series. At the time of our chat, he had completed eighty interviews. Also by that time, the wave of Black Lives Matter militancy and rage, after the murder of George Floyd in the US, wove itself into the Covid-19 context in many places.
Responding to a set of questions generated by the workers here at the Church Land Programme (CLP), Firoze’ reflections provide our padkos community with unique and powerful insight into how activists around the globe are organising and analysing at this time. We hope you find this padkos podcast interesting food for thought to engage with. You can listen to the podcast here. Interspersed through the interview are a couple of outstanding pieces of music selected by Firoze too – one from Abdullah Ibrahim, and another from Amira Kheir! We’re sure many of you will want to listen to the interviews as well after hearing Firoze so, if you haven’t already been following them, head over to Daraja Press.
Firoze Manji is a leading pan-African activist, intellectual, publisher and writer – and a longstanding friend of padkos. He was last with us in 2018 for a great session on Paulo Freire in the first class of our 2018 “School of Thought”. And in 2015, Firoze’s amazing input on “What’s Left in Africa?” closed off our ‘School of Thought’ series for that year. He is publisher of Daraja Press, a not-for-profit publishing collective that seeks to contribute to reclaiming the past, contesting the present and inventing the future. In the past, he has worked as head of the documentation and information centre of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), editor-in-chief of the prize-winning pan-African social justice newsletter and website, Pambazuka News, commissioning editor of Pambazuka Press, executive director (1997-2010) of Fahamu, Africa Programme Director for Amnesty International, Chief Executive of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK), and Regional Representative for Health Sciences in Eastern and Southern Africa for the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Your music info:
1. Abdullah Ibrahim: “Cape Town to Congo Square 1: African Street Parade” from the album: Cape Town Revisited
2. Amira Kheir: “Manaok (Forbidden)”, from the album: Mystic Dance.