DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS

Firoze Manji and Pierre Loiselle

Daraja Press is a not-for-profit publisher, based in Québec, Canada, that seeks to reclaim the past, contest the present and invent the future. Daraja is the KiSwahili word for 'bridge'. As its name suggests, Daraja Press seeks to build bridges, especially bridges of solidarity between and amongst movements, intellectuals and those engaged in struggles for a just world. We seek to build upon, develop and support interconnections between emancipatory struggles of the oppressed and exploited across the world. In a phrase, our aim is to nurture reflection, shelter hope and inspire audacity. Daraja Press publishes print books, e-books, pamphlets, campaign materials, and video and audio content, including recent series of more than 100 podcasts under the theme Organising in the time of Covid-19.

  1. Jul 13

    Taking up the spear with Joe Pillay

    Taking Up the Spear is the firsthand account of Shadrack Maphumulo, an ordinary South African who becomes a freedom fighter against apartheid. The narrative traces his life from a rural Zulu childhood, shaped by stories of the Bambatha Rebellion, to his early working years in Durban where he faces systemic racism, slave wages, and the humiliating pass laws. His entrepreneurial dreams—first a taxi, then a shop—are systematically crushed by a white supremacist government that reserves prosperity for whites, forcing him to realize that individual effort cannot overcome the oppressive system. Radicalized, Maphumulo joins the trade union movement SACTU and later the banned ANC and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). He details his rudimentary training in sabotage and participates in several missions, including bombing an Afrikaner newspaper office and attacking municipal beer halls. Arrested in 1963, he endures brutal torture and solitary confinement before being sentenced to ten years on Robben Island. On the island, he details the horrific conditions, daily beatings, and hunger strikes, but also the political education and solidarity among prisoners. After his release in 1975, he resumes underground work, leading to another arrest, torture, and banning. The story ends with his escape into exile in Swaziland, where he continues the struggle. The epilogue reveals his assassination by South African security forces in 1986, cementing his legacy as a hero who sacrificed everything for a free South Africa.

  2. Jun 13

    Organizing against the right with Bill Fletcher Jr.

    Firoze Manji talks to Bill Fletcher Jr about his ideas for organizing against the right. What are the weaknesses of the left? What lessons are there from organizing in the labour movement? What are the possibilities of creating a mass movement against the right? Bill Fletcher Jr has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years he has been active in workplace and community struggles as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staffperson in the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of "The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941"; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of "Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice"; and the author of "'They're Bankrupting Us' – And Twenty other myths about unions." He is co-editor with Firoze Manji of Claim No Easy Victories: the legacy of Amilcar Cabral. Fletcher is a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator on television, radio and the Web.

    Organizing against the right with Bill Fletcher Jr.

  3. Apr 9

    Who is "Africa" in Global Negotiations?

    Firoze Manji, publisher of Daraja Press and Adjunct Professor in the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, argues that asking how Africa can stop being an "afterthought" in global negotiations is the wrong question. Africa is already central—a theater of competition between superpowers. The real issue is internal: which Africa? Three billionaires hold more wealth than half the continent, and 75% of elite wealth sits offshore. Drawing on Fanon, Manji shows post-colonial elites have simply replaced the colonial settler, recreating the Manichean divide. Giving this "Africa" more power only serves a class aligned with global oligarchs. The deeper question: What is our conviction? Integration into an unequal order—or building something new?

  4. Apr 7

    Beyond the Neocolonial: Africa and the dialectics of human emancipation

    In an era defined by neocolonial capitalism, resurgent fascism, and the horrifying spectacle of genocide, the need for a new emancipatory politics has never been more urgent. Our guest today, Professor Michael Neocosmos, confronts this global crisis head-on in his groundbreaking new work, Beyond the Neocolonial: Africa and the Dialectics of Human Emancipation. Refusing the comfortable confines of liberal critique, Neocosmos issues a radical challenge: to think freedom, we must break with the very "state modes of thought" that imprison us. Drawing inspiration from ancient Egypt, pre-Socratic philosophy, and contemporary African social movements, he makes a powerful case for reviving dialectical thought—a way of thinking that grasps the world not as a static set of classifications, but as a process of constant movement and becoming. The book centres the often-silenced voices of the oppressed, exploring how the collective intelligence of popular struggles, expressed through proverbs and community assemblies like the Palaver, contains the latent potential for a universal politics of equality. From the revolutionary experiments of the Haitian Bossales to the anti-apartheid uprisings in South Africa, Neocosmos unearths histories of genuine popular sovereignty, analyzing why they succeeded, how they were defeated, and what lessons they hold for us today. Beyond the Neocolonial is not just a work of political theory; it is an urgent invitation to think, and to act, for a future beyond domination.

  5. Apr 3

    Lines of Fire: Poetry of the Afro-Asian Writers Movement

    What if the poetry that inspired revolutions, that gave voice to the colonized and the exiled, that was watched by the CIA and funded by the Kremlin, had been almost entirely forgotten? This podcast is a journey into that hidden history. In the wake of the historic Bandung Conference, a revolutionary literary movement was born. Poets from across Africa and Asia—from Palestine to South Africa, from Vietnam to Algeria—came together with a shared purpose: to forge a cultural weapon against colonialism, racism, and imperialism. They created two journals, Lotus and The Call, and filled them with poetry that was defiant, angry, and full of hope. These were poets who wrote from prison cells and in exile, who knew that a poem could be as powerful as a gun. But their movement was torn apart by the Cold War, caught between the competing ambitions of the Soviet Union and China, and relentlessly surveilled by Western intelligence. Their work was scattered, their legacy fragmented. Until now. Lines of Fire is a landmark new collection that brings this forgotten poetry back to life. It is a book of voices that refused to be silenced: from Mahmoud Darwish's aching laments for Palestine to Faiz Ahmad Faiz's defiant anthems against dictatorship, from the revolutionary songs of Vietnam to the anti-apartheid cries of South Africa. In this episode, we sit down with Tariq Mehmood, the editor of Lines of Fire. For years, he has been on a quest to unearth this treasure trove of resistance literature. He takes us behind the scenes of the movement, explaining the bitter split between its two factions, the role of intelligence agencies in the cultural Cold War, and the incredible challenge of collecting poems originally written in dozens of languages. But more importantly, we talk about why this poetry matters today. As the world watches a genocide unfold in Gaza, as the fight for freedom continues from Sudan to Kashmir, Tariq explains why these poems from the 1960s and 70s feel more urgent than ever. They remind us that the struggle for liberation is not new, and that poetry, as he writes in the book, is "not just an outlet for anger, grief, or love. It is resistance. It is resilience. It is the refusal to be erased." Join us for a powerful conversation about the poetry that set the world on fire and why it is essential reading for anyone fighting for a better one. Tune in to hear the story behind Lines of Fire—a story of solidarity, struggle, and the enduring power of the written word.

  6. Mar 11

    The Path to Abolition: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration Part Three

    In the final part, James describes the long legal battle for his freedom and his eventual release. Following three traumatic parole denials, his luck began to turn in 2001 when a Supreme Court ruling allowed him to appeal his deportation order. Despite the anxiety of 9/11 occurring while he was still incarcerated, he successfully won a 212C waiver hearing in 2002, effectively stopping his deportation. In 2003, after nearly a decade behind bars, he was transferred to Arthur Kill, where he finally encountered a parole board that recognized his humanity rather than just his crime. James concludes by explaining why he is now an abolitionist rather than a reformer; he argues that the carceral system is a direct descendant of chattel slavery and is predicated on the exploitation of Black and brown bodies. He emphasizes that true justice requires dismantling these interconnected systems of imperialistic and racist violence rather than simply making them more "humane".

  7. Mar 11

    Mentorship and the Political Mind: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration: Part 2

    This second part of a three-part podcast focuses on James's time at Coxsackie (the "Cat") and Greene Correctional Facility, where he began to "decolonize his mind" through the guidance of mentors. At Coxsackie, he met an elder named Pops, a former Black Panther who introduced him to revolutionary thinkers like George Jackson, Frantz Fanon, and Amílcar Cabral. Pops taught him the vital philosophy of "doing time" rather than letting "time do you," encouraging him to use his incarceration as an opportunity to build his mind and body. This period marked James's first "doctorate," as he became a voracious reader and began to see his struggle as part of a broader historical foundation of slavery maintained by the 13th Amendment. Later, at Greene, he met Bliss, who helped him find the power in his own voice through the Youth Assistance Program (YAP), where James shared his story with at-risk children. This section also details the devastating impact of the 1996 immigration laws, which resulted in James receiving a retroactive deportation order while already serving his sentence.

  8. Mar 11

    Branded by the State: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration: Part 1

    In the first part of the interview, Dr. Kirk J. James discusses his arrest in 1994 as an 18-year-old college freshman with no prior record. He explains that his book title, 94A6325, represents his transition from a human being into "state property": 94 is the year of his arrest, A refers to the maximum security processing track, and 6325 identifies him as the 6,325th person processed that year at the Downstate Correctional Facility. James describes the era of the 1990s as a "carceral genocide," noting that the prison population in New York exploded from 200,000 in the 1970s to over 2 million by the 1990s, driven by policies like the Rockefeller drug laws and "super predator" rhetoric. He details how he was entrapped by undercover police over several months and eventually sent to Riker's Island, a place he describes as a violent and overcrowded "ocean of destruction" where he felt a total loss of humanity. Facing the prospect of 45 years to life, he eventually accepted a plea deal of seven years to life just to survive the immediate violence of the system.

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About

Daraja Press is a not-for-profit publisher, based in Québec, Canada, that seeks to reclaim the past, contest the present and invent the future. Daraja is the KiSwahili word for 'bridge'. As its name suggests, Daraja Press seeks to build bridges, especially bridges of solidarity between and amongst movements, intellectuals and those engaged in struggles for a just world. We seek to build upon, develop and support interconnections between emancipatory struggles of the oppressed and exploited across the world. In a phrase, our aim is to nurture reflection, shelter hope and inspire audacity. Daraja Press publishes print books, e-books, pamphlets, campaign materials, and video and audio content, including recent series of more than 100 podcasts under the theme Organising in the time of Covid-19.

Information

  • Creator
    Firoze Manji and Pierre Loiselle
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    23
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024
  • Show Website
    DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS