Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Understanding the Sandinistas
ROGER MCKENZIE recommends a landmark study that emphasises the importance of grassroots organisation in the defence of a socialist, non-aligned nation
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME: Last September, Managua Mayor Reyna Rueda Alvarado officially presented the model flats of the housing programme Nuevas Victorias (New Victories) - 134 are to be built by December with the support of the Chinese Agency for International Development Cooperation. A total of 12,034 houses will be built in 84 municipalities, 15 departments and two autonomous regions of the country
[www.managua.gob.ni]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
Nicaragua Must Survive: Sandinista Revolutionary Diplomacy in the Global Cold War
Eline Van Ommen
University of California Press, £25
NICARAGUA Must Survive makes the important point that not all innovative organising or political strategies have to be designed and birthed by some North American all-knowing, slick-talking guru. In what is one of the best books I have read on organising, Eline Van Ommen, a lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Leeds, celebrates the role played by grassroots organisers in transforming history.
This is a point that is easily overlooked. It is all too easy to cite examples of how professional politicians are the ones who make history rather than the tens of thousands of people who share a common cause and are willing to put themselves on the line to bring about change or, as in Nicaragua, winning and securing a revolution.
The professional politicians obviously played a role in Nicaragua but the book shows how the strategies to transform this small country of just over six million people was largely driven from the grassroots.
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