Voices for African liberation

Tuning into the messages, social media stories and viral videos shared by citizens during the recent protests in Kenya, it is not difficult to see the historical connections between notable pan-Africanists and Kenyan freedom fighters' visions for the continent and the declarations and demands expressed by today's new voices for radical change in Africa.The hints of revolutionary ideological continuity on display in Kenya can also be found in recent cases of political transition in the Sahel region, resistance to undemocratic electoral reforms in Senegal, the struggle for economic sovereignty in the Congo, and popular challenges to environmental devastation in Nigeria.Kenya has been described as the place where capitalism is at home, but the crises of capitalism have reached a critical point in the nation and across the continent.These crises have manifested in the privatisation and commodification of public institutions and systems, leaving many unable to afford access to public goods and services such as healthcare and education.Efforts to solve pervasive poverty and support economic growth continue to rely heavily on orthodox theories and market principles, often rehabilitating and perpetuating Africa's exploited position in the global capitalist economy.Despite the promises offered by liberalism -an ideal today encouraged through NGO-led initiatives, civil society relationships and state governance reforms -economic disparities have widened within borders and between African nations and their former colonisers.In addition to ongoing economic exploitation, Africa is disproportionately witnessing the impacts of the global climate emergency through renewable resource extraction and unpredictable and devastating weather events.These salient features of Africa's political economy make a renewed anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist critique and socialist vision for the future imperative.Answering the call in a new collection of conversations conducted between 2015 and 2023 with 38 African and Africanist socialists, interviewees and editors from the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) amplify silenced radical histories, remember lost voices of liberation, and introduce strategies, tactics and activists who are engaged in the contemporary struggle to reshape Africa.Marking the 50th anniversary of the introduction of ROAPE as 'the new platform', the book's editors begin Voices for African Liberation: Conversations with the Review of African Political Economy by reminding readers that the journal -first independently published in 1974 -was born during the period of great, radical hope that followed the global

Liberation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · International Development and Aid · Law