GUNS AND GANDHI IN AFRICA: Pan African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation

by Bill Sutherland and Matt Meyer

Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation in Africa examines the strategies and tactics used in achieving an end to colonialism, from the point of view of those who led the liberation movements. Reporting upon the candid reflections of leaders throughout the continent, the book reviews how methods of struggle influenced the independent governments of the past five decades.

Based on dialogues with a broad spectrum of Africans, who have played key roles in both revolution and reform, the authors suggest that, despite great problems facing the whole continent, there is much room for hope and possibility.

Participants in these discussions--excerpts of which are shared here for the first time--include Ela Gandhi, Kenneth Kaunda, Graca Machel, Sam Nujoma, Julius Nyerere, Jerry John Rawlins, Salim Ahmed Salim and Walter Sisulu.

Based on some ten years of collaboration, 'Guns and Gandhi in Africa' also chronicles a unique Pan-Africanist peace perspective. The authors, coming from different generational, regional, and cultural frameworks, reflect upon their own activist and academic experiences. In particular, Bill Sutherland's work from his move to the Gold Coast in 1953 up to his decades in Dar-es-Salaam set the context of much of the dialogues.

His interactions with such figures as Kwame Nkrumah, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, C.L.R. James and other is shared in both personal reflections and political analysis. An active participant in three historic Pan-African conferences, as well as in countless peace and nonviolence seminars and trainings, Sutherland's story helps bridge the gaps between diverse and sometimes conflicting progressive peoples.

"Bill Sutherland and Matt Meyer have looked beyond the short-term strategies and tactics which too often divide progressive people. They have begun to develop a language which looks at the roots of our humanness beyond our many private contradictions." --from the foreword by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace laureate

"The discussions and experiences contained in this book make a unique contribution to the literature on Pan Africanism, self-determination, people's empowerment and, indeed, to world peace." --Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Namibia; President of the 54th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

"A revealing and interesting account, combined with often extensive interviews with diverse African leaders and activists--from Ghana to South Africa, about violence and nonviolent options in their struggles." --Dr. Gene Sharp, Senior Scholar, The Albert Einstein Institution; founder, Program for Nonviolent Sanctions, Harvard University

"Bill Sutherland and Matt Meyer have woven a tapestry of ideas, ideology, and struggle together in a sensitive and essential manner that helps us to put the Pan African struggle in its proper perspective. What an important book! What an appropriate time for this informed discussion!" --Sonia Sanchez, poet-activist-scholar; Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women's Studies at Temple University

"This book is urgently needed. As someone engaged for over forty years in many nonviolent struggles for justice in Africa--which included being in the same prison cell in Johannesburg which once held Mahatma Gandhi and breaking stones on Robben Island with nelson Mandela--I value the insights offered in this work. It will give a powerful impetus to our current campaigns for reparations and debt cancellation, which are developing globally." --Dennis Brutus, South African poet laureate and author, A simple Lust; Professor Emeritus, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pittsburgh

You may access the book here.