Memoirs of a Militant

Memoirs of a Militant PDF

Author: Nawal Qasim Baidoun

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2023-01-11

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1623710995

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A first person account of a young woman activist imprisoned for four years in the notorious Khiam Women's Prison Shattering the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in armed resistance and national liberation struggles A unique and rare insight into the life of a woman living in extreme and uncertain conditions Recounting the Israeli invasion and occupation of South Lebanon Brilliantly translated by Michelle Hartman and Caline Nasrallah from McGill University in Montreal An important message about the need to liberate prisoners and the call for solidarity in the face of injustice Shattering the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in armed resistance national liberation struggles “In order to carry on with life in prison, you must believe you will be there forever.” In the haunting and inspiring Memoirs of a Militant: My Years in the Khiam Women’s Prison Nawal Baidoun offers us her first-person account of the life of a young woman activist imprisoned for four years, as well as the events leading up to her arrest and detention. Born into a nationalist family in Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, not far from the location of the prison itself, Baidoun, like so many others, found herself compelled to take up arms to resist the Israeli occupation. Her memoir skillfully weaves together two stories: that of the oppressive conditions facing ordinary people and families in South Lebanon, and that of the horrors of daily life and the struggle for survival inside the prison itself. Arrested for her role in planning the assassination of the well-known Israeli agent and collaborator, Husayn Abdel Nabi, Baidoun was at one point detained with Soha Bechara, a fellow militant whose similar operation is better known. Her activism rooted in her Islamic faith, Baidoun shatters the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in the armed resistance. Much like her sisters in Algeria and Palestine, Nawal Baidoun belongs to a generation of Muslim women in the Arab world who played a significant role in their national liberation struggles. She describes the intense mental and physical torture she endured, and her refusal to confess despite this. Memoirs of a Militant offers us rare and unique insight into the strength and courage of Baidoun in extreme circumstances and conditions. Nawal Baidoun herself has said that she wrote this book as a sort of history lesson for the generations who come after her, to show the ways in which women actively took part in the resistance and struggle against the occupation. Her strongly abolitionist message about prisons and the need to liberate all prisoners and detainees resonates strongly today, as does her call for solidarity in the face of injustice.

The French Worker

The French Worker PDF

Author: Mark Traugott

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1993-03-25

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 9780520079328

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This anthology, drawn from the autobiographies of seven men and women whose lives span the nineteenth century, provides a rare glimpse of the everyday lives of workers in the age of early industrialization in France. Appearing for the first time in English, these stories vividly convey the ambitions, hardships, and reversals of ordinary people struggling to gain a measure of respectability. The workers' livelihoods are diverse: chair-maker, embroiderer, joiner, mason, silk weaver, machinist, seamstress. Their stories of daily activities, work life, and popular politics are filled with lively, often poignant moments. We learn of dismal, unsanitary housing; of disease; workplace accidents; and terrible hardship, especially for the children of the poor. We read of exploitation and injustice, of courtship and marriage, and of the sociability of the wine-merchant's shop and the boardinghouse. Traugott's analytic introduction discusses the many shifts in French society during the nineteenth century. Used in combination with other sources, these autobiographies illuminate the relationship between changes in working conditions and in the forms of political participation and protest occurring as the century came to a close.

Baghdad at Sunrise

Baghdad at Sunrise PDF

Author: Peter R. Mansoor

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0300142633

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An on-the-ground commander describes his brigade's first year in Iraq after the U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency, in a firsthand analysis of success and failure in Iraq.

Memoirs of an Italian Terrorist

Memoirs of an Italian Terrorist PDF

Author: Giorgio

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2003-02-11

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 9780786711345

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When government consultant Professor Marco Biagi was assassinated in Italy by the New Red Brigades in the aftermath of September 11, the country was transported back 30 years to the violent "Years of Lead." In the 1970s Neo-Fascists planted bombs, Marxist-Leninists kneecapped and assassinated, and ordinary Italians were afraid to go to their offices in the morning. There were over 500 killed by terrorists in those years, thousands wounded, burned, scarred; there are hundreds in jail or who have done time, and thousands still out there, like "Giorgio," having lived decades as clandestine soldiers. The most shocking document of that unstable era and one of the primary source documents in the history of terrorism is this anonymous firsthand narrative of a life devoted to the bloody cause of The Red Brigades. In candid and grim detail, "Giorgio" tells of his "transition to living underground." He coldly narrates his mundane routine that prefigures the methods of al-Quaeda: the long patient shadowing of potential targets (never victim, always "target"), the clinical monitoring of the news for opportunities for destruction, and the relentless study of target companies to identify the strategic personnel to kneecap or assassinate. He describes the succession of events that took him from simple troublemaking to full-fledged terrorism, from a gleeful "proletarian expropriation" of Levis from a Milanese "jeanseria" to shooting at the police in a famous demonstration in which one policeman was killed, and on to outright political assassinations. Fascinating and horrifying to the end, Giorgio's story resonates with the current situation in the United States as much as it did with Italy's when it was first published. A best-seller in Europe and a classic in Italy, this is the first U.S. publication of these uncensored memoirs of an unrepentant terrorist.

The First Jihad

The First Jihad PDF

Author: Daniel Allen Butler

Publisher: Casemate

Published: 2007-04-29

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 193514961X

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A “well-researched” account of the nineteenth-century Sudanese cleric who led a bloody holy war, from a New York Times-bestselling author (Publishers Weekly). Before bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, or Ayatollah Khomeini, there was the Mahdi—the “Expected One”—who raised the Arabs in pan-tribal revolt against infidels and apostates in Sudan. Born on the Nile in 1844, Muhammed Ahmed grew into a devout, charismatic young man, whose visage was said to have always featured the placid hint of a smile. He developed a ferocious resentment, however, against the corrupt Ottoman Turks, their Egyptian lackeys, and finally, the Europeans who he felt held the Arab people in subjugation. In 1880, he raised the banner of holy war, and thousands of warriors flocked to his side. The Egyptians dispatched a punitive expedition to the Sudan, but the Mahdist forces destroyed it. In 1883, Col. William Hicks gathered a larger army of nearly ten thousand men. Trapped by the tribesmen in a gorge at El Obeid, it was massacred to a man. Three months later, another British-led force met disaster at El Teb. This was followed by the infamous conflict at Khartoum, during which a treacherous native—or patriot, depending upon one’s point of view—let the Madhist forces into the city, resulting in the horrifying death of Gen. Charles “Chinese” Gordon at the hands of jihadists. In today’s world, the Mahdi’s words have been repeated almost verbatim by the jihadists who have attacked New York, Washington, Madrid, and London, and continue to wage war from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean. Along with Saladin, the Mahdi stands as an Islamic icon who launched his own successful crusade against the West. This deeply researched work reminds us that the “clash of civilizations” that supposedly came upon us in September 2001 in fact began much earlier, and “lays important tracks into the study of terror, fundamentalism and the early clash between Islam and Christianity” (Publishers Weekly).

Joyful Militancy

Joyful Militancy PDF

Author: Carla Bergman

Publisher: AK Press

Published: 2017-10-30

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1849352895

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"Absolutely what we need in these days of spreading gloom." —John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism "A guide to a fulfilling militant life." —Michael Hardt, co-author of Assembly "Rigid radicalism" is the congealed and debilitating practices that suck life and inspiration from the fight for a better world. Joyful Militancy investigates how fear, self-righteousness, and moralism infiltrate and take root within liberation movements, what to do about them, and ultimately how tenderness and vulnerability can thrive alongside fierce militant commitment. Carla Bergman co-edited Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook For Youth. Nick Montgomery is an organizer and writer currently at Queen's University.

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