Ramsey Kanaan

Ramsey Kanaan is a Lebanese-Scottish singer and publisher of anarchist literature, best known as the founder of AK Press, one of the largest distributors of anarchist and left-wing books in the world, [ [http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/02/88441.php] ] named after his mother Ann Kanaan. [ http://www.indypendent.org/2007/12/08/from-the-punk-scene-to-acoustic-theory/] ] He left AK in 2007 to found a new radical publisher PM Press. [ [http://www.yourbestguess.com/scowl/music-radical-politics-and-ak-press/] ] He has played an important role in the intellectual life of the US and UK anarchist movements, republishing works of classical anarchist theory by Peter Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, Rudolf Rocker, Emma Goldman and others, while encouraging the development of contemporary anarchist theory and analysis, such as libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin's , which he commissioned for AK Press.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he was involved in the early UK anarcho-punk musical scene, which featured bands including Crass, Conflict, Poison Girls, Rudimentary Peni, The Mob, Zounds, Omega Tribe and Flux of Pink Indians. He was the lead singer of the Scottish anarcho-punk band Political Asylum. [ [http://www.stevebrownmusic.co.uk/asylumhome.htm] ] He currently belongs to Folk This, [ [http://www.folkthis.org/about.html] ] a music group which performs folk songs from the past, including from the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, and the Paris Commune, and hymns and anthems of the Industrial Workers of the World.

He was involved in the 1980s and early 1990s in the movement against the poll tax in Britain. Community Resistance, the Edinburgh anarchist group with which Kanaan was an organizer, [http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/03/288199.html] played a key role in the five-year anti-poll tax campaign that ultimately brought down Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/31/newsid_2530000/2530763.stm]

Kanaan currently resides in Oakland, California and is a member of Bound Together Books in San Francisco, a collectively-run anarchist bookstore. [ http://books.google.com/books?id=gYRXLIpkA9YC&pg=PA84&dq=ramsey+kanaan&sig=ACfU3U1dv3CWfrFG3kh__tcmab8w2YHAoQ#PPA96,M1] He is one of the founders of the San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair [http://channelzerosf.wordpress.com/2006/10/09/ramsey-kanaan/] and the Peter Kropotkin Lonely Hearts Club.Fact|date=August 2008 He is also an alternate host for Against the Grain, the nationally-syndicated radio program of radical ideas originating from Pacifica Radio's KPFA. [ [http://www.againstthegrain.org/about] ]

Partial Bibliography

* Carroll, Tobias. [http://www.yourbestguess.com/scowl/music-radical-politics-and-ak-press/ "I’ve Got a Name: Music, Radical Politics, and AK Press"] The Scowl, 2008.
* Prelinger, Megan Shaw. "An Interview with Ramsey Kanaan of AK Press." The Anti-Capitalism Reader: Imagining a Geography of Opposition Ed. Joel Schalit. Akashic Books, 2002.
* Solnit, David. "Poll Tax Rebellionndash How One Small Scottish Anarchist Group Toppled the Thatcher Government: An Interview by David Solnit with Ramsey Kanaan." Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World Ed. David Solnit. City Lights Publishers, 2003.

Talks

* [http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/02/88441.php "What's Wrong with the American Anarchist Movement?"]
* [http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/03/288199.html "When Fucking The System Isn't Enough: A Critical History Of Ten Years Of Wildly Successful Anarchist Organizing"]
* [http://channelzerosf.wordpress.com/2006/10/09/ramsey-kanaan/ "Interview with Ramsey Kanaan on San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair"]

References