A. Sivanandan, the Director Emeritus of the Institute of Race Relations and founding editor of Race & Class has passed away.
The Institute of Race Relations would like to thank everyone who has sent tributes and messages of condolences following the death of A. Sivanandan on Wednesday 3 January. As his family and friends mourn his passing, we invite you to leave tributes and personal memories below.
Related links
Race & Class: The A. Sivanandan Collection
Soundcloud: An interview with A. Sivanandan by Avery Gordon for the 2013 Historical Materialism conference
Race & Class: On ‘lived theory’: an interview with A. Sivanandan by Avery Gordon (subscription only)
My condolences and solidarity to Jenny and Siva’s family. Over the decades he meant so much for me and as a young working class Pakistani man my encounters with him both in person and in his writings so meaningful and powerful. From being taken to IRR as a youth to working with the staff over the years all of this took place with him being there. Even when he hasn’t been there in recent years his influence was persuasive and you felt that his presence was always there. He was always one of the bravest of our elders and the wisest as he foresaw many of the problems that we are grappling with today. We owe him a massive debt but it is through the work of IRR that he and his legacy must live on and I’ll try my best to play my part in this.
A courageous fighter for racial justice and for the interests of all working people. An intellectual of great capacity to educate, stimulate and challenge. A great loss to the movement. Condolences to family and friends.
A great teacher and a friend has sadly gone. Sometimes his words kept me going through the darkest moments in my life – he helped me understand, that us being here didn’t Britain did us any favour – it had stolen our past. To those it gave a grant here or there, was like someone giving a crutch to those whose legs it had broken, and expecting them to say thank you. I learnt from Siva, I was here because they were there, but me being here was not the same as them being there – they came on the backs of gunboats, and my family to work in their mills and factories. Thank you Siva, for so many lessons, especially for providing a theoretical framework for us during our time in the Asian Youth Movements – and though I drifted somewhere, in the passage of the years, you were always there, somewhere, guiding.
Siva was an educator in the best sense. He let a hundred flowers bloom, wildly. He always said that the purpose of life was to grow; not only did he expect this of his comrades, he helped them to achieve it. Do not go gentle, boss.
Siva is my hero. No greater influence on my political thinking. He should be remembered as we think of people like Stuart Hall, but he wasn’t as easy to accept in academic and cultural circles. He never flirted with the new times. He didn’t bend the knee. He was a polemicist, he was brutal in his interventions and he never stopped a militant, third worldist, non-dogmatic Marxism that based itself on global solidarity. I will make a film on his legacy, I have to, now more than ever. Heart goes out to those who knew and loved him.
A tragic loss indeed. He awakened a huge conciousness through his detailed and yet accessible analysis. His legacy and teachings carry through us all through action he inspired. For now, heartfelt condolences. Rest in Power.
Sivanandan helped to form me intellectually and politically, the passion in his writing shone and raged out in a way no one else’s writing was able to do. I’ve read most of his writing which will always stay with me and influence my activism as well as my academic work. Rest in peace. We will miss you.
I am saddened to hear of Siva’s passing. My sincere condolences to his family and to all connected with the IRR. I only met Siva on a handful of occasions in the early 1990s but his wise advice, intellectual strength and passion for justice have long since influenced and guided my writing and thinking on race, class, London, colonialism, neo-imperialism, globalisation and humanity. Many of Siva’s Race & Class essays continue to profoundly influence my thinking, from his ‘The Hokum of New Times’ (1990) to ‘Globalism and the Left’ (1998/9). In the latter, Siva cuts through the bull to clarify the moment, as he so often does, when he writes ‘businesses are in the business of government and governments are in the business of businesses and, together, they are killing off whole populations’.
Later, much later, in ‘The Market State vs the Good Society, in 2013, Siva defines the ‘market state’, which we now see using real estate speculation in the guise of ‘regeneration’ to devour working class communities across London. Siva also exposes the ‘gradual denationalisation of the NHS’, devolution as stripping ‘power from local government to private enterprise’ and the faux ‘feel-good voluntarism’ that people are forced to swallow as a replacement for ‘true collective action or social movement’.
So when I think of Siva, I think of this saying as very apt: ‘Inside him burned the flame of anger against injustice
– and the flame of hope that we could build a better world.’
I will light a candle today as a means of thanks and tribute.
Siva shaped the thinking of a generation of Black (and I mean politically Black – though that term is now unfashionable) activists, including myself. He was one of us, full of humour and warmth and without a trace of pomposity and he was always up for an argument with those of us who took him on! He laid out for us the essentials of what Black Left politics meant. His encouragement and invaluable suggestions when I was completing my first book Finding a Voice – Asian women in Britain meant a lot to me, as did his delight when the book was finally published. This feels like the end of an era for many of us but his ideas and analysis are still as fresh and incisive as ever. We must keep them alive! My deepest condolences to Jenny and to Siva’s children and grandchildren.
When I needed help against racism and injustice in Britain, he and the IRR supported me. They were the only ones.
He had this incredible personality where he came across as a father, a friend and a teacher – all at the same time. I will always remember him – who he was, what he stood for and how he treated people. Pops was an excellent model for any man and an admirable human being. He will be missed. Badly. Very badly.
My condolences to Jenny, Siva’s family, Colin, Liz, Harmit and the entire IRR family. In the early hours of the morning, as I sit thinking on this awfully sad news, I’m remembering my last visit with Siva. Frail yet still a bit cantankerous, he was patient with the bla-bla catch-up news but at the kitchen table over tea and home-made biscuits, his eyes were alight with fire and passion for the discussion of what to do about the terrible state of the world. This love for the struggle to know and to act to make the world as it should be I both adored and deeply admired in Siva. All honour to him!
Siva’s writings, talks, and overall activism shaped me as a person in ways that words cannot express. He left us with so much, and for that I’m forever grateful. My condolences to all at the IRR, and to all who are indebted to his intellect. RIP Siva.
Dear Jenny and all those whom Siva has left behind, my love and condolences. As one who travelled in an outer orbit of Siva’s influence I of course endorse what others have said about his politics and writings – including his semi-autobiographical novel. Content aside, however, the form and grace of his writing was superlative, informed by a deep and intelligent understanding of political theory and poetry, transformed into prose that was elegant and so thoroughly intelligible. In addition to his insistence on the fusion of theory and practice, thinking and doing, Siva’s wide reading and political engagement and the intelligent distillation of all this material is what made him so exceptional as writer, speaker, activist. Not least was his mischievous, scurrilous, outrageous sense of humour. It is my hope and belief that strands of the man will continue to live on in the activism, teaching, writing and living in each one of us who were lucky enough to have known him.
In 1999 I was privileged to be asked to write something for A World to Win: Essays in Honour of A. Sivanandan. In it I recounted something that had happened to me eight years earlier. I was attending a planning meeting for the annual conference of a criminological group to which I belonged. Over time, people in the group had become close friends and the annual conference was a chance to catch up on news of personal and political developments, compare notes on common issues and share insights. The tenor of the discussions in 1991 was set by the times – the fall of the Berlin wall, the implosion of the Soviet system, the identity crisis of the Left in Europe, as well as the academic popularity of post-modernism. Fierce arguments erupted at the meeting, ranging over issues of socialism, feminism, nationalism, etc. Eventually people began to state why they continued to belong to the group. I emphasised the sense of belongingness and solidarity I got from the group, adding that I really looked forward to meeting comrades annually. At that, one of the post-modernists present savaged me for referring to him as a comrade. I returned to Belfast dejected, and then read Siva’s ‘All that melts into air is solid’. If only I had read it before the meeting! It gave me a deep understanding of the clash of ideologies which I had just experienced; it would have provided the words to retaliate in a situation where I felt paralysed. And it confirmed that the ideals at the heart of socialism, feminism and national liberation were anything but outmoded.
I wrote to Siva, recounting this story, and a short time later was invited to join the Editorial Working Committee of Race and Class.
Siva’s passing is a great loss. But I am comforted by something he wrote in ‘All that melts into air is solid’:
‘But there are still the values and traditions that have come down to us from the working-class movement: loyalty, comradeship, generosity, a sense of community and a feel for internationalism, an understanding that unity has to be forged and reforged again and again and, above all, a capacity for making other people’s fights our own – all the great and simple things that make us human.’
Farewell comrade!
Deepest condolences to Siva’s family, Jenny and everyone at the Institute. Siva was one of the true giants of radical black and anti-racist politics in the UK. His legacy is not even possible to comprehend – he was the voice of our ‘communities of resistance’ and politicised countless generations of black activists. His writings have been the beating heart of a black politics that united all people of colour in the UK and connected our struggles to the struggles of our people against colonialism and imperialism. Before the term ‘inter-sectionality’ had been coined he was talking about how our struggles connected and shaped a politics of the black left that was anchored in a race/class/gender analysis and that was both local and global. His analysis is as relevant today as it has been since the 1970’s and even more so now when so much of black politics has been reduced to crude identity politics and is unsure of how to deal with the rise of the new right. I count myself lucky that I was able to sharpen my politics because of his wisdom. He was always generous with his time, and keen on listening and learning as much as he was sharing his own thoughts. If the true worth of someone is the legacy we leave behind … then Siva lives on in all the activists who continue to fight for a better world because he helped inspire them. For those of us associated with Newham Monitoring Project he will always remains our dear comrade and brother in struggle. Rest in Power Siva!
In his passing, Siva has taught me another lesson. One of regret. In recent times, I had always planned to go back and visit but never got round to it. And now he has gone. I was fortunate to have spent a year with Siva, Jenny, Liz, Francis and the IRR extended family in 1991. I was a young student and it was the time of the Gulf War . I remember how the IRR was a hive of activity from collating political analysis for ‘Race and Class to monitoring and reporting on the racist bscklash as a result of the war, to publishing ‘Black Deaths in State Custody’ and relaunching CARF magazine. We would talk endlessly, plan meetings and go on demonstrations. Those times were so important to my political development. Siva’s ‘From Resistence to Rebellion’ and ‘A Different Hunger’ became the handbook for young black activists. His writings were exhilarating, invigorating and passionate and we were left inspired and with a sense of duty to resist. Siva directed and steered a ship that inspired a whole generation of activists. As well as remembering Siva as one of the most inspiring black thinkers and writers that I was fortunate enough to have met, I will also remember his playfullness and how he would make time to invite me to sit by his lap and read poetry to me… and on leaving I gifted Siva with a poem. R.I.P and thank you Siva x
With my deep condolences to Jenny and everyone at IRR. Of course I knew this day had to come, but when I last saw Siva at the end of November I was so happy to experience once again both his passionate engagement and his mischievous sparkle that I left hopeful that there would be more visits in the years ahead. I started working at the IRR 35 years ago, and such was the intensity of friendships formed in its unique culture where Siva presided as an intellectual mentor and guiding light, that I feel as if I have never left. Thinking now of Siva I vividly recall the worlds that opened up around the IRR lunch table as he challenged us to wrestle with his anaylsis of the changes wrought by new productive forces or read to us segments of his Sri Lanka trilogy as it was taking shape. He remained a personal lodestar after I moved to the US, where I have tried to remain true to his insistence on combining thinking and doing, analysis with activism on the streets. We will greatly miss Siva as we grapple with these bleak times, but he has ‘put gas in our tanks’ and inspired us to carry on – and so we will.
It is with great sadness that I heard the passing of one of our greats. Siva has to be the single most important Black elder that awakened my Black consciousness and shaped my political perspective and worldview. In the midst of inner-city rebellions of the 1980s, whilst petrol bombs ignited the streets, Siva’s writings were photocopied and distributed amongst the street fighters. As members of the Sheffield Asian Youth Movement, our minibusses full of our members frequently drove to London to hear Siva address Newham 7 campaign meetings. His speeches were duplicated on cassettes and played on our ghetto blasters alongside speeches of Malcolm X and the songs of Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. He galvanised a generation of activists with his firebrand oratory and we eagerly awaited his incisive analysis in each twist and turn of our struggle for racial justice. He was a brilliant writer, always accessible and creative, coining new words, which articulated the language of struggle and was eagerly and proudly adopted amongst our ranks. His seminal essay ‘From Resistance to Rebellion: Asian and Afro-Caribbean struggles in Britain’ had a huge impact when it was published in the 1981 edition of Race and Class – it was a must-read for all Black activists. We will remember you Siva for your contribution – Rest in Black Power!
My heartfelt condolences to Siva’s family and friends and all the colleagues at the Institute of Race Relations.
Having known, admired, argued with but most of all learnt from Siva for more than 40 years, it’s very hard to imagine not seeing him again.
Siva’s legacy is not just his analysis of what was happening in the world (prescient as it so often was), the internationalism of his approach, the depth of his thought or the breadth of his knowledge. It was and will remain his influence and his impact, often unnoticed or unacknowledged, but to be found most obviously at the Institute, in its work, its culture, its generosity of spirit and its contribution to the common sense of the age. Perhaps the two most obvious examples are the concept of institutional racism and the character of globalism (the Silicon Age piece published in 1979). Over the last few years, in particular, the Institute’s work on killings in custody and racist violence in general has continued that tradition of research which arises out of campaigning action and contributes to it. The quality of the research and the analysis in Liz Fekete’s new book (Europe’s Fault Lines) is a wonderful example of how his rigour and method will survive him.
Personally, I have the happiest memories of Siva, at meetings and parties, in all of his many modes of interaction (from challenge to affection, and everything in between). I thought When Memory Dies was a wonderful novel, from which I learnt much about Siva’s country and his life.
I imagine the feeling at Leeke St is very sombre today. But I hope it’s also proud, of what Siva and the Institute achieved, how they carried that on and built on it, and what they will achieve in the future.
Memory won’t die.
The remarkable Siva will be a profound loss to Jenny and the family, The IRR, his followers, supporters, and friends. He taught, challenged, shared information and knowledge, mesmerised with brilliant oratory and visionary writing and demonstrated a warm personality in his care about people, especially the oppressed . He inspired me always, as he did others, but above all, I treasured his love. His legacy is to be treasured, utilised,and advance the struggle for justice, equality, inclusion and fairness.
Thanks for the memories Siva.
The loss and grief I feel has robbed me of words. So “as my heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains”…I bid farewell to my Siva Mama with the same words I wrote to him a few years ago:
“Dearest Siva,
Although I now am given the great privilege of addressing you as mama (uncle), I hope you don’t mind that today I take the liberty of addressing you as Siva with the same affection as I would address Siva Himself. Being named after gods and goddesses we strive to embody the same energy and qualities after which we were named. You Siva, in your dance of rage and passion in life inspired by that eternal Love, have done just that.
Sometimes the soul knows before the senses experience. This is why I have longed to know you and the experience of knowing you gives meaning to your favourite quote by Keats – “The truth of the imagination and the holiness of the heart’s affection” – because you Siva are just as I imagined you to be.”
You are my ‘exemplar’ and your words, life, and love will guide me all the days of my life…
Jenny Mami, all my love is with you at this time and always. Without you I would have never had the greatest privilege in my life of knowing Siva Mama. I will never forget the love with which you invited me and then my husband in to your home, and drove me to and from the station to your home so that I may see Siva Mama. The time spent with you and Mama at your kitchen table will remain the fondest of memories.
Very, very sad to hear of the death of a brilliant writer, theoretician, and activist,
Long before an all too frequently superficial version of “intersectionality” came into vogue, he insisted on a materialist analysis of race issues and the absolute importance of their conjunction with class issues.
He provided really sophisticated understandings of immigration controls in terms of their economic function as well as the racism they relied on and deepened in practice. He powerfully challenged the self-imposed divisions based on misunderstandings of identity politics that some anti-racists created, and was able to contribute to integrated anti-racist projects that brought different exploited, oppressed and persecuted communities together in real solidarity and mutual respect. He had no time at all for narcissistic hierarchies of oppression.
Siva had a very sharp mind and a sharp temper – he could be abrasive with those expressing political differences – but none who met him or worked with him could dispute his spirit of resistance and his absolute and lifelong commitment to overcoming race and class oppression.
Honour his memory!
Sincere condolences to my IRE Comrades.
‘The rôle of a true leader is to create future leaders!’ Ralph Nader
By example, Siva created the platform of research scholarship and active engagement which served to mobilise our minds and bodies in the global struggle of the poor and powerless for liberation from oppression. His light will continue to shine! A luta continua
I was a confused drop-out living in an Earls Court hippy commune, doing odd bits of cleaning and office work, in 1969 when I went to the old IRR in Jermyn Street as a temp and met Siva, then the librarian. He revolutionised my life, making sense of the world for me in order that I would help to change it. I stayed as a member of the library staff for a year, during which he read us poetry (Dylan Thomas, TS Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins) and short stories he’d written on the tube, delighted in mischievous pranks and silly jokes, tried to teach us the value of anger, the glory of Beethoven and the paramount importance of relationships, which informed his politics. After a year he made me go to university (‘You must get the tools of the system to fight the system!’) , but 49 years later he still thought at the speed of light and always bested me in argument. His analysis was always fierce and brilliant, his passion for justice never wavered, and his insistence that we live our lives in accordance with our politics – the personal is political; we are what we do, we must connect, and communicate; and at the same time the pricking of pomposity, the refusal to be solemn, created and sustained the new Institute after his mobilisation of the membership to topple the old guard in 1972.
He has given us so much. The analysis, always ahead of its time; the aphorisms; the poetry and humanity of When Memory Dies; infinite time for us and our problems, and that voice which will stay in my head for the rest of my life, challenging, teasing, fighting, teaching, always with love.
Finally, time to rest in peace, dear Siva.
There aren’t really the words that can do justice to Siva’s writings and their influence. Like so many others of my generation almost every bit of my political consciousness has been shaped by his ideas. He stood uniquely at the intersection of theory and practice helping us as young black activists to make sense of our world. His writings still stand as the sharpest articulation of the black experience in Britain ever published. Recently I had cause to go back to his piece on the Grunwick strike and it was notable how his essay, written in the midst of the strike, proved prescient.
I was honoured to be able to spend so much time with Siva after initially visiting IRR as a student. Among my many memories is him attempting to berate me one of the first times we met after he asked if I wanted a copy of A Different Hunger and I shamefacedly admitted that I had stolen a copy from a library (it was the only book I ever stole). And I’ll never forget the magic that happened in a room when Siva spoke. Although it was often persuasive oratory I always said that he could read out a telephone directory and still captivate an audience – such was the timbre of his voice. Aside from the body of work, I think what I will remember most is his great sense of fun – he was never so preoccupied with the state of the world that he couldn’t cause some mischief.
This week we have suffered a huge loss but his legacy remains in all of us who read his work and were privileged to know him.
RIP Siva (and sorry if I messed up the commas in this post).
As so many of the above people have commented – Siva was an intellectual giant, visionary an unwavering revolutionary. He struggled throughout his life – through his writings and encounters – for a world in which race, class and gender would not be divisive factors but powerful forces to unite struggling people across the globe. None of us can alleviate the pain his family and loved ones are feeling but we can give them solace in the fact that they were related to someone who fought relentlessly to bring about meaningful change and ultimately justice for all. May his soul rest in eternal peace and may his writings live on in the hearts and minds of generations to come.
I used to attend meetings at the IRR in the 1970s and learned so much! Siva, thank you. I trust you passed away peacefully and not in pain. We all owe you much. Thank you, THANK YOU!
Marika Sherwood
I read Siva’s essay ‘All melts into air is solid’ in Dublin in the early 1990’s and its impact on me and my politics was profound. It was just so incisive, and witty and exasperated. It was a peerless political intervention and I have read Race & Class ever since. Siva’s work and the work of the IRR has been seminal for race/class politics. I know that Jenny and Siva’s family, and Hazel, Liz, Colin, Harmit and the IRR team are devastated at his loss. The loss that we who knew him only through his work feel is incomparable. But there are countless people who, like me, find the world a lesser place today and have been shaped in a myriad of ways by his writings and activism.
I remember how nervous I would be each time I was lucky enough to visit Siva, and how when the time came, I would be sad to leave. Siva brought clarity on any issue, whether to do with political developments globally & nationally, or to do with personal housing problems.
Siva will not cease to be a force to be reckoned with. My deepest condolences to Jenny, his family, friends and to the IRR.
Siva’s to me was the single most important Black man of the 20 century in the UK. His legacy is both massive and profound, and will continue to guide all of us who were lucky enough to have known him, wherever we are engaged in the struggle for justice and equality today. In this moment, I remember his wicked sense of humor, our shared love of Paul Robeson, and his ability to tell you off, set you straight and lift you up all in one sentence. My condolences to Jenny, his family and the team at IRR, I hope they can draw some small comfort from the tributes that will flow over the next days.
I ‘found’ Race & Class when I was a politically naïve but desperately hungry undergraduate student in the very late 1980s. It was a revelation. Looking back now, I know how much it has shaped the ways in which I try to understand the world, how it has framed my teaching and inspired my research. Although I didn’t have the opportunity to meet Siva, I have learned from his work and commitment in the most profound of ways. I send my sincere condolences to Jenny and Hazel and Liz and Colin and all at Race & Class.
He is, simply, irreplaceable. My sense of loss is heartfelt and profound. I thought of calling my him over Christmas because I wanted to catch up after far too long. I wish I had. The warmest, funniest, fiercest and most brilliant man I’ve known.
Gus John
Deepest condolences to Jenny, Hazel, Harmit, Frances, Colin and all at the IRR. I am in Nigeria and have just heard the sad news of Siva’s death.
In my experience, no one arrested, analysed, confronted and debunked the hypocrisy and hubris of the British state in the post-war period better than Siva. I became a member of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations in its Jermyn Street days in 1971, along with the Reverend (later Bishop)Wilfred Wood and the late John La Rose, poet, publisher and political activist. Siva disrupted the attempts of descendants of former plantation owners to recolonise the descendants of enslaved Africans in Britain and disconnect them from the struggle against neo-colonialism in the countries from which they had migrated. Who of us associated with the Institute at the time could forget the spectacle of an unbroken line of Rolls Royces and Bentleys along Jermyn Street, each with their becapped and bedecked drivers, on the days when the IRR council met. The successful coup to dislodge that group of plantocrats and their belief in their entitlement to determine how Britain should deal with its growing population of ‘coloured immigrants’ was to represent a sea change in how we situated ourselves in the society and its politics.
Siva’s challenge to the way the state conned the white working class, dispossessed, neglected and exploited for generations, into seeing black newcomers as their problem and as responsible for the social malaise that had characterised their districts for at least a century was instrumental in underscoring the link between race and class. His relentless and passionate praxis in holding the state and its institutions to account, especially for its failure to stem the rise of the organised Right and their murderous exploits in Asian and African communities gave direction not just to an antiracist and antfascist movement, but to a growing black working class movement in schooling and education. He identified with the struggle against the scandalous and illegal practice of placing excessive numbers of black children into schools for the educationally subnormal. With others of us in that movement, he took on the eugenicists such as Hans Eysenck, Cyril Burt, Philipe Rushton and others and their scientific racism on which many of the intelligence tests applied to black children were based.
For me, though, one of Siva’s greatest contributions to shaping the future of radical and revolutionary thought and practice in post-war Britain was the work he led at the Institute which set out in the clearest of terms the ‘Legacy of Empire’ and its implications for politics and government, for schooling and education, for class struggle and for the safeguarding and extension of human rights and civil liberties in Britain. Latterly, he was to extend that to helping us understand the rise and the implications of globalisation and the need to understand globalism. He was as sharp as a razor in his political and historical analysis and uncompromising in his intolerance of ‘gradualism’ and its subtext: ‘business as usual for as long as possible, irrespective of the human cost’.
Siva devoted his life to the cause of human liberation and the humanising of society globally and for that the world owes him a great debt. May his spirit not so much ‘rest in peace’ as continue to mingle amongst us and inspire our continuing struggle as he shines as a light to the world.
Love to all at IRR…., we have so very much to celebrate!
So sad to hear of Siva’s passing. He showed us what it meant to be a people’s intellectual: unbought and unbossed. I met him nearly 30years ago when, as a part of a group of radical Black activists in Ann Arbor, we found a copy of Race and Class. WE loved it. We wrote (yes an actual letter) to Siva asking him to come to the U.S. to speak and meet with us. On blind trust, he agreed. I later joined the editorial board of Race and Class, after a fine curry dinner at Siva and Jenny’s. I have always thought of Siva and IRR as a kind of political lodestar, anchoring and re-centering me over the years. WE did not always disagree, especially on issues of feminism and gender. But that was the beauty of it. We did not have to. We were on the same side. We were political family. I remember with my own family traveled to London and me Siva. It was an important introduction. Siva, my dear friend and teacher, you will be dearly missed on both sides of the pond. We will try to do the work in a way that would have made you proud.
My deepest condolences to Jenny and to all Siva’s family on this very sad day for all of us who had the privilege of knowing Siva and listening to him as well as reading him, for decades. His kindness and his relentless intellectual energy were for me his greatest gifts, and over the years they never changed, even as his life slowed down.
The many beautiful tributes today show how many different ways he touched and supported so many people. All of us, I think, were changed by his example of a life lived without compromise and he lives on in many lives which he helped to shape for the better.
Thank you for everything dear Siva.
Our paths did not cross for long – which has been my fault. He used to call me Nathaniel (for obvious surname reasons) and never embarassed me with the depth of his learning. I will remember best the launch of the ‘Police Against Black People’ submission to a Royal Commission which turned the debate. I will also remember him speaking here in Liverpool about the growing war in Bosnia (1992) and offering insights that no one else had. No doubt there will be a collected works, but please let’s also have a shorter collection of the pithy one-liners: “We are here because you were there” and many, many more.
I first came across Siva when I read ‘From Resistance to Rebellion’ as part of my PhD research. It wiped the floor with all the other political analyses and histories I had read: it is still, in my opinion, the best analysis of British race relations ever written. I later had the honour of getting to know Siva at the IRR and his judgment that I had ”a visceral hatred of injustice” remains a badge of honour. Siva’s appearances at the IRR were always so eagerly anticipated: would he read us poetry? Would he shout at us like wayward children? Would he make us laugh with some unrepeatable story? Just being around Siva was enlivening.
David Rose and Frances Webber have expressed what I feel about Siva and his passing better than I can, so I’ll stop there. I’ll miss him terribly and send my love and deepest condolences to Jenny, Hazel, Liz, Harmit and all at the IRR past and present.
I wish to thank Siva and pay my respect to a man who influenced the thinking and engagement for a better world of a whole generation, worldwide. You succeeded where others failed : you left us an organisation that continues the fight. Thanks for this. Rest in peace, comrade.
Siva was a Colossus amongst us and it is so hard to covey the sadness of his passing and the chasm that his absence has created among his family and friends. Solidarity and love in this bitter moment. But this Colossus was not static, he moved and left wonderful huge footprints your mind through his writings, through his piecing dissections of policy offered as aid and protection but to enact the mirror opposite. When you heard Siva in discussion, the temper of his speech was often poetic. Rapier sharp humour was often deployed to expose what needed to be exposed, to cut through hypocrisy or to light up a warning beacon. It was my good fortune to first meet Siva while still relatively young, I remember that face to face in a basement room bursting at the seams with people, many of us sitting on the floor pressed up to the table of speakers. From the get go Siva had a profound influence on myself, shaping the way I would travel politically and just as important, the constant pricking of my thoughts regardless of what campaign I was in, what new grouping I was joining – who was I to serving and why? By other routes Siva asked those same questions of many others like myself who ran here and there in the name of others, it’s uncomfortable, it’s supposed to be, because our task is far from complete.
To all at the IRR, thank you for Siva.
I wish to offer my deepest condolences and support to Jenny and her close friends and colleagues at the IRR, especially Liz, Frances and Hazel who shared care for Siva in his last years of ill health and ofcourse to Colin, as the Chair of the IRR. I also wish my respect to his family in this moment of grief.
Siva’s death represents a defining end of an era in race and class politics. He was the original master; a rare force of nature defined by history that conquered the present through the method of his analysis – the collection of his concise and seminal writings and gripping analysis is a testament to his intellectual originality and vigour. He thought not only to think but more importantly to think & act and thus redefined the role of a political thinker. For me, Siva is the greatest political thinker that our communities have produced in this country whose essence was to remain deeply connected to actual struggle and thereby shape it. He was the embodiment of a people dispossessed who created the essential tools to accomplish victories, not simply by grasping for hope but through relentless exposure of injustices and fearless audacity. He was revolutionary without a country; an internationalist who forced the first world left to refocus their political lenses on racism, class, globalization, imperialism, solidarity and resistance.
I was drawn to Siva not simply because of his custodianship of the Institute of Race Relations but because I believed in him as a person. I was baptized into political activity by the murderous intent of violent racism in the 1970’s. We were forced into street fights and battles to defend ourselves against so-called ‘Paki-bashing’. Usually we were always outnumbered. We survived those confrontations because we learned collectively not to flinch and stand our ground together regardless of the consequences. I always felt Siva was battle ready, He felt our nerves, our fears, our anger, our defeats and our victories. Only, he could separate the wood from the tress and see further than us. His pen would create a political storm by offering a context to our resistance and its impact; and in turn his analysis would make me think of the next steps. If one read his work during those moments of struggle, it would take one beyond being just being an angry young man and thrust you into the realm of political culture and its infinite potential.
Over the years, since the mid 70’s, I have been fortunate to have spent time with Siva to discuss struggles and issues occupying my time and energy. The numerous conversations on Southall race & police murders and trials, Bradford 12, the Lawrence Inquiry and more recently on the Rotherham 12 campaign and the Grenfell carnage were serious reflections on the strategies that were being adopted. But the meeting always contained laughter including silliness as well as dread for the future.
I treated Siva like my brother. It was a joy to be in his company. He has my love and respect. I know death is final but at the risk of sounding ridiculous, I wish I could meet him once again simply to embrace and bid him farewell. Rumi reminds us that ‘Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there’
His politics and compassion transformed an ordinary bank clerk into an extraordinary political thinker and intellectual. That legacy is in the Institute, in his thinking and writings and in his method. These are our arms of the new struggle. There is no time to lose but build on this solid foundation. .
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Rabindranath Tagore
thank you Siva x
Sending our condolences and solidarity.
Revolutionary Communist Group
Siva, whose acidic turns of phrase never descended into irony (which would have been too bookish) opting instead for sarcasm and a kind of boxer’s sincerity, deployer of wordplays (“All that Melts into Air is Solid”), waiting for the counter punch. “Unlike you, I don’t write my speeches,” he once told me. “I just speak,” boyishly sticking a finger in my belly to see if the muscles could meet it like a wall. And so it was with the hyperactive, acerbic, acute, annoyingly perceptive, pugnacious, kind, literary, and finally very romantic Siva, who loved things almost as much as he hated others. Always planning the next move, alert to the media, a nimble engineer of his own theatrical personality, the warmest possible friend and confidant who kept his comrades on edge, fearing the embarrassing comeback when the wrong word slipped, Siva was a terror to his foes but to those who knew him, lovable, and tortured by injustice. His fight was not the will to power but a cosmic case of hurt feelings. Inequality was an almost personal affront. A poet with (surprisingly) classically modernist literary tastes (not social realism), a novelist of Sri Lankan landscapes, love affairs, and the scent of fruits, Siva wanted to be granted the status of theorist of the concrete, applied rather than speculative, a Marxist who did not read Marx but understood him through his pores, a man whose honesty was intrepid enough to call defeat by its name, probing wounds, but never with self-pity or an indulgent demoralization. The last time I say him (about two years ago at his home), I came upon a frail man, older than I thought possible, beleaguered by his dizzy spells. But within moments, his face lit up, and he roused himself, and the featureless weary face sprang to life, laughing, denouncing, mocking, appealing, and — as always — playing with words. Love to you, Siva
He was shaken by the race riots and events of 1958 in Sri Lanka and he then shook the world through his work within and outside the Institute of Race Relations ensuring that deep imprints are left ‘When Memory Dies’.
Beloved niece Jano
Sydney, Australia
Following my return to Gatwick yesterday, I was really saddened to hear that Siva had finally called it a day in his long and glorious struggle to help so many people and communities to better understand and counter their oppression.
I’ll certainly miss his sharp wit and humorous asides, as well as his ready support in our various struggles over the last four decades. From my very first contact with him at the old IRR building in the early 70s, he has remained a huge political mentor and lodestar in the subsequent struggles we’ve engaged in and always willing to offer his support and thoughts on the matters which needed to be grappled with at those particular times.
Thank you for all what you’ve done for him Jenny and please pass on my deepest condolences to his family, as well as to Colin and to the other IRR comrades.
To paraphrase Siva, your memory will never die Siva and we will always cherish and continue to be guided in our actions by your incisive writings and fearless drive to understand and conquer our variegated oppressors!
With fondest memories,
Priya Thamotheram.
While acknowledging the comments of so many I can only write ….
Siva, you were a man who undoubtedly influenced me greatly. Over the years I have seen little of you, yet constantly read you and felt you shaping my understanding of the world. A Marxist who was throughout so clear about capital and the centrality of class whilst you were constantly analysed the changing nature of capital’s extending arms. One who was always prepared to fiercely argue your position, often with humour always with eloquence. You who could be relied on utterly in your clarity, your preparedness to act and to support those who needed these frames of understanding.
You did what many in your position failed to do. Having seized and built the Institute into such a fount and locus of ideas and practice you also permitted Liz and others to take their own course, of course with your support and debate when needed – probably always critically.
Personally you were crucial for me on the occasion many years ago when I had been denounced as a racist by a fellow worker. I was devastated and angry. You rang me, listened, talked and persuaded me to return and confront the madness of the accusation. I was then, and still am now, deeply grateful for your care, your wisdom and the timely support that you gave me to stand up with confidence.
And I loved your passion for Man U. I am only sorry that we never watched a match together.
Love to you Jenny, and to Liz and all who are and were part of the Institute. We know he will live on in our memories, in his ideas and in the way he impacted on so many.
Sympathies to Jenny and the rest of the family and all at the Institute; many vivid memories of someone deeply vital and passionate about racial and economic justice.
Siva and I were close friends between 1967 and 1973. He was, unquestionably, a Great Man, a man of all the talents. I will not rehearse them here, so many have done so with eloquence and passion and awe on these pages, I will simply join with them in that appreciation. After following different paths for 40 years, we were reunited a couple of years ago and found our affection bridged the long gap. With some anxiety I had sent him a copy of my autobiography. A little later the phone rang:
“Milner!” (mock gruff)
” Siva! I sent my book in the hope that you would like what I wrote about you – and because I think good friends should meet at least once every 40 years!”
(laughing)”Come and see us, you bastard!”
I did several times, feeling like the Prodigal Son, and the warmth and love and sheer pleasure of re-connecting round that kitchen table will stay with me for good. I will simply reproduce what I had written about him in my book, long after we had met and well before we had come together again
“Siva, as he was known, was the librarian of the Institute of Race Relations in Jermyn St, SW1. It was a street full of gentlemen’s outfitters, of the kind that make bespoke shirts and are bedecked with school, military and club ties. If it sounds like an unlikely revolutionary territory, then that would be right. And if ‘the librarian’ in a stereotypical way conjures up a bespectacled gentleman in a grey suit, with a hand-knitted green cardigan, worn as a waistcoat, then that would be wrong, in this case. The gentleman in question was a Sri Lankan Marxist firebrand who terrified anyone who crossed him (including his staff) though could also be a large cuddly toy when appropriate. In the course of a few years the Institute was transformed from a colonial hangover, the preserve of scholars and liberals who had either interest in or experience of life in the colonies, to a radical force of committed intellectuals and others who saw it as their role to support the new settlers in Britain in every aspect of their lives, including becoming a powerful pressure group. Siva did not achieve this on his own – quite – but he gathered and marshalled a committed coalition which took control of the Institute, with him as Director, and its BBC-like balance wavered and fell, and it became a weapon for the black community.
Siva was not ‘just’ a librarian, he was a force of nature, specifically a kind of permanent meteor that powered its way through the atmosphere without ever burning up. He had one of those great intellects which are sharpened and focused by an ideology and a practical purpose, the achievement of racial justice. The rhetoric was powerful, always extempore even to large audiences, and no different when one-to-one, when he would prod the listener into submission with his words and his finger, and his pipe. He was, in a way, too powerful for me: I lacked the gifts to resist him, to argue my corner and felt myself being drawn too much to his political stance, which was not mine.
I was overwhelmed when I first met him, aware of his uniqueness and special gifts, (he was a gifted novelist and poet as well as an ideologue and activist) and that he was conferring on me a kind of friendship and comradeship I had not known before. He had disciples and that was on offer. We remained very close for a long time, spent time at his house in Finchley (that well-known ghetto of revolutionary cadres) even watched football together (strange how these revolutionaries turn out to have feet of clay with Achilles heels – Manchester United in his case). Going to Bristol and doing a PhD pulled me away from him inevitably; however sincere your revolutionary beliefs and political goals, you can’t do a PhD on them: they are antithetical. So at the same time as I was starting to tug away from Siva, to be my own man and carve out a career away from the theoretical barricades, I was being suborned by another guru, who wanted me to be the purest kind of academic researcher and writer. He never succeeded, not entirely, but at least he did equip me with a trade, which Siva never could. On the other hand, Siva offered a mind-set, a heart and a conscience that could not be found in academic text books, and would sit on my shoulders for ever.”
Thank you, Siva, you gave me so much more than I gave you, but that was the only kind of inequality you were prepared to sanction and embrace, with everyone.
I met Siva briefly at the Transnational Institute in the mid-70s and he made an indelible impression of fortitude and intelligence. He was fiercely aware of the patronising and subordinating nature of official British tolerance and would have none of it. I learnt from him about the pain and nature (yes I know it is obvious but it is true) of race and class. We were there with John Berger who died a year ago while the TNI was in part inspired by Mark Raskin the radical American thinker and activist who died just a few days ago. The three of them were shapeshifting figures of their generation who resisted creatively and without cease. I can’t imagine what our world would have been like without them.
My sister Liz and I were lucky to know Siva, through my father’s happy, warm if sometimes stressful collaboration with him on the board of ‘Race and Class’ in the 70s. (The occasional noisy board meeting over a country weekend.) He was thoughtful, generous and accepting, a real friend. We lost touch later, but I’m glad that his career has been so fruitful and that ‘Race and Class’ has continued to flourish.
My sincere condolences to Jenny and all close to Siva. And thank you to everyone who has shared their memories. What an amazing bunch of people associated with him and the IRR, it takes quite something to bring people together like this. And best wishes in the struggles that lie before us all.
I was so sad to hear of Siva’s passing & send my deepest condolences to Jenny & all at IRR. At the start of my career Siva was such a source of inspiration, warm encouragement and rightful challenge. It was so good to watch the revolution in IRR under Siva’s leadership in the 70s. His words of wisdom from those days have guided me since then and many of Siva’s articles & his novel have cheered me too.
Just heard from Colin Prescod the sad news. Siva had a telling influence in my own development being the proverbial political irritant who was questioning and quizzical about everything we did. No blatant push back but some very subtle questions that sent you back to the drawing board.
Purnaka L. de Silva: Tribute to “Uncle Siva”
The passing of Ambalavanar Sivanandan from Sandilipay in the Jaffna Peninsula marks the end of an era for a generation of Sri Lankan progressive intellectuals who were simply world class and have left an indelible record in the collective memory of so many.
I remember Uncle Siva as a little boy more than fifty years ago. He was a very dear friend of my father Cedric de Silva, late mother Melodie de Silva and paternal uncle Ian (H.A.I.) Goonetilleke the well known Librarian from Peradeniya University in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Uncle Siva, his wife Jenny Bourne and children Tamara, Asha and Rohan visited and sometimes stayed over at my mother’s house in Colombo when they visited from London.
Uncle Siva was instrumental in inculcating a deep sense of fair play and racial equality that helped fashion the politics of a generation of Sri Lankan political activists 30 years or more his junior. We all owe him a debt that we cannot repay. It was from him that I learned about Franz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” and “Black Skin White Masks”; Walter Rodney’s “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”; Amilcar Cabral’s “Unity in Struggle” among many other seminal works.
The Institute of Race Relations in London was a safe haven and a crucible for intellectual curiosity, political stimulation and cross-pollination for activists in the 1970s and 1980s from so many countries such as South Africa, Eritrea, Cambodia, Palestine, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, etc. Personalities frequenting the Institute included the famous Kenyan Ngugi Wa’Thiongo and the Afro-Trinidadian C.L.R. James among many luminaries. Thanks to Uncle Siva’s efforts and that of the dedicated staff of the Institute, the journal Race&Class spearheaded powerful discussions and debates covering racism, policing, black, Asian, white youth, policymaking to urban malaise in the United Kingdom, as well as politics in post-colonial societies the world over.
Siva was an exceptionally gifted revolutionary exponent of the strategy and tactics of the anticolonial and antiracist movements, the connections among which his writings were a most farsighted expression, as was his advocacy of their primacy to working-class liberation. Siva knew the liberation of the white working classes in the First World could not happen without the liberation of colonized black peoples of the Third World. I believe that this thesis was the essence of his writings. But Siva was also an orator of immense power, as extraordinary as Stuart and Darkus were. With Siva and Stuart and Darcus gone the movement in Britain for black liberation has lost its finest defenders. I’m very saddened by Siva’s transition.
My condolences to the family of Siva and all at the IRR.
A tragic loss, felt very deeply at many levels.
Mesmirising in how he articulated what I struggled with in my teaching career and came to understand about the shortcomings of education in this country. I woke up through what he explained and how he explained it. I gained strength to act through his leadership.
One of the pillars of our collective effort and progress, that many others here have described so movingly and better than I am able to.
It is with great sadness that I heard of the passing of Siva. His writings articulated and defined my experiences as a young new immigrant to Britain in the 70s. I felt his words, he stoked a fire. Many of those in the Sheffield Asian Youth Movement in the 80s also found direction in Siva’s words. We often travelled to London to hear him speak and seek his counsel. With the Newham Monitoring Project through the 80s, Siva gave our anger grounding. He inspired a generation of activists. He ignited something in us that is still burning after so many decades.
Over the years I have revisited his essay and novels and I am always re-energised by the clarity and prophecy in his words. Nowadays my daughter, Ashika, finds Siva’s words as Real as we did.
We will always remember you Siva. My heartfelt condolences to Jenny, Siva’s family and friends and everyone at the Institute of Race Relations.
The loss of Siva Patta is inevitably an upsetting one, however for me it isn’t like the loss of an idol or a relative it was like the loss of a friend. I would always enjoy talking with Siva Patta but now that he is gone I can only respect his life and be thankful that others are felling the same pain as I do now. It is a shame that I knew him for so little and I would have loved to spend more time with him however that will not be possible. However, We must not be sad but happy that Siva Patta shared his ideas with us. He was not only an incredible thinker but a man who you would wish to be around. To give you a sense of just how fun he was, he was a man a 13 year old, an 11 year old, an 8 year old and a 6 year old wished to spend time with.
At the age of 94 he would still play fun games with us he would never forget what was going on in our lives and I think it tells you a lot about him if at 94, in pain he still loved children. I will really miss him but am glad he meant so much to say many people.
It is difficult to add much to other comments about the man I have known since the 1970s. As an anti-racist activist and as someone who taught ‘race’ issues in HE (alongside Colin) he was a massive influence on me and his writings were at the top of my reading-lists for nearly 40 years. Siva was not always easy to work with – he didn’t suffer fools gladly – but was always supportive of those engaged in Black and anti-racist struggles, particularly if we were willing to engage in genuine intellectual effort to think about what we were fighting against and what we were fighting for. His death is a massive loss for all movements fighting for human equality and human liberation. Condolences to Jenny, family and my IRR comrades. Farewell, comrade Siva.
I remember with fondness working together with Siva and colleagues many years ago. He was always ready to talk and listen and appreciated what I had to offer. I liked him, and feel sad at his passing. My condolences to all who loved him.
As a fresh, sensitive soul brought in to help with translations, writing and research in 2004, I was in awe of Siva and his colleagues at the IRR. They had had the experience of fighting the struggles against an unjust system and had fought on courageously despite the political climate surrounding them. As for me, I was young and inexperienced, and I had issues of my own to deal with.
Siva was obviously a strong-willed, passionate elder who I should have been learning from. Instead, due to my own insecurities, I felt threatened by his knowledge, his intellect and his power of argumentation. If I had been at a different stage in my development, Siva probably would have been one of my best friends – and maybe he would have liked me too. We held some sort of mutual respect and a shared sense of humour, so I am extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to work with Siva.
Now, years later, I realise that Siva and his colleagues were the greatest influence on me. Siva’s passion, eloquence and beauty will leave a lasting impression on me.
Such a beautiful, important man who will be sorely missed.
My deepest condolences to the family. He was an exceptional human being who contributed a lot to our understanding of the relationship between race and class. His intellectual and political legacy will be a beacon to future generations.
My deepest condolences to Jenny, Siva’s family and all the other friends at the IRR. I came across Siva rather late in my life around the year 2000. I only met him twice and was deeply touched by his warmth and affection. Once we were talking about Gramsci, Siva joked that he was only a ‘pamphleteer’. No doubt that but also an amazing conversationalist, an essayist, an activist, a political thinker, a polemicist, an educator, a novelist, a short story writer and a poet as well- a genuinely renaissance man.
I vividly remember the public meeting when he shared a platform with John Berger on globalisations Great Defeat of the World where they both spoke with great passion. In his tribute to John, Siva said how John’s Ways of Seeing gave him the eyes to see with and his work on Picasso put those eyes to use. Siva and John were both kindred souls, intrepid truth sayers in a world of lies, who threw themselves into the struggles against injustices. Grappling with Picasso’s genius, John described him as a vertical invader coming up through the trap-door of anarchic Barcelona to the stage of Europe in Paris, establishing a bridgehead and finally becoming a conqueror always conscious to subject his experience in Paris to a comparison with what he had brought with him from his own country, form the past. Much the same can be said of Siva, an insurgent vertical invader, coming up through the trap-door of riot stricken Colombo to the stage of metropolitan London, establishing a bridgehead as a librarian and going on to transform the IRR into a radical organisation, never forgetting his past links with Sri Lanka and the struggle of the third world for liberation from neo-colonialism and imperialism.
He leaves us with a rich legacy of his writings from which we can draw inspiration, insights, and thoughtful analysis to clarify our our own thinking and guide to actions. I often return to his seminal essays. Here and there are phrases, sentences and sometimes whole paragraphs leaping out of the text like flames that illuminate the world around us. Often his voice in lyrical and incandescent. Here we find Siva eschewing any dogma and jargon to grapple with issues of our times in Britain and world wide. He was no academic setting up systems and models but a black activist intellectual dealing with emerging political struggles. He makes connections and interactions that are lost out in the conversations about the world we live in.
How he excoriated the New times as ‘a fraud, counterfeit and humbug’ shoring up Thatcherism’s pretended market society. How he bristled anger at the intellectual retreat into cultural ism/ ethnicism and the betrayal by the flight into post-modernism of discourse, deconstruction and representation, the pre-occupation with identities away from the actual fight against racism, exploitation and their symbiosis with poverty.
He often ‘caught history on the wing’. Long before the McPherson report made ‘institutional racism’ as a key issue, Siva had located institutional racism at the heart of the British state in the way it dealt with immigration, the presence of black communities in Britain, the endemic racism and the tragic deaths in police custody. How on the onset of the War on Terror, he saw the historical trajectory roots of the convergence of the war on asylum and the war on terror to produce a racism which in his words ‘ cannot tell a settler from an immigrant, an immigrant from an asylum seeker, an asylum seeker from a Muslim, a Muslim from a terrorist’. He grasped so early the emerging anti-Muslim racism with the battle cry ‘Our fight, then, is not only against the new imperium, but against the new racism, the anti-Arab racism, the anti-Muslim racism.’ In this new imperium driven by the United States, not only he saw the return to war and plunder but a leap in the the productive forces driven by the microelectronics leading to dis-organic development in the third world with new circuits of imperialism impoverishing billions.
Siva also leaves us with a living legacy- the IRR and its team who over the years have produced outstanding work with articles and books taking on urgent and emerging issues. Race and Class has established itself as an international journal on Racism, Empire and Globalisation. It is incumbent for those of us who have been influenced by Siva to support the work of the IRR in every way we can.
Things I might not know or might not have learned for a long time had we not met Siva in the late 1970’s: That ‘Black’ could and should be more than a racial binary and encompass so many of the colonized, marginalized especially as the parameters of race shifted through time. That the miracle of the microchip was born on the backs of women whose kitchens brewed toxic chemicals so that we might exchange information at the speed of light. That ‘free trade zones’ were only free for exploiting the indigenous populations whose wealth was exported in a twinkling. That the brilliance of young people often undereducated and discouraged could be coaxed from them and realized in the vitality of IRR and beyond. That while he told me that in Sri Lanka, you could drop a mango seed out the window and have tree the next day, surely its sweetest fruit was this man who was by turns elfin and enormous, brilliant in either guise. At some moments cantankerous and others infinitely indulgent. The one truth I’m sure of, the lesson I’ve learned in the last year or so is that his legacy, like Cedric’s, will be renewed and enhanced as his many students and colleagues remind us of it and keep it in play. To Jenny and the IRR family, when I write of him that means all of you too. To Jenny and his family, I send profound condolences. Until we meet. Elizabeth Robinson
A great teacher and a friend has sadly gone. Sometimes his words kept me going through the darkest moments in my life – he helped me understand, that by us being here Britain didn’t do us any favour – it had stolen our past. To those it gave a grant here or there, was like someone giving a crutch to those whose legs it had broken, and expecting them to say thank you. I learnt from Siva, I was here because they were there, but me being here was not the same as them being there – they came on the backs of gunboats, and my family to work in their mills and factories. Thank you Siva, for so many lessons, especially for providing a theoretical framework for us during our time in the Asian Youth Movements – He was towering beacon of light, for us in his his theoretical positions. Many a time in many a meeting, we quoted him, especially when we were trying to understand why we had come here, how they benefited from us coming here, and the value of our past.
At a time of great poverty in my life he gave me riches which made me survive to the present.
Dear Suresh Grover I write to express my deepest condolences on the death
of Ambalavanen Sivanandan.I met you years ago in Southhall.I used to be
Jim Kelman,s agent and I count him among my dearest friends .I am in
Zambia at the moment when such a death occurs I stop and reflect on
the person,s life and their contribution .I then remind myself we have no
time for despair and must continue the struggle.Please accept my
heartfelt sorrow and support at this difficult time .
I’ll keep it brief-Siva ranks above almost everybody on the post-war Left. He broadened the understanding of those on the British white Left who would listen and the grasp of all incoming migrants of what oppression was and where it came from.
Siva’s life was dedicated to the anti-racist course. He kept hope alive by editing a journal which was a veritable weapon in the struggle against racism, discrimination and injustice. His belief in the class struggle never wavered, thus setting an example worthy of emulation.
.
A great loss of an inspirational leader and warrior for justice. heartfelt condolences to Jenny, the family and all at IRR.
I had the privilege of being invited to be an IRR Council member in the 70’s at the time of the move from Jermyn Street to Islington. I once remarked to Siva that I was sometimes a bit lost during the academic/political discussions and his immediate response was,”That’s alright – your heart is in the right place.” I’m not sure about that . . . but I feel privileged to have known him, albeit for only a few years, as it was so abundantly clear that his towering intellect was earthed in ” a heart in the right place” & deeply committed to unearthing and exposing
injustice wherever it lurked. Thank you, Siva, for enlightening so many of us. May the continuing IRR flourish built, as it is, on such a strong foundation.
My deep condolences to Jenny Bourne,Siva´s Family and IRR.
I have always considered Siva a great teacher and a courageous and lucid intellectual.
Siva´s helped me to find a path in politics and research. He awakened consciences even in the Far Sourh (argentina).
We will miss you
My heartfelt condolences to his family, his friends and comrades. I first came across him on my return to the UK after many years when I read his ‘Communities of Resistance’ and it made a deep impression on me, so much so that I find myself returning to it again and again.
He is missed but his thoughts live on!
Hamba Kahle Siva
My heartfelt condolences to Jenny and other members of the staff. I have written my own appreciation of Siva for the News in Pakistan.
Link
http://tns.thenews.com.pk/remarkable-life/#.WlwsPq6WbIV
A remarkable life
Dr Arif Azad January 14, 2018
Ambalavaner Sivanandan, an activist-scholar, was committed to raising voice against discrimination on the basis of class and race
A remarkable life
Share !
inShare
3
Ambalavaner Sivanandan, known to his friends as Siva, who died on January 3 aged 94, was an influential theorist, novelist, activist-scholar whose pioneering work on race relations and anti-racist grassroots struggle informed the work of a generation of thinking activist and campaigners. His passing marks the end of an era and profound loss of an original and fertile political mind.
Sivanandan was a brilliant political and organising mind, a decent human being and a firm believer in the third world liberation. At the Institute of Race Relations’ annual Christmas party, his had a lively, vivacious and stimulating presence. I fondly remember his enthusiastic help, guidance and an insightful interview for my thesis on family-led campaigns for racial justice in the UK.
Although he is not much known among the younger generation, he remains a giant among the old breed of anti-racist activists and scholars. His trenchant analysis is relevant to the current day struggles in both the UK and at global level as shown in his recent analytical work on the changing nature of market state, imperialism, globalisation and state racism.
At the age of 73 Sivanandan published his first and the only novel When Memory Dies which won both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the annual Saga Prize awarded to first-time black writers.
From the very beginning Siva was interested in staking out a different position on racism outside of the established left position which sought to subsume race into the primacy of class struggle. Sivanandan took issue with the established left position that classless society would automatically lead to a raceless society.
According to Arun Kundani, ex-editor of Race and Class and author of Muslims are Coming, he believed that radical politics can only be built in the symbiosis between race and class. Arun further credits Siva with making vital contribution to the creation of a different black politics by opening intellectual and institutional space for this radical politics to mature. This Sivnadan did as the director of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).
Sivanandan also founded an influential theoretical journal Race and Class which provided a platform to anti-comical and anti-imperialist perspectives. This approach drew in activist scholars such as Eqbal Ahmed to its fold. Eqbal Ahmed also served as co-editor of Race and Class besides guest editing its special editions on the US and the Arab World, The Iranian Revolution and the Invasion of Lebanon. Eqbal Ahmed, as the director of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam was also instrumental in helping the Institute in its initial days through fellowships and other grants.
Sivanandan did not author any major work but his political essays on important junctures in the British race relation history were widely consulted to shed light on the challenges and crises in the anti-racist and anti-imperialist struggles. These essays, later published in book form, continue to be read with avidity by anti-racist community groups and the wider public. His influence can be seen in the work of the Monitoring group, an anti-racist charity, as attested by a warm tribute paid by its founder Suresh Grover on the pages of the IRR.
Son of a poster worker, Sivanandan was born in Sri Lanka. He attended Ceylon University and went into banking after completing his education. A Hindu Tamil, he fled to England after anti-Tamil riots in 1958. He arrived in London at the time of Nottinghill Gate riots against immigration from the West Indies. This was what he called ‘double baptism of fire’ for him.
Like all Afro-Asian immigrants Sivanandan’s painful experience of racism saw him degraded into a lowly job as a tea boy in a London library. Yet Siva worked his way up and ended up as the chief librarian of the newly established Institute of Race Relations. This job was to transform Sivanandan in profound ways and mark out his future trajectory as an intellectual and activist. At the Institute, then funded by multinational corporations, the focus of research was the objective study of race relations.
The purpose of the research, however, was to understand race relation in post-colonial Africa with a view to facilitating business investment. However, soon the fissure developed between the radical-minded staff and the management over pro-government orientation of the Institute in relation to the 1962 Immigration Act which drastically restricted
entry of the Commonwealth Citizens.
Disenchanted with the direction of the Institute, in 1972, Siva along with some radical members of the staff organised a coup against the management and took away the material and resources to a new office. The revamped Institute of Race Relations under his leadership, from thenceforward, was to become a research and campaigning organisation on race relation informed by the lived experience of daily racism by Afro-Asian immigrants.
The Institute provided space to community activists for reflection and organising thinking struggles to fight the state racism. The IRR has continued this important work through its regular educational and research work on black deaths in police custody, deportations of asylum seekers and racist attacks and killing. This important strand of work has consisted in documenting and analysing racist incidents and murders which feeds organically into new strategies of community resistance against institutional racism.
More importantly, Sivanandan played a vital role in propagating the notion of black politics among Asian and other communities. The black politics was informed by US civil rights and the Black Panther Movement. Siva famously said the colour of his politics was black. Siva also maintained that mass migration into the UK was linked with the imperial and colonial history and logic. He used to encapsulate this logic in the widely resonant phrase ‘we are here because you were there’.
A long-time student of English poetry Siva was fond of quoting TS Eliot and Gerald Manley Hopkins. The influence of English poetry also shows through Sivanandan’s graceful and plain prose.
At the age of 73 Sivanandan published his first and the only novel When Memory Dies which won both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the annual Saga Prize awarded to first-time black writers. The novel is the saga of three generations of a Sri Lankan family and has been critically praised. This debut novel was followed by a collection of short stories titled Where the Dance which also received considerable critical acclaim.
Such a deep sense of loss! Sivanandan introduced many young Black minds to the politics of why we were here – and gave us the tools and the strength to fight back with a simple response: ‘because you were there’. His writings and speeches articulated and synthesized the academic, personal and the political with such simplicity and clarity. He helped us develop the connections between our struggles and those of our ancestors, and gave us a sense of why we needed to continue the fight against any form of oppression and subjugation. It was always exciting and inspirational to turn to his work to understand what was really happening around us and get direction on what to do about it. He was the finest example of how to ‘educate and agitate’. He will be dearly missed and hard to replace.
Rest in Power, Siva! You provided a home for those of us who have been intellectually homeless.
I’ve been off-line for a couple of weeks and only now learned of Siva’s passing. Siva was an intellectual giant, a critical thinker, a passion for challenging racism and imperialism, and had a way with words that I have never encountered anywhere else. He could inspire, and he could bring you to tears. I spent many amazing years at the Institute in the late 1970s and early 80s. It is difficult to describe his influence not only on my own thinking but also on the thinking of a whole generation who learned the real nature of racism, its dehumanising character, and how to organise against it. I am still amazed at the extraordinary capacity he had of understanding the nature of capitalism and imperialism and to go to the very heart of it, well before anyone else really understood what is going on. His Imperialism in the Silicone Age is just one example of his extraordinary ability to understand the impact of the technological revolution, and in a concise and passionate manner described what people only today have begun to understand. Such breadth of vision, and such a commitment to combine intellectual work with political engagement. ‘Catching History on its Wings’ was a phrase he always urged on us, and his life showed what it meant to do so. His collection of essays in A Different Hunger is one that I have returned to many times over the years. All these tributes here can only capture some glimpses into a man who was bigger than all of us. I hope that the Institute will consider publishing his collected works in a single volume. My condolences to Jenny and all at IRR. Hamba Kahle, Siva. Your influence lives on in all of us.
HELLO SIVA
Hello Siva
I’m here again
because you were there.
Tamil boyo
global insighter
King’s Cross joker
human of cosmos
ideas through prisms of resistance
storms of life and beauty
agonies and joys of history
all around the alleyways of Gray’s Inn Road –
here and there, race and class
met in our brain
to make the now and future.
Open the batting of struggle!
First change of strategy!
I’m there again
because you’re here.
A total shock. A massive and irreparable loss.
Siva was at the forefront of educating anti-fascists in anti-racism with his trenchant, ever-perceptive analyses and personal indomitable fighting spirit.
One of his final acts was to donate to food centres for families going hungry in County Durham’s depressed former mining villages. That was Siva’s class solidarity!
As with Maurice Ludmer, we will not see his like again. An example and inspiration to all who met him.
Condolences to his family and all at IRR
Salud, Siva!
So sad at the death of Siva, a privilege and an honour to know him.
He wrote so much and so well and inspired a change in so many at the way history and the struggles of people are seen. Born in Jaffna he ended in Britain and changed so much on the way. “When Memory Dies” is a superb encapsulation in a novel of so much of life and hopes but also of the history that influences us all.
He changed IRR in the 1970’s into something very different and by changing “Race” in to “Race AND Class” he set the direction of the organisation.
His vast writings and collection at Warwick University have changed the way in which colonial history is written and his sense of solidarity of oppressed people in all circumstances has changed the narrative.
We have all learned from Siva the value of endlessly challenging the given narrative, but also that poetry, creative writing and music (from everywhere) all help us to not only understand but strive for change.
I know how deeply he was loved by all who knew him and his own family and the IRR family are devastated at his passing.
In his memory we all learn more about ourselves and our collective memory.
Thanks Siva for all you did.
Brid Brennan, Transnational Institute (TNI)
It is very inspiring to read all the comments honouring Siva…and to see the strong affirmation that is given to his crucial role as a leading black intellectual-activist of our era. His work on the nexus of imperialism, neo-colonialism and racism is enduring as is his emphasis on the collective action and the counter-power of movements needed to defeat this. In facing one of the most challenging conjunctures of this period – concretely in the policy of necropolitics of Europe (not only on Europe’s Southern Borders) – we recall his “mosaic of unities” as an important strategy in building a cross-fertilisation of ideas and struggles across sectors and communities at this time of polarisation and fragmentation.
I like to share two personal notes: I was introduced to Siva’s A Different Hunger and to IRR by Bridget Anderson when I worked in London in the Campaign on Undocumented Migrant Domestic Workers in 1985-1990. This Campaign drew on Siva’s internationalist strategy which built cross community solidarity taking on the racism of a persisting slavery within Britain – this was also the lens through which to analyse the new global labour chain demanded by globalisation. As many have said in the Comments – A Different Hunger has also been seminal for me and is a constant reference text and remains highly relevant for any of us wanting to understand not only the historical shaping of black struggle in Britain but also how this interconnects with the anti-racist and anti-islamophobia struggles and resistances across Europe. Siva’s connections with the Transnational Institute were very strong – he was among those consulted by Eqbal Ahmed on the founding of TNI, was among its founding Fellows and wrote A Different Hunger as a Fellow of TNI.
My other important source of contact with Siva’s ideas was through his good friend Zimbabwean Basker Vashee who was director of TNI for more than a decade. Basker and Siva knew each other from a period when anti-colonial and black struggles shaped a vibrant internationalism and when the articulation of the struggles of black workers was shaping politics in Britain but also having their influence with a generation of struggle of so called ‘guest workers’ in Europe. Basker and Siva celebrated a long friendship and when Basker died – two of Siva’s books When Memory Dies and Where the Dance Is were on his bedside table.
To Jenny and Sivas’s family our warm sympathy and to Liz and Frances and all at IRR, we grieve with you on the passing of Siva…while we pay tribute to your ongoing outstanding work.
A luta continua! and SIVA lives!
Needless to say, Siva was an inspirational figure. I first got to hear about him in the mid 80s through his essay “Alien Gods”, in B. Parekh (ed.), Colour, Culture and Consciousness: immigrant intellectuals in Britain, London (1974).
I was profoundly moved by the sentiments expressed therein with great intensity & conviction. I never met Siva but kept in touch with IRR through publications like Race & Class, CARF & Euro Race Bulletin.
I wonder whether Britain will ever produce a man of his stature again.
Nonoi Hacbang
Platform of Filipino Migrant Organisations in Europe & Transnational Migrant Platform-Europe (TMP-E) Amsterdam
To Siva – friend and companero!
Farewell…but not goodbye…Ambalavaner Sivanandan!
Your living, working and struggling for life, dignity and freedom have inspired, touched and conquered many of us migrant and refugee peoples especially in these dark years of Fortress Europe.
Siva – You named it a long time ago – the lived experience which we share whether as migrants or refugees – forcibly uprooted from our communities, livelihoods and countries whether by the pernicious model of corporate ‘development’ and extractivism or by the inhuman economies of war. With your gift of words you put these historical and political complexities of capitalism in a nutshell – which I often quote: “We are here because you were there. Come back here and we will go back there”. How this expression continues to move our struggles forward!
Siva – Many tributes here put you at the center of the Black movement in Britain – but your analysis and strategies also speak eloquently to those of us who live and struggle against racism, islamophobia and injustice in other parts of Europe. Ours is a global as well as local struggle wherever we live. And so many of us came together to participate in that great Conference ‘Communities of Resistances’ you organized in Hackney in 1989. There we shared strategies of self-organizing and action which have inspired our resistance in the years of the building of Fortress Europe and in our response of strengthening our grassroots organisations and transnational movements.
Siva – Our personal meetings were occasional…but always engaged – as in the last time – around this time last year we spoke on the telephone. You were encouraged that we were taking up the fight and embarking on a Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) to indict the EU and its member states for the crimes against humanity that have turned the Mediterranean and Agean seas into the largest mass graves in history.
Siva – You have always shared light, courage and new energy of the spirit with us migrants and refugee peoples in our journey and in our struggles. As peoples on the move, you have been with us – a friend and companero in these spaces without rights.
Siva – you will not be dead! Your friendly shadow will always follow us and live in our collective memory.
Companero Siva PRESENTE!!!
It is with great Sadness that I have read of the passing of
Sivanandan .
Sivanandan’s writings were deeply influential for those of active in The Asian Youth Movements of Sheffield and Birmingham and challenged those that sought to divert the struggle into a path of identity and silo politics .
His writings in the 80’s helped steer our struggle and bring together a generation of activists.
He was a beacon of light.
Like many people I was profoundly influenced by Siva. Many were the discussions and also disagreements we had at Leeke Street. I first saw Siva when he appeared at a Conference organised by Searchlight Anti-Fascist Magazine, in the days when Searchlight was under the editorship of Maurice Ludmer and was trusted by the movement.
I first came into contact with Siva politically and the rest of the Race and Class collective through my involvement with Anti-Fascist Action in the mid-1980s.
Siva was our guide and our mentor and what I probably took to heart was his say that we are what we do as opposed to the navel gazing and internal reflection of identity politics which fossilises our identiy and turns it into a reactionary and backward looking concept.
I had the privilege of meeting Siva in his London office thrice – twice in 1996 and once in 1996. I was deeply touched by his humility and immense human warmth he exuded. Though I never cultivated ethnic or linguistic pride in me, I have never been able to resist admiring the fact that so far he was the only person from a Tamil speaking community background who rose to become one of the outstanding Marxist intellectuals of an International stature in our era.
Red Salutes to Siva
S V Rajadurai, Writer & Translator, Tamil Nadu, India
We have taken Siva into our heart in Germany. In the early 1990s, he was a source of inspiration and an important companion for us migrants. An incorruptible fighter for justice. We are sad and shocked by his death. We are grateful that he met us in the 1990s. He has left many traces and we will continue on this path.
Good work, old chap. And refreshing to see a professional librarian achieving political distinction: a welcome left-wing antidote to poet Philip Larkin!
Difficult to find the words to describe his work and achievement – it is inspiring, critical and hopeful. His legacy is a solid foundation to build a just future.
Siva was one of the giants I knew about when we were still hoping that the scourges of racism and classism might just lessen. He was forever present as someone to be relied upon to identify and name the beasts of such cruelty. It is important that we never give up on the agenda he set us so clearly
I knew Siva from his writing. The one time I met him, I was struck by his wit, sense of humor, and willingness to talk about anything I wanted. I often reflect on the clarity of his writing, observations, and advocacy. He inspired many with his insights, and will be sorely missed, even by those of us who only knew him from afar.
I knew Siva a little from my time working on the Race and Class journal whilst at SAGE. I was young, and I felt in awe of his intellect yet warmed by his humanity.
As was the case with everyone at the Institute, there was this urgent, real, uncompromising truth at the foundation of all the work. It was a privilege to work with you all and it left an impression on me. It was also fun and fascinating and important.
My love to Jenny and you all.
Bernie
Up until his death, I was completely unaware of him and his work. I must admit as Tamil from Ceylon, I say this with a great degree of regret and some shame. The regret comes from not knowing about him and the shame is not trying to find out more about the country of my birth and heritage. I have just finished his lovely book, When Memory Dies, and can only say thank you to him even though he is now beyond listening to those thanks. My father would have been his contemporary in Ceylon, born in Jaffna in 1926 and immigrant to the UK in 1962. My father was a surgeon, a passionate Tamil and fervent believer in a fight for equal rights. I learnt much from him on the topic of Ceylon’s descent into the communal politics. The pain that sits in Tamils’ hearts sits in mine. He died in 2008 with deep sadness over the plight of the his fellow Tamils and the country of his birth. Sivanandan’s book has helped to fill in the human side of the pain felt by Ceylonese Tamils as the country of their origin was slowly but steadily taken from them and left them as outsiders in their own country.
I wish his family heartfelt sympathy for their loss. If this book is anything to go by, he was clearly a man worth knowing.Thank you again.
Farewell to a Giant and a Gentleman. One of the most kind and influential people I have ever met in my life. He made me understand my place in this unjust society. He gave me peace amidst the confusion of mixed culture relationships and the children of this union.
Rise Siva.
My condolences to his family.
Dear IRR Family,
Last January, I was too caught up in my own world and I missed the notice about Siva’s passing. What a loss. We are so bereft of this valiant generation of activists and intellectuals. I hope we are worthy to take up the work.
I first met Siva, Liz, Hazel, and Jenny, then eventually Colin, among others, in the IRR office in London while I was a visiting student at what was then called, Queen Mary & Westfield College in London’s East End. I had come to London with the purpose of working with IRR. My advisors back in States, Ruthie Gilmore and Sid Lemelle, had used articles from Race & Class in their classes and I found the work intellectually challenging and exciting. I knocked on the door of the IRR one day, without notice, and they let me in. I then asked if I could be an informal “Girl Friday” for the staff and they allowed it! Later, they told me they thought I was CIA until I mentioned Ruthie’s name! I think I may haven been IRR’s first intern!
I learned so much working in the office, clipping news articles, and talking. I remember our lunches most fondly. As I recall, Siva always had a topic to discuss. Our lunches were times to reflect and to organize. I miss them.
Thank you so much, Liz, Hazel, and Jenny, and always to Siva for taking a chance on me. I love you all!
Dear IRR Family,
I too was caught up in my own world (with my father too passed away in early 2018 overseas, whilst he was on holiday in late December 2017 to February 2018, having had a fall resulting him to be hospitalised, which was sadly followed by his passing away in February 2018) & thus I missed the notice about Late Mr A. Sivanandan’s passing in January 2018 too as a result; for which I apologise to IRR & Late Siva’s own family (as it is only just now, being July 2020, that I am only now just coming to terms that he is no longer with our Dear Mum, my family & myself). Late Mr A. Sivanandan is such a big loss to the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) & Siva’s own family. Whilst I am so bereft of this valiant generation of activists and intellectuals of such characteristics employed and or instilled within Late Siva or current & past retired IRR members, of which I hope that we all around UK as well as Globally are all worthy as Equals to take up such challenging tasks that our lives fronts and or thrusts upon on whilst we work, rest and play; where we are not seen or judged at face value of race (e.g. colour of our skin), religion, creed, gender, age and sexual orientation backgrounds.
This I say more so now than ever, because, whilst we all may have gone through most difficult times and eras of past of our own or our ancestors may have in the past, we all must NOT let those chapters of unjust, inhumane & lack of equality on all fronts of life issues to repeat itself; whether it be chapter by chapter or simply reflective to, of era, of our unwanted ugly side of our humanity kind of hate and being hostile against one or other all because we are different to one another e.g. of late occurence since Late George Floyd’s murder / death in USA, Late Stephen Lawrence’s brutal murder in UK etc … as hate is not something between just an issue between white and black people only, as it encompasses the much wider ring / circle of hate between religions, gender, creed and sexual orientation too.
Such mentality within our humanity of our diverse minds against the background of our own skin colour (e.g. white, black etc) as one of anti-christian, anti-islam, anti-hindu, anti-buddhists, anti-gay, anti-lesbian, anti-transsexual etc are just casts away, beyond love, care, sensitivity, equal justice, fair and equal treatment etc for us all & all those around us (no matter where we are in the whole world, as our one & only one world…of which we all call it as our home). I myself, have so much to learn about each other, all around our own home (i.e. our world, one earth…Mother Earth).
Thank you all so much, such as all those good people all around the world who may read this message here, in what I have had to say & also Many Thanks to the People of IRR (from the Director of IRR i.e. Liz Fekete, as well as Jenny Bourne, Hazel Waters, Anya Edmond-Pettitt, Sophia Siddiqui, Jessica Perera together with the Management of IRR from the Chair Colin Prescod, as well as Frances Webber, Sam Berkson, Lee Bridges, Eddie Bruce-Jones, Jon Burnett, Tony Bunyan, Sue Conlan, Rebekah Delsol, Saqib Deshmukh, David Edgar, Gholam Khiabany, Joseph Maggs, Jasbinder S. Nijjar, Danny Reilly & Cilius Victor. Not forgetting, as always Late Mr A. Sivanandan for all of his time and selfless contributions for IRR all around the world. Thanking you all and each as collective to whom I plea to & request for all, please do keep up the Good work up as always, towards that Peaceful, Harmonious, Better Understanding & Tolerance of one another; for that Caring & Loving Environment in our World today, for each other as better neighbours, work colleagues and friends etc.
What a great elder whose impact on activists and scholars of race studies will continue long after he moved on. Deep condolences to all of his family and fellow scholar activists at the IIR. Rest in Power, Comrade Siva!
I have just heard this very sad news. My condolences and very best regards to Siva’s family and friends. I met Siva in the 1980s as a political activist restarting in academia as a ‘mature’ student. I was in awe of Siva’s reputation and work and also awkward in that I certainly didn’t feel like I fit in the academic/ Left academic in to me what seemed a distant and rarified world. Siva’s work reinforced to me that you could be of that world of ideas and writing and research, and in a rigorous manner, but also that it’s right to take sides – the side of those that do not easily have access to dissemination of their interests, values and aspirations. Otherwise what’s the point? On the occasions we met, he was wonderful to me, and a wonderful person of humour, rigour and humanity. He also gave me a chance to publish (a completely unknown person) in the journal and gave me the privilege of respect. 34 years on I’m still in the business (of ideas) and hope I still do my bit in Siva’s tradition.
the last couple of pages of his New Circuits of Imperialism stand ,for me, as a wonderful synopsis of socialism. A fighter all his life,an engaging person and the epitome of an honest man in a world where there are too few.I came to Sivanandan late in life [ I am 83] but have felt revivified by his testimony and life-story. Vinceremos !