Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political

By Judy Rebick. Penguin Canada, 256 pp, $24, hardcover

Judy Rebick’s latest book, Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political, begins with the admission that, a few years back, she was “at the end of [her] rope in terms of political activism”. What follows is an account of the ebbs and flows of the struggle for progressive change over the past decade, and a balance sheet of the author’s hopes, regrets, and lessons learned.

For Rebick—a veteran of the Canadian political left who gained prominence as a leader of the abortion-rights movement—this is a polemic of a different kind: Transforming Power champions process more than policy, urging the left to revolutionize its own practices as it strives to tackle the world’s pressing economic and ecological crises.

Rebick’s narrative traces the rise of the global justice movement in the late 1990s, and documents the Bush “war on terror” years before exploring more recent signs of hope. Barack Obama’s election, she argues, is “the tip of the iceberg” of a broad, incipient movement toward genuine change in a world weary from Katrina and Iraq, Enron and Madoff.

In many ways, the centrepiece of this work is the chapter on Bolivia, where an indigenous socialist named Evo Morales was first elected in 2005 on a platform of “refounding” the nation after centuries of colonialism and poverty. Rebick sees in Bolivia “one of the most extraordinary revolutions in the history of humanity”, a profoundly democratic process that draws its strength from its resilient indigenous communities and its well-organized social movements. Morales, for his part, is a world leader in demanding radical action on climate change.

Rebick is also optimistic about Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution”, and hopes these examples from Latin America can be emulated by diverse progressive movements. Transforming Power explores everything from the World Social Forum to the state of feminism, to spirituality and the links between ecology and equality.

Rebick completed this work in the fall of last year and, with the political ground shifting after three decades of neoliberalism triumphant, signs off with a call to action: “Cynicism and despair is not an option if you believe in a just, more sustainable, world.”