ONE NO, MANY YESSES:

A Journey to the Heart of the Global Resistance Movement
By Paul Kingsnorth (The Free Press)

Reviewed by Lisa Rydell

It is possible! At last a book that makes you truly believe. Believe that there is a way it is all going to work out, believe that whatever they might say, you are not alone, but instead one out of many, and – most importantly – makes you believe that another world is not only a utopian dream, but actually a real possibility.

One No, Many Yeses manages not only to be a compelling read but also a really informative account of facts. That is already quite something, but to me its foremost quality lies in what isn’t written straight out; the writer’s true conviction that we can make the world a better place to live in. This all sounds like one big cliché, but Kingsnorth manages to make us also believe with him, not just because we as readers are easily duped, but because he actually has something to say. The facts are screaming in your face – the world is saying ‘Enough is enough!’. And it’s rising.

Before writing, Kingsnorth overtook a journey all throughout the world to be where it’s happening. The book is mainly constructed on his first person accounts from this trek, and in a form that at times almost makes the story seem like fiction. There’s fluency in the text, and many a dialogue to capture the reader. Struggle is taking place daily all over the world. In the five continents he travelled, he took time to visit the Zapatistas in Mexico, the aftermath of Apartheid in South Africa, the tribal guerrilla in West Papua, the G8 summit in Genoa, the Landless Movement in Brazil, and many more. He shows that disregarding what some critics may say, the core of the global resistance movement is not made up of white, middle-class kids from the Western World ‘with all too much time in their hands’, but the real people, from third world countries all over the globe. The people that are suffering and fighting every day.

One No, Many Yeses incited things I should know – things I have known, as well as bridging the gaps of my half-knowings in its journey providing hope. Time for some action!