Ken Coates (1930–2010)

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Ken, who passed away in June 2010, was a socialist well known in the UK and Europe. He has a special place in the memory of those involved with this Review in the early days, even though he had no particular involvement with Africa. The exception was his enduring link with former President Ben Bella of Algeria, whom he brought into international campaigns on human rights and against imperialist wars, including the several war crimes tribunals. These were organised by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, which Ken served as Secretary and then Chairman from 1963. Associated with the Foundation was Spokesman Books, a Left-leaning publishing house, and its printing press, the Russell Press. It was to the latter and to Ken that this Review turned in the late 1980s in efforts to overcome early crises and to replace the self-help printing with a more professional appearance. Every quarter, editors descended on the Press in Nottingham and corrected the proofs on the spot. But the relationship went way beyond a business one with a printer/publisher. Russell Press and Spokesman nurtured the Review, as it has done with the companion Journal of Contemporary Asia. We had sympathetic political support, and the generous extended credit kept us alive through bleak times. Ever the complete internationalist, Ken saw the long-term importance of radical perspectives on and in Africa. This support he offered amidst an incredibly busy life: the Press, the Spokesman magazine he edited, the Foundation, the Institute of Workers' Control he founded, a university post in extramural studies, and writing many books on current global as well as national politics and political economy. He was thoroughly involved in the labour movement, and served as a Member of the European Parliament for a decade, until Tony Blair and New Labour hounded him out as too radical – and too influential. ROAPE will thus remember him with special gratitude. As someone who spanned the fields of scholarship and activism, his life offers a role model to radicals the world over.