Dimitrios Roussopoulos

Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos (born 1936) is a political activist, ecologist, writer, editor, publisher, community organizer, and public speaker. Educated in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at several Montreal and London universities, Roussopoulos has sought to keep himself free from any academic confinement, and apart from having taught for two years in the late sixties at a college that followed the progressive education philosophy of John Dewey, he has remained institutionally independent. [1]

In 1969, Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos created a book publishing project known as Black Rose Books. The not-for-profit radical publisher published more than 500 books by authors from the social sciences, humanities, and particularly, politics, cultural studies, history, philosophy, sociology, social ecology and environmental and Urban issues. [2] Active with and promoting the World Social Forum, Roussopoulos continues to advance the need for an extra-parliamentary opposition in Canada. His major interest has been seeing democracy from the bottom-up developed within the perspective of the social ecology of Murray Bookchin. In February–March 2012, he founded in Athens, the Transnational Institute of Social Ecology, a network of intellectual/activists working in various cities in Europe.[3][4][5]

In 2018, he co-curated the exhibition Milton-Parc: How We Did It, presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture from September 2018 to March 2019.[6]

Biography

Roussopoulos’ public life began as a peace activist in 1959, when he founded the Combined Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [CUCND] and organized the first post-war student demonstration in Ottawa.[7] In 1961, Roussopoulos founded and edited Canada’s first quarterly peace research journal, Our Generation. Its first issue gained a circulation of 3000 and was prefaced by Bertrand Russell.[8] Then, in 1969, Roussopoulos founded Black Rose Books, an international left-wing publishing house known for publishing the works of Noam Chomsky and Murray Bookchin, among others.[9] In a recent interview, Roussopoulos stated that the mission of the publishing house was threefold: first, to widely disseminate ideas surrounding participatory democracy and community organizing; second, to publish the best radical analysis of Canadian society; and third, to revive libertarian socialist literature long suppressed on the left by social democratic forces on the one hand and by Marxist-Leninist forces on the other. [10]

Since the 1970s, Roussopoulos has been active in radical municipalist community organizing in Montreal. He helped found the Milton-Park Citizens’ Committee (CCMP), in which capacity he was part of a major 11-year struggle to prevent the destruction of a heritage six-city-block neighbourhood.[9] The area was transformed into the largest non-profit cooperative housing project in North America, with some 1200 residents federated into 22 co-ops and non-profit housing associations on the first land trust in Canada, preventing all land speculation. In this campaign, the right to housing, especially social housing, was combined with work to remove or reduce auto traffic from residential streets and other social aims.[6] To this end, Roussopoulos was a founding president of the University Settlement of Montreal, which sought to democratize and localize the neighbourhood economy and successfully launched a credit union, library, and rooftop garden.[9] Roussopoulos was also an active member of the Montreal Citizens Movement (MCM) from 1975 to 1978, where he was a proponent of democratically decentralizing political power from City Hall to the neighbourhoods of Montreal in the form of decision-making neighbourhood councils.[11]

Seeking to advance the principles of social ecology, in 1989 Dimitri Roussopoulos founded Ecology Montreal, the first municipal green party in North America.[12] In 1992, Roussopoulos co-founded, with Serge Mongeau and Jacques Gelinas, Les Editions Eco-Société.[9] In 1995-6, he founded the Montreal Urban Ecology Center, alongside fellow activist (and Roussopoulos’ life partner) Lucia Kowaluk.[9] From 2001- 2012, Dimitri Roussopoulos headed the Taskforce on Municipal Democracy of the City of Montreal. In this capacity, he proposed and helped draft the Montreal Charter of Citizen Rights and Responsibilities: this document was the first right-to-the-city charter in North America and was later recognized by UNESCO as “an important innovation in democracy.”[9] After the Charter was passed into law, the Taskforce adopted the first citizen's initiative for public consultation whereby petitioning citizens can obtain public consultations on issues on a wide range of public policy issues, a first in North America.[13] In addition to his role on the Taskforce, Roussopoulos worked to advance bottom-up democracy in helping to organize five citizen summits (2001-2010), drawing together one thousand citizens and NGOS to advance a citizens' agenda for change.[14] He would also go on to found the Athens-based Transnational Institute of Social Ecology, a pan-European network of intellectuals and activists.

Bibliography

English
  • The Case for Participatory Democracy, co-edited with C. George Benello, 1970
  • The New Left in Canada, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 1970
  • Political Economy of the State – Canada, Quebec, United States, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 1973
  • Canada and Radical Social Change, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 1973
  • Quebec and Radical Social Change, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 1974
  • City and Radical Social Change, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 1982
  • Our Generation against Nuclear War, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 1983
  • 1984 and after, co-edited Marsha Hewitt, 1984
  • Coming of World War Three, 1986
  • Radical Papers, 1986, Radical Papers 2, 1987, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos,
  • Anarchist Papers, 2001; Anarchist Papers 2, 1989; Anarchist Papers 3, 1990 edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos
  • Dissidence – Essays against the Mainstream, 1992
  • Political Ecology; Beyond Environmentalism, 1993
  • Public Place – Citizen Participation in the Neighbourhood and the City, 1999
  • The New Left – Legacy and Continuity, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 2007
  • Faith in Faithlessness – an anthology of atheism, edited by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 2008
  • The Rise of Cities, edited by and written by Dimitri Roussopoulos, 2012
  • Villages in Cities: Community Land Ownership, Cooperative Housing, and the Milton Park Story, co-edited with Joshua Hawley, 2019

French
  • L’écologie politique – Au-delà de l’environnementalisme, 1994
  • Au bout de l’Impasse à gauche – récits de vie militant et perspectives d’avenir, 2007

Further reading
  • 1968 Memories and Legacies of a Global Revolt, edited by Phillipp Gassert & Martin Klimke, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. 2009
  • Canada's 1960s by Bryan D.Palmer, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2009
  • The Canadian Encyclopedia, Hurtig Publishers, Edmonton, 1988
  • The Empire Within by Sean Mills, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 2010
  • Keeping to the Marketplace by John C.Bacher, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 1993
  • Left, Left, Left: Personal Account of Six Protest Campaigns, 1945-65 by Peggy Duff, Allison & Busby, London, 1971, ISBN 0-85031-056-3
  • The Milton-Park Affair – Canada’s Largest Citizen-Developer Confrontation by Claire Helman, Véhicule Press, Montreal, 1987
  • Spying 101 – The RCMP's Secret Activities at Canadian Universities, 1917-1997, Steve Hewitt, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2002

See also

References
  1. Au Bout de L’Impasse a Gauche, Normand Baillargeon et Jean-Marc Piote, Editions Lux, Montreal, 2007.
  2. Kennedy, Swan. "Black Rose Books History". blackrosebooks.com. Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  3. SodecM – Centre d’ecologie urbaine de Montreal, Rapport Annuel d’Activite,Montreal, 2004-2005
  4. Le Chantier sur la Democratie de la Ville de Montreal, ville.montreal.qc.ca/chantierdemocratie Archived 2020-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Antonopoulos, Thodoris (December 17, 2017). "An interview with Dimitri Roussopoulos: We Need to Stand Against "Green" Capitalism". Lifo. Archived from the original on January 25, 2018. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  6. (CCA), Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA). "Milton-Parc: How We Did It". www.cca.qc.ca. Archived from the original on 2018-09-04. Retrieved 2020-07-08.
  7. Campbell Windle, Victoria. “We of the New Left”: A Gender History of the Student Union for Peace Action from the Anti-Nuclear Movement to Women’s Liberation.” PhD dissertation.
  8. McGillis, Ian (November 11, 2016). "Montreal's Expozine and Black Rose Books swim against the modern tide". Montreal Gazette. Archived from the original on December 12, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2022.
  9. Bur, Justin, Yves Desjardins, Jean-Claude Robert, Vallée Bernard, and Joshua Wolfe. 2017. Dictionnaire Historique Du Plateau Mont-Royal. Montréal, Québec: Écosociété. p. 355
  10. "Black Rose Books • Montreal Review of Books". Montreal Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2021-06-03. Retrieved 2022-03-26.
  11. Tarinski, Yvor. 2021. Enlightenment and Ecology: The Legacy of Murray Bookchin in the 21st Century. Montréal: Black Rose Books.
  12. Herland, Karen. 1992. People, Potholes, and City Politics. Montréal: Black Rose Books.
  13. "Ancien hôpital Royal Victoria - 9 - Opinions déposées à la commission". OCPM. November 17, 2021. Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2022.
  14. Kumar, Gayatri (May 1, 2012). "Profile: Dimitri Roussopoulos & Lucia Kowaluk". Archived from the original on April 18, 2022. Retrieved April 18, 2022.
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