Showing posts with label Pan-African Internationalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pan-African Internationalism. Show all posts

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Equality in Marriage: An Issue of Human Rights

By Abdul Jabbar Caliph
“We’ve got to find a way to reconcile ourselves to living in a community, one group with the other. To be successful, the struggle must be waged with resolute efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching, educating and moving large enough groups of people of both races to stir the conscience of the nation.” Martin Luther King
All across the United States we are seeing a highly political charged issue being debated that will determine the future of millions of colonized subjects trapped within the decadent boarders of this country. Some have called it disgusting while others have come out in support of it. Whether you call it a civil union, domestic partnership or gay marriage it is an issue that has divide the community not just along racial lines but class lines as well.  
Here in the State of Maryland we have seen the contradictions around this issue; and we have seen how the capitalist power structure has used this issue to divide the masses of the people. This issue has and is being used to elevate a few individuals and professional political operatives to a higher political office at the expense of the masses. It is an issue that keeps the people’s attention misdirected, focused away from the real contradictions that exist in this capitalist society: the contradiction of political oppression and economical exploitation.
We in the Pan-African International Coordinating Committee (PICC) have taken the following political position on this issue. First, we recognize the fact that this a highly charged political issue that is being used to divided the masses. Second, this is not a civil rights issue but an issue of human rights, humanity’s treatment of humanity. Third, we have taken the political position of the original Black Panther Party (BPP) on this issue: as along as a comrade is doing the political work to be free from political oppression and economical exploitation then we have to respect their rights to be a part of humanity, and live the kind of lifestyle they choose. As long as that lifestyle is not harming the interest of the people involved, or the community at large, we have no right to interfere and you had better not touch them. Finally, we also realize that this issue opens the door for other forms of marriage to be accepted such as polygamy. Maryland State must recognize the fact that they cannot regulate true love or what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes.  
We realize that gay bashing can only stop when humanity decides to stand up and end capitalism as a tool of oppression, only under Socialism will gays be able to be recognized as human beings. Second, in order to win their rights of equality the LBGT community must close ranks if this is too be achieved? They are too divided among themselves right now. Third, that which passes itself off as the progressive left in this country must take a stand and stop vacillating on this issue. This community has reached out for help and they deserve an answer. We recommend that instead of waiting and looking for support on this issue that the LBGT take charge and push forward their political campaign.


The LBGT community has not awakened to the fact that the issue homosexual couples being able to marry is being used to elevate certain political officials to higher office. Even through the issue passed both the Senate and the House the bill will not be signed into law by legislators. It will go to a referendum and the people will decide the issue.
This is a tool that relives Maryland States political officials of having any real commitment to the issue, not only that but the bill can still be defeated by gathering 18,579 signatures to stop it from going to the November 6, 2012 ballot. Del. Neil Parrot, a Western Maryland Republican is believed to be heading up the opposition to this bill. He has established a websites making it easier for people to see exactly how their names are listed on the Maryland voters roll so that you can see if the petition is signed correctly. The Ujima People’s Progressive Party (UPP) is establishing such a program in order to become the first Black official independent political party in the State of Maryland.
As we have suggested to a few of our comrades in the Liberate Baltimore Coalition (LBC), the LBGT community must take the lead on this issue. They must be willing to establish and give direction within the campaign, not only must these members be willing to do this they must seek the support of the coalition in order to develop strategy and tactics (goals and objectives) that can be achieved realistically. They need to recognize the fact that this campaign is far from being over.
Malcolm X was right when he said that we have to demand Human Rights not Civil Rights. Civil Rights get passed as Amendments into law and or voted on every 10 or 20 years to see if they are still of importance. The Voters Rights Act is such an issue. Human Rights are the right that you are born with and the rights that everybody must recognize
In closing I want to encourage the people involved in the fight for human rights for the LGBT community keep their heads up and come out swinging with both fist on this issue. If they wait for someone else to take charge of this campaign, they may never get another chance.  

Monday, February 20, 2012

Meet the People Where They Are - Replace Rhetoric With Reality


Abasi Shomari Baruti

In trying to understand the weaknesses of the African Liberation Movement in the 21st century, and what needs to happen to fix those weaknesses, it is important to have a decent understanding of how things have gotten to be the way that they are. My PICC comrades and I have lain out in other places before now, what we see as the general character of the African liberation movement (ALM) at this point. Our position is that the movement is isolated from the main life of the African working class and is struggling to revive the African revolution. We recognize that there are a number of forces doing good work and we see the advances that are being made, especially in what has become an era of mass rebellion against naked imperialist robbery and rape. However, the positive tendencies are still in the minority of the ALM and those of us who are fighting to win still have plenty work to do in order to get the movement back on track.

One of the things that we are faced with in our struggle to re-mount the African revolution are the traps we set for ourselves. After severe repression by the U.S. government, and some real backwards nonsense coming from within the movement, the masses of African workers do not relate to revolutionary ideas in a serious way. In fact, if you have tried to recruit our people into revolutionary work in the last ten years, you have probably heard all kinds of responses about why our people just do not unite with "that black power shit.” This attitude is reflective of the effect of U.S. government propaganda, but it is also tied to our own mistakes and errors. Many of us have either fallen into the traps set for us by our enemies, or we have shot ourselves in the foot and hindered our own progress. Of the many ways that we trip ourselves up, one is of deep importance: being so caught up in our own rhetoric that we lose the people when we talk with and try to organize them - in short we, too often, confuse ideological principles with strategic principles.

All too often, the discussions that happen among us play out like arguments in petty-bourgeois families where one spouse is a republican and the other a democrat: its bloody war to the knife. How many times have we seen it: a fervent believer, normally new to the belief, goes on a rampage like a European crusader, demanding that everyone get with their ideas or perish? How many times have we seen, right in the midst of our movement, die-hard believers dismiss everything that is not of their own understanding and leave nothing but destruction and disarray in their wake? And, how many times have we seen people dress up nonsense, negativism, and pessimism in the clothing of "passion" and "commitment"? And when it has all been said and done, usually more has been said than done. This is a real problem. What is worse, is that, while we criticize the religious believers for their vehement "bible-thumping" or even "Qur’an-thumping,” we turn right around and beat our people upside the head with our ideologies, special language, and theories. The real fact is that the leading elements of the ALM must do more of what have not been doing, and that is leading - effective leading.

I want to deal with the question of working with the masses of African people, because, in the final analysis, our ideologies, platforms, programs, rap, and fieldwork must be aimed squarely at winning our folks to struggle. There is the tendency, for some of us, to confuse rhetoric with what is real. There are comrades who are so focused on being correct in theory, that they completely miss the point of our theory, and that is to win the people. In a place like Kansas City, MO where, as far as I can tell, there has not been a truly revolutionary organization that was anything more significant than a small study group since the 1980's, the strategy and tactics that have to be used to build the movement here are far different from what must happen in a place like New York, Atlanta, or Chicago. Here, African people continually reject overt radicalism, and stay away from African revolutionary politics. We know the score, we understand the why's and what for's However, since the 1980's, organization after organization has sprung up in this town, simply to die out due to near complete isolation from the African working class. My experience, and the experience of others, has pointed to a number of problems with the previous attempts. The one problem that seems to stand out is that the revolutionaries have been so caught up in showing just how revolutionary we are that we could never really understand or get past the resistance that African people put up to the kind of organizing we have tried to establish. Time and again, we have fallen back, disgusted; rejected by phrases like
"I ain't fuckin' with that black power shit", or "Man, I'm tryin' to get this money, and that shit you talkin' 'bout ain't 'bout to make me no paper, so I ain't really tryin' to hear it"
and so on. And, almost like clockwork, the despondent revolutionary organizer blames the inability to organize the people ON THE PEOPLE!
"Niggas don't want revolution." "Niggas scared of struggle."
And so on.

Now, last I recalled, if the revolution fails, it is the fault of the revolutionaries. In other words, if we claim to be the leaders, the advanced force, the most conscious of our people, but fail to get our folks on freedom's road, then we have got to begin with a self-criticism and proceed from there. The easy thing to do is to close one's ears and eyes to the truth, regurgitate the "line" to those who already believe it, blame the people, and run in place, mistaking activity for progress. It is simple to do what we can, remain at the fringes of the African colony, talk about the '60s and hope that the ruling class will make a mistake so openly despicable that the people will come running to us, begging for us to tell them how to make the revolution. That is the easy thing to do. The only problem is: it ain't worked all this time, and, regardless of what anyone thinks, it ain't bout to start working.

Let's begin with the basics. The first problem, especially in a place like Kansas City, MO, that so many of us find out the hard way, is that the language we use is so foreign to the masses of our people that when they hear it, they immediately tune out or go into defense. We go to the streets with revolutionary jargon on our lips and come back with little more than frustration. However, when the idea is proposed that we try to talk to folks in language that they understand, it is rejected as non-revolution, backwards, and incorrect. When the idea is suggested that we begin with simple programs that the people can get with, instead of more advanced strategies, our comrades look at us as if we have lost our minds. And so, we find ourselves in a trap, running on a revolutionary tread mill to nowhere, and in the mean time, the people, the ones we are supposed to be the "vanguard" of, continue on, working out their own problems with little concern about whatever the hell we talkin' about.

What we must do is take a hard look at our rhetoric and ask the honest question: is this working? If it isn’t, then we have got to take the next step, and honestly, ask the next question: what will work better? As dialectical materialist, we talk endlessly about investigation and scientific struggle, well, the most basic thing a "scientist" or "dialectician" can do is investigate and find out the answer to those question. After some years of working in Kansas City, MO, finding a little success here, and a little success there, but mostly finding failure, I had to swallow the hard pill, and admit that if the revolution is going to happen here because of something I said or did, I had better find a better way to say it or do it. What I have come to find is that on the one hand, we don't have to be non-revolutionary in our strategy and tactics, but on the other hand, our strategy and tactics have to meet the understanding of the people. So instead of focusing on producing a revolutionary news paper that talks about the merits of scientific materialism and the dynamics of socialist economic theory, for instance, we need to produce something that is begins with how dope, unemployment, and the democrats are all linked together. Instead of putting on programs that castigate the people about being unhealthy and points the finger of blame at the people and our self-destructive habits, we need to build programs that seek to demonstrate a better way through servicing the real needs of the people. We begin with a simple screening, then talk about some simple ways get the high blood pressure under control, and continually follow up. At some point during our interaction with our people, we can discuss Monsanto and why HMO's are a bunch of crooks and how genetically modified foods are harming our people. Once the people trust that we are serious about what they are serious about, we can some real success in winning our people to pick up a healthier lifestyle. In short, the African working class in this town is like any other group of people, if they don't understand it or don't see their self-interest in it, they ain't getting ready to deal with it. If we want the people here to not only deal with, but commit to revolutionary struggle, we have got to start with words and actions that don't require a whole lot of explanation, that the people understand right away, and build from there.

When we let the letter of our ideals and positions become more important than the realization of the content, we are, in the illustrious words of my Uncle Gregory, "baggin' the fuck up" - we're losing. But when we get serious about dealing with the reality as it is, then we can start winning, and then it won't be long before Kansas City, MO becomes a place where a revolutionary is born every day. When we let being ideologically pure and squeaky clean in the way we approach the mission become more important than actually accomplishing the mission, what we are doing is being the dogmatists we claim to hate; we are setting ourselves up to be isolated and marginalized. If it is the masses of the people that make the revolution, then the last place the revolutionary organizer can afford to be is on the sidelines.

The Chinese Communist Party, before it became the vanguard of Chinese imperialism, developed a slogan that I think is one of the best formulas a revolutionary could ever adopt: "From the People, to the Party. From the Party to the People." In other words, we have to go to the people and see what THEY want, take that back to the huddle, sharpen it, and take a position and program back to the people that reflects the their  point of view and interests. When we do this, we can start winning the people to basic work. Once we win them to basic work, then we set ourselves up to winning our people to intermediate work. Once we get them into intermediate work, then winning them to become advance, revolutionaries is not far off.

In the end, we must never forget that our task is to meet the people where they are, win them to unity right where they are, and then walk with them, arm-in-arm, to where we all need to be - free from oppression and exploitation for all time.

Uhuru Sasa! Uhuru Daima!


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Pan-African Internationalism - 21st Century Pan-Africanism, Part 2

 

Life, Struggle, and the Pursuit of Liberation The Dynamics of the African Condition

Abasi Shomari Baruti
January 4, 2012

Overview
It is all too common today to hear people talk about “the” problem with African people. Attempts to identify “what’s wrong with black people” have become both the subject of routine discussions from the confines of barbershops to the ivory towers of academia. There is no mystery as to why people routinely ask and pontificate over this question. The fact is African people live in some of the worst conditions that exist. As a nation of people, African people are on the bottom of society wherever we find ourselves. Politically speaking, we watch what passes for political leadership prove to be corrupt, incapable, or unwilling to fight for the interests of African people and the African Diaspora. Economically, African people are still among the poorest in the world, wherever we are. We suffer from diseases and medical ailments which have long been eradicated in other populations, but that continue among African people due to economic deprivation. Socially, we are characterized as morally bankrupt, super-predators, a “permanent underclass,” and generally seen as the dregs of society. Our culture is used as the stuff of entertainment to the world, but not in a way that upholds the beauty of African culture; on the contrary, our culture is ridiculed as buffoonish and not worth of serious consideration. Violence committed against African people by other African people is held up as “senseless” and a further indicator of the generally low moral character of African people. African students are the most likely to be the least educated and most incarcerated. The list of examples goes on. For the most part, the problem is summed up as being our own fault, and no one else's. We are tried and convicted by outsiders and our own selves as worthless. It is common to hear African people refer to our own kind in the worst kind of ways. No excuse is acceptable to explain the conditions and habits of African people if it does not place the blame and responsibility squarely and only on the shoulders of the masses of African people.

For literally centuries now people have engaged in analysis of what plagues African people and is at the bottom of the abject conditions in which we live and die. Political theorists, sociologists, clergy, economists, and professional thinkers of all stripes have had their say, and what they have come up with, for the most part, has been anything but effective and the symptoms of the problem has been intellectualized to death. Whole industries have sprung up around the diagnosis and treatment of the symptoms of the African condition; many have found their fortunes selling solutions that are supposed to cure what ails us. The bulk of these ‘solutions’ have amounted to so much snake oil. However, it is important that a review of the various notions about what has and continues cause African people to constitute the “wretched of the earth.” The significance of identifying the various lines of analysis about our people lies in the importance of philosophy as a major element of African degradation and liberation.

One line of thinking, one of the oldest and longest surviving theories is that African people are inferior by design. That “God” or “Jehovah” or “Allah” or some deity simply decided to make African people the footstool of the world. From the 14th century to this day, this theory still survives. It textbooks, advertising, military analysis, and all sorts of places, the notion of inherent African inferiority prevails on in the twenty-first century.

Christian philosophies have summed up African people as being everything from the accursed, hybrid  descendants of renegade angels  to the descendants of Ham, and cursed by his Noah to become the servants of the rest of humanity; especially white humanity. There are even theologies invented by African people which echo these sentiments, capturing the essence of self-hatred and elevating it to a level of universal, cosmic, spiritual truth. 

There are other philosophies which get closer to objective truth, but that still miss the mark by more than a mile. The theories identify that slavery and colonialism has so deformed the African. These ideas recognize the vicious impact that colonial domination and chattel slavery have had on African people as being a real reason for the way African people are today. However, instead of continue to follow this line of thought to its logical conclusions, it doubles back on itself and says that, even in the face of unprecedented social destruction of African people by others, that because slavery and colonialism ended so long ago, that the African should be “over it by now”. This line of thinking attempts to make the case that while African people are largely “disadvantaged” that we should still simply be able to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and become productive members of society. The people who push this brand of social theory, which is so much snake oil, would have us to believe that because African people are no longer subject to outright enslavement on a plantation, that the only explanation as to why we still suffer can only be found in our own midst, and nowhere else.

Then, there is a third line. A truly vicious line in that is has been so thoroughly ingrained in the minds of African people that it plays havoc on our own ability to get a grip on ourselves. There is the position that “Black people are our own worst enemy.” We have been taught, and are now the main carries of, the infectious nonsense that somehow, the main impediment to African development is African people. A significant portion of our community has come to accept that African people cannot “get it together” and offer no better reason that “just because.” We accept the fallacies that come from outside our communities and that traitorous forces, who look just like us, enthusiastically work to transmit these falsehoods into our communities. We hold onto, in lieu of a better set of ideas, these notions about our inability to find unity, to spend our money wisely, to govern fairly, to support each other, and so on, and so forth, and we are convinced that this is evidence enough. These self-hating philosophies are so common among our people that even those of us who are supposedly enlightened, conscious, or even revolutionary still cling to the unconsciously.

What is clear about all of these theories of what constitutes “what’s wrong with black people today” is that they all begin from a particular point of view, and what must be exposed is that these basic points of view stand in opposition to the truth of the matter. Because these ideas about us, most of which begin outside of the African world, are stand on false foundations, we must come to understand that they do not, and cannot effectively answer the question. Because these diagnoses are based on incorrect analyses, they can, at best, only serve to numb us to some of the symptoms of the main problem African people suffer from. At worst, these theories actually contribute the main problem either by keeping it concealed or feeding into it, further compounding the main problem.

What must become clear is that the conditions that African people find ourselves in have a definite cause and a definite solution. Pan-African Internationalism is the distillation of a clear understanding of the dialectics which have led African people to where are and what must be done to transform our collective lives.

The Historical Basis of the African Condition

It has been said that if you do not know your history, you are bound to repeat it. This idea of history being cyclical is not completely true; however, we must come to understand the grain of truth that it reflects. The fact is that, embedded in history are the recollections of how things have happened, and the point from which we have to begin in order to understand the present and the basis from which we work to create the future. 

It has become common for people to talk about the African condition as if it has no historical roots, as if African people simply woke up one day and found ourselves such as we are. In working to figure out the why of our conditions, many of us have completely thrown out the investigation of our history as the correct place to begin understanding, and so we tend to develop ideas that miss the mark. The inescapable reality is that the modern African condition is nothing if it is not the present expression of our historical development. In the final analysis, if we are going to solve our problems, we must begin by knowing our roots and finding out where in the growth of our nation the blight of underdevelopment began and how it has grown up around the trunk of African life. When we do this, we give ourselves the ability to identify the source of our problems and to overturn them.

African history is as old as humanity itself. We are the originators of the human species and are responsible for populating the earth. On this basis, it becomes clear why African civilization and culture was one of the most, if not the most, developed social phenomena in the world. The length and breadth of our history has filled volumes of books and is too far reaching for the purpose and space of this work, however, it must be stated that African history did not begin in a cotton patch in Alabama nor did it start after non-African people came to Africa. 

African people, up until about the 14th century, were building complex, sophisticated, civilizations and cultures which were reflective of the uniqueness of the African cultural genius. There were differences in the way we built our various sub-African cultures; however, ingrained in each of them were certain identifiable cultural practices that united our overall culture and guided our understanding of humanity and its place in the world.

Out of this process of nation building, African society became a significant and critical factor in world trade. We had consistent contact with peoples from as far away as China all the way to the Americas. As a natural part of our participation in commercial and cultural trade with the rest of the world, Africa had been in contact with Europe since long before Rome and Greece. This connection would prove to be the most critical in terms of the future development of Africa. In the mean time, we must be clear that African development had two major aspects that are critical to understanding our present state. First, African people, by the time of the Roman, Han, or Mayan empires, had already establish numerous high-level civilizations, and we were continuing the process of development. Second, African social development was bringing the disparate cultures of African people into closer contact, causing the integration of once isolated peoples on various levels, had this process continued undisturbed by outside forces, it is highly likely that Africa would have consolidate continental wide- nation of some  sort by this point in history.

What this should tell us is that the notions about the “inherent inferiority” of African people are false, and in fact, it is clear that African culture reflects all the hallmarks of any advanced civilization and did so long before other advanced civilizations were born. Furthermore, it should overturn the notion that contact with Europe somehow made things better for the African, when the fact is European invasion retarded and completely stifled the natural and historical development of Africa by African people.

But the question remains: how did we go from the heights of human progress to an overall condition of being at the bottom of society wherever we find ourselves, and on an international scale? This question is the one that both demands we understand history and use it to guide our understanding, as opposed to mythology, fantasy, and cynicism. And it exposes the true nature of our current conditions, which is what we need to deal with the solution to our problems.

Invasion, Enslavement, Dispersal and Colonization

By the 14th century, Africa was thriving. In every corner of the continent, from the Nile valley, to the Niger delta, to the Cape of Good Hope, Africa stood tall. There were communal societies that had survived for centuries and were beacons of true democracy and egalitarianism. There were warrior kingdoms that had demonstrated such military prowess as to become examples to other nations in waging war. There was scientific greatness such as the Kemetic development of geometry, the Dagon development of Astronomy, the Zimbabwean mastery of architecture, and the masterful grasp of spiritually by the Yoruba. Everywhere you turned, Africa was on the move. We had been engaged in trade with India, the Mediterranean, and even South America for centuries. We had master the art of metal crafting, glass working, and achieved a level of advanced scientific skill in agricultural that produced the kind of abundance that promoted a truly humane society. Again, Africa was on the move. However, over the course of the 14th century, African came under assault by European power and this was the course of events that would forever change the way African people related to the world.

By the later part of the 14th Century, Europe began what would become a blood war of dominance against the whole world. Once a place of unending, internecine strife, what came to be known as Europe consolidated, through sheer force of arms, its society into a world menace. Driven by the dynamic tension of its internal contradictions and the growing awareness of wealth beyond its borders, Europe developed a tenuous nation unity based on the shared objective of capturing wealth. Incapable of producing its own wealth and stretched to its own capacities, white imperialism began to seek out wealth elsewhere. It discovered the trading of enslaved Africans, largely being carried out by Arab nations at the time, and negotiated its way into the process. Shortly afterwards, white explorers stumbled upon what they would call “the Americas” in their greedy pursuit of domination over the ancient trading route, known as the silk road. Once they came to understand that they had not found a back route to India, but instead landed on the shores of a land completely new to them, they immediately turned to the task of subduing it. Initially interested in gold and precious metals, the feudal nobility of Europe began to perceive the Americas as a potential source of untold wealth. Eventually, after realizing that they could not martial or sustain the labor power needed to cultivate their newly seized colonies from among their own population, they turned to the enslavement of the native peoples. However, when the filth and disease of the European continued to wipe out the original peoples of the Americas and the stiff resistance of the natives became apparent, the European turned to the African. Long aware of the intelligence and capacity of African people, particularly in agriculture, European imperialist initiated what would become the most gruesome, heinous, crime against humanity that word has ever witnessed in the form of the Great Maafa. Known as the “African slave trade” or “Trans-Atlantic Slavery,” the process of raping Africa and kidnapping scores of millions of people was the first step in the process of European ascendancy as global imperialist. After ravaging the African continent and destroying the fabric of African society, European imperialism then came to realize the wealth of African land itself and completed its domination of African people through the violent colonization of Africa and the brutal extraction of material wealth from the continent and control of African people. “The Scramble for Africa” was the stroke of death for African independence and natural development. The result of this savage attack on African life was, first, the dispersal of African people throughout the world, the destruction of African society and sovereignty, and the subjugation of African people through various forms of colonialism. This process led to the establishment of the parasitic system of international capitalism.

Everywhere African people found ourselves we were the colonial subjects of a hostile and rapacious European imperialism. Out of a desire to justify all of this to European society, the bourgeoisie intellectuals begin to develop the theories that would come to characterize the African, theories that have become entrenched today among us. 

The combination of practical and ideological domination, total domination of every aspect of African life by European imperialism is where our problems begin. Every single problem that African people face in the 21st Century is tied directly back to the overthrow of African self-determination by European imperialism. Every single manifestation of dysfunction among African people, the world over, is the direct result of enslavement and outright subjugation. Every issue that we face runs right back to the forcible destruction, dispersal, containment, and exploitation of our people and land for the purposes of European profit mongering. This process is known as primitive accumulation, and it is on this pedestal of slavery and colonialism that capitalism stands. It is on the enforced misery, the genocidal attack, and ongoing, forcible domination of African people and other oppressed peoples of the world that European dominance stands. What this means is that the conditions of the world in the 21st Century are directly tied to the assault on African and the destruction of African civilization that began centuries ago and which exists today.

The Parasite and the Pedestal of Slavery: What’s Really Wrong with Black People Today

To put it another way, what is truly wrong with black people today has little to do with some inherent defect. Our problem is that a parasite has attached itself to us and is draining away our lifeblood, as a nation of people. The parasite is tricky to diagnose, but once it has been identified, we are on the right track to solving our problems. A parasite, like a leach, or a tapeworm, or cancer lives by feeding on the body of its host. A person can go out every day and labor to produce food, bring the food home, prepare the meals, and eat, but you continue to get weaker. The harder you work, the weaker you become. You consult your friends, your pastor, or imam, you talk to your politicians, and they all give you different advice, but none of it seems to work. You eat and you eat but you steadily get weaker and weaker. The problem is the parasite and its relationship to you. Its whole existence, its very life is predicated on not working or laboring, but attaching itself to you and livening of the energy you expend to feed yourself and feed it. It does nothing to aide you; it does not give you strength, or enhance you in any kind of way. It continues to feed on you, unmercifully, and if you do not figure it out soon enough, it kills you. In fact, the parasite is so dead set on doing nothing for itself that it will die with you once it has bled you dry!

Regardless of the good intentions that people may have, no amount of praying, no amount of compromising with the parasite, no amount of singing to it is going to get the parasite out of your system. And so finally, you go the doctor and the doctor tells you the real problem is that you are infected with a bloodsucking, life-draining, parasite. Some of us, even after we know about the parasite continue on praying, voting, signing, drinking, and smoking in hopes that we can get the parasite out or at least learn to live with. However, until the correct antidote is applied to the situation, you cannot e rid of the parasite, and to try to live with it is to practice insanity. To attempt to negotiate a life with a bloodsucking parasite attached to your body is to spend the remainder of your life adjusting to growing pain, weakness, and misery. However, when you take the right kind of medicine, the parasite will be forced to detach itself and it can then be “flushed down the toilet stool of history.”

This is the nature of white power, of European capitalist imperialism. It came into existence as a force that required the blood of others to survive and thrive. It required that African people be enslaved, that the first nations of the western hemisphere be eradicated. It required the resources, technology, ingenuity, and life of other peoples be appropriated, stolen, for its own use. 

Capitalism was born into the world on the backs of everyone and everything not a part of the European ruling class. Had it not been for the brutal rape of Africa, the ungodly destruction of the native peoples of the Americas, capitalism could not have made it past its infancy. Had it not been for the conversion of Asia into one huge drug house, had it not been for the eradication of the Taino peoples of the Caribbean, the aboriginal peoples of Australia, Europe would not have been able to pass from a place of death and misery, a place of poverty to the most power nation in the world.

What we must understand first, before we can solve the problems we face as a nation of people, is the misery of African people is the basis for European bourgeois luxury and vitality. In order for capitalism to exist as it does, it requires, and if need be demands, that there be poor people that it can exploit. It requires a pedestal to stand on. It could not have even existed had it not first accumulated the basic wealth it needed to come into existence full blown. African people are the pedestal upon which white power stands and extends itself throughout the world, and if we are going to improve our conditions this must change.

In the final analysis, the problem with African people today is capitalist imperialism, a rotten, parasitic system that has as its basis the enslavement and colonial domination of African people. Until we regain our ability to be self-determining, until we again totally control our collective destiny, the symptoms of the problem will remain.

Destroy the Barrel: The Answer to Our Problems

In the tradition of the African, particularly in the United States, there is the notion of “crabs in a barrel” which tries to characterize the conditions of African people. The saying is that African people are like crabs in a barrel trying to get out. Whenever one gets to the top of the barrel and is likely to pull itself out, it is pulled right back down by the other crabs. This saying is used to sum up the notion that Africans can move forward because we hold ourselves back. On top of this truly false claim are the even more ludicrous claims about what we must do in order to solve our problems. The religious sector tells us that a focus on our spiritual lives and our “personal relationship with God” is the answer. The politico’s tell us that we have to vote more and continue to try to integrate into the political powerhouse of establishment politics, and our conditions will be forever changed. The economic sectors of our communities tell us that we need to get more jobs, develop businesses, and generally be better capitalist than the capitalists and we can buy our way out of misery. And finally, but not be outdone, there is the social sector which lays the blame on everything from teenage mothers, to children born out of wedlock, to youth fashion, to gang affiliations as our main problems. If only we could get African children to wait until they were older to have babies, get married and stay married, wear conventional fashion in conventional ways, not join gangs, everything would be o.k.

This is utter, unadulterated, nonsense and so a historical and illogical as to humorous if not so tragic.
It must be recognized that in each of these proposed solutions to the crabs in the barrel mentality, which is supposedly at the heart of our struggle as people, represents a grain of truth. However, the simple fact is that none of these things are responsible for our conditions, and so none of them taken separately or even taken together, will end the ongoing destruction of African people.

Beginning from the part of the folk wisdom, which is actually true in the notion of crabs in the barrel, we can see two very simple things. First, no amount of praying, paying, or conforming is going to get crabs out of a barrel. The second thing is this. Crabs only find themselves in a barrel because of someone putting them there, and generally for using the crabs to satisfy their own needs, at the expense of the crabs’ lives. This being the case, no outside force can be expected to liberate the crabs. If the crabs want to get out of the barrel, they must break the barrel up or overturn the barrel. Either way, until the confines of the barrel, the immediate cause of the problem is dealt with; the crabs can never escape their fate as the dinner of the crab catcher.

In addition to this, what the purveyors of the crabs-in-a-barrel philosophy fail to mention is what awaits the crabs on the other side of the rim. Assuming that the crabs could escape the struggle of being in a barrel, just on the other side is the crab catcher – the force responsible for the conditions of the crabs in the first place. To think that somehow or another the critical task of the African is simply to escape falls flat when we come face to face with the existence of the crab-catcher. This is where we begin to see the limitations and outright dishonesty of this line of thinking. It is clear that no matter the individual accomplishments of anyone of us, no amount individual advance is enough to improve our total condition. The crab catcher intends to have a meal of the crabs. For us, capitalist imperialism is the crab catcher, and even if we could get out of the barrel, white capitalism is there, just beyond the gates of our immediate prison, watching to ensure that any one of us who escapes does not intervene with its intentions to have us for its benefit. Furthermore, our history is littered with the broken shells of other “crabs” that got out of the pot, only to be the first ones into the frying pan. The myth of social mobility breaks its head on the glass ceiling of racial caste. In addition, once out the barrel, what crab really goes back in to rescue the other crabs? How many times have we heard the implicit promise to come back and lift up our people from those of us hell bent on “getting over”? Furthermore, the majority of Africans in the pursuit of upward mobility have completely accepted the status quo. To this day, in any section of the African world, you see the lucky few openly unite with keeping the rest of the crabs in the barrel, and actually help guard the pot! So whether we are inside the barrel or out, the conditions are not transformed. Between the crabs in the barrel, the crabs outside the barrel and the crab catcher – the one responsible for the whole thing in the first place – the crab is not safe, and will not be until the barrel is removed, along with the crab catcher.

So for the African, the aim for us has to be to smash the barrel. In other words, reforms, spiritual intercession, economic thrift, or any other form of action is going to solve the problems we face. We must rid ourselves of the bloodsucking imperialism, smash the confines of the barrel of colonial domination, and eradicate the crab catcher one and for all.

Revolution is the Only Solution

In understanding the real problem that we face, we must come to understand, further, that nothing less than complete destruction of capitalism and bourgeois society will suffice to resolve the problem of African degradation, for good. Until the entire edifice of capitalist imperialism is completely done away with, we cannot proceed to the work of building a world that is truly equitable and just. 

However, one of the main issues we face was fumed up by the courageous, indomitable Harriet Tubman. When asked about how many enslaved Africans she led to freedom, she famously replied, “I’ve freed hundreds of slaves. I could have freed hundred more if only I could convince them that they were slaves (check for accuracy of quote).” What must be clear is that a significant part of our struggle to overturn our current conditions and achieve the best life possible for our people is the fight to win back the hearts and minds of African people. There is a psychological phenomenon known as the Stockholm syndrome that illustrates a critical aspect of the African condition. The psychological ailment is, to put it simply, the process of a kidnapping victim developing such a warped connection to their captures, out of an instinctual drive to live, that causes the kidnap victim to actually become a defender of the kidnaper. Instead of resisting the kidnaper, after a period of time, the victim begins to relate to the victimizer in a positive way. The victim begins to identify with its victimizer, and defends the kidnapper against anything and everything that would harm the kidnaper. Another form of this syndrome is the Battered woman Syndrome, where a woman who is being severely, and sometimes brutally, abused physically, psychologically, and emotionally begins to protect her abuser. In both cases, the conditions that the victim finds themselves in are so severe, and the manipulation of the aggressor so effective, that the natural drive for life is perverted into an unholy desire to protect the criminal from justice. This is an almost exact reflection of the mental state of massive numbers of African people.

After centuries of such thorough and routine physical and psychological violence by our oppressors, we have come to identify our oppressors as the pinnacle of humanity. Many of us desire nothing more than to emulate our oppressor and so no longer resist our oppression, but merely plead and beg our romanticized masters to be kinder and gentler. However, in every generation, there is the rebel, the incarnation of the righteous indignation and relentless drive for freedom. It is this section of the dispersed African nation that keeps the subjugation of Africa and African life from being complete.

For the African that would resist, it must become understood that until resistance is elevated to the highest principle of the African view of our bondage, we cannot let up in our struggle. We must fight to make revolutionary struggle the main trend among African people. We must master the work of convincing our people that the only way to fix things for ourselves is to transform society, completely. We must overturn any notion that society, as it is, can be “fixed” or reformed. We must win our people to the position that status quo is rotten, decaying, and on its last legs, and that until it is forced to finally pass away, we can expect no lasting peace, no genuine relief. We must also be clear that until those of us who dare to struggle for freedom become the leaders of African society, the culture of resistance that must overtake African people everywhere cannot ascend. African freedom m fighters are the highest development of African life at this point in our development; the “best sons and daughters of Africa,” and if we are to achieve our historical task of winning the masses of African people to unite with the unequivocal necessity of African independence through self-liberation, we must unite ourselves. This unity must come on the basis of a clear-sighted view of the world that truly equips us with the ideological weaponry we need to manifest our patriotism to Africa in the real world and a decisive way.

Pan-African Internationalism is the application of correct revolutionary philosophy to the struggle for total African liberation, an objective that is critical to the final destruction of all forms of oppression and exploitation. In short, it is scientific revolution within the context of the African world. Above all things, it is a guide to action. In its theoretical form, it is the refinement of ideas, based on the practical experience of the past, into the correct understanding of the present and the future. In its practical form, it is the manifestation of African independence through self-liberation. It is, on the one hand, clear about the conditions necessary for African emancipation in the current period, and on the other hand, the basis for the continued development of effective revolutionary ideas and action.

Pan-African Internationalism is not a dogma but a living strategy; rigorous struggle in the real world is the only thing that makes it valid. The demands of our work are the sole standards that will determine its relevance. If, in the crucible of struggle, we find it to be fatally flawed, then it is no better than spitting in the wind – an exercise in futility, and we must immediately discard it. On the other hand, with a strong faith, informed by clear analysis, that Pan-African Internationalism is the correct way forward, once it has achieved its end – once Africa and her peoples are truly free and self-determining – it must meet its natural demise. At that juncture, it must give way to a new theory that is in step with the rising tide of a new period of life; a reality that all genuine Pan-African Internationalist revolutionaries should be fighting for.

In the final analysis, our task is clear and the only thing that can truly keep us from our end goal is ourselves. Hundreds of years removed from the first blow struck for African liberation, the struggle has continued to rage on. The warriors, known and unknown, who went before us and who struggle today have cleared a path for our freedom. It remains the duty of the present generation to end our struggle. Equipped with the razor sharp sickle of Pan-African Internationalist theory and the devastating hammer of a conscious and mobilized African working class, we can and we must smash the shackles of oppression for all time.

Pan-African Internationalism - 21st Century Pan-Africanism, Part 1

 Summing Up the African Liberation Movement in the 21st Century
Abasi Shomari Baruti
January 4, 2012
Just over a decade into the 21st century, things are critical for African people. Capitalist Imperialism has continued to experience the crises that have convulsed it since its initiation as a dominant global political economy. Each period of instability following on the heels of the previous crisis with shorter and shorter intervals. The march of capitalism in the form of rehashed variations of the ideologies of exploitation has continued and has completed its dominance of the globe. All of this has had a brutal impact on the masses of poor and working people in every section of the world with any semblance of industrial development, and now threatens even the most remote cultures that have yet to be overwhelmed by the avaricious passions of the profit machine. The propaganda of the bourgeoisie has proclaimed the ongoing supremacy of capitalism and western decadence and dared anyone to opposed what it would have us to believe is the finality of its existence. Central to the continuation of this culture of death, destruction, rape and robbery, stands the African. 

Long the recipient of the rawest end of bourgeois social organization, we have witnessed the continuation of the special predilection of the ruling classes for African blood, sweat, and tears. In the forty odd years since the military defeat of the African revolutionary struggles of the 1960s and ‘70s, the counterrevolution has refused to let up in its policy of containment and destabilization of the African working class. It has continued to spit on the legacy of our thrust for freedom, and kick in the teeth of the generations that have followed in the wake our Diaspora-wide resistance. The grand strategy of counterinsurgency seemingly perfected, the vicious ruling class throughout the white world has dug in and made industry out of the demoralized African masses, even finding a handsome profit in the process. As slick as first-rate con men, the sell-out class has produced two generations of neo-colonial stooges who have gladly helped to hold up the empire as the surrogate masters of their working class brothers and sisters. With little shame, the negro-colonialist have fine tuned the hustle of upward mobility and advanced the cause of assimilation and integration into an almost sublime art form of the most grotesque proportions. And on the periphery of the African world stands the remnants of the revolution, struggling to find its feet. Rudderless, torn into innumerable splinters, the ghost of the African liberation movement has been able to do little more than replenish its ranks with an insignificant number of forces. Even the vast majority of these forces have been little more than placeholders, forcing the truly sincere and committed to bear the brunt of the temporary failure of our struggle for freedom. In addition, even in the face of our most valiant efforts, the African liberation movement has has held back the threat of becoming irrelevant, we have avoided becoming merely a footnote in the historical development of the dispersed African nation.

Yet, forty years later, the surviving revolutionary soldiers of our parent’s generation languish, even transition into the next form of life, in the worst torture camps capitalism has ever dreamed of, adding further injury to injury. The African woman continues to be the subject of triple oppression with no relief in sight. The African child is now the object of a well-oiled from-the-cradle-to-the-penitentiary-to-the-grave machine. The vultures and bottom feeding parasites of bourgeois society continue their brazen, parasitic political exploitation of the African masses, while the lumpen petty-bourgeoisie grow fat and wealthy on the trap of economic extraction in the form of advanced merchant capitalism, usury, the illegal drug trade, and so on.

In the final analysis, the African nation and it’s revolution is in critical condition; after a nearly four decades of stagnation, it is short on vitality, long on decay, and rife with abject confusion – the leacy of vicious counterrevolution from outside and within. Nonetheless, the masses of our people look on, uncomprehending and uncaring, focused on how they can be the next to win the lottery of status upgrade and just maybe get an opportunity to at least pretend to live the high life. This is one side of the dialectic that characterizes, in part, our struggle for freedom this side of the glorious period of the 1960s. 

It is out of this recession in the African revolution that the living tendency, long held hostage by its own desire to honor the past, is beginning to emerge. Opposite the dying tendency is the living tendency. In spite of the contradictions, we have been able get into the arena and help win victories that have sustained the relevance of the African liberation struggle. We have been able to feed and protect the ideals of the past and, in some cases, even develop them into ideological tools better shaped to guide our action today. In many places, the emerging, but unconsolidated, vanguard of this period of our fight has been able to push the decrepit elements of the struggle to return to form, even if briefly. We have lit a fire under the complacent and have openly derided the embarrassing and clownish personality cults parading as true leadership. This new tendency has taken up the old guard’s vigilance against the negro-colonialist’s attempts to leverage our struggle and exploit the misery of our people for their own personal benefit. We have stood face to face and billy club to bullhorn with the armed wing of the state, showing no fear and defying the will of the bourgeoisie; reflecting the best spirit of our elder warriors. The emerging heart of the African freedom fight has resolved social contradictions that remained to us to figure out. In spite of the growing reaction within our own movement, from Oakland, California to Soweto, Azania, in the face of the backsliding, formerly honored leadership of yesteryear, this courageous new tendency has demanded life and fought to get a foothold in a struggle that has listed and lulled for half most of our lifetimes.

We have refused to let the failures demoralize us; we have been continually encouraged and emboldened by the victories that have defined the struggle in the late 20th and early 21st century. We have refused to allow the sectarian political tribalism to determine the depth and breadth of our political lives. Objective conditions have continued to set the stage for a resurgence of the African revolution, and it is the living tendency, the other end of the dialectic of African liberation, which is positioning itself to achieve the goal of “Freedom Now!”

Within this new, living, vibrant current is where a contingency of forces have begun to nail down the blueprint for African revolution in the 21st century. From the iron clad commitment to advance the struggle combined with the first steps of a new tendency, a spark promises to ignite the African liberation movement and return it to the raging fire of revolutionary struggle. Pan-African Internationalism, 21st Century Pan-Africanism, stands on the foundations of our ancestors who carried the work of developing revolutionary theory, strategy, and tactics before they were cut down by the counterinsurgency or transitioned into the next life. It has finally arrived at the point where it can say to the past, “we have learned from you and now we are ready to add to you.” Pan-African Internationalism stares the future straight in the face and gives full expression of the real interests and articulations of the struggling masses of African people. It is a clarification of the contradictions and missteps of the past and attempts to better illuminate those spaces where the pace and intensity of daily struggle kept our forbears from giving their full attention. It is a testament to and distillation of the best ideas and practices of the previous periods and a synthesis of praxis with a clear understanding of the needs of the struggle in the present and in the future. It is a critique of the logic of African liberation theory thus far, and a specific renovation of Pan-Africanist thought and practice. In the end, Pan-African Internationalism claims to be the highest expression of African revolutionary theory and the best refinement of the strategy and tactics of African liberation, in short, the best way forward.

As the guiding ideology of a small section of the emergent tendency of the African liberation movement, Pan-African Internationalism sets as its task the establishment of an effective vanguard formation capable of leading the struggle for independence in an effective and sustainable way. We commit to the work to resurrect the fighting spirit of the masses of African working people and develop it past the high water mark of the previous periods. Pan-African Internationalism takes on the critical tasks of organizing the Diaspora into a tight-knit, global revolutionary movement, liberating Africa, and realizing the objective of revolutionary nationalism as a basis for the effective development of proletarian internationalism. We expose our strategy for establishing dual and contending power, a sorely missing element in our historical struggle and the infrastructure necessary to advance the movement in quantity and quality. And finally, Pan-African Internationalism lays out what we understand to be the best methodology for direct and decisive engagement with the exploiting classes within and outside of the African nation, with an aim of achieving final victory. If we are correct in our analysis, Pan-African Internationalism is not only highest expression of African liberation theory and the aspirations of the masses of oppressed, exploited African workers; it is a blueprint for the building of the final phase of our struggle. We take the position that Pan-African Internationalism is the razors edge of the sickle that will finally reap freedom in the hands of a conscious, mobilized African working class: a hammer in worldwide anti-capitalist revolutionary struggle.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Why Political Education Must Be a Basic Function of the Pan-African Internationalist Movement


By Nnamdi Lumumba

To be free, the oppressed must be organized in their own interests. To be organized, the masses require access to skills and ideas that not only inform them of the world in which we live in but also of the ideas that we most embrace to transform the world. The oppressed most have leaders and institutions that serve their interest and when these instruments cease to serve the people, the masses must be armed with correct ideas so they can remove these forces. None of this can be done if the masses of colonized and oppressed African people are not engaged in a consistent process of political education.

As Pan-African Internationalists, we must take seriously the need to politically educate and agitate the masses of African people. We must do this in all mediums available to us to challenge the goliath mass media of the U.S. imperialist state. We most build a dual and contending mass education system that actively struggles for the hearts and minds of our oppressed and colonized people.

Whether you read a book, watch a video or listen to music, people are always being bombarded with socio-political views. The vast majority of views in media are the ideas of the parasitic white ruling class and its neo-colonial stooges. These serve as mis-education tools against the interests of the masses of African working class and other poor people. To counter this, the people political education.

Political Education is the process of elevating human consciousness to be able to perceive and interpret phenomenon so participants can be conscientious actors in determining their economic, political, social and spiritual reality. Political education, like any legitimate form of education is for the upliftment of humanity and the greater development of the individual to serve the collective.

Unlike the training disguised as education in the U.S. education system, the process of education makes people more capable of thinking independently not simply reciting information by rote.  Education makes it more possible for people to understand their condition and to transform their condition.

The goal of political education is to produce human beings who are conscious of the social, economic, political and spiritual issues that impact their lives and equip them to resolve those issues. We should be vested in this process as it speeds up the overall struggle by the masses against injustice and humiliation at the hands of the ruling class and the African petty bourgeoisie. Without such education, the masses will continue to engage oppressive conditions but not have all the tools they need to plot a conclusion that liberates us from oppression.

The process of carrying out political education by Pan African Internationalists should teach participants personal and organization discipline. Political education process should develop leadership and communication skills. The participants should be able to demonstrate greater capacity to sum up the world and defend any solutions they put forward to resolve the crisis in the world.

Political education must be seen as an ongoing process. It cannot be treated as a process that only new forces engage in. Ho Chin Min once warned that once you stop progressing in your studies, one does not stagnate but instead regress.  Political education must become a way of political and social life for forces committed to changing the world.

Pan African Internationalists must recognize that political education is fundamental to human and organizational development. We most actively struggle to counter the mis-education that the capitalist-imperialist social system permeates about ourselves, other people and about the nature of U.S. society.
Pan African Internationalist organization requires politically, socially and emotionally developed cadre and mass workers who are capable of producing revolutionary transformation. The struggle needs organizers who are confident in their ability and rights as human beings to be free on their own terms.

Political education will facilitate greater unity and clarity in the liberation work. The chaos experienced under colonial domination is purposefully maintained by imperialism so the masses will struggle amongst ourselves instead of against it to solve our problems. African people in the grip of colonial madness often see themselves as their own worst enemies while their real national and class enemies are able to rob us blind of our resources. People often criticize African behavior in colonial situations to be like that of crabs in a barrel but no one ever dare criticize the ones who forcefully place crabs in the barrel to begin with.

In the final analysis, the value of political education will be measured on its ability to empower human beings to take control of their lives. It is more than just giving them skills to perform as more efficient cogs in the capitalist machine. It is about giving people to ability to see, define and create the world in which they want to exist in

As a minimum, political education most provide the participants with the ability to think and sum up the world in their own words. It must also provide them with the confidence necessary to engage imperialism on a variety of issues. Genuine cadre forces should have the ability to transform a condition or situation to advance the needs of poor and oppressed people. Lastly, the masses and its leadership should develop a greater unity with the struggles of all poor and oppressed peoples against oppression of all forms.

Political education must not be seen as a secondary function or even worst as an optional function. We must commit ourselves to carryout Political Education as consistently and creativity as we can. It is a process which will pay us back ten-fold for our time and effort.

Make It Plain: Pan-African Culture-What It Should Look Like and Accomplish

By Abdul Jabbar Caliph, Chief Editor
“The time has come to draw practical conclusion from the years of studying African problems, to sum them up in formulas that are as clear as possible and easy to apply.”  Cheikh Anta Diop
Uhuru Comrades, Brothers and Sisters!
I greet you with this Kiswahili word meaning freedom, for freedom should be the most fundamental issue on the minds of African people of all over the Diaspora! As a Pan-African Internationalist I understand the importance in the need for the development of a Pan-African culture that is reflected of the values and morals of African people. In order for this to be accomplished it is important for us to understand that we must replace the values and morals of the old colonialist regime that we suffered under with the values and morals of the new society that we wish to develop. 

These values and morals must be developed along an African centered approach to life. This means that we must not only understand our history we must also understand some of the traditional concepts of African culture and begin to chart its’ development and progression as it relates to African people all over the world. Some of this traditional customs must be disregarded for they no longer have any value or importance to the new society which we are seeking to develop.  They are out dated and ancient. 

The new society in which we seek to develop requires that we educated and train our youth in the Pan-African Internationalist concept of social living instead of the individual based concept taught to us by the colonialist approach to life that we have been trained within. Under colonialism we existed as slaves and under the new society that we are seeking to develop we will live as free men and women who control their own destiny. We will live according to means of production that our society needs, no waste no mess. Each person must live according to his political means and the political needs of family.

In order for this to happen we must have a complete radical break with the bourgeoisie culture that has been the dominated culture in our life. This can only occur with the complete transfer of power to the African working class, the most proletariatarian class that exists in the world! This break must be a total and complete break with parasitic capitalism.

Comrades we must understand that our struggle here is a twofold struggle, a struggle against racism that also has a class component. We who call ourselves Pan-Africans would do well to not forget this. For it is through the combination of the two that we will be able to insure that our people never again experience the African holocaust (MAAFA).  It is through this process that we will be able to control our destiny, control over the political economy and the means of production of Africa’s natural resources.

A new form of education must emerge out of this process, an education that will be free of our former 
colonialist masters’ control. It is through this educational process that our people will learn the true history of our people and the purpose of their historical mission, the liberation and freedom of Africa and her people throughout the Diasporas. It is the completion of this mission that will allow us to control and establish a global economy that will launch Africa into the next phase of development as the rightful masters of our own lives and put an end to the capitalist-imperialist parasitic relationship that has dominated non-white people for centuries.

We must remember that as we seek the destruction of this parasitic way of life we must also be about the work of serious transformation of our society, a society that is in serious need of healing. We must educate our people about how to control the means of production that currently exist in our Pan-African society and the development of a new approach to this very end. To fail to do so will mean the failure of the revolution, it is a betrayal of the revolution and history may not absolve us!

Let us as Pan-Africans remember the wise saying of Amilcar Cabral, the leader of the PAIGC who was brutality assassinated by imperialist forces nine months before Guinea-Bissau was to achieve it liberation, “Always remember that people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s mind. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are nothing but hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions.”   

To achieve the afore mentioned objective we must begin to established Liberated Zones, the transformation of our neighborhoods and domestically colonized communities into communities of political consciousness and awakened freedom fighters who willing do the work of fighting for the rights of the African working class. This will give us the democratic space that is needed to broadly organize the people into future cadre forces that will focus on the seizure and consolidation of power into our own hands. The establishments of survival program such as food co-operatives, after-school and weekend programs for African Children are examples of dual and contending institutions that will help achieve this mission. 

Comrades this is what a true Pan-African culture should look like and be able to accomplish.  For it not to accomplish this mission is to mean that we failed as Pan-Africans in winning the revolution, a revolution that our ancestors died to see fulfilled, they laid down their lives to see their children and future generations of African people grow up to live a life free of slavery and misery! 

We must accomplish this noble sacred mission. We must complete the revolution and free our people in order to assume our rightful place in society. This mission can only be accomplished by the African working class, the most noble and humble race and class of people on the planet!

In conclusion, I would like us to remember what Barry Munslow said “The greatest danger was that the state might well be able to transform the revolution before the revolution could transform the state.” This means that we as members of the African working class must be the organization of the people, educated the people and mobilize the people to participate in their own liberation. 

 “African development is possible only on the basis of a radical break with the international capitalist system, which has been the principal agency of underdevelopment of Africa over the last five centuries.” Walter Rodney

Long live the Revolution!
Long live the struggle for African Independence!
Bread, Peace and Black Power!




Monday, October 24, 2011

Electoral Politics and The Class Struggle

By Nnamdi Lumumba, UPP State Organizer
African people worldwide exist during a time of great crisis both internally to our own communities and externally under international capitalism. Parasitic capitalism under the control of the international white ruling class and in alliance with neocolonialist ruling class elements in oppressed nations are fighting a desperate struggle to maintain the system of imperialism. In oppressed nations, neocolonialism stands as the last line of defense keeping the masses from attacking imperialism directly to liberate themselves from the parasitic relationships set upon us that rob us of the ability to live as full human beings.

The struggle of African workers and poor people to overthrow neocolonialism is a fundamental task in our liberation. In many places, it is not White people that commit crimes against the people but African petty bourgeoisie elements which keep the people in poverty and desperation. The class conscious sector of the African working class most strive fully and completely to unseat neo-colonialism and to raise the political consciousness of the masses to their full stature as makers of history.

One such area that most be contested is the electoral arena. Electoral politics in Africa and the Americas have been traditionally dominated by elements of the African petty bourgeoisie. The African petty bourgeoisie participates in electoral politics not to advance the interests of African people and the African community but to fill their own pockets and those of their class.

There should be no safe place for the African petty bourgeoisie to attack the people, we most elevate the consciousness of the masses of African people to understand that the election process is not about democracy but instead a struggle for power by the ruling class, that currently international capitalism is in crisis and that the capitalist parties are  working to maintain the wealth of the ruling class at the expense of all workers and poor people and finally that the African working class must rise to assume leadership of the African community's struggle for liberation. The electoral process is a form of political struggle that offers the vanguard of the African working class space to wage open class struggle with the African petty bourgeoisie and white ruling class for influence and power over the African community.

The first myth spread by the white ruling class is that the voting is equivalent to freedom and that change can be made at the ballot box. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Based on a concrete analysis of the real world, we assert that the election process is not about democracy but instead a nonviolent struggle for power by the ruling class. The so-called “two-party system” of the U.S. is in fact a two-headed single party system dominated by capitalist/imperialist parties. In practice it is like being given the choice of one slave master or another, no matter who is chosen, the slave can never vote to have freedom!

To be more specific, elections are used as a means for different sectors of the ruling class to struggle non-violently for control of the state apparatus. The state apparatus are the courts, legislature, police, schools and other government institutions that enforce the laws of the ruling class. Candidates are tied to various local, regional and national interests that fund and support candidates to forward their agenda. The participation of independent or populist candidates is minimal and limited as the two ruling class parties make it difficult for non-mainstream candidates and parties to participate and win elections.

In places around the world where the state apparatus is weak, political killings, coup d'etats and civil wars are carried out by contending sectors of the ruling class to gain power. Elections rarely take place and if they do, they are shame elections. The instability created by these contests are not good for overall economic growth and profit, so the capitalist forces in the West do all they can to regularly hold elections and to win working class participation in the elections.

We most also be clear that elections are used by the ruling class to legitimize the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The political parties that compete against each other represent the same social class. They represent the interests of the capitalist class. The issues and solutions that African working class and other working and poor people need are never put forward.

International capitalism is in crisis and the capitalist parties will look to maintain themselves at the expense of the workers and poor people.

Both major parties are legalizing the assault on African people, workers and poor people via the political process. Attacks on welfare, social security, Medicare are becoming popular targets by politicians to take away from the masses in an effort to preserve the interests of the ruling class. Funding for education, recreation and other services are being cut while increases in police and prisons are being passed in preparation of locking down more African and other oppressed peoples.

Candidates from both major parties are apologists for the increasingly repressive policies being implemented to protect the ruling class. Black democrats have openly abandoned the African community, only looking out for their middle class friends and supporters. Liberal candidates have been driven towards the political right in support of wars, spending cuts and other policies which attack colonized, oppressed and exploited people.

The African working class most rise to assume leadership of the African community's struggle for liberation and economic and social justice.

The mis-leadership of the African middle class has helped facilitate the escalation of the theft of the human and material resources of the African community. African politicians at the federal, state and local levels now lead the charge in creating and implementing policy that serves the interests of the capitalist class at the direct expense of the African community. The economic crisis for imperialism has been held at bay by draconian policies which have cause depression era unemployment, unprecedented lost of homes for African families and the widening of the wealth gap between African and White families.

The African working class most seizes all the democratic space possible to put forward its solutions to the crisis in the African community and to organize the community to defend itself. Electoral politics is not the only legitimate form of political struggle. The African working class most learn to strategically use all methods of political struggle to advance its agenda. The major of African people have been effectively demobilized and de-politized by the mis-leadership of the African middle class, they most have the opportunity to hear and participate in new ideas and politics if they are to be organized in their own interests.