Students: You Are Not Criminals, Advice from a Prisoner
i want to begin this writing by expressing sincere solidarity to the surge of student activism in support of the Palestinian people and against amerikan and israeli militarism and imperialism. If i could tell the students who’re facing or will face charges in the empire’s courts, i would tell them to keep in constant memory that no matter what they, the empire, says or does you are not a criminal. i would tell them that be careful to remember the righteousness of our cause and to remember that they are not alone.
In every mass movement and organization there are varying levels of socio-political consciousness and radicalism. Those who are neophytes to the struggle should pay careful attention to the machinations of the institutions of the empire. One’s experiences with the empire’s institutions usually increase one’s level of radicalism and consciousness. While we enter struggle usually because of various sympathies we hold, We continue and elevate our activism usually because we realize that our theories and sympathies only barely touched the surface of the ugliness of the empire.
Allow the experience you will have going through the motions of the empire’s institutional shuffles to harden you, to motivate you. Understand that your sacrifices are worth it, and that while we face certain levels of sacrifices, the people who’ve inspired us so much, the people whose stiff resistance is the reason i am even writing this missive, those people are making sacrifices and facing down levels of repression that most humans will never know. Be proud of the trials the oppressors put you through, and also be vigilant in order to learn lessons to apply to your future work in the struggle.
Advice for those inside facing charges for fighting for Palestine, my best advice would be to not let the repression to stop you from organizing in furthering the cause. Continue your work on the inside. My experience on the inside in recent months is that there are a lot of patriotic, amerikanized prisoners. More than we often realize. And they are louder than those of us who support the self-determination of Palestine, and the divestment of amerikan institutions from israel. Your voice, your commitment is needed just as much inside as it is outside. Captivity is not the time for self-defeat. The struggle must continue.
Palestine’s struggle has and is being analyzed in various ways. But for the record the Palestinian struggle is a nationalist, anti-colonial struggle. There are many connections to other nationalist, anti-neocoloinal struggles within the united $tates. In north amerika the empire has succeeded in stamping out the struggle, the culture, and much of the existence of the Indigenous people, New Afrikan people, Chican@ People, and Puerto Rican people. They have already done to us what israel is attempting to do to Palestine now. amerika looks different and is softer with its policies of social control only because they’re further along in their experiment of empire building and settler-colonialism. As a captive New Afrikan revolutionary nationalist i am extremely proud of, and inspired by, the Palestinian struggle for national independence. Their struggle provides a measuring stick to other nationalist movements. i hope we take note and begin to organize more in earnest.
Because there are many students who’ve been drawn into this movement by the extremes of the Palestinian situation, some may not be aware that there are revolutionary nationalist movements here in their backyards itching to mobilize enough people to raise the level of contradiction to the point that the Palestinian struggle is already at. Because there are connections between these nationalist movements we hope that you will be able to identify them and connect yourselves to these revolutionary nationalist struggles. In Our effort to smash the tentacles of amerikan militarism and imperialism in Palestine and elsewhere, We have to raise our level of struggle here. We have to raise our capacity here within the nationalist movements, and i believe the student movement is a key part of doing that. As such the best we in the prison movement and those of you in the student movement can do is to build connections with each other, help each other, and help the world’s oppressed and exploited people.
i hope this letter is received well, and that you, the reader continue to struggle ceaselessly until victory is won.
From The River To THE SEA, Free The Land!
