MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
As we approach the end of Prison Banned Book Week we are pausing our
campaign, which has been going on over the last couple months, to
support prisoners in Pendleton Correctional Facility, Indiana.
Supporters should stop gathering signatures and mail out any remaining
postcards soon.
It was reported to MIM(Prisons) that 6 prisoners were threatened with
drug charges, and torture in long-term isolation, for mail received from
MIM Distributors. The mailroom claimed smudges of ink (that were
obviously from the printer) were indications that the mail was laced
with drugs. Of course, subsequent testing of the mail proved there were
no drugs on them. This type of treatment has earned Indiana state a
grade of D for their mail censorship, not an F because most letters do
get through as does some literature.
In response to these threats, comrades in Anti-Imperialist Prisoner
Support (AIPS) and other supporters hit the streets with a postcard
campaign. We told people about what was going on, and asked them to sign
a postcard and mail it to the administration. The postcards called out
the political repression and demanded that it be stopped. Dozens of
postcards were mailed to the Pendleton Administration, from near and far
away, over the last couple months.
In the midst of the postcard campaign we received news that the
threats had seemingly been dropped. But censorship has continued and a
lawsuit is still being pursued. One of the comrades targeted at
Pendleton says:
“I have not received Under Lock & Key 86 mailed out [1
month ago]. I’ve written the mailroom 2 times now and as of today have
not received it.”
“Thank you all for bringing this injust to light!”
Thanks to the comrades on the outside who supported this campaign. We
are declaring this phase over, but will continue to report on the
happenings in Indiana prisons.
Outreach Report
In one locale, over 35 petitions were collected alongside
distributing ULK 86 directly to passerbys. There was
substantial immediate enthusiasm for discovering a publication written
by prisoners, especially regarding solidarity with Palestine. Each
persyn AIPS met was interested both in receiving a newsletter as well as
signing a petition to mail.
AIPS also maintained a presence at Socialism Conference 2024 which
took place in Chicago during the end of August. Here, over 100 copies of
ULK were handed out and dozens of postcard petitions were signed by
those interested in the struggle of prisoners. It was also encouraging
to see those on the outside were interested in learning about the abuses
and injustices prisoners face, either through panels attending hosted at
the conference or by talking directly with passerbys.
While there was no negative reception, no recipients in either
location were familiar with ULK or MIM(Prisons). Only very few
recognized the MIM name from prior exposure. It is indicative of a low
tide in the movement here that most are completely unfamiliar with
anti-imperialist prisoners. This represents an opportunity and
responsibility to publicize our work and recruit more volunteers.
Among this small sample of the public, found tabling in busy urban
areas, at local leftist events, or at the aforementioned conference,
there were multiple people who were very enthusiastic about the
newspaper and our work in spite of lacking all prior familiarity. This
welcome enthusiasm also resulted in some “pig questions”: those which,
if AIPS answered publicly, would inevitably feed valuable information to
the pigs (in other words, agents of the state). The size of a political
group, their location, and their leadership structure are examples of
questions unnecessary to answer in order to work with others. That
information only helps enemies who wish to study, surveil or even
infiltrate anti-imperialist organizations. And we don’t say this to
pretend that we are a big organization but rather to encourage people to
do the work that they see as the most correct.
AIPS comrades encountered some popular confusion about MIM(Prisons)’s
line on (non)exploitation of prisoners. Some people thought MIM(Prisons)
was fighting against the for-profit prison system. Most prisons are not
private. And even companies like JPay, Securus, and GTL that are
profiteering off prisoners are making very small amounts of money
compared to the cost of running the criminal injustice system, which the
Prison Policy
Institute put at about $182 billion. MIM(Prisons)’s actual line is
that prisons are an immense cost to Amerika: a cost sustained for the
purpose of social control, especially for the national oppression of
First Nation, New Afrikan and Chican@ liberation movements. In the end,
this cost is worthwhile if Amerika is able to prevent the masses of
oppressed nations from fighting for autonomy in land and resources. But
still, the benefits yielded are not profits in terms of capital but the
containment and suppression of the internal semi-colonies within the
United $tates. Imprisonment is a form of absolute immiseration that we
think of in the realm of genocide rather than exploitation. The
suppression of rebellious groups helps the settler Amerikan nation
maintain its position on top. AIPS incorporates this understanding in
our prisoner correspondence and campaign work.
MIM Distributors has been targetted in Pendleton Correctional
Facility in Indiana for promoting “Security Threat Group” information,
usually with no justification. Sometimes they will also add “New
Afrika”, as if the whole nation of New Afrika is a Security Threat
Group. This has been used to censor our newsletter and communications
with prisoners at Pendleton. More recently, staff have accused MIM
Distributors of lacing mail with drugs and threatened to throw the
intended recipients of that mail in long-term isolation torture cells as
a result! The charge against at least one prisoner has been dropped, but
the political repression continues.
Comrades in Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support have taken up a
campaign to get Pendleton staff to follow their own rules and stop this
baseless persecution. You can see in our Amerikan
Censorship Documentation Project that we have been appealing the
censorship for the last couple years with little progress. Therefore we
are expanding this campaign to build public opinion in support. You can
help by using these postcards to talk to people about what is going on
in Pendleton and getting them to send a postcard of protest to let the
Indiana Department of Corrections know that people are not okay with
their political persecution tactics.
download PDF above
print 2-sided on cardstock
cut into 4
add $0.56 stamp (or more)
go to event or public space and ask people to sign their name, city
and state
hand them a flyer or Under Lock & Key
ask for a donation to pay for postage & printing
drop postcards in mail box (don’t mail them all at once we want a
consistent stream of cards coming in)
All of our readers who operate within the hideous belly of the beast
that is the United $nakes prison system know about this system’s cruel
and unrelenting oppression in every facet of daily life. This article
serves to highlight and expose the asinine nature of one particular
aspect of this oppression that is particularly relevant to our work:
censorship. Every time we send out a document, book, or newspaper, there
is always the risk that whatever pig is working in the mail room on the
day it arrives will arbitrarily opt to censor it for any number of
made-up reasons. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, this behavior has
the backing of the U.$. court system which has granted the prison
bureaucrats almost total control over deciding what comes into prisons.
Like every other instrument of control wielded by the state, the pigs
use this power to repress the masses of the oppressed groups, especially
if this repression targets political content that challenges the status
quo.
However, there are still victories to be won in appealing these cases
of censorship, which comrades in Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support
(AIPS) are striving to do for every incident that comes to our
attention. With this in mind, we hope to start publishing these
censorship reports as a way to communicate to you, our readers, our
efforts in combating censorship as well as to showcase particularly
pathetic attempts by the pigs to censor our mail.
North Carolina’s Brazen
Hypocrisy
In ULK 84, we included a piece of art sent in by a
subscriber of ours which depicted a pig officer beating a prisoner with
a baton. This was apparently too far for the North Carolina Division of
Prisons (NCDOP) who said that they don’t allow “depictions of violence”
and that this image “may encourage a group disruption.” We simply had to
scoff when we read this in light of the fact that the NCDOP specifically
lays out guidelines on when it is “appropriate” to beat prisoners with
“impact weapons” like the baton depicted in the art. To the pigs, it’s
fine to physically abuse and maim prisoners. But showing them a cartoon
of such acts? That’s where they draw the line.
MIM(Prisons):
Political Organization or Tattoo Artists?
MIM Distributors recently sent a copy of the Fundamental
Political Line of the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons
(FPL) (which we recommend to all our readers who wish to get a
deeper understanding of our organization’s politics) to a comrade
serving time in the heinous Florida Department of Corrections. Usually
the FPL gets through to prisoners fine, so we were a bit
surprised to receive a censorship notice in this case. This
unfortunately means that FPL is now on the Florida ban list,
preventing any Florida prisoners from doing our intro study course (they
were already prevented
from doing our 12 Step Program). And the official reason listed for
this censorship? That the FPL contained an image “large and
distinctive enough to be used as a tattoo pattern.” This was truly a new
one for this author (though our records show it’s been done before).
Apparently, sending any sort of art can justify censorship if some pig
decides the art might make a good tattoo! The silver lining to this
abuse of power is that it provides the perfect example of how the pigs
will use any justification to achieve their goals of repressing the
masses.
Indiana Finds “Drugs” in Our
Letters
The third and final case of censorship we’ll discuss is more aptly
described as a crusade against one of our comrades in Indiana. Nearly
every issue of ULK or any other mail we send to this comrade is
censored for some inane reason usually relating to our alleged promotion
of “Security Threat Groups.” We think it’s more likely that the state
has it out for our comrade though, seeing as ey are currently filing a
lawsuit against one of the pigs at the Indiana Department of
Corrections. Recently though, the mail room at the facility this comrade
is imprisoned in decided that MIM(Prisons) had laced one of their
letters with drugs. Not only this, they threatened the comrade with a
year in lock up and to take away all of eir legal work. After sending
our letter off to the lab it turns out that the “drugs” were simply some
ink that got smeared. When the oppressed simply try to survive, the pigs
will resort to beatings, administrative punishments, and acts of
sabotage. But when the pigs are caught actively lying to facilitate such
cruel acts, the oppressed get nothing, not even an apology.
In spite of this brutal repression, our comrade in Indiana is
continuing on with eir lawsuit in an attempt to expose and hold
accountable the pigs who think they can just violate the rights of
prisoners without a second thought. If you’d like to read more about our
campaign to support this prisoner as well as ways you can help, look to
our campaign linked below (or p. 16 of ULK).
In the West Bank, I$rael has killed at least 502 Palestinians since 7
October 2023, the day Operation Al Aqsa Flood commenced by the
Palestinian resistance. At least 4,950 people were injured, 3,985 people
were displaced, 8,088 people were arrested and 648 structures were
demolished.(1) All of this is not even mentioning the recent declaration
by I$raeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that 800 hectares (1,977
acres) in occupied West Bank are now state land for I$raeli
settlements.(2) As we know, the I$raeli war has focused on Gaza, where
official estimates put the death toll at 38,000, while public health
experts estimate that number could be as high as 186,000.(2.5)
These figures alone are abstract, so to paint a better picture of
accounts from those living in the West Bank now, contextualizing history
and statistics will be provided. It is estimated that 3.25 million
people live in the West Bank, meaning that just from the above
statistics 0.54% (17525 affected / 3.25 million population) of people
were directly affected with countless more affected indirectly from the
intensified settler terror in just 6-7 months. The amount of deaths has
been three times as high as 2022 already. The lack of infrastructure to
collect accurate data also makes this statistic likely an underestimate
of the severity, with it only getting worse on the ground as we
speak.
The aim of this article is to historicize the initial I$raeli
response in the West Bank to the Al Aqsa Flood before the prisoner
exchange and temporary “end” (which was constantly violated by I$rael)
of hostilities in Gaza. It will be the first part of a series of
articles that cover the occupation of the West Bank. Together, Gaza and
the West Bank make up the “occupied territories” of Palestine that have
not yet been seized by I$rael.
Operation
Al Aqsa Flood, settlers panic in West Bank
The very existence of settlers are premised on the displacement of
the native people and colonial occupation of entire nations or sections
of nations. This is on top of the exploitation of land and labor of the
colonized to feed an ever-growing parasitic strata. The I$raeli colonial
projects on the border of Gaza were challenged on October 7th, with
resistance seizing their land back from the settlers by force. The sense
of control from having some of the best surveillance methods and
technologies in the world, while being backed by the most powerful
imperialist power, was shattered. The carefully crafted methods to
maintain and further colonization to feed I$raeli settlers while helping
their Amerikan overseers to pacify the entire region under its boot was
challenged. The I$raeli project floats on nothing, it produces nothing
for the world beyond feeding the hunger of settlers and their
imperialist allies off the backs of the colonized. Desperately, it
sought to reduce its reliance on those it displaced and colonized,
knowing full well what that’d mean. I$rael sought out Third World labor,
begged for a share of profits from its imperialist overseers and tried
to become more “self-sufficient”. Ultimately it failed in its endeavors,
finding itself reliant on imperialist backers to sustain itself against
militant resistance from all sides. Once that runs dry, I$rael is doomed
and its dream will be ruined, with a victory for the resistance and the
liberation of Palestine!
On 11 October 2023, a lock down on West Bank was declared, shutting
down more than 500 checkpoints and the only major international border
crossing, which is with Jordan, at Allenby Bridge.(3) The I$raeli
settlers were faced with a war on two fronts, resorting to extreme
measures in fear of losing control of their occupation. Their fears were
further confirmed with the death of General Leon Bar, a senior officer
of the West Bank Division of the I$raeli Offensive Forces (IOF) on 12
October 2023.(4) Alarms were set off in both “Beitar Illit”, near
Bethlehem, and “Ma’ale Efraim”, near Ramallah, due to fears of
resistance infiltration on 13 October 2023. On the same day, raids were
conducted in Nablus, Aqabat, Jaber camp, Areeha, and Aida refugee camp
in Bethlehem. The IOF began an invasion of the city of Nablus and
clashes continued in Jenin as resistance fighters confronted the
invasion. Hamas’s brigades, the Izz al Din al-Qassem Brigades, were one
of the known resistance factions who fended off the IOF invasion, while
also fighting in the Ain Al-Sultan and Aqabat Jabr camps in
Areeha.(5)
As of October 14th, 842 acts of resistance were carried out in the
West Bank in just a week. Of those confirmed, there were 241 shooting
operations, 30 qualitative operations, one settlement infiltration, 570
confrontations in various forms, and 98 demonstrations and marches.
Twenty two IOF injures were confirmed, a number were killed, and there
were 56 martyrs on the side of the resistance. The confrontations took
place in 254 areas, including Nablus (45), Al-Quds (38), Ramallah (38),
Al-Khalil (33), Jenin (27), Tulkarem (19), Bethlehem (17), Qalqilya
(13), Areeha (11), Salfit (9), and Tubas(4).(6) Just a week since
Operation Al Aqsa Flood, the resistance was stiff against I$raeli
attempts to subdue the West Bank under its grasp. A resistance to
settler-colonialism and national oppression within the United $tates
must adopt similar discipline, rejecting integration for
self-determination for oppressed nations in solidarity with the struggle
against imperialism across the world.
The resistance in the West Bank continued, with the al-Nasser Salah
al-Deen Brigades, which are the military wing of Popular Resistance
Committees, targeting the Belt Furik checkpoint and the IOF post
established on “Mount Gerizim” on 15 October 2023. The IOF by this time
had abducted more than 500 in the West Bank and Al-Quds.(7) On 17
October 2023, protestors in the occupied West Bank demanded the fall of
president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, a neocolonial
puppet entity ruling over West Bank. The response was repression, with
tear gas and stun grenades used to disperse the protestors.(8) Amidst
the protests, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which are military wing of
Fatah, were able to successfully target zionist occupation checkpoints
and clashed with them on the same day.(9)
Sheikh Hassan Yousef, co-founder of Hamas, was abducted by the IOF in
his home in Ramallah after giving a speech there on 18 October 2023.
This was part of a larger campaign of abductions by the IOF which
expanded that day.(10) Confrontations further escalated within the West
Bank, with a victory for the resistance occurring with the Saraya
Al-Quds, which is the militant wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
(PIJ), part of the Tulkarm Brigade carried out numerous strikes,
offensive operations, ambushes, explosive detonations, and ambush
executions. It was a 28 hour battle, which led to the IOF completely
withdrawing from the Nour Shams camp.(11) The cowardly settlers
retaliated the next day at the Al-Ansar mosque, believing that Hamas and
PIJ used it as a headquarters. This resulted in the death of two, and
the arrest of dozens who were suspected to work with the Jenin Brigade
or other resistance groups.(12) On the same day, Zionist special forces
stormed the Askar camp in Nablus, clashing with the resistance.(13) Just
four days later, on 26 October 2023, the IOF carried out a massive
arrest campaign across the West Bank with armed clashes breaking
out.(14) This preludes the rise of resistance in the West Bank the next
day, with violent confrontation in the Al-Aroub camp, against the
“Nitzani Oz” checkpoint, the “Dotan” checkpoint, Jabal Al-Tur and Abu
Dis on 27 October 2023.(15)
I$raeli
invasion of Gaza, settler counter-offensive
The invasion of Gaza officially began on 28 October 2023. On this
day, many cities in the West Bank went on strike in support of the
resistance in Gaza.(16) A specialized hospital in Nablus was targetted
in the West Bank due to the IOF’s suspicion of the resistance groups
there.(17) On 2 November 2023, armed clashes broke out across various
cities in the West Bank following a wide campaign of arrests.(18) On 4
November 2023, the resistant youth in the West Bank threw Moltov
cocktails at settlers’ vehicles near Marda and at zionist forces in
Al-Aroub camp. In addition, they threw stones at settlers near Hizma and
Route 443.(19) The important part to note here is the role of the youth
and how a large section of the Palestinian people are under 18. The
resistance’s mobilization of the youth to fight is important to learn
from, especially in contexts of settler-colonialism and national
oppression, for application to the United $tates. The Black Panthers
were mostly teenagers.
The armed clashes continued between resistance fighters and zionist
forces in Qalqilya, following raids on cities and a large campaign of
abductions.(20) The Lion’s Den, a Palestinian resistance group in the
West Bank, claimed responsibility for conducting shooting operations
near “Itamar” which was successful on 8 November 2023.(21) In Jenin, a
day afterward, the Al-Qassam fighters and all resistance formations in
the Jenin camp engaged in armed clashes with the IOF. Reinforcements
were sent toward the Balata camp by the IOF after the resistance
discovered a special zionist force. In the end, the battle resulted in a
victory for the resistance after two hours, with the IOF withdrawing
without being able to abduct resistance fighters or occupy the area.(22)
The Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, militant wing of the PFLP, were
able to target the occupation forces in Jenin with explosive devices on
11 November 2023. The same day, resistance fighters open fired on the
“Belt Hefer” settlement and “Nitzanei Oz” checkpoint in Tulkarem. It
ended successfully, with a safe return for the resistance forces and
heavy damage to the targeted areas.(23)
The Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, part of the Tulkarem Brigade,
announced a general mobilization in the West Bank and Al-Quds on 12
November 2023.(24) The Al-Qassam Brigades – West Bank, announced
responsibility for storming the Tunnel Checkpoint in the south of
occupied Al-Quds in the morning. Here the resistance was able to attack
enemy forces at the military checkpoint separating northern Bethlehem
and southern occupied Al-Quds.(25) On 20 November 2023, the Mujahideen
Brigades were victorious in firing upon an incursion of IOF soldiers in
Jenin, clashing with special forces in Tubas, and shooting a jeep in
Tubas.(26) On November 21st, an IOF drone targeted a site in Tulkarem
camp, continuing to prevent ambulances from reaching the site. Afterward
the IOF stormed the Thabet Thabet Hospital to prevent the ambulances
from working.(27) Only a few days later on November 23rd, a wave of
widespread arrests were carried out, clashing with the resistance and
locals in Balata refugee camp, Al-Arroub, Dura, Beit Liqya, and
Qalandiya refugee camp.(28) On November 24th, the Mujahideen Brigades,
succeeded in bombing the “Dotan” military checkpoint southwest of
Jenin.(29)
Conclusion
The resistance in the West Bank face similar conditions to the
nationally oppressed in the United $tates. One key difference is the
proximity to imperialism with integrationist pull that pacifies
resistance. Aside from that, both are firmly occupied under the boot of
the colonizers with no state of their own and both face mass
incarceration to destroy resistance and further colonization. The
resistance’s capability to form a united front to fight back and
coordinate in conditions of immense surveillance and repression is
important to note. I$rael used all of its capabilities, controlling the
supply of food, water, medicine, internal movement, and etc… but it
still failed in face of resistance. A strategy within the United $tates
will have to encompass these factors and surpass them, coordinating not
only internally but externally with the Third World against forces of
imperialism and colonialism.
In the next part, there will be a discussion of the prisoner exchange
and temporary “end” of hostilities, at the least, along the beginning of
I$rael’s advance in Rafah along with the emboldened colonization which
I$rael embarked on in the West Bank. Specifically, declaring more than
800 hectares of land as part of I$rael, aiming to fully annex the West
Bank.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be
free!
The aim of this article is to provide a brief summation of what Hamas
is as a movement. It will expand on the history
of Palestine written by a comrade in ULK 84. Both imperialist media
and revisionist propaganda create false narratives around Hamas,
oftentimes mistaking basic facts to suit their interests. It is
important to understand that Hamas is a movement and that over the
course of history has changed, likely changing as We speak. The primary
aim of this article is not to formulate an opinion on how communists
should approach Hamas or to speak over Palestinian and Arab analyses of
Hamas. Rather it is to point out the fundamental, but often obscured,
facts and history of the origins of Hamas and what it represents.
The Joint Room for Palestinian Resistance Factions brings the
resistance together to coordinate a counter-attack against I$raeli
colonization on 7 October 2023. Ayman Nofal, senior commander in
Al-Qassam Brigades, the militant arm of Hamas. was a main leader in
unifying resistance for this counter-attack who died in 2023 soon after
the counter-attack.(1) The current war is not just between Hamas and
I$rael, but one between the entirety of Palestinian resistance against
I$rael for the national liberation of Palestine. Hamas is the largest
faction of the Palestinian resistance so an understanding of the
movement and its history is crucial for understanding the ongoing
struggle.
The origins,
emergence and development of Hamas
Hamas is an Arabic abbreviation for Islamic Resistance
Movement(Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya). The movement was founded in
December 1987 at the beginning of the First Palestinian Intifada. Before
Hamas there was the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which had a branch in
Gaza since 25 November 1946(founded this year to coincide with year 1366
of the Islamic calendar). The Muslim Brotherhood was non-confrontational
with I$rael, which led to criticism and division internally during the
1970s-1980s. Hamas was formed as a way to join the First Palestinian
Intifada(Uprising) without endangering the position of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Under the defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, the I$raeli
military adopted the so-called “iron fist” policy of violent repression:
it used live ammunition against unarmed protestors, jailed
demonstrators, and imposed punitive curfews and closures. This only
added fuel to the fire, escalating into a full scale intifada.(2) The
participation of Hamas in the First Palestinian Intifada was a major
success, leading it to become more than just an associated organization
of the Muslim Brotherhood.(3)
The origins of Hamas lie within the Muslim Brotherhood and the
Islamic Centre(Al-Mujamma’ al-Islami). The Islamic Centre was
established on 7 September 1973, by the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed
Ismail Hassan Yassin(Ahmed Yassin). It emerged out of the Muslim
Brotherhood, with it’s stated goals of being the independence of Muslim
lands from foreign occupation and establishment of an Islamic
sociopolitical system.(4) The rise of the Islamic movements in
Palestine, specifically in Gaza, only really took off after the First
Intifada. This started on 9 December 1987, in the Jabalia refugee camp
after an I$raeli truck driver collided with a civilian car, killing four
Palestinian workers. Palestinian resistance emerged in response, being
met with 80,000 I$raeli soldiers being deployed to crush it. Hamas
emerged specifically for the Muslim Brotherhood to engage in the First
Palestinian Intifada, beforehand militant struggle against I$rael by
Islamic movements in Palestine were scarce.
Palestinian fedayeen(freedom fighters) network was primarily united
under the Palestinian Liberation Organization(PLO) after the Six-Day
War, a war between I$rael and a coalition of Arab nations in 1967 which
led to I$rael attaining West Bank, Jerusalem, Sinai Peninsula and Gaza
Strip. The resistance was primarily led by the Palestinian Liberation
Front(PLF), Palestinian National Liberation Movement(Fatah), and Popular
Front for Liberation of Palestine(PFLP). In the end, it was harshly
repressed by I$rael with the death of Muhammad al-Aswad, known as
“Gaza’s Guevara,” on 9 March 1973, marking the end of the military
struggle. The failure of the Palestinian national movement marked a
major turning point in Palestine.(5)
The Muslim Brotherhood was spared this harsh repression and Ahmed
Yassin during this time led a variety of political activities and
creation of various social institutions. These were under the name of
the Islamic Centre, being recognized more formally on 7 September 1973,
when the I$raeli governor attended the Jawrat al-Shams mosque
inauguration. Later on, the Islamic University of Gaza, one of the first
universities in Gaza, was founded by the Islamic Centre. The
institutions and activities of the Islamic Centre played a major role in
its establishment, with the university becoming a major site of
recruitment for the Muslim Brotherhood. The Islamic Centre was
officially recognized as a charity in September 1979 by the I$raeli
occupation. The reason for I$rael’s benevolent tolerance toward the
Islamic Centre was to weaken the Palestinian national movement in
exchange for a more conciliatory Islamic alternative.
The Palestinian national movement was even further divided with the
PLO adopting the 10 Point Program which was the basis for the two-state
solution and drafting of peace with I$rael. The Front of the Palestinian
Forces Rejecting Solutions of Surrender was established in 1974 by a
coalition of communist and progressive nationalist organizations who
wanted to continue armed struggle. The PLO became more conciliatory
towards I$rael, and today it rules over the now I$raeli puppet
government called the Palestinian Authority. The 10 point program in its
content may have had some progressive demands, such as right for
displaced Palestinians to return and take back their homes. However, its
calls for peace with I$rael and usage in justifying and end to
resistance led to collaboration as we see today in the West Bank.(6)
In regard to social institutions, the main competition to the Islamic
Centre was the Palestine Red Crescent Society under Haidar Abdel-Shafi,
who was close with the PFLP. Specifically, Haidar was part of the Arab
Nationalist Movement which was started by one of the founders of the
PFLP, George Habash. The PFLP emerged directly out of the Arab
Nationalist Movement after the Six Day War in July 1967. The executive
committee of the Arab Nationalist Movement decided that the Palestine
Section should move toward armed struggle. Three commando groups merged,
the Revenge Youth, Heroes of Return, and the Palestine Liberation
Front(PLF) to announce the founding of the PFLP on December 11th, 1967.
Haidar Abdel-Shafi was both the founder and director of the Palestine
Red Crescent Society, which served as a bastion of Palestinian
nationalism in 1972.(7)
The PLO, Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Centre were dominated by
different sections of petty-bourgeois, national bourgeois and even
comprador elements. As a result, the PFLP was a major threat to the
projects of both groups given the revolutionary nationalist outlook that
the front upheld, rooted in the proletariat. The PFLP took heavily from
the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutionaries both in political and
strategic developments.(8) Also, the the front correctly identified the
enemies of Palestinian revolution as “Israel, the world Zionist
Movement, global imperialism and Arab reactionaries.” In contrast to the
other factions within Palestine, the front adopted a firmly dialectical
materialist outlook, one based in scientific analysis of material
reality with all its developments and changes.(9) This is what led to an
allied struggle against communism by the other factions, as the PFLP
presented a major threat to the PLO and Islamic movements. To note, the
PLO refers to the mainstream conciliatory section, as the PFLP was still
part of the PLO.
The co-founder of Palestinian National Liberation Movement(Fatah),
Assad Saftawi, was a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was
crucial in negotiations between the Islamic movement and Fatah in
Palestine. He was the pioneer of an anti-communist strategy and alliance
between the factions, running against Haidar Abdel-Shafi for leadership
of the Red Crescent Society with the support of the Islamic Centre.
After an overwhelming defeat, hundreds of protestors supportive of the
Islamic movements ransacked Red Crescent offices on 7 January 1980. The
protestors continued to attack cafés, cinemas, and drinking
establishments in the town center. The I$raeli authorities did not
intervene in response to the violent attacks against the Palestine Red
Crescent Society intentionally.(10)
Coming back to the Islamic University of Gaza, in 1981 there were
protests over the Islamic movement’s monopoly over the policies in the
university. The Islamic Centre decided to turn against its former
allies, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement. The I$raeli
authorities and the Islamic movement formed a strange coalition to end
the secular nationalist opposition in the university. The Islamic Bloc,
an offshoot of the Islamic Centre, won 51% of the votes in student
elections and were able to impose Islamic policies; from separate
entrances for women and men to the way in which certain ideas and
courses were taught.(11) It was reported in 1983 that the Islamic Centre
hired armed gangs to attack striking students and teachers. Later on,
certain Islamic dress standards among students were encouraged, with
women who refused to wear Hijabs being attacked for it. A further
bolstering of the Islamic movements against the national movements in
Palestine had ensued with the Islamic University of Gaza becoming a
bastion for the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Centre.(12)
On June 1984, sixty pistols and sub-machine guns hidden in Ahmed
Yasin’s mosque led to his arrest and sentencing to thirteen years in
prison. Even if the arms were primarily intended to intimidate other
Palestinian factions.(13) Yasin’s incarceration allowed his supporters
to wash him of all suspicions of collaboration with I$rael. The leader
was freed in May 1985 within the framework of a prisoner exchange
between Israel and the PFLP–General Command, a faction that emerged in
opposition to the PLO after it created it’s 10 Point Program, based in
Damascus. The Muslim Brotherhood remained non-confrontational despite
the repression against it and built up the Islamic Centre, with the
number of mosques doubling from 77 in 1967 to 150 in 1986. This
non-confrontational and passive stance was opposed by Fathi Shikaki, who
split off to form the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, inspired by the Iranian
Revolution. In response to the Islamic Jihad multiplying attacks against
I$rael, the Islamic center formed the Majd. It performed the function of
protecting the Islamic network from attacks and in suppression of what
was seen as social ills.(14) The priority remained in combating
oppositional factions within Palestine rather than I$rael.
On 9 December 1987, the First Palestinian Intifada began in the Gaza
Strip and quickly spread to the West Bank. The growing popularity of the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad led to an agreement within the Muslim
Brotherhood between the conservative old guard, supportive of a
non-confrontational approach to I$rael, made up mainly of urban
merchants petty-bourgeoisie and general upper petty-bourgeoisie, and the
younger generation of new activist cadres, pro-resistance, made up
mostly of lower petty-bourgeoisie and refugee camp petty-bourgeois
students. Hamas was created in December 1987 as a separate but
affiliated organization which joined the First Palestinian Intifada. It
was largely successful and began to attract a lot of sympathizers. The
post-1973 oil boom allowed for many neighboring Arab nations to back
Islamic movements across the region, including Hamas and the Islamic
Centre.(15)
The
Second Palestinian Intifada and liberation of Gaza
The PLO suffered major setbacks abroad, with the Black September in
Jordan, a period of major repression of the PLO there. It led them to be
deported and transferred to Lebanon. Later in 1982, the PLO was expelled
from Beirut to Tunisia. All of this led to the PLO, led by Fatah, to
seek out a diplomatic solution rather than pursuing armed struggle. The
Oslo Accords were signed later on in 1991 between I$rael and the PLO,
leading to the Palestinian Authority ruling over parts of the West Bank
and Gaza. Military collaboration between the Palestinian Authority and
I$rael had increased against the Islamic movement. The Palestinian
Authority allowed continued colonization and occupation.
On 28 September 2000, Ariel Sharon, a Likud party candidate for
I$rael, visited the Temple Mount, also known as Al-Haram Al-Sharif, an
area sacred to both Jews and Muslims, accompanied by over a thousand
security guards. He stated on that day, “the Temple Mount is in our
hands and will remain in our hands. It is the holiest site in Judaism
and it is the right of every Jew to visit the Temple Mount.” This led to
the start of the Second Palestinian Intifada, with Palestinian
resistance being carried out by the PLO, Hamas, and other factions. It
led to I$raeli settlement and occupation forces withdrawing from the
region after being ousted by the resistance in 2005.(15)
In January 2006, Hamas had won the elections in the Gaza Strip,
winning 72 out of 132 seats with 42.9% of the vote. I$rael and I$rael’s
imperialist backers enforced sanctions on the Hamas-led government soon
after. Just a year later, tensions rose between Fatah and Hamas, with
Hamas reigning victorious and expelling Fatah from Gaza in 2007 after
the Battle of Gaza. The government faced major issues, with the poverty
rate sharply rising to 65% by the end of 2006.(16)
The I$raeli blockade banned importation of raw industrial materials
and put a siege on Palestinian banks to create an artificial financial
crisis. Despite this and the rapidly deteriorating conditions, the
oppressor classes enjoyed great luxuries and had high levels of
consumption. This was especially the case of private tunnel dealers who
controlled a monopoly on prices. A large portion of workers in Palestine
found themselves in extreme poverty. There are two aspects to this,
internal and external, and the external blockade by I$rael was only the
external cause behind this.(17)
The origins of the tunnels were historically havens for both
smugglers and outlaws but also for freedom fighters. Before the Second
Palestinian Intifada the tunnels were primarily used for drug and gold
trafficking for high profits. Near the end of the year 2000 they became
primarily used for smuggling arms for the resistance factions.(18) After
the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, the regeneration and construction of
tunnels ensued in response to the siege. During this period, the main
lifeline for those in Gaza became these tunnels with an economy
centering around it. This led to a regression and neglect of the
development of a productive economy or sustainable development. It is
possible that during this time the primary class within Gaza was the
lumpen-proletariat and perhaps still is.
The number of tunnels increased from 20 in mid-2007 to up to 500 by
November 2008.(19) Some estimates by a variety of sources, from the
Hamas-led government, Egypt, and others, estimate higher. Regardless,
most of the tunnels belonged either to Hamas or its sympathizers. The
risks that workers face in the tunnels are immense and there is a
popular saying about the tunnels:
hundreds of tunnels deployed on the border, hundreds of young men
waiting to get involved in the game … write your will, you are facing
the unknown, but this is the land that you loved, roll up your shirt
sleeves, and be a man, you are now at a depth of 20 meters in the land
of Gaza, trust in God and finish your shift … 12 hours in hell, but
remember that hungry mouths awaiting you. Here, death is merciful and
quick … No pain… No white phosphorus … nor Israeli soldiers who might
use you as a human shield, it’s neither a prison here nor jail; here is
God and the darkness of the tunnel and breathing slowly till you
die(20)
Hamas is heavily dependent on the tunnel economy, estimated to make
more than $700 million annually. This economy is ultimately unproductive
and heavily dependent on exploitation, creating a class of private
tunnel owners and merchants who make up the leadership of Hamas today.
Ismail Haniyeh, the current leader of Hamas, is a millionaire from the
money made from his ownership and respective taxation on trade through
tunnels. The specific class relations will not be commented on here, but
this inquiry into the tunnel economy is done specifically to point out
its importance to Hamas. The large national bourgeoisie who own these
tunnels and the petty-bourgeoisie merchants who conduct trade within
them make up the class basis of Hamas today. This leads to an interest
in opposing imperialism and I$raeli occupation while maintaining the
exploitation of the proletariat and lumpen-proletariat.
The Hamas charter frames the struggle as a Jihad(holy struggle)
against Zionism. In its first charter in 1988, it was openly
anti-Semitic, claiming that both liberal and communist revolutions were
carried out because of the Jews.(21) The first charter also employs
idealism to obscure the internal class struggle and only emphasizes the
external one in an idealist manner. This was possibly put in due to the
opposition to Hamas by elements of the PLO and PFLP. Later on, this was
removed completely possibly in part due to the downfall of both of these
factions. As we can see, the ideology of Hamas changes as a result of
its class character and relationships with different factions. For that
reason, we see that Hamas broke with the Muslim Brotherhood officially
in the second charter in 2014 for being too passive. It also shifted
toward a more materialist conception of struggle against Zionism,
settler-colonialism/colonialism, and imperialism here rather than
against Jews and Judaism. In a recent document by Hamas, the
organization states this more clearly:
Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with
the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle
against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against
the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who
constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project
and illegal entity.(22)
This shift in position is important to note. The specific reason why
this occurred is hard to track down but the downfall of elements of the
PLO and PFLP is likely an important factor. So is the Second Intifada
and liberation of Gaza from I$raeli occupation and imperialism. As we
see, resistance to occupation forced Hamas to adopt more correct and
materialist political positions in regard to I$rael. It still obscures
internal class relations for its own benefit, but given the primary
ongoing struggle is against occupation, Hamas is able to maintain
majority support. A wartime poll of Palestinians in both Gaza and the
West Bank showed a vast majority supported: the Al Qassam Brigades(Hamas
brigades) at 89%, Palestinian Islamic Jihad at 85%, Al Aqsa
Brigades(Fatah brigades) at 80%, and Hamas at 76%.(23) Smaller
organizations like the PFLP were not included in the survey. So despite
the exploitation internally which Hamas is responsible for, its recent
practice of being one of the largest groups in the counter-attack
against I$rael leads it to win the sympathy of the masses.
Conclusion,
Reflections and Future Analysis
Palestinian resistance factions following a press conference in Beiruit,
Lebanon. Pictured are Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Democratic Front
for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine — General Command (PFLP-GC).
As we can see, the Islamic movements in Palestine are not a monolith
and have changed overtime. The formation of Hamas and its class basis is
important to have clarity on, but this article is by no means an
extensive analysis of such. It hopefully has helped in clearing up
common myths and confusions around Hamas, with imperialist media
constantly making frivolous claims. They range from Hamas having spawned
out of the I$raeli far-right funding to Hamas being a terrorist group
which kills Palestinians and I$raelis. This article hopefully provided
both facts and summarized analyses of why both of these common
narratives are false. However, there are major issues left unaddressed
and a few will be listed here. The political economy of the Levant and
the Palestinian clans/tribes are a crucial factor that has not even been
mentioned. The displacement by I$raeli settler-colonialism and
imperialism has not been analyzed enough in detail. The Muslim
Brotherhood and its relationship to Hamas was glossed over as well. As
an analysis and presentation of facts from a foreign perspective, many
crucial elements are likely missed that are not known about.
Some of these shortcomings may be addressed in future articles.
Specifically, an article about Fanon’s writings on the
lumpen-proletariat leading a revolution in Algeria will be pursued. The
underground national bourgeoisie of oppressed nations in the United
$tates are quite similar to Hamas in current times. The displacement of
Palestinians by I$raeli settler-colonialism and imperialism mirrors the
conditions of oppressed nations and oppressed national minorities at the
hands of Amerika. A greater understanding of how revolutionary struggle
can be conducted in conditions of settler-colonial displacement by the
participation of the lumpen-proletariat and First World lumpen will be
important.
Before ending this article, i would like to make a general
acknowledgement. This article was written with the direct help of a
variety of MIM(Prisons) and AIPS members along with a variety of
comrades not affiliated with MIM(Prisons). The work of Arabic and
Palestinian documentation and analysis played a major role in being able
to answer this question here in more detail. These sources are worth
checking out and have been cited below for readers to read into
themselves if they wish. This is not meant to advocate for communists in
the Third World to pursue a certain policy toward Hamas, but to provide
the facts about and a brief analysis of Hamas to give a deeper
perspective of what the movement is and represents.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
A comrade attending rallies supporting Palestinian resistance to the
I$raeli war distributed ULKs this winter and talked to
attendees. Here are a couple of the interviews ey sent to
ULK.
1.What brought you to this event?
Well, seeing as I am Black and a Christian, I find it important to
come out and demonstrate solidarity with the people of Palestine as I
believe our struggles are connected. Many people tend to see what is
going on in Palestine as a sort of religious conflict, portraying it
simplistically as a conflict between Jews and Muslims. Many Christians
in this country support Israel because the Church tells them to, when in
reality Christians are just as persecuted as Muslims in Palestine. I
mean, they just bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius – one of the
oldest churches in the world – last night.
2. Do you see any parallels, either current or historical,
between i$rael and the united $tates? if so, can you elaborate?
Yes, I see many parallels actually. The biggest one being that they
are both settler-colonial projects. It is important to remember that in
both cases, the land was not empty when the settlers arrived. Israel has
been waging a war against the Palestinian people in order to clear and
settle the land. When the Europeans came to America, the first thing
they did was wage war against the Indigenous population to do the same
thing. They are both guilty of ethnic cleansing. Think about the Nakba.
Think about The Trail of Tears. In Ohio, they said the land was “too
good for Indians” – similar justifications were made for the initial
Nakba.
I would also say that Israel is almost as racist as the United
States. They have different laws for different people. That’s apartheid.
Zionists call us anti-semetic, yet they treat non-White Jews like
second-class citizens. Look at how they treat Ethiopian and South-East
Asian Jews within their borders. You know they sterilized them in the
1970s and 1980s. Zionism isn’t about Judaism, it’s about white
supremacy. So I think there are very real parallels to draw between
Israel and the United States as they both are rooted in war, ethnic
cleansing, and white supremacy.
3. We promote the right to self-determination of all oppressed
nations from oppressor nations and imperialism more generally. What do
you think about the idea of the oppressed nations (i.e. Chican@/Latin@,
First Nations, New Afrikans, and other Third World Peoples) within the
so-called United $tates breaking from the United $tates in order to
realize self-determination?
I’m not entirely sure if I think it is possible, but I support it.
That said, I am very skeptical. The only feasible way I think that could
happen is if the American Government allows it to happen by carrying it
out themselves, but I really don’t see that happening anytime soon.
4. Finally, what do you think is the best way we could
demonstrate our support and solidarity to the Palestinian people?
I think we could demonstrate our support and solidarity by boycotting
Israeli products and participating in the BDS movement as a whole. By
continuing to protest. By not allowing Israel to participate in soccer.
And by not allowing Israeli academics to sanitize what has happened in
the past 70 years. It is important that we utilize our legal means and
push politicians to support an end to the genocide.
Second Interview
1.What brought you to this event?
I’m here to show support against the repression of Arabs in
Palestine, to demonstrate mass support, and to lift the spirits of
others who find these war crimes unacceptable.
2. Do you see any parallels, either current or historical,
between i$rael and the united $tates? if so, can you elaborate?
Yeah, I see parallels in that they’re settlers, racists, and repress
native populations. But I also see parallels between First Nations and
the Palestinian people – especially in their emancipatory spirit.
**3. We promote the right to self-determination of all oppressed
nations from oppressor nations and imperialism more generally. What do
you think about the idea of the oppressed nations (i.e. Chican@/Latin@,
First Nations, New Afrikans, and other Third World Peoples) within the
so-called United $tates breaking from the United $tates in order to
realize self-determination?
Yeah, of course! The first priority is emancipation of those groups,
even if that means through violence.
4. Finally, what do you think is the best way we could
demonstrate our support and solidarity to the Palestinian people?
I think we can demonstrate our support by continuing to go to these
demonstrations and by showing our support for fringe groups such as
Hamas, PFLP, etc…the militant fighters.
NOTE: PFLP is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
an organization that arose during the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution in China, and was one of the Palestinian organizations
greatly influenced by the Maoism of the time. In those early years they
gained notoriety for hijacking airplanes and remain on the U.$.
terrorist list to this day. They took a pan-Arab approach to the
revolution, and co-ordinated with many organizations outside the Arab
world, including providing training to communists from Azania (aka South
Africa). This connection is relevant to why South Africa today has
brought charges of genocide against I$rael to the International Criminal
Court, as well as the fact that Palestinians today are facing the same
apartheid conditions that Africans in South Africa once faced. PFLP took
part in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th along with Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The
latter is also a Maoist-inspired group that came out of PFLP.
Tip of the Spear Black Radicalism, Prison
Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt
Orisanmi Burton (Author)
University of California Press
October 2023
“without understanding carceral spaces as zones of undeclared
domestic war, zones that are inextricably linked to imperial and
officially acknowledged wars abroad, we cannot fully understand how and
why the U.S. became the global leader of incarceration that it is
today.” (1)
Tip of the Spear is the story of the organization and flourishing of
resistance to American imperialism as it developed in the New York state
prison system in the 1960s and 1970s, including the time well before the
four days of Attica in 1971. Professor of anthropology Orisanmi Burton
does many things in this book, a lot of which we’ll only be able to
mention briefly or not at all, but MIM(Prisons) has already sent out
many copies of this book and is prepared to send out many more to enable
further study and discussion of Burton’s very worthy research and
ideas.
We are asking our readers to send their own feedback on this book, to
write up their own local histories or stories applying the framework
below, and to popularize this understanding of U.$. prisons as part of
the imperialist war on the oppressed peoples of the world that we must
unite against.
Prisons are War
Burton begins his investigation with George Jackson’s observation
that Black people “were defeated in a war and are now captives, slaves
or actually that we inherited a neoslave existence.” (2) Prison
conditions don’t originate in the law or in ideas but in the historical
fact of defeat in a war that still continues.
But what kind of war is it? One side surrounds the other and forces
it to submit daily, the way that an army laying siege to a city tries to
wear down the resistance of the population. These sieges include not
just starving prisoners of food but of social life, education, and
culture. In maintaining its rule the state uses the tools of
counterinsurgency to split the revolutionary ranks, co-opt the cause and
re-establish its rule on a more secure level. On the other side, the
prisoners have themselves, their ability to unite and organize in
secret, and their willingness to sacrifice for the cause – the
attributes of a guerrilla army. (3)
Burton spends an entire chapter, “Hidden War,” laying out the
strategies the state pursued when its naked brutality failed to prevent
prisoner organization and rebellion. After the smoke cleared at Attica
and wardens, politicians and prison academics had a chance to catch
their breath, they settled on four strategies to prevent another Attica
from happening: (4)
One, prisons were expanded across the state, so that
density was reduced and prisoner organizing could be more effectively
disrupted. If a prisoner emerged as a leader, they could be sent to any
number of hellholes upstate surrounded by new people and have to start
the process all over again. The longer and more intense the game of
Solitaire the state played with them, the better. We see this strategy
being applied to USW comrades across the country to this day.
Prisons were also superficially humanized, the
introduction of small, contingent privileges to encourage division and
hierarchy among prisoners, dull the painful edge of incarceration
somewhat, and dangle hope. Many prisoners saw through it, and Burton
makes the point that the brief periods of rebellion had provided the
only real human moments most prisoners had experienced during their time
inside. For example, Attica survivor, John “Dacajeweiah” Hill described
meeting a weeping prisoner in D yard during the rebellion who was
looking up at the stars for the first time in 23 years. (5) Burton sums
this up: “the autonomous zones created by militant action… had thus far
proven the only means by which Attica’s oppressive atmosphere was
substantially ameliorated.”
Diversification went hand in hand with expansion,
where a wide range of prison experiences were created across the system.
Prisons like Green Haven allowed prisoners to smoke weed and bring food
back to their cells, and permitted activities like radical lectures from
outsiders. At the same time, other prisons were going on permanent
lockdowns and control units were in development.
And finally, programmification presented a way for
prisoners to be kept busy, for outsiders (maybe even former critics of
the prison system) to be co-opted and brought into agreement with prison
officials, and provide free labor to keep the system stable by giving
prisoners another small privilege to look forward to. To this day, New
York, as well as California and other states, require prisoners who are
not in a control unit to program.
All of this was occurring in the shadow of the fact that the state
had demonstrated it would deploy indiscriminate violence, even
sacrificing its own employees as it had at Attica, to restore order. The
classic carrot-and-stick dynamic of counterinsurgency was operating at
full force.
Before Attica: Tombs,
Branch Queens, Auburn
Burton discusses Attica, but doesn’t make it the exclusive focus of
his book, as it has already been written about and discussed elsewhere.
He brings into the discussion prison rebellions prior to Attica that
laid the groundwork, involved many of the same people, and demonstrated
the character of the rebellions overall.
The first was at Tombs, or the Manhattan House of Detention, where
prisoners took hostages and issued demands in the New York Times,
denouncing pretrial detention that kept men in limbo for months or
years, overcrowding, and racist brutality from guards. Once the demands
were published, the hostages were released. Eighty corrections officers
stormed the facility with blunt weapons and body armor and restored
order, and after the rebellion two thirds of the prisoners were
transferred elsewhere to break up organizations, like the Inmate
Liberation Front, that had grown out of Tombs and supported its
resistance. (6) Afterwards, the warden made improvements and took credit
for them. This combination of furious outburst, violent response and
conciliatory reform would repeat itself.
Next Branch Queens erupted, where the Panther 21 had recently been
incarcerated. Prisoners freed them, hung a Pan-Afrikan flag out of a
window, took hostages and demanded fair bail hearings be held in the
prison yard or the hostages would be executed. The bail hearing actually
happened and some of the prisoners who had been in prison for a year for
possibly stealing something were able to walk out. The state won the
battle here by promising clemency if the hostages were released, which
split the prisoners and led to the end of the rebellion. Kuwasi
Balagoon, who would later join the Black Liberation Army, was active in
the organization of the rebellion and learned a lot from his experiences
seeing the rebellion and the repression that followed after the state
promised clemency. (7)
At Auburn Correctional Facility on November 4th, Black prisoners
rebelled and seized hostages for eight hours. Earlier, fifteen Black
prisoners had been punished and moved to solitary for calling for a day
off work to celebrate Black Solidarity Day. After the restoration of
order, more prisoners were shipped away and the remainder were subject
to reprisals from the guards.
In each case, prisoners formed their own organizations, took control,
made demands and also started building new structures to run the prison
for their own benefit – even in rebellions that lasted only a few hours.
After order was restored, the state took every opportunity to crush the
spirits and bodies of those who had participated. All of this would
repeat on a much larger scale at Attica.
Attica and Paris: Two
Communes
Burton acknowledges throughout the book a tension that is familiar to
many of ULK’s readers: reform versus revolution. He sees both
in the prison movement of the 1960s and 1970s in New York, with some
prisoners demanding bail reform and better food and others demanding an
end to the system that creates prisons in the first place. But in
telling the story of Attica and the revolts that preceded it he
emphasizes two things: the ways reforms were demanded (not by petitions
but by organized force) and the existence of demands that would have led
to the end of prisons as we know them. On Attica itself, he writes that
the rebellion demanded not just better food and less crowded cells but
the “emergence of new modes of social life not predicated on enclosure,
extraction, domination or dehumanization.” (8) In these new modes of
social life, Burton identifies sexual freedom and care among prisoners
emerging as a nascent challenge to traditional prison masculinity.
Attica began as a spontaneous attack on a particularly racist and
brutal guard, and led to a riot all over the facility that led to the
state completely losing control for four days starting on September 9th,
1971. Hostages were again taken, and demands ranging from better food to
the right to learn a trade and join a union issued to the press.
Prisoners began self-organizing rapidly, based on the past experiences
of many Attica prisoners in previous rebellions. Roger Champen, who
reluctantly became one of the rebellion’s organizers, got up on a picnic
table with a seized megaphone and said “the wall surrounds us all.”
Following this, the prisoners turned D Yard into an impromptu city and
organized their own care and self-defense. A N.Y. State trooper watching
the yard through binoculars said in disbelief “they seem to be building
as much as they’re destroying.” I think we’d agree with the state
trooper, at least on this. (9)
Burton’s point in this chapter is that the rebellion wasn’t an
attempt (or wasn’t only an attempt) to get the state to reform
itself, to grant rights to its pleading subjects, but an attempt,
however short-lived, to turn the prisons into something that would be
useful for human liberation: a self-governing commune built on
principles of democracy and solidarity. Some of the rebels demanded
transport to Africa to fight the Portuguese in the then-raging colonial
wars in Mozambique and Angola, decisions were made by votes and
consensus, and the social life of the commune was self-regulated without
beatings, gassings and starvation.
Abolition and the
Concentric Prison
Burton is a prison abolitionist, and he sees the aspirations of the
Attica rebels at their best as abolitionist well before the term became
popular. But he doesn’t ignore the contradictions that Attica and other
prison rebellions had to work through, and acknowledges the diverse
opinions of prisoners at the time, some of whom wanted to abolish
prisons and some of whom wanted to see the Nixons and Rockefellers
thrown into them instead. (10)
The Attica Commune of D Yard had to defend itself, and when the
rebelling prisoners suspected that some prisoners were secretly working
for the state, they were confined in a prison within a commune within a
prison, and later killed as the state came in shooting on the 13th.
There was fighting and instances of rape among the prisoners that freed
themselves, and there were prisoners who didn’t want to be a part of the
rebellion who were forced to. And the initial taking of the guards
constitutes a use of violence and imprisonment in itself, even if the
guards were treated better than they’d ever treated the prisoners.
Burton acknowledges this but doesn’t offer a tidy answer. He sees the
use of violence in gaining freedom, like Fanon, to be a necessary evil
which is essential to begin the process but unable to come close to
finishing it. Attica, even though it barely began, provides an example
of this. While violence is a necessary tool in war, it is the people
organized behind the correct political line in the form of a vanguard
party that ultimately is necessary to complete the transformation of
class society to one without oppression.
Counter-intelligence,
Reform, and Control
The final part of the book, “The War on Black Revolutionary Minds,”
chronicles the attempts by the state to destroy prison revolutionaries
by a variety of methods, some more successful than others, all deeply
disturbing and immoral.
Some of the early methods involved direct psychological
experimentation, the use of drugs, and calibrated isolation. These fell
flat, because the attempts were based on “the flawed theory that people
could be disassembled, tinkered with, and reprogrammed like computers.”
(11) Eventually the state gave up trying to engineer radical ideas out
of individual minds and settled for the solution many of our readers are
familiar with: long-term isolation in control units, and a dramatically
expanding prison population.
There is a lot else in this book, including many moving stories from
Attica and other prison rebellion veterans that Burton interviewed, and
who he openly acknowledges as the pioneering theorists and equal
collaborators in his writing. Burton engages in lengthy investigations
of prisoner correspondence, outside solidarity groups, twisted
psychological experiments, and many other things I haven’t had the space
to mention. We have received a couple responses to the book from some of
you already, which the author appreciates greatly, and we’d like to
facilitate more.
^Notes: 1. Burton, Orisanmi Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism,
Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt p. 19 All citations will
be of this book unless otherwise specified. 2. Jackson, Soledad
Brother, 111–12 cited in Burton p. 10 3. p. 3 4. pp. 152-180
5. Hill and Ekanawetak, Splitting the Sky, p. 20. cited in Burton,
p. 107 6. p. 29 7. p. 48 8. p. 5 9. pp. 88-91 10.
p. 95 11. p. 205^
In the United $tates, prisons mean war against the oppressed nations.
In occupied Palestine, war means prison for the Palestinians. Two sides
of the same blood-stained coin which built the richest empire in
hystory. Imperialism considers war to be a legal method of resolving
issues, in deeds if not in words.
The struggle for Palestine is a national liberation struggle. The
only consistently revolutionary class that may overthrow the bourgeoisie
is the proletariat, but imperial domination can unite a whole nation
against their occupiers for the establishment of independence. If
independence is a precondition for the dictatorship of the proletariat,
then Palestine’s struggle is revolutionary and progressive. If I$rael is
an arm of imperialism, then the Palestinian struggle against them is
revolutionary and progressive. Leadership of the proletariat in that
struggle would intensify its revolutionary character, but it is
revolutionary even without the proletariat in the vanguard. When
Palestinian communists align themselves with all revolutionary forces
against I$rael in a united front, that is a correct policy. We have a
clear hystory on this subject, and this practice is what led to the
victory of the Chinese people in creating the most advanced socialism
yet.
We in the United $tates face the strongest enemy in humyn hystory,
and I$rael is an arm of the United $tates in the Middle East. Everything
which weakens I$rael weakens the United $tates, which puts us in a
stronger position. Our comrades fighting in Gaza today are putting us in
a position of advantage for the final victory of the oppressed in
Occupied Turtle Island. To oppose the struggle in Palestine is to oppose
that which objectively weakens our enemy, to leave behind real friends
who are fighting real enemies.
“Leftist” support for I$rael in this war is often concealed by a
position against Hamas. This anti-Hamas, but allegedly pro-Palestine,
sentiment is often based on the supposedly inhuman crimes that have been
committed. On top of this being a complete deflection from the primary
question of imperialism, the claims surrounding such crimes as the
decapitation of infants have zero evidence behind them. Even bourgeois
press has shown that the claims are based on videos which show no
beheadings, only IDF soldiers claiming that the events occurred.(1)
Media campaigns in support of imperialist interventions can go much
further and be many times more difficult to uncover than what we are
dealing with here. This is a particularly obvious example of an
imperialist lie, and the propaganda will not always be so easy to see
through. Therefore, in addition to exposing blatant falsehoods, we also
need to be able to separate what makes a movement an ally or enemy and
what doesn’t, and be able to understand what line the media is
attempting to push when they tell a particular story.
The media will tell us that Hamas is committing heinous crimes,
killing babies and civilians. We need to ask why they are deflecting
from the principal contradiction in the world today. We need to ask who
weakens empire, and critically support those who do. We need to ask who
strengthens empire, and make ourselves their enemy. That is what it
means to understand what is principal and what is secondary. Contrary to
popular belief, the moral position of communists is not to do with
concepts like eternal justice and true liberty. Communists have one
moral position: we are for those actions which strengthen the
international proletariat. We understand that the work of Hamas as a
whole strengthens the international proletariat. Therefore we understand
that they are the allies of the oppressed and we align ourselves
alongside them.
We explored some of the developments of the Cop City struggle in our article The Struggle Against Cop City in Atlanta in ULK 81. Cop City, or the “Atlanta Public Safety Training Center” as the state calls it, has recently begun construction in Weelaunee Forest in Southwest Atlanta. This effort is funded primarily by the City of Atlanta and is to be owned and operated by the Atlanta Police Foundation. This is a pig training center with a supposed construction cost of $90 million, which will include a fake cityscape for police to learn tactics for suppressing urban resistance. This pig training center is part of a larger assault by the Amerikan state on New Afrikan communities and neighborhoods, along with the rise in gentrification, mass surveillance, police brutality and imprisonment rates. Some readers may remember the establishment of the community-run Rayshard Brooks Peace Center in 2020 and the subsequent state repression. No one can doubt that New Afrikan oppression is intensifying as the police and prison apparatus of the state continues to wreck havoc for the interests of the Euro-Amerikan nation.
In response to these developments, many diverse groups have organized against Cop City. For a while construction in Cop City was stalled because of forest defender activists occupying the intended site of deforestation, resisting raids by police to move them off the site. In this struggle an indigenous anarchist who went by the name Tortuguita was viciously murdered by police agents in a final raid of the forest.
Ongoing Developments in the Struggle
As the Stop Cop City movement continues, dozens of forest defenders and other protesters have been arrested on various felonies, from “domestic terrorism” to “intimidation of an officer.” For example, on 5 March 2023, Atlanta police arrested 23 protesters on “domestic terrorism” charges due to alleged property damage and trespassing, and that number has since risen to more than 40 over the last few months.(1, 2) These felonies are at least 20-year sentences in Georgia.
The state’s repeated arrests were an obvious cause for concern. A non-profit, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, organized funding to bail out these protesters who were the target of state repression. On 31 May 2023, the 3 organizers of that fund have also been arrested, charged with “money laundering” and “charity fraud.”(3) This is yet another example of the state suppressing even the most legal forms of resistance.
While the DeKalb district attorney has declined to prosecute the arrests related to Cop City due to the unpopularity of Cop City, the Georgia attorney general has taken the cases and will still prosecute them.(4)
A “Stop Cop City” referendum petition has been filed (and approved on 21 June 2023) that will put Cop City on the Atlanta ballot if 75,000 signatures are produced in less than 60 days after the approval.(5) Many of the groups against Cop City have focused on this effort, which may have the unfortunate effect of completely legalizing the struggle (which is not a strategy for long-term political development).
Bigger than Cop City
As Maoists we always seek to develop a dialectical materialist perspective that correctly denotes the relations of nation, class, and gender at play. Cop City is no exception. One of the most critical weaknesses of the Stop Cop City movement is that an advanced politics (one that is revolutionary nationalist and aimed at the long-term struggle) is not yet a leading line. If this problem is not properly resolved, the movement will give way to movementism and the Stop Cop City struggle will fizzle out like the 2020 BLM struggle, becoming co-opted into liberal electioneering politics.
We must also look at the global nature of Cop City. The Atlanta Police Foundation is funded by Amerikan finance kapital, from the likes of Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Amazon, Delta Airlines, and Waffle House.(6) Prisons and policing are not a struggle unique to the United $tates. The development of these bourgeois state organs are being rapidly replicated around the world. Cop City can and will be a test run for building pig facilities among the Third World nations as capitalism-imperialism decays. The struggle against Cop City will thus also play a part in the larger anti-imperialist struggle, and this is why developing a revolutionary nationalist line on Cop City is a must in this struggle.
Towards a preliminary analysis, we can say that Cop City is an intensification of New Afrikan oppression in Atlanta. The Euro-Amerikan nation – both Euro-Amerikan kapital and Euro-Amerikan communities – is united towards the policy of increased policing, gentrification, and imprisonment of New Afrikan and other oppressed nation communities. The Stop Cop City movement requires a united front, one that includes all those groups opposed to these methods of oppression, whether these groups be New Afrikan, Indigenous, Chicano, Euro-Amerikan, etc, but maintains some form of dialectical-materialist, revolutionary nationalist leadership in order to expand scientifically.
We have readers often tell us they want to start non-profits, but the Cop City arrests show that there are limitations to this type of organization: the state can and does retaliate against non-profits who pose a threat to the Amerikan state’s interest. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund is one example, where the Amerikan state has no problem arresting protesters or even legal organizers under charges of money laundering if they pose enough of a threat to its expansionary interests.
Cop City reminds us of the need for independent institutions of the oppressed which are flexible and secure, and involve the masses at every step of operation. Campaigns like “Stop Cop City,” or “Abolish Control Units,” attack the war apparatus that is aimed at the population within U.$. borders, especially the internal semi-colonies. As the above recent events demonstrate, we must build organizations that are prepared for the repressive response of the state.
Since 2021, the city of Atlanta in conjunction with its police force and local developers and contractors, has been trying to bulldoze a significant part of the remaining forest in the city and construct an urban warfare training center for police officers. The forest, which formerly contained a slave labor camp and then a state farm ran on prisoner labor, has been the site of occupations, sabotage of construction equipment, protests and raids by the police. Recently, the cops murdered an activist staying in the encampment defending the forest, while revolts in downtown Atlanta and confrontations with police at the site of the forest have resulted in arrests and terrorism charges for dozens of activists. The movement has racked up several victories already, including delaying the construction of the training center by several months and driving several contractors off the project entirely. But the struggle continues. At press time, the forest faces clear-cutting for the initial stages of construction.
Background
Atlanta is a rapidly and brutally gentrifying city, with a nominally Black elected leadership but a housing and economic policy that has displaced thousands of lower income New Afrikan residents. Cops have been used to harass New Afrikan tenants out of public housing to facilitate redevelopment, rent has spiked well above the already bloated national average, and the arrival of movie production companies (facilitated by tax breaks and other favors) has been a major motor of gentrification across the city.(1) The elected leadership of the city is in a bind – they have to deliver economic growth and good jobs, and get re-elected by appearing to stand against police brutality and white supremacy, but are constrained by their own commitment to capitalism and inability to confront the real power structure of the city, which, as we will see soon, is mostly unelected.
Like most Amerikan cities, Atlanta saw a weeks-long uprising against the police following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In Atlanta, also like other Amerikan cities, local cases of police brutality added extra impetus to the protesters and their demands. The murder of Rayshard Brooks in June of 2020 led to a revolt that burned down the Wendys he’d been killed at(2), the resignation of hundreds of police officers and even the trashing of the offices of the state police. Local lumpen organizations saw a temporary truce and occupied the Wendys site with arms against rumors of white militas seeking to march near the site of Rayshard Brooks’ death. In the wake of these and similar events police and correctional forces nationwide are facing difficulties filling their ranks and reeling from their abject failure to contain the disturbances of 2020, when over sixty thousand (3) National Guard troops had to be called out to back them up. The need for Cop City is itself a sign of weakness, paranoia and poor morale of the police force.
The Campaign in the City Council
In 2021, after the rebellion, the Atlanta City Council met in secret to arrange two land deals in the South Forest, the largest expanse of forest remaining in the Metro Atlanta area. One was to give a movie studio CEO, Ryan Milsap, a swathe of public land to bulldoze and build a large movie production studio on. A second was to give another large chunk of land to the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private nonprofit that gathers money from some of the largest businesses in the region and funds policing initiatives. The APF was to construct a mock city out of concrete, similar to U.S. Military urban warfare training sites, to prepare police to prevent another 2020 from happening. (4)
The Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) is interesting all on its own. It’s entirely private, with unclear finances and no accountability to the public. It’s staffed by former national security officers, real estate investors and retired police; and it has enacted several large-scale programs around the city by itself such as building a center for a massive surveillance network across the entire city which allows footage from thousands of cameras the foundation has installed to be reviewed at one location. The APF has also built up a house renovation program that buys cheap real estate in New Afrikan neighborhoods, remodels it and gives it to police recruits to live in. All of this is done with money donated by corporations ranging from Coca Cola (who did drop out of the Foundation after pressure from activists) to Norfolk Southern. To repeat: large capitalist firms are directly funding, with no public oversight, the extension of massive surveillance networks, police colonization of New Afrikan ghettos, and the construction of a training center intended to make cops more proficient at urban warfare.
The APF is best understood not as a slush fund or a shady organization behind the scenes, but as a de facto shadow government that actually runs the city on behalf of a mostly white bourgeoisie.(5)
Activists uncovered the land deals and organized protests and a campaign to persuade the city council to not approve the projects. After months of rallies, lobbying and canvassing, the Atlanta City Council voted in late 2021 to allow the project to proceed. This outcome, which many of the activists involved in the campaign predicted, marked the first defeat for Stop Cop City. The coalition that managed this campaign, DARC (Defund Atlanta Police Department, Refund Communities) dissolved among accusations that the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) had tried to take over the campaign and use it (and its failure which they banked on) as a recruiting tool. The DSA’s plan was to allow the campaign to fail instead of criticizing it openly, with the hope that its failure would radicalize people into their organization. Commenting on this, a local communist wrote “the notion that working class Atlantans, people who live their entire lives in the trenches of the city’s class war, require a civics lesson to be radicalized is self-evidently chauvinistic.” (6)
The Campaign in the Weelaunee Forest
Parallel to the campaign against the city council and continuing after it had been defeated, a growing and mostly anonymous group of people calling themselves “forest defenders” were ramping up their activity. Some engaged in tree-sits in the forest, others established gardens or engaged in mutual aid projects and free concerts, and others routinely sabotaged construction and surveying equipment preparing the forest for the project.(7)
At one point members of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe from Oklahoma, who lived in the South Forest before being expelled during the 1820’s, returned to the forest, conducted a stomp dance ceremony and shared the forest’s pre-colonial name: Weelaunee.
Several times, crews hired by Ryan Milsap to start demolishing the forest ahead of official permitting were driven out after direct confrontation by forest defenders. Outside the forest, protests against contractors, politicians and business-people involved in the project routinely escalated to vandalism and provoked repression from the police. In one case, a protest in East Atlanta Village was attacked by cops as it was ending, but the heavy-handed tactics of the police resulted in all 17 arrests being dismissed and thousands in restitution paid to those targeted. One of the general contractors of the project, Reeves + Young, dropped out after another direct protest at their officers and after several of their vehicles were sabotaged in the forest. It should be noted that not all interactions between construction workers and the forest defenders were hostile – when crews from the local power company showed up to do maintenance on a line in the forest, they worked around a garden that forest defenders had planted instead of destroying it.
Throughout late 2021 and 2022 this back and forth continued, with coordinated Weeks of Action bringing hundreds of people into the forest and a fluctuating smaller body of activists building and defending the forest in the interim.
Raids and the Murder of Tortuguita
Different police agencies routinely entered the forest and raided it repeatedly. Last May, following a Week of Action, cops came into the forest and smashed up a lot of protest infrastructure that was on the ground. Activists retreated to the trees, continued confronting work crews and burning equipment that was left unguarded at night. A statement issued after one of these incidents read “if you build it we will burn it.” In December of last year another raid resulted in the destruction of more shelters and 6 people were arrested and charged with ‘domestic terrorism.’
On 18 January 2023, a final raid into the forest by officers from the Georgia State Highway Patrol and numerous other police agencies attacked the forest with guns drawn. During the raid a forest defender sitting under a tarp refused orders to get up and leave, and the cops shot em several times at close range, claiming self defense. Eir name was Manuel Paez Teran (nicknamed Tortuguita or Tort), an indigenous anarchist from Venezuela, and ey’d been living in the forest for almost a year helping to coordinate its supply and defense. The cop story, that Tort had fired first from under the tarp and wounded an officer, began to unravel quickly. On body camera footage released weeks later an officer can be heard saying ‘you fucked your own officer up?’ after the shots, implying that the officer who was wounded was shot by his own people. Tort’s autopsy showed bullet wounds through the palms of eir hands, a story more consistent with an encounter killing than a firefight.(8)
Today
The movement is mostly evicted from the forest for now, and initial tree clearing has begun. The murder of Tortuguita, however, has dramatically raised the temperature of the struggle. The City council has already started walking back some of their plans for Cop City, and support for the movement and criticism of Mayor Dickens for being involved in it, has swelled. It’s also important to remember that without the resistance the whole forest would be gone and Cop City would be half-built already.
For Rayshard Brooks, for Tortuguita, and for victims of poverty and police violence in Atlanta whose names we know and those we don’t, we say Stop Cop City.
