MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
Communists among demonstrators protesting the murder of Nasrallah by
I$rael in Sidon, in southern Lebanon
28 September 2024 – Protestors gathered across the world to mourn the
killing of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a founding member and leader for 32
years of Hezbollah (the Party of God) in Lebanon.(1) We know some
readers in U.$. prisons will be mourning as well. Nasrallah was the
strongest anti-imperialist voice among world leaders for a generation.
And the recent killings of Lebanese and Palestinian political leaders
have been significant victories for I$rael, at least in the
short-term.
Over 1,000 people have been killed, including Hezbollah’s top
leaders, and 6,000 injured by a series of attacks by I$rael on Lebanon
in the last couple weeks. These included exploding pagers and
walkie-talkies, as well as massive bombing strikes. Amidst these
attacks, the Communist Party of Lebanon has called for national unity to
focus on fighting I$rael, at a time when Lebanon faces its own crisis in
government. They pledged to not let I$rael (and the United $tates, we’d
add) separate the struggle of Lebanon in support of the Palestinian
struggle.(2)
Hezbollah, however, has been the lead party defending Lebanon and
Palestinians from I$rael for decades. They have proven there is still a
progressive role for bourgeois forces to play today, even in our
highly-developed imperialist world.
Nasrallah had a clear analysis of U.$. imperialism:
“America itself is the decision maker. In America, you have the major
corporations; you have a trinity of the oil corporations, the weapons
manufacturers and the so-called ‘Christian Zionism.’ The decision making
is in the hands of this alliance. ‘Israel’ used to be a tool in the
hands of the British, and now it is a tool in the hands of America.”
The Samidoun Palestinian prisoner solidarity network commented on
Hezbollah’s role in the liberation of political prisoners of I$rael:
“Sayyed Nasrallah’s leadership and struggle was also directly
connected to the prisoners’ movement and the liberation of the prisoners
of the Zionist regime. From the liberation of Khiam prison by the
victorious Lebanese resistance in 2000, liberating the torture dens of
the occupiers and their collaborators and turning it into a museum of
honour for those who struggled and sacrificed there, to the repeated
prisoner exchanges achieved by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Resistance,
including the 2004 prisoner exchange, which liberated 400 Palestinian
prisoners as well as 23 Lebanese, five Syrians, three Moroccans, three
Sudanese, one Libyan and one German-British prisoner jailed by the
Zionist regime. These exchanges, in which Sayyed Nasrallah himself
played a major role, illustrated once again that the only viable
mechanism available to liberate the prisoners in occupation jails is to
liberate the land and to achieve an exchange.”(3)
Hezbollah arose from the 1982 I$raeli occupation of Beirut. MIM
founders organized to oppose that 1982 occupation at a time when MIM was
just emerging.(4) The war in 1982 also forged the Joint
Leadership, in which the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine joined
forces and attempted to further unite the Palestinian liberation
movement away from conciliation.(5) During the 2006 war between Lebanon
and I$rael, MIM condemned RCP=U$A, various alt media, and the U.$. state
department for attacking Iran and Hezbollah using gender.(6) In 2024,
the imperialists are circulating clips of Nasrallah making comments
calling for punishment for adultery and homosexuality. We salute the
“Queers for Palestine” in the United $tates who recognize the children
being bombed in Gaza and now Lebanon are a lot more gender oppressed
than any of us are here in the belly of the beast.
The history of the anti-imperialist united front in the region is
beyond the scope of this article. But the region has certainly
demonstrated the expediency of uniting classes on the basis of national
liberation to fight imperialist occupiers. Hezbollah has remarked in the
past that their alliances are closer to some Marxist groups than certain
Islamist groups. This shows the emptiness of those in the imperialist
countries who want to pit Marxism against Islam on principle. Nasrallah
also wrote that Muslims have the duty to provide charity support to any
Palestinian taking up armed struggle – Marxist, nationalist or any other
shade.(7)
A Hamas spokespersyn responded to the death of Nasrallah saying that
it will not make I$rael any safer:
“Is Israel’s problem with armed groups with limited agendas that can
be eliminated by killing their leaders, or with peoples who have rights
that they have been striving to achieve for decades and have not stopped
or surrendered despite the killing of many leaders? Has any resistance
group disappeared after the assassination of the leaders?”(8)
Despite these recent losses by the oppressed nations in the Middle
East, Hezbollah won the war with I$rael in 2006, killing as many
soldiers as I$rael did without all the civilian deaths caused by I$rael
in Lebanon. Just as the war on Gaza, one year out, has not been an easy
victory for I$rael, further escalations into Lebanon will certainly not
be either. Hezbollah and Ansar Allah (Supporters of God) in Yemen
continue to be the front line of the struggle against genocide in
Palestine and against U.$. imperialism in general.
You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the
revolution!
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 injustice 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 attending panels hosted at
the conference or by talking directly with passer-bys.
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.
Months after rebellions began in Kanaky (aka New Caledonia), fighting
continues against the French militias and colonial forces. In New
Caledonia, voting is restricted to families who have been living there
since 1998.(1) This is in order to establish the dominance of the
natives over the settlers in the voting system. On 2 April 2024, the
French Senate voted for an amendment to the rule which would allow
voting for anyone who has lived in New Caledonia for a continuous ten
years, on a rolling basis.(2) This triggered the resistance of the
people, as one Kanaky source recently reported:
“The toll of the riots since May 13 is very heavy: Nine people were
killed and hundreds of others injured, 200 houses burned or looted and
nearly 900 businesses closed. A first estimation raises the “damage” to
1.5 billion euros. More than 3,000 soldiers, gendarmes and police were
deployed there by the colonial State. Great victory for the Kanak
people: hundreds of French families made the decision to pack their bags
and leave the colony for good.”(3)
However, the struggle over voting rights itself has cooled as
parliamentary crisis struck France, and French President Macron
announced on 12 June 2024 the suspension of the proposed changes in
voting rights in New Caledonia. France is now focused on an emergency
election at home to try to prevent a sharp rightward turn in the
parliament and presidency.
[UPDATE: 7 July 2024 - Voters succeeded in
preventing a victory of the anti-immigrant Le Pen, but results leave
uncertainty in France as there was no clear majority.]
Background on Kanaky
For our readers to understand New Caledonia (home of the Kanak), we
might use a shortcut of thinking about Puerto Rico (home of the
Boricua). New Caledonia is an island near Australia and Aotearoa (aka
New Zealand) claimed by France with a history of brutal colonization and
imperialist domination. Europeans arrived in Kanaky in the late 18th
century, beginning the colonial period in which the natives (Kanak
people) were enslaved, sold, exposed to European disease, displaced from
their land and placed on reservations. After France gained control of
the area, nickel was discovered in the territory and the French
government began sending prisoners to extract the resource and settle on
the land. Ever since that time settlement has continued, though the
Kanak people remain the largest group.(4) The Kanak people have been
struggling for independence and liberation for generations, with recent
events reflecting the latest upsurge of resistance. In recent years, the
liberation movement has engaged in violent resistance to the sale of
their nickel mines.
As mentioned above, New Caledonia hit news headlines after France
proposed allowing all immigrants, including newer settlers, to vote in
elections on the island. On 15 April, tens of thousands protested the
bill, and on that same day the French National Assembly voted in favor
of it, moving it one step further towards being passed. In May, violent
protests of Kanak people were responded to with the arrest of hundreds
and the French deploying their armed forces to suppress the movement.
This deployment of forces starkly reveals the absurdity of a “free
choice” to be independent. As MIM said about Puerto Rico in 1998:
“The Puerto Ricans have tried for decades”to persuade” the United
States to leave, but only dictatorship (organized force) will settle the
question. Without the freedom to keep the Yankees out, the elections
only show what the Puerto Rican people will say with their arms twisted
behind their backs.”(5)
One of the major arenas of struggle has been the independence
referendum. There have been three of these in the past 4 years; in the
first two the option to remain a territory of France narrowly won (56.6%
and 53.2%), and nationality played a major role in the decision. Kanaks
generally voted for independence while the other minorities generally
voted for dependence. In the third, the independence movement boycotted
the referendum, resulting in a 97% victory for dependence, but the
turnout was only 43.9%, throwing its validity into question.(6) The
protests and riots in May led to the declaration of a state of emergency
(lifted after May 31) and the deployment of reinforcements from France.
Barricades were set up by independence protesters and, in earlier
reports, the clashes led to the death of two French Armed Forces
personnel and injury of over 54 police officers.(7)
The struggle for an independent New Caledonia is a revolutionary
struggle against imperialism. New Caledonians fight France, Palestinians
fight I$rael, and the oppressed here in Occupied Turtle Island fight the
United $tates, all in a united struggle against a common enemy. The
struggle in Puerto Rico against the corrupt government of Ricardo
Rosselló is no different. Puerto Rico was acquired by the United $tates
in the bloody wars of its ascendancy into an imperialist power.
Imperialism is the number one enemy of the self-determination of
nations, reaching its hands across the globe to squeeze every last drop
of profit it can find. The struggle of the oppressed nations, wherever
they are, is the number one weapon against this imperialist system, and
that weapon is ever more powerful the more the oppressed nations ally
with each other and fight imperialism as one. Puerto Rico has a history
of independence movements being co-opted by leaders trying to get a
slice of the imperialist pie. The movement for statehood represents this
tendency, while the independence movement is the movement for national
self-determination against imperialism. In both New Caledonia and Puerto
Rico, the referendums have shown the majority of the population voting
to remain a part of their imperialist occupiers in order to access
certain benefits, whereas the independence movement represents the
revolutionary opposition to national oppression and the upholding of
self-determination.
Kanaky Will Be Free!Palestine Will Be
Free!Puerto Rico Will Be Free!
The recent Zionist attacks on Rafah signaled to the world that the
imperialists are in lock step as they cut a hideous path of genocide
through Palestine. U.$. imperialism has given the nod and wink to forge
ahead as we all watch, as we all mourn.
The imperialists have circled the wagons despite the world responding
in disgust. The people should also come together, all sectors here in
the internal semi-colonies also known as the United Snakes.
Of special interest is two sectors who defy the pull of capitalist
bribes. This defiance arrives from different paths and yet our party
feels they are both anti-imperialist in nature. These sectors in the
United $tates are the prison movement – made up of prisoners, former
prisoners and outside supporters, and the other sector being the student
movement – being the students on school campuses across the country.
These two sectors have the least to lose and the most to win when it
comes to revolution. Both bring that passion and fire needed to ignite
the flame of real resistance and thus should find ways to resist in
tandem.
A free Palestine, like a free Aztlán, will only happen when
anti-imperialism is exercised in a united front between all oppressed
and allies. The world sees that Palestine is deserving of peace, for it
is life while Israel signifies death!
In the past, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), and its mass
org at the time, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League, campaigned
to get the University of California to Divest from I$rael.(1) This was a
correct strategy, because U.$. imperialism is the number one backer of
the I$raeli war machine. Behind the flag of I$rael is the stars and
stripes.
More recently, United Struggle from Within (USW) carried out a
petition campaign, which read in part:
“Therefore with this declaration we angrily express our indignation
with the state of Israel for committing genocide, and for the Israeli
people for allowing it to happen in the 21st century after vowing”never
again.”
The petition recognized that Palestinian political prisoners had
supported the California hunger strikes in recent years and it was time
to return solidarity. By 2016, comrades in 16 prisons had gathered 189
signatures. Recognizing the limitations of conditions, the petition also
read:
“Within these walls we are as yet powerless to tap into the potential
of the imprisoned lumpen; the oppressed internal nation lumpen in
particular as agents of social change, but we are not yet powerless to
sign a piece of paper to denounce the state of Israel and their support
in the U.$.”
Still today, comrades are asking what can we do to support
Palestine?
Settlers Supporting Settlers
The war against Palestine is what Amerika has always done from its
very founding – land grab, occupation, genocide. Therefore, there is
much support in the United $tates for I$rael’s current bombing campaign
and invasion of Gaza. And the tactics being used against Palestine could
easily be tried against indigenous people here on Turtle Island
next.
MIM and others have documented the history of Amerikan labor union
support for I$rael.(2) Yet, in recent months not only has the U.$. seen
millions demonstrate to oppose U.$. militarism in Palestine, but labor
unions representing millions of Amerikan so-called workers have signed a
call for a cease fire.(3) While Amerikans have always been settlers, the
United $tates is more and more a population of people who do not come
from settler backgrounds. And more and more, people from non-settler
backgrounds are joining the ranks of labor unions, big tech companies
and other professional roles. This is one factor behind the wavering
support for I$rael. Of course, it is the Palestinian resistance that is
forcing Amerikans to take a position.
The cease fire call is a shift for many Amerikan labor unions away
from outright Zionism to the left wing of white nationalism. Despite the
cease fire statement, these unions will still be campaigning for
Genocide Joe this year. And while some members of the International
Longshoreman Workers Union (ILWU) participated in a one day protest/shut
down of the port of Oakland in support of Gaza, there has been no
sustained strike by Amerikan unions that are actively involved in
shipping arms to I$rael.
The United Auto Workers (UAW), having been in the news for strikes
last year, is one of the unions to issue a statement for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the UAW has been hosting talks with employees of arms
manufacturer Raytheon for a “just transition” to guarantee labor
aristocracy union jobs in thefuture technologies of war and genocide.
Brandon Mancilla, director or UAW’s Region 9A, announced in a tweet on
Dec 1st the formation of a Divestment and Just Transition working group
to explore how “we can have just transition for US workers from war to
peace.” Behind the UAW’s ceasefire resolution, was UAW Labor for
Palestine. Self-described on their website as a “nationwide group of
rank-and-file UAW members” that seeks to “organize UAW worksites that
send arms and other material to Israel.” They have faced great
resistance from the UAW in general to taking any action to stop
producing arms for I$rael. Like the Amerikan leaders who mumble words
about humanitarian efforts in Palestine while continuing to authorize
more and more shipments of war machines to I$rael, Amerikan labor makes
statements about ceasefire, while continuing to produce these machines.
Actions speak louder than words.
As we reported in ULK 84, arms shipments must get to the
Red Sea before they face real resistance; resistance by Yemen’s
armed forces. And following I$rael’s attacks on Iranian diplomatic soil
in Syria in April, Iran has seized an I$raeli-linked cargo ship passing
through the Strait of Hormuz. While the Strait, which accesses the
Persian Gulf, does not lead to I$rael, it does lead to I$rael’s new Arab
allies in the UAE.
Doing Better
The #1 thing people in the United $tates can be doing in the
short-term to stop genocide in Palestine is to stop shipments of arms
and aid to I$rael. Just as the imperialists have used blockades to
weaken the Palestinian resistance. The question is how to make such a
blockade meaningful and sustainable.
In the longer-term it is our responsibility in the United $tates to
weaken imperialism from the inside. As we see the principal
contradiction in the United $tates to be between nations, it is by
supporting national liberation struggles at home that we believe we can
best make this happen faster. And without building the revolutionary
forces here in the United $tates, we do not foresee a successful,
sustained blockade of aid to I$rael.
Another realm of struggle we should be tuned into is the struggle
against political repression of those supporting Palestine, and
especially the state imposing limitations on the exchange of information
between Palestine and the world. The labeling of organizations linked to
the Palestinian struggle as “terrorist organizations” is parallel to
organizations in the oppressed nations in the United $tates being
labelled “security threat groups (STGs).” As our readers know well the
right to free speech and association is not guaranteed but must be
struggled for within this bourgeois democracy.
Finally, correct political line must lead for us to succeed on all
fronts. Democratic Party-supporting labor unions calling for “cease
fire” is not the correct political line. Stopping all aid to I$rael is
correct. Supporting national liberation struggles of the oppressed is
correct. Recognizing the populations of the exploiter countries to be
part of the bourgeoisie is correct. And recognizing the need for
independent communist organizations in all parts of the world is correct
for avoiding past mistakes that restricted the revolutionary potential
of oppressed nations (see next section).
There is a reinforcing effect between revolutionary nationalist and
communist movements around the world. Communism was more popular in
Palestine when communists were demonstrating models of success in
practice in other parts of the world. The revolutionary nationalism of
Palestine today will impact the consciousness of revolutionary
nationalism around the world, including within U.$. borders. Amplifying
this effect in the short-term will help us build the type of movement
that can provide real solidarity with Palestine in the short-term. The
history and class interests of Amerikan labor prove that their current
level of sympathies with Palestine are tenuous and lacking in
militancy.
It is the struggle of the occupied indigenous populations, the
largest of which is Aztlán, that are most parallel to Palestine in our
context. Meanwhile New Afrika has probably been the most ardent
supporter of Palestine in the United $tates historically. Though it’s
also worth noting the prominence of Jewish voices in opposing the war
from the United $tates, due to the connection the existence of I$rael
has forced onto all Jewish people. As a resistance movement based in a
compact area of land that is mostly urban, there is much to be learned
tactically from the successes of the ongoing struggle in Palestine today
that relates to the conditions of oppressed nations in the heart of
empire.
The ICM, Pan-Islamism and
Palestine
Support from communists around the world, especially those waging
People’s War in the Third World, has been unwavering on the side of
Palestine liberation since October 7th. But the history of the
International Communist Movement (ICM) has led to setbacks in
Palestinian and pan-Arab liberation.
MIM(Prisons) has been working on reiterating MIM line on the
Communist International in recent years as part of an effort to compile
MIM’s
work opposing crypto-Trotskyism. One of the key issues we have with
Trotskyism is its view that the most advanced capitalist countries
will/should lead the communist movement. MIM line says that the most
exploited and oppressed nations will lead the way, and recognizes the
need for independent initiative and direction from within each nation.
We also see the need for a Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the
Oppressed Nations (JDPON) as a tool for overthrowing imperialism. Under
the JDPON, it will be the communist minorities in former imperialist
countries that are benefiting from the assistance of more advanced,
socialist, former colonies.
From 1919-1943, the third Communist International (Comintern) was the
first experiment in an international communist movement that involved
parties in state power. At that time the idea that the advanced
capitalist countries would lead the socialist revolution was more
popular. Bolshevik leader Mirza Sultan-Galiev was one of the biggest
critics of this position. In 1923, at the 9th Conference of the Tatar
Obkom, Sutlan-Galiev stated:
“If a revolution succeeds in England, the proletariat will continue
oppressing the colonies and pursuing the policy of the existing
bourgeois government; for it is interested in the exploitation of these
colonies. In order to prevent the oppression of the toiler of the East
we must unite the Muslim masses in a communist movement that will be our
own and autonomous.”(4)
MIM positively reviewed eir ideas:
“Sultan-Galiev was for the formation of a”Colonial International” to
replace the Comintern as organization of central importance. He also
called for the “dictatorship of the colonial nations over the
metropolis.”“(5)
Sultan-Galiev applied this concept to Russians, who were far more
oppressed and exploited than Amerikans today, as well as to the United
$tates, which ey saw as built on the genocide and labor of First Nations
and New Afrikans.
Cuban revolutionary Che Guevarra and Georgian leader of the Soviet Union
Joseph Stalin. Despite eir mistakes in building the first socialist
state, Stalin is part of the lineage of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. While
friendly to Maoism in many ways, Guevarra is known for focoism, a
military strategy that is the opposite of Mao’s Protracted People’s War.
For a brief period, about 5 years after the Russian revolution, the
Bolsheviks had created a Muslim communist party separate from the
Russian one. But this project was quickly abandoned. Decades later, USSR
leader Joseph Stalin, who also played a leading role in the Comintern,
abolished the Comintern in 1943. Stalin and Mao both said the communist
international was no longer appropriate for the complicated conditions
of international struggle. One of the problems with the communist
international was the mixing of people from exploiter countries and
exploited countries in one organization. Another was the mixing of
people engaged in armed struggle against imperialism with those who are
not. Sultan-Galiev’s proposal for a “Colonial International” addresses
the first problem. However, eir ideas were not ultimately adopted by the
Comintern, and ey was purged from the Bolshevik Party in 1923.
Current
Events in Russia and Palestinian Communism
Last week a horrible mass shooting took place in Moscow, killing 143
people. The gunmen are reportedly from Tajikistan and working with the
Islamic State-Khorasan, based in Central Asia. An Amerikan analyst
explained that this group “sees Russia as being complicit in activities
that regularly oppress Muslims” and that a number of other Central Asian
militants have allied with the Islamic State group due to their own
grievances against Moscow.(6) Tajikistan is a former Soviet republic.
One must wonder if a Muslim Communist International, separate from the
Russian one, could have avoided the emergence of militant groups in
Central Asia today that have violent beefs with Moscow. This goes both
ways, with chauvinist attitudes by many Russians today towards the other
former Soviet republics. As the capitalist/imperialist USSR collapsed in
1991, both sides of this national divide perceived the other to be
exploiting them.(7)
On the Western side of the USSR Sultan-Galiev helped establish a
separate Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1921. This
became a bastion for German Nazis in the 1940s, leading to the native
Tatar population being relocated by Stalin, and the area populated by
Russians and Ukrainians – leading to disputes over the territory today.
This suggests that Stalin was correct to oppose Sultan-Galiev for narrow
nationalism in the late 1920s and ultimately have em killed in 1940 as
the Nazis were preparing to invade.
The problems with trying to unify too quickly with a communist
international seems to have played a role in Palestine and the Arab
world as well. The Soviet Union supported the partitioning of Palestine
by the Zionists, leading to the Nakba (“The Catastrophe” or ethnic
cleansing of Palestine) in 1948. Despite the Comintern having been
dissolved in 1943, apparently it was still policy for the Communist
Parties in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon to support the USSR line on the
partitioning of Palestine against their own beliefs. This led to massive
loss of support for the communists in Syria and Lebanon for years to
come (there was not much support in Palestine until years later).(8)
While U.$. and I$raeli imperialism played a role in suppressing
communist organizing, these internal contradictions and short-comings
are what allowed such efforts to succeed. We can see how the strategies
we choose today can have grave and lasting impacts decades later. That
is why we, as communists, must do a better job of implementing an
effective internationalism by recognizing the national
self-determination of each oppressed nation. Independence in action must
coincide with a struggle for unity in ideology.
“The early stages of socialism according to both Lenin and Stalin
would see a vast multiplication of nations seizing their destinies. It
was only under advanced communism that we could contemplate the
disappearance of nations.”(7)
The above is in line with USW’s slogan of “unity from the inside
out.” It is only with true self-determination of the oppressed nations
that they can fully unite with other nations. Of course, the more unity
we have the stronger we are. So we must struggle for unity, without
forcing it before conditions are ripe.
We call on comrades to continue to make connections between Palestine
and national struggles in occupied Turtle Island, and to build national
liberation struggles here in the heart of empire.
On 23 December 2023 Reuters reported Iranian Revolutionary Guards
stating the Red Sea will be closed if the United $tates and its allies
continue to commit “crimes” in Gaza. The next day, a drone struck a
commercial tanker owned by an I$raeli billionaire in the Gulf of Oman.
The U.$. and I$rael claim it was Iran who launched the drone, but Iran
denies it.
While involvement of Iran in the emerging regional war remains
cryptic, the Ansar Allah party has been very open about drone attacks
launched by the Yemeni Armed Forces on ships in the Red Sea. They have
said that until the siege of Gaza ends, shipping by I$raeli companies
through the Red Sea is not gonna happen. When U.$. Secretary of State
Antony Blinken called for them to stop their attacks, they responded
brazenly with “No.”
Secretary of State Blinken has been behind imperialist bombings in
Yemen for many years, as we discussed in a 2015 article.(1) It is no
wonder that the Ansar Allah slogan is “Allah is great, death to the
United States, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for
Islam.”(2)
Yemen has been at war with the Amerikans and their Saudi partners for
decades now, and despite being one of the poorest countries in the
world, have maintained their sovereignty against those imperialist
attacks.
The Yemeni Armed Forces response to the bombing of Gaza started with
warnings against any ships entering the Red Sea associated with I$rael,
boarding ships and telling them to turn around. Then on 19 November they
took over the ship Galaxy Leader with helicopters dropping off armed
troops and boats flanking the tanker. They flew the Palestinian flag on
the ship and posted videos online.
In addition, the Yemeni Armed Forces has shot missiles and flown
drones into southern I$rael. They even knocked a $40 million U.$. drone
out of the air.(3)
In Yemen, hundreds of thousands marched in opposition to the recent
bombings of Gaza by I$rael. The people of Yemen have long stood in
strong solidarity with Palestine liberation.
The Red Sea, going through the Suez Canal, is one of the three most
critical shipping routes in the world, with bulk goods and containers
going to the Mediterranean. The Red Sea is full of war ships from all
over the world, Djibouti being the home of many imperialist naval bases.
As much as 30% of global shipping containers can be in this area at any
time.(3)
Many major shipping companies have stopped shipping through the Suez
Canal in recent weeks. This forces them to go around Africa, delaying
ships weeks to a month, greatly increasing cost.
In response to all this, the Amerikans recently announced a U.$.
naval task force to combat Ansar Allah named “Operation Prosperity
Guardian”. Can’t let interventions against genocide get in the way of
profit flows the the United $tates. No states on the Red Sea have signed
on and the only Arab state to sign on, Bahrain, has no navy of its own
but hosts U.$. military bases. Meanwhile, close military allies such as
Jordan and Saudi Arabia are not willing to sign on. It is not just in
Yemen that the people are outraged about what is happening in Gaza. No
Arab state, no matter how brutal and reactionary, is willing to stand
with the U.$./I$raeli camp in this genocide.
Even Egypt, whose whole economy is threatened by a halt of shipping
through the Suez Canal, cannot assist the U.$. effort against Yemen.
They figure they can survive economic collapse better than the response
of their people to such betrayal of Yemen and Palestine.(4)
Saudi Arabia is currently involved in the peace process in Yemen,
bringing internal peace and unity to Yemen, following Ansar Allah’s
victory against U.$./Saudi warfare. Standing up for Palestine militarily
strengthens Yemen’s position in the peace negotiations.(4)
I$rael is taking a huge economic hit from the war overall. The
I$raeli airport is mostly closed, cutting off important tourist money.
The Palestinian proletariat from the West Bank and Gaza are no longer
coming in to do work, and tens of thousands of Thai proletarians have
left kibbutz farms where they did much of the agricultural work for the
country. Meanwhile, half a million I$raelis evacuated the south and the
government is paying to house them in hotels. Unemployment in I$rael has
tripled in the last month, and businesses have lost half of their
revenues.(3) Ansar Allah is contributing to this increasing economic
pressure on I$rael demonstrating what real internationalism looks like
in the face of a genocide against an oppressed nation.
“This anti-Semitic agitation, frequently masking under radical
slogans, represents an enormous danger both to the Jewish people and to
the revolutionary movement in the country, for it threatens to drown in
fraternal blood the whole cause of freeing the people and to cover the
revolutionary popular movement with indelible shame.”
To this day we still have problems in the international communist
movement (ICM) of groups focusing on Israel, rather than the imperialist
powers. This reference to Jews by Ansar Allah’s slogan, similarly risks
misidentifying the enemy, though correctly putting U.$. imperialism
first.
Both Russia and Ukraine have problems of fascism in their society expressed through the most reactionary elements of the Wagner Group of Russia and the infamous Azov Battalion of Ukraine. Both sides are vehement anti-communists despite the sensationalist portrayals of Putin as a USSR-esque tyrant in mainstream media political cartoons. Ukrainian reactionaries will topple down Soviet era statues while for the Russian imperialists, Ukraine itself is a giant Soviet era statue that must be toppled down and engulfed into Russia. Ukraine would have never gotten its independence in the first place without the world’s first proletarian dictatorship of the USSR.
Unlike the United $tates, Japan, Western Europe, and etc., Russian imperialism does not have a majority labor aristocrat population (despite a very significant one) and the class interests of the Russian proletariat lines up with the class interests of the Ukrainian proletariat against Russian and NATO imperialism.(0)
At best, Soviet nostalgia expressed in Russia longs for social-imperialist era command economy coupled with resentment of the political-economic crises caused by the complete opening up of Soviet markets. It is an unscientific frustration of the general masses in Russia. At worst, it is a rallying tool for current Russian imperialism’s moral justification akin to how concepts like democracy, freedom, and women’s rights were rallying tools of U.$. imperialism’s military invasions in the Middle East. We wish to practice revolutionary optimism in regards for the anti-revisionist communists in Russia and Ukraine who could take this popular sentiment away from the hands of the imperialists and into the hands of the broad masses.
Oftentimes in our current conditions where the anti-imperialist movement is weak and undeveloped, the best thing for U.$. imperialism’s involvement in the war in Ukraine is giving the masses the correct analysis from the vantage point of the international proletariat. We should avoid “cheer leading” between various imperialist powers where “various people’s wars and nations at war… [become akin to] fandoms for TV shows to obsess and argue over rather than a movement to popularize and create awareness for.”. We recognize the importance of organs like Under Lock & Key and independent institutions like United Struggle Within – both in their strengths and limitations – for the imprisoned section of the lumpen class.
The Wagner Group
One significant development this summer was an attempted coup by the Wagner Group against the government of Russia. For our readers who might not know, the Wagner group is a private military mercenary group of the Russian Federation formed through the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.(1) While its origins are unclear, the group has been claimed to have been founded by both Dmitry Utkin and Yevgeny Prigozhin with the the former having been the field military commander and the latter being the financier and military programmer.(2) Utikin, being a veteran of the Chechen Wars, was said to have had great admiration of Nazi Germany and his nickname in the battlefield was given by eir fellow imperialist soldiers as “Wagner” named after the German composer whose music was popularly used by Hitler and eir fascist goons as rallying songs during marches.(3) Due to the Nazi ideologies which were part of the Wagner Group’s political DNA from the start, fascist slogans and graffiti by the group’s presence in Ukraine has been known to have surfaced.(4)
On 20 May 2023 Prigozhin, at the time the top commander of the Wagner Group, took the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine.(5) Ey criticized top Russian officials of the military, the defense minister, and the chief of general staff withholding artillery ammunition from the Wagner Group and accused them of “high treason.”(6) Defense minister Sergei Shoigu announced that all members of “volunteer units” must be required to sign contracts with the ministry by July 1st in order to get Wagner and similar mercenary groups under a tighter leash. Despite Prigozhin’s close loyalty to Putin, the latter has chosen to back the defense minister’s decision.(7)
On the midnight of 24 June 2023, Prigozhin while denying to sign the contract and have eir fascist mercenary goons under Russian imperialist control announced a “march for justice” leaving Ukraine and having the first column enter Russia’s Southern Military District. Prigozhin demanded that Shoigu and Gerasimov be brought to him and held a blockade of the city. On the city of Voronezh, the group shot down Russian military helicopters and a command aircraft killing at least a dozen soldiers marking the start of the rebellion.(8) With Putin’s condemnation and the labeling of Prigozhin’s act as treason, the rebellion came to a quick end. On the Sunday of 24 August 2023, Russian authorities have confirmed that Prigozhin has died in a plane crash.(9)
The rhetoric that Russia is an anti-fascist or anti-colonial force in the global imperialist system is a bold-faced lie of Russian imperialism. Acknowledging this fact is in no way supporting Ukraine’s own fascism ridden government. It is the instinct of petty-bourgeois moralism to see armed conflicts as a side of the good guys and the bad guys. This war itself is an inter-imperialist battle where Russian imperialism seeks to gain global hegemony against U.$./NATO aligned forces and where the nation of Ukraine is caught in the middle of this geo-political tug-of-war. The fact that the fascists of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion and the fascists of Russia’s Wagner Group are fighting each other is just another telltale sign how fascism is an incoherent nihilistic political trend that must be stomped out.
Russia Sympathies Among the Masses
Many prisoner comrades have written to us since the previous article was published where they expressed some sympathies for Russian imperialism. Many arguments had to do with the fact that Russian imperialism was defending itself against the NATO/U.$. led powers.
A California prisoner commented:
”I hear too many well proclaimed communists taking sides with Ukraine. “Putin is a fascist,” “Putin is imperialist,” etc…
As a prisoner I have learned to be very cautious about taking sides, I see all kinds of evil up here everyday: a lot of schemes, manipulations, scam artists. I see all of them here in prison.
So why? Why is the United $nakes so interested in Ukraine winning? Why is it worth trillions of dollars to the U.$. for Ukraine to win? We, the common people like myself, does not understand things like the stock market, and the grain exchange. I understand that grain is sold for money. What I don’t understand is how a whole completely separate market created out of thin air, selling absolutely nothing but grain calling itself the grain exchange that is something only the capitalists who run the world understand.
If I had to guess with my simple mind, I would say that Ukraine sells its grain to the west at a premium as a means to launder dirty drug money. But that’s just my simple mind. It probably has more to do with the grain exchange, capitalism itself.“
One sentiment we can agree with this prisoner comrade is that the job of communists and revolutionaries in the U.$. would be to see U.$. imperialism as their principal enemy. Many communists can so far agree with this line, the problem comes in deeper with regards to the analysis of other major imperialist countries – especially ones that spout anti-imperialist rhetoric in words such as while in practice commit imperialism that rivals the traditional NATO imperialist powers..
We would like to iterate to this comrade that their mind isn’t so simple as ey might let off. We appreciate the humbleness that revolutionaries should have that this comrade has shown, but in the end the contrite and popular phrase that the imperialist governments are the real criminals is true. Sure, we wouldn’t boil down world imperialism to money laundering; but theft and murder are important objectionable aspects of imperialism. We see many imprisoned comrades who project the anti-people crimes they struggle to overcome onto the criminal ways of the imperialists, and for a starting point these oversimplifications might not be the worst thing as a step towards revolutionary thinking.
With that said we would disagree that Russia is doing self-defense with regards to their invasion of Ukraine. As the above points laid out, we should avoid choosing sides in inter-imperialist conflict even though the U.$. and NATO imperialist forces didn’t have direct boots in Ukraine (which the comrade has also expressed as well).
The real question comes in as how Lenin’s theses on “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War” would mean in practice in our current material conditions where the revolutionary forces are much weaker and arguably much more revisionist and opportunist than even the revisionist European and imperialist country communist movements which Lenin was writing polemics against.(10) One point that we can start from is this: the war that we should be focusing on is the war waged by Amerika against its internal semi-colonies of the Black, Chican@, and Indigenous Nations through mass imprisonment and police occupation. With this issue’s Under Lock & Key covering the topic of how “Prisons Are War,” we would like to further expand on how prisons play this role of low-intensity genocide against the masses.
The realization of The Dilapidation
of a so-called ‘Democratic free nation’
Ran and orchestrated by The Illuminati and freemasons
has everybody Divided by social injustice,
bigotry, classism and racial segregation
The nation’s leaders claim “In GOD We Trust”
But their God is “G”old-“O”il-“D”rugz because
they really serve mammon and Satan
instead of peace these imperialists promote
violence, crime, poverty and fornication,
with the primary agenda of bringing forth
Desolation, Degeneration and moral degradation,
Because these ‘Khazars’, Capitalist, and The
rest of these cocky caucasians
are set on achieving Global Domination
by way of 3rd world occupation,
Through means of military invasion
and mental, religious and economic manipulation
The imperialist wants us to bow down and praise them,
and each day our oppressors are gettin more brazen,
These racist-ass crackers know shall us
3rd world people unite, through our melanin
alone we have the power to bring about their
Genetic Annihilation,
and nothing is more Dynamic than our Black
and Brown Genes not even Their “white” Jesus
can save ’em
Black, Brown, Red, Yellow and politically
conscious
Whites its time we unite, and mentally awaken,
By all means necessary even if it means comin’ out weapons blazin,
To reclaim all that’s been forcefully taken,
including our cultural names, religion, Ancestral
Tradition, pride and Self-Determination
its time to reclaim our natural resources and
Wealth and oust the imperialists from out
of our Lands and nations!
As revolutionary class-conscious partisans within the epicenter of
global capitalist-imperialism, our daily struggles consist of a
multitude of factors, such as a societal inundation of bourgeois
ideology that is close to total. This means that every time your
television is turned on or your radio is playing the chances of some
reactionary foolishness reaching your senses is greater than the
likelihood of a white male becoming the next amerikan president.
Before most people turn-in for the night they tune in for another
dose of the corporate state’s media misinformation (most begin their day
like this as well!). The talking points are simple and easy to follow
and the repetition of the message increases the likelihood of
remembrance. Under these conditions what becomes of the formation of
independent thought development?
Marx taught us to subject everything in existence to relentless
criticism, our sources of information gathering down to the way we
choose to utilize technology controlled by multi-national (corporations)
we must assess and re-assess our own patterns and those of others among
us to conform to the material conditions of our struggle as to devise
methods which will allow us to intensify our efforts hence moving closer
and closer to ultimately overthrowing this reactionary order.
As Maoists, we cannot differentiate between the working-class masses
of Russia and Ukraine. Not only do they share a common culture and
historical background, but the fact that we as laboring masses have no
country proves true in the current context. The so-called “socialist”
international chose nationalism over socialism, reform over revolution,
and we walk that same path by choosing sides in a conflict where the
people are regarded as bystanders. In the world of Clausewitz this may
make sense, but as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists (or Maoists) we understand
that the people make their own history.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We saw anti-Russian propaganda ramp
up quickly in the last couple months. As the mainstream media continues
to villianize Russian imperialism for the same atrocities the Amerikans
have committed much more regularly, we aim to serve the majority of the
world who has no allegiance to imperialism. Unfortunately, most in this
country recognize that they benefit from the imperialist exploitation
and ally with the militarist rhetoric.
The Republic of Aztlan extends our arms in solidarity with the
Palestinian people. Why should the liberation of Palestinian people be
so important to us Chicanos? It is because we share the legacy of
colonialism; a struggle for national liberation; a common destiny when
it came to empire-building of white nations; we share the common
experience of forced expulsion from our homelands; and we share the same
oppressor – world imperialism.
We will examine the five reasons that the Chicano nation should find
solidarity with our oppressed nation brothers and sisters in
Palestine:
We share a common thread of 100+ years of colonization;
We share a common thread of a struggle for national liberation;
The commonality in our histories is that both Palestinians and
Chicanos share a common destiny and historical role when it comes to
world imperialism. In the U.$. the doctrine of manifest destiny
justified land theft and genocide as a divine right of a specific
nation’s people. In the U.$. those people were the Euro-Amerikan
settlers. In Palestine, the Arabs face land theft and genocide which is
based on a belief that I$raelis have the religious right to said land
and therefore exterminating Palestinians and taking their land is an
unfortunate necessity in creating a supposed Jewish state.
With this idealist religious justification, forced expulsion has been
unleashed on the Palestinian people. We recall that in the 1950s,
Operation Wetback expelled 1-2 or more million Mexican people whether
they were born in the U.$. or Mexico didn’t matter.
Our oppressors are the same - world imperialism. At this point, the
primary contradiction in the world is with imperialism and the oppressed
nations. This is how Chicano liberation is inextricably linked to
Palestinian liberation.
The I$raeli-Palestinian conflict is not the product of ancient ethnic
nor religious hatred, nor is it about modern religious hatred either. It
is the tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same land –
one claim being idealist and the other being historical materialist. It
is the outcome of a 100-year-old colonial occupation by Zionists and
later I$rael, backed by the British, the United States, and other major
imperial powers. This project is about the national bourgeoisie of a
persecuted religious minority in Europe speaking for all Jews in every
corner of the world (from Russia, Iraq, Ethiopia, Spain, the United
$tates, etc.) into building a powerful homeland granting them protection
which will be gained through eradication of an indigenous population. It
is about the rendering of the Palestinians as non-people, writing them
out of the historical narrative as if they never existed and denying
them basic human rights. It depends on the metaphysical idea that all
Jewish groups from all around the world all with different history,
language, culture, territory, and psychological make up all belong to
one nation because of religion. It feeds off of the anti-semitic idea
that Jews are outsiders in the various respective countries they reside.
Yet to state these incontrovertible facts of European colonization —
supported by innumerable official reports and public and private
communiques and statements, along with historical records and events —
sees I$rael’s defenders level charges of anti-Semitism and racism. We
ask the question: what is more anti-semitic? The claim that says zionism
requires an ethnic cleansing and assimilation of various historically
Jewish communities around the planet into the model European Jewish
groups? Or the claim that says Jews don’t belong in our country and they
should live in their own place where no one has to deal with them?
Edward Said, a Palestinian intellectual of the famous book
“Orientalism” who grew up in British occupied Palestine summarized:
“This is a unique colonialism that we’ve been subjected to where they
have no use for us. The best Palestinian for them is either dead or
gone. It’s not that they want to exploit us.”
Zionism was birthed from the evils of anti-Semitism. It was a
reaction to the discrimination and violence inflicted on Jews,
especially during the savage pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe in the
late 19th century and early 20th century that left thousands dead. The
Zionist leader Theodor Herzl in 1896 published “Der Judenstaat,” or “The
Jewish State,” in which he warned that Jews were not safe in Europe, a
warning that within a few decades proved terrifyingly prescient with the
rise of German fascism.
Britain’s support of a Jewish homeland was always colored by
anti-Semitism. The 1917 decision by the British Cabinet, as stated in
the Balfour Declaration, to support “the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people” was a principal part of a misguided
endeavor based on anti-Semitic tropes. The British elites, including
Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, also believed that Jews could never be
assimilated in British society and it was better for them to emigrate.
It is telling that the only Jewish member of Prime Minister David Lloyd
George’s government, Edwin Montagu, vehemently opposed the Balfour
Declaration. He argued that it would encourage states to expel its Jews.
“Palestine will become the world’s ghetto,” Balfour warned.
This partially turned out to be the case after World War II when
hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, many rendered stateless, had
nowhere to go but Palestine. Often, their communities had been destroyed
during the war or their homes and land had been confiscated through
fascist brutality. Those Jews who returned to countries like Poland
found they had nowhere to live and were often victims of discrimination
as well as postwar anti-Semitic attacks and even massacres.
These first Jewish settlers knew they needed an imperial patron to
succeed and survive just like the early Euro-Amerikan settlers needed
sponsors from their old countries. Their first patron was Britain, which
sent 100,000 troops to crush the Palestinian revolt of the 1930s and
armed and trained Jewish militias known as the Haganah. The savage
repression of that revolt included wholesale executions and aerial
bombardment and left 10% of the adult male Arab population killed,
wounded, imprisoned or exiled. After the British left after the
contradiction between the settlers and the British became antagonstic,
the Zionists’ second patron became the United States, which now,
generations later, provides more than $3 billion a year to I$rael.
I$rael, despite the myth of self-reliance it peddles about itself, would
not be able to maintain its Palestinian colonies without its imperial
benefactors. This is why the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
historically frightened I$rael. It is also why Chicanos should support
the economic boycott of I$rael as well.
The early Zionists bought up huge tracts of fertile Palestinian land
and drove out the indigenous inhabitants. They subsidized European
Jewish settlers sent to Palestine, where 94% of the inhabitants were
Arabs but once colonialism began to look bad in the post-World War II
era of decolonization, the colonial origins and practice of Zionism and
I$rael were whitewashed and conveniently forgotten in I$rael and the
West. In fact, Zionism — for two decades the coddled step-child of
British colonialism — re-branded itself as an anti-colonial
movement.”
“Today, the conflict that was engendered by this classic
nineteenth-century European colonial venture in a non-European land,
supported from 1917 onward by the greatest Western imperial power of its
age, is rarely described in such unvarnished terms,” Khalidi writes.
“Indeed, those who analyze not only I$raeli settlement efforts in
Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights but the
entire Zionist enterprise from the perspective of its colonial-settler
origins and nature are often vilified. Many cannot accept the
contradiction inherent in the idea that although Zionism undoubtedly
succeeded in creating a thriving national entity in I$rael, its roots
are as a colonial settler project (as are those of other modern
countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). Nor
can they accept that it would not have succeeded but for the support of
the great imperial powers, Britain and later the United States. Zionism,
therefore, could be and was both a national and a colonial settler
movement at one and the same time.”
Much like the United $tates, I$rael too was started by the outcasts
of the old world who were more useful in the new world (North America
and Palestine respectively) than the old (Europe). Through venturing
through North America old colonialism was able to gain a major section
of primitive accumulation (land conquest and enslavement of our First
Nation and New Afrikan brothers), and transform itself into modern
imperialism; and through the outpost that is I$rael, modern imperialism
was able to export its finance capital safe and sound into middle east
proper.
One of the central tenets of the Zionist and I$raeli colonization is
the denial of an authentic, independent Palestinian identity. During the
British control of Palestine, the population was officially divided
between Jews and “non-Jews.” One time I$raeli Prime Minister Gold Meir
said:
“There was no such thing as Palestinians … they did not exist.”
This erasure, which requires an egregious act of historical amnesia,
is what the I$raeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called the
“politicide” of the Palestinian people. Khalidi writes, “The surest way
to eradicate a people’s right to their land is to deny their historical
connection to it.” Chicanos have been subjected to the same name erasure
by the U.$. government’s push to call us Hispanics, Latinos, or Mexicans
and erase our Chicano name which is fundamentally based on national
identity.
The creation of the state of I$rael on May 15, 1948, was achieved by
the Haganah and other Jewish groups through the ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinians and massacres that spread terror among the Palestinian
population. The Haganah, trained and armed by the British, swiftly
seized most of Palestine. It emptied West Jerusalem and cities such as
Haifa and Jaffa, along with numerous towns and villages, of their Arab
inhabitants. Palestinians call this moment in their history the Nakba or
the Catastrophe.
Since 1948, Palestinians have heroically mounted one resistance
effort after another, all unleashing disproportionate I$raeli reprisals
and demonization of the Palestinians as terrorists. But this resistance
has also forced the world to recognize the presence of Palestinians,
despite the feverish efforts of I$rael, the United States, and many Arab
regimes to remove them from historical consciousness. The repeated
revolts, as Said noted, gave the Palestinians the right to tell their
own story, the “permission to narrate.”
I$rael is an apartheid state that rivals and often surpasses the
onetime savagery and racism of apartheid South Africa. Modern I$raeli
society is infested with metaphysical racial chauvinism with “Death to
Arabs” being a common popular chant at I$raeli soccer matches. I$raeli
mobs and vigilantes, including thugs from right-wing youth groups such
as Im Tirtzu, carry out indiscriminate acts of vandalism and violence
against dissidents, Palestinians, I$raeli Arabs. The government of
I$rael has promulgated a series of discriminatory laws against non-Jews
that eerily resemble the racist Nuremberg Laws that disenfranchised Jews
in Nazi Germany. The I$raeli educational system, starting in primary
school, is an indoctrination machine for the military. The I$raeli army
periodically unleashes massive assaults with its air force, artillery
and mechanized units on the largely defenseless 1.85 million
Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in thousands of Palestinian dead or
wounded.
The Zionists could never have colonized the Palestinians without the
backing of Western imperial powers whose motives were driven by
anti-Semitism. Many of the Jews who fled to I$rael would not have done
so but for the virulent European anti-Semitism, that by the end of World
War II saw 6 million Jews murdered. I$rael was all that many
impoverished and stateless survivors, robbed of their national rights,
communities, homes, and often most of their relatives, had left. It
became the tragic fate of the Palestinians, who had no influence in the
European pogroms or the Holocaust, to be sacrificed on the altar of
hate.
Don’t forget that the Obama administration resupplied I$rael in the
middle of their slaughter of innocents in Gaza in 2014. Obama, Biden,
Trump the democrats and racist corporate media are all complicit with
the war crimes against humanity that I$rael is committing. On top of
this, the various police forces of Amerikkka utilizes exchange programs
with the state of I$rael to trade intelligence and train in I$raeli
tactics of suppressing Palestinian resistance in the urban areas. Those
same tactics will be implemented on the ghettos, barrios, and
reservations to discipline entire communities of oppressed nations. Back
in the George Floyd uprisings, the streets were littered with gas
canisters which claimed “Made in I$rael.” It got to a point Palestinian
activists were sharing counter-police tactics online for us in how to
deal with those tear gas and police tactics.
As revolutionary nationalists, we highlight the necessity for
solidarities for not only our nations but for all oppressed nations to
gain their self-determination. We also call to combat anti-semitism and
metaphysical views of what nations are which give to movements like
Zionism in the first place. For these reasons, the Republic of Aztlan
and the Chicano Nation finds solidarity with Palestine. From the river
to the sea, Aztlan and Palestine will be free!
