MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
“In order to guarantee that our party and country do not change their
color, we must not only have a correct line and correct policies, but
must train and bring up millions of successors who will carry on the
cause of proletarian revolution.” - Chairpersyn Mao Zedong
As we march upon 40 years of commemorating our Black August Memorial
(B.A.M.), we recognize the historical origins of what this construct was
founded upon, honoring our fallen comrades, i.e. George Jackson, W.L.
Nolen, Joka Khatari Gaulden, Cleveland Edwards, Alvin “Sweet Jugs”
Miller, and countless others, who were all murdered by this fascist
police state, while fighting and resisting the social system of U.$.
capitalism and its lackeys.
It would be easy for us to press forward and begin our collective
fast, studies, and exercises come Black August 1st, as has been the case
for the past 38 years!! So, the question becomes: “What have we learnt
over this period?” And “What actions are we prepared to commit ourselves
to, in relation to the contradictions that we’ve identified?” It is no
secret, that our New Afrikan communities (N.A.C.) and thus, our New
Afrikan Nation (N.A.N.) remains in a “state of emergency,” while
suffering from a litany of systemic social ills, such as: poverty,
addiction, illiteracy, gang violence, tribalism, homeboyism,
homelessness, pig brutality & corruption, Liberalism, egotism,
inadequate health care, political immaturity, etc.
After being exiled in the state of California’s notorious domestic
torture chamber (Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit) for
the past 21 years (1994 to 2015), I’ve now been able to observe,
examine, and study the aforementioned contradictions first hand, for the
past 20 months! It is no question that we have our work cut out for us,
and I’m confident that the fruits of our labor will begin to harvest the
desired revolutionary consciousness amongst our people, as a qualitative
negation of the false consciousness that has taken root in our New
Afrikan Nation (N.A.N.).
Therefore, it is imperative to remind our people that Black August is
a protracted struggle, that must be waged politically, socially,
culturally, economically, and militarily 365 days of the year! And not
just the 31 days that many unfortunately ascribe to. Our fallen
comrades, have provided us with the correct line to march upon, via the
fierce, defiant, and daunting struggle, by refusing to capitulate,
submit, or surrender to the unrighteous decadent, and exploitative ways
of U.$. Capitalism, which is the enemy of all oppressed people!!
In order for the true potential of Black August Resistance (B.A.R.) to
be realized as a protracted struggle, 365 days of the year, we must
recognize that our efforts will remain stagnant if we fail to develop
cadres and equip them with the necessary tools. Tools that will enable
comrades to be successful, by keeping the politics of Black August in
command, in re-building our New Afrikan nation.
Meaning, we must set forth the course of a complete adherence to the
standard of living that Black August entails, per the values, morals,
customs, principles, etc. that are inherent in its construct. We cannot
afford to waiver from this practice, if we proclaim to be serious about
feeding, clothing, and housing the people, while pursuing the course of
total liberation from U.$. capitalism!!
I’ve developed the
W.L.
Nolen Mentorship Program (W.L.N.M.P.) not only as a tribute to the
legacy of our fallen comrade W.L. Nolen, but to also build upon the
revolutionary principles that the comrade stood upon and died for! These
revolutionary principles are the essence of Black August Resistance
(B.A.R.)! And so, we invite all to join us in struggle, by contacting:
Attn: W.L. Nolen Mentorship Program c/o John S. Dolley, Jr.,
P.O. Box 7907, Austin, Texas 78713
FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT
STRUGGLE!!!
MIM(Prisons) adds: The W.L. Nolen Mentorship Program has been
held back for a few years by censorship by the California Department of
Corrections and “Rehabilitation.” A battle MIM(Prisons) provided support
for. We hear that the persistence of the comrades behind bars initiating
this program has paid off and things are operational at the address
above.
We are soliciting articles and artwork on the topic of prisoners
engaging with organizing on the streets for ULK 58. This program
is an excellent example of that. The WLNMP is primarily focused on
linking people in the community with New Afrikan Revolutionaries behind
bars to discuss issues of political struggle while meeting of the needs
of everyday life. The comrades behind this project are proven leaders
who have much to offer as mentors. We wish them success with this
program.
“On June 19, 1963, nearly a hundred chairmen of corporations,
foundations answered the call of the president of the Taconic Foundation
to aid the civil-rights movement financially. Meeting at the Hotel
Carlyle in Manhattan, they pledged over a million dollars to five major
civil-rights groups. These leaders of finance and industry perhaps
assumed that by assisting the established black organizations to secure
their goals they could preclude the emergence of radicalism that would
fill the vacuum if the movement failed. Whatever their intentions, these
funds, and the sizable contributions from other whites and blacks,
enabled the black struggle to expand, to reach more potential
supporters, and to plan larger, more ambitious campaigns.” (Wedding,
Vega, and Mark, 2003, pp. 186-187)
Yes comrades, the capitalists took over the movement by buying our
leaders from organizations such as SCLC, SNCC and CORE, etc. This list
includes Dr. King, James Former, Roy Wilkins and Cecil Moore of the
NAACP. They were able to create this capitalistic buy out because of
exploitation of the fear already in the rich white capitalist. The name
of this fear was Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, which they found out
about largely through media:
“James Baldwin’s ‘The Fire Next Time’ which forced into the
consciousness of whites a new sense of the rancor of blacks and the
destruction awaiting America if it did not quickly and completely change
its racial ways” (Wedding, Vega, and Mark, 2003, p. 185).
He described the Afro-American’s past of
“Rope, fire, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear
by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he
was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for his
women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and
whom he could not protect; rage, hatred and murder, hatred for white men
so deep that it often turned against him and his own and made all love,
all trust, all joy impossible.” (James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” as
reported by Wedding, Vega & Mark, 2003, p. 185).
This added to
“The popularity of the Black Muslims incitement of violent enmity,
described by Baldwin, had first been impressed on white America by CBS’s
inflammatory documentary in 1959, ‘The Hate That Hate Produced.’ The
Nation of Islam was depicted as an army of black fanatics planning for
the inevitable race war. Little or nothing most whites read and heard
informed them of Muslim success in rehabilitating blacks that others
considered beyond reclamation, or of the Muslim gospel that blacks had
to conquer their own shame and poverty by adhering to traditional
American virtues as hard work, honesty, self-discipline, mutual help,
and self-respect.”
Things like this had a huge influence over wealthy white psyches. They
began to fear these black Muslims. What I cite next took them over the
edge, but Dr. King was ready to be the peaceful Negro leader solution.
“Malcolm X appeared on television more than any other black spokesman in
1963, and few whites remained unaware of his expressions of contempt for
all things white, his appeal to blacks to fight racism ‘by any means
necessary,’ and his insistence that the ‘day of nonviolent resistance is
over.’ What often frightened whites instilled a fighting pride in
blacks. An apostle of defiance, Malcolm particularly gave voice to the
anger and pain of young blacks in the ghetto. His hostility and
resentment toward whites epitomized their feelings, and they cheered
when he preached ‘an eye for an eye,’ or when he brought ‘whitey down
front.’ Such utterances expressed the rarely publicized longings of the
dissident black masses. Malcolm’s insistence on black unity and the
right of self-defense, and especially his affirmation of blackness and
his contention that blacks must lead and control their own freedom
struggle, struck still deeper chords among the many in Afro-America who
demanded faster and more fundamental changes in racial conditions and
called for more forceful means to achieve these ends. To them, of all
black leaders, only Malcolm seemed to understand the depth of the racial
conflict; and only Malcolm appeared to view the black struggle for
equality as a power struggle, not a moral one. To virtually all blacks,
moreover, Malcolm X stood as an implacable symbol of resistance and a
champion of liberation.” (Wedding, Vega and Mark, 2003, pp. 185-186).
“The more Malcolm loomed as the alternative that whites would have to
confront if CORE, SNCC and the SCLC failed, the more white officials
acceded to the stipulations posed by the established leadership of the
campaign for racial equality.” (Harvard Sitkoff, 1981, “The Struggl for
Black Equality:1954-1992, n.p.)
Using this, Dr. King and his cronies manipulated the power holding rich
whites into sponsoring the nonviolent approach to civil rights, which
they gained total control of, even picking who they wanted to be
recognized as black leaders. This went so far up the political ladder
that the POTUS of the era was effected and partially responsible for its
growth as stated in the following:
“Kennedy began to act decisively on civil rights in the summer of 1963.
He did so in part because of his personal sense of morality and in part
because of his calculations as party leader and chief executive on how
to respond to new pressure. He needed to satisfy the millions of
Americans, white and black, liberal and moderate, protesting federal
inaction and wanting an end to disorder. The president also had to
dampen the explosive potential of widespread racial violence and to
maintain the confidence of the mass of blacks in government.
Additionally, Kennedy considered it necessary to assist Farmer and King
and Wilkins in securing their objectives lest the movement be taken over
by extremists.” (Wedding, Vega & Mark, 2003, p. 187)
Once we see and know the truth about the fear and jealousy that King and
his cronies had for the Nation of Islam in the persons of Honorable
Elijah Mohammad and Malcolm X whose membership was growing exponentially
in 1963-1964, which the nonviolent wing of the civil rights look at as a
rival or even worse a direct enemy. What motivated King and his cronies
was not the people’s needs. It was power, influence and money. What is
not discussed is that by many blacks Dr. King was a sellout in his own
time. Later on Dr. King smartened up and became aware of the true enemy
of the people, i.e. capitalism and wage inequality, which lead to
housing and consumer inequality. He was assassinated before he could
make this address on the Washington lawn. Killed by the capitalistic
system as an example to show who controlled the movement and what was
and wasn’t allowed to be talked about. The slave master’s name is not
“whitey.” Its name is “capitalism”, which is the creator of poverty.
Just ponder what happened to Johnnie Cochran when he decided to take on
the United States on the issue of reparations for the slaves’
descendants. Mysteriously Johnnie checked out on some cancer shit.
We should all wake up and see our enemy!
“CAPITALISM”
Ask yourselves: “Who Bought the Civil Rights
Movement of 1964?”
It’s been 50 years since the most advanced segment of national class
consciousness of a people came together in unity nationwide in the inner
cites to challenge imperialism.
The Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was capable of leading the
lumpen in the struggle for the overthrow of oppressive/exploitative
relationships and the building of national independence,
self-determination, and socialism. They were equipped with the right
ideology of dialectical materialism, which is a concrete analysis of
concrete conditions, and knew how to apply it to where the principle of
“from the people back to the people” was being done successfully with
the breakfast for children program. However, they couldn’t combat the
oppressor’s COINTELPRO strategy, which destroyed a beautiful movement.
We celebrate the sacrifices these beautiful men and women made when they
stood up to fascism, and some lost their life to the struggle by death,
or state-sanctioned death known as incarceration, and they will not be
forgotten.
As I’ve read books by Mumia Abu Jamal, Robert Hillary King, Huey P.
Newton, David Hilliard, and Eldridge Cleaver (just to name a few), I’m
reminded of what it means to be New Afrikan in the United $tates, as
well as why being a revolutionary is the most important ideology to have
and apply when facing this oppression, and it’s due to the same
challenges we face today. COINTELPRO is not over, but has only advanced
so that the oppressor does not see another people’s revolution again.
The spirit of the Panther lives inside of me, as well as countless
others who languish behind enemy lines, and we will continue their
legacy through our practice of serving the people.
MIM(Prisons) adds: As we enter the month marking the 50th
anniversary of the most advanced Maoist party in the history of this
country, we put out a
commemorative issue
focused on the BPP this summer for our 50th issue of Under Lock
& Key. [In October, hundreds of copies were also distributed at
BPP commemorative events. That month we also finalzed a new edition of
our study pack:
Defend
the Legacy of the Black Panther Party.] We’d also add to this that
the Party’s own internal contradictions played out allowing COINTELPRO
to deliver the death blows that it did. There is no all-powerful
oppressor that can stop the oppressed, although we are in the minority
in this country. So as COINTELPRO continues, we learn from history and
push the struggle forward!
Comrades, the question at hand is also the very impediment to the
so-called African-Amerikkkans’ right to determine our own destiny and
experience true freedom. Ask anyone besides the so-called
African-Amerikkkans what is their nationality and they will gladly tell
you with great pride the national identity that they represent. This is
possible because that is the nation of people that they identify with as
sharing a common history, language, land, economic life and
psychological make-up. It is the birthright of humans to understand
their own national identity. Therefore, it is as well the birthright of
so-called African-Amerikkkans to be free to determine our own
nationality as well. Instead of the right wing of Amerikkkan white
nationalism who are always oppressing us as a people, historically.
“African-Amerikkkan” is a label Amerikkka placed on us to show the world
that we are their lackeys.
Developing a national consciousness is the first step toward liberation.
New Afrikan is a term that identifies and distinguishes us as a
nation and people. Historically we have developed and share a collective
language, culture, economic life and psychological make-up. This forged
us into a new Afrikan people that is distinctly apart from Africans and
all other people on the planet earth. Therefore we should reprimand
usage of being called Black, Niggas, African-Amerikkkan, Negroes, etc.
We are New Afrikans, we should embrace our own national identity because
it’s our birthright as free men and women. “Settle your quarrels, come
together, understand the reality of our situation. Understand that
fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be
saved, that generations more will die or live poor butchered half-lives
if you fail to act.” -Comrade George Jackson.
Protesting for reprieve against police brutality is not the answer for
New Afrikans, Asians, Chicanos, and First Nations. Historically, New
Afrikans have always struggled with the problem of pigs killing our
children within the streets. Although within Amerikkka, Chicanos, and
First Nations have experience just as much repression from the pigs. As
New Afrikans we must understand that integrationism into Amerikkkan
imperialism impedes our progress towards self-determination. At the same
time cultural nationalism and national chauvinism serves to impede
further our struggle towards self-determination. As Lenin said, “The
weight of emphasis in the internationalist education of workers in the
oppressing countries must necessarily consist in advocating and
upholding freedom of secession for oppressed countries. Without this
there can be no internationalism.”(1)
We must be able to discern authentic revolutionaries from those faking
the funk. They fool our people into thinking that they are the
revolutionary vanguard of the people, when clearly they are not for the
people’s liberation. These perpetrators are always overlooking certain
issues of oppression. Their lips stay zipped tight on issues of women
being oppressed and on the struggle of oppressed nations.
We should present a mass organization, under revolutionary leadership
towards the current struggle of pig brutality. Accept your own
nationality and be yourself. By applying the United Front theory with
revolutionary science will we overcome imperialism.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We have much agreement with this writer
but a few notes to make in response to this essay. First, it is not
unique to New Afrikans to identify with their oppressors. We have seen
many Chican@s identify with whites. And within prison for instance some
Chican@ lumpen organizations (LOs) will even ally with white supremacist
groups.
We very much agree with this comrade’s call for revolutionary
leadership. But we’re unsure what it means to call on people to “be
yourself.” Perhaps within imperialist borders we would be better to call
on people to not be themselves, or at least not be the people they have
been trained to be from birth, and instead to rebel, and take up
revolutionary science. Become a new and better person, fighting on the
side of the world’s oppressed.
Uhuru of the Black Riders Liberation Party - Prison Chapter: 2016
marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the original Black Panther
Party for Self-Defense (BPP) by Dr. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. This
year also marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Black Riders
Liberation Party, the New Generation Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense, under the leadership of General T.A.C.O. (Taking All
Capitalists Out).
The original BPP arose out of an immediate need to organize and defend
the New Afrikan (Black) nation against vicious pig brutality that was
taking place during the 1960s and 70s; while at the same time teaching
and showing us through practice how to liberate ourselves from the death
grip of Amerikkkan-style oppression, colonialism and genocide through
its various Serve the People programs.
The Black Riders Liberation Party (BRLP) came about in 1996 when former
Bloods and Crips came together in peace and unity while at the Youth
Training School (a youth gang prison) in Los Angeles. The BRLP, which
follows the historic example set by the original BPP, is a true United
Lumpen Front against pig brutality, capitalism, and all its systems of
oppression.
The political line of the BRLP, as taught by our General, is
Revolutionary Afrikan Inter-communalism, which is an upgraded version of
Huey’s Revolutionary Intercommunalism developed later in the party.
Revolutionary Afrikan Intercommunalism is a form of Pan-Afrikanism and
socialism. This line allows us to link the struggles of New Afrikans
here in the Empire with Afrikans on the continent and in the diaspora.
Thus Revolutionary Afrikan Intercommunalism is, in essence,
revolutionary internationalism as it guides us towards building a United
Front with Afrikan people abroad to overthrow capitalist oppression here
in the United $tates and imperialism around the globe.
Our Black Commune Program is an upgraded version of the original BPP’s
Ten-Point Platform and Program, which includes the demand for treatment
for AIDS victims and an end to white capitalists smuggling drugs into
our communities. [The Black Commune Program also adds a point on
ecological destruction as it relates to the oppressed. -MIM(Prisons)]
Mao recognized, as did Che, that every revolutionary organization should
have its own political organ – a newspaper – to counter the
psychological warfare campaign waged by the enemy through corporate
media, and to inform, educate and organize the people. Like the original
BPP newspaper, The Black Panther, the BRLP established its own
political organ, The Afrikan Intercommunal News Service, and took
it a step further by creating the “Panther Power Radio” station to
“discuss topics relative to armed self-defense against pig police
terrorism and the corrupt prison-industrial complex,” among other
topics.
Like the original BPP, the BRLP have actual Serve the People programs.
When Huey would come across other Black radical (mostly cultural
nationalist) organizations, he would often ask them what kind of
programs they had to serve the needs of the people because he understood
that revolution is not an act, but a process, and that most oppressed
people learn from seeing and doing (actual experience). The BRLP’s
programs consist of our Watch-A-Pig Program, Kourt Watch Program, George
Jackson Freedom After-school Program, Squeeze the Slumlord project, BOSS
Black-on-Black violence prevention and intervention program, gang truce
football games, and Health Organizing Project, to name just a few. These
lumpen tribal elements consciously eschew lumpen-on-lumpen reactionary
violence and become revolutionaries and true servants of the people!
Finally, the BRLP continues the example set by the original BPP by
actively building alliances and coalitions with other
radical/revolutionary organizations. George Jackson stated that “unitary
conduct implies a ‘search’ for those elements in our present situation
which can become the basis for joint action.” (1) In keeping with this
view and the BPP vision of a United Front Against Fascism, in 2012 the
BRLP launched the Intercommunal Solidarity Committee as a mechanism for
building a United Front across ideological, religious, national and
ethnic/racial lines.
While I recognize that the white/euro-Amerikkkan nation in the United
$tates is not an oppressed nation, but in fact represents a “privileged”
class that benefits from the oppression and exploitation of the urban
lumpen class here in the United $tates and Third World people, there
exist a “dynamic sector” of radical, anti-racist, anti-imperialist white
allies willing to commit “class suicide” and aid oppressed and exploited
people in our national liberation struggles. And on that note I say
“Black Power” and “All Power to the People.”
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: For this issue of Under
Lock & Key we received letters attempting to feature the BRLP
(like this one) as well as to critique them. For years, MIM(Prisons) and
the readers of ULK have been watching this group with interest.
We made a few attempts to dialogue directly with them, but the most
concerted effort happened to coincide with the release of
an
attack on us by Turning the Tide, a newsletter that has done
a lot to popularize the work of the BRLP. No direct dialogue occurred.
We thank this BRLP comrade for the article above. The following is a
response not directly to the above, but to the many statements that we
have come across by the BRLP and what we’ve seen of their work on the
streets.
On the surface the BRLP does have a lot similarities to the original
BPP. It models its platform after the BPPs 10 point platform, which was
modeled after Malcolm X’s. The BRLP members don all black as they
confront the police and other state actors and racist forces. They speak
to the poor inner-city youth and came out of lumpen street
organizations. They have worked to build a number of Serve the People
programs. And they have inspired a cadre of young New Afrikans across
the gender line. In order to see the differences between MIM, the BRLP,
and other organizations claiming the Panther legacy today, we need to
look more deeply at the different phases of the Black Panther Party and
how their political line changed.
APSP, AAPRP, NBPP
The BRLP regularly presents itself with the tagline, “the New Generation
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.” And it is not the first, or the
only organization, to claim this mantel. The African Peoples’ Socialist
Party (APSP) was perhaps the first, having worked with Huey P. Newton
himself at the end of his life. That is why in discussing the Panther
legacy, we need to specify exactly what legacy that is. For MIM, the
period of 1966 to 1969 represented the Maoist phase of the BPP, and
therefore the period we hold up as an example to follow and build on.
Since the time that Huey was alive, the APSP has shifted focus into
building an African Socialist International in the Third World. We see
this as paralleling some of the incipient errors in the BRLP and the
NABPP that we discuss below.
While the APSP goes back to the 1980s, we can trace another contemporary
organization, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, to the
1960s.(1) The brain-child of Ghanan President Kwame Nkrumah, the AAPRP
in the United $tates was led by Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely
Carmichael. The AAPRP came to embody much of the cultural and spiritual
tendencies that the Panthers rejected. The BPP built on the Black Power
and draft resistance movements that Carmichael was key in developing
while leading the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).(2)
Carmichael left SNCC, joining the BPP for a time, and tried to unite the
two groups. But the Panthers later split with SNCC because of SNCC’s
rejection of alliances with white revolutionaries, their promotion of
pan-Afrikanism and Black capitalism. Carmichael’s allies were purged
from the BPP for being a “bunch of cultural nationalist fools” trying
“to undermine the people’s revolution…” “talking about some madness he
called Pan-Africanism.”(3)
In the 1990s, we saw a surge in Black Panther revivalism. MIM played a
role in this, being the first to digitize many articles from The
Black Panther newspaper for the internet and promoting their legacy
in fliers and public events. MIM did not seem to have any awareness of
the Black Riders Liberation Party at this time. There was a short-lived
Ghetto Liberation Party within MIM that attempted to follow in Panther
footsteps. Then the New Black Panther Party began to display Panther
regalia at public rallies in different cities. While initially
optimistic, MIM later printed a critique of the NBPP for its promotion
of Black capitalism and mysticism, via its close connection to the
Nation of Islam.(4) Later the NBPP became a darling of Fox News, helping
them to distort the true legacy of the BPP. Last year the NBPP further
alienated themselves by brutalizing former Black Panther Dhoruba bin
Wahad and others from the Nation of Gods and Earths and the Free the
People Movement. While there is little doubt that the NBPP continues to
recruit well-intentioned New Afrikans who want to build a vanguard for
the nation, it is evident that the leadership was encapsulated by the
state long ago.
Huey’s Intercommunalism
Readers of Under Lock & Key will certainly be familiar with
the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, which was originally an independent
prison chapter of the NBPP. Their promotion of Maoism and New Afrikan
nationalism was refreshing, but they quickly sided with Mao and the
Progressive Labor Party against the BPP and more extreme SNCC lines on
the white oppressor nation of Amerikkka. They went on to reject the
nationalist goals of the BPP, embracing Huey’s theory of
intercommunalism. The NABPP and the BRLP both embrace forms of
“intercommunalism” as leading concepts in their ideological foundations.
And while we disagree with both of them, there are many differences
between them as well. This is not too surprising as the theory was never
very coherent and really marked Newton’s departure from the original
Maoist line of the Party. As a student of David Hilliard, former BPP
Chief of Staff, pointed out around 2005, Hilliard used intercommunalism
as a way to avoid ever mentioning communism in a semester-long class on
the BPP.(5) In the early 1970s, Huey seemed to be using
“intercommunalism” in an attempt to address changing conditions in the
United $tates and confusion caused by the failure of international
forces to combat revisionism in many cases.(6)
Probably the most important implication of Huey’s new line was that he
rejected the idea that nations could liberate themselves under
imperialism. In other words he said Stalin’s promotion of building
socialism in one country was no longer valid, and Trotsky’s theory of
permanent revolution was now true. This was in 1970, when China had just
developed socialism to the highest form we’ve seen to date through the
struggles of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which also began
50 years ago this year. Huey P. Newton’s visit to China in 1971 was
sandwiched by visits from war criminal Henry Kissinger and U.$.
President Richard Nixon. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who would go on to
foster normalized relations with the U.$. imperialists, stated that
China was ready to negotiate or fight the United $tates in 1971.(7) The
Panther visit was a signal of their development of the second option.
But after 1971, Chinese support for the Panthers dissipated as
negotiations with the imperialists developed.
A bigger problem with Huey’s intercommunalism was how do we address the
Amerikkkan oppressor nation when ey claims there are no more states,
there are no more nations? In eir “speech at Boston College” in 1970 ey
specifically refers to Eldridge Cleaver’s
“On
the Ideology of the Black Panther Party” in order to depart from it.
Newton rejects the analysis of the Black nation as a colony of Amerikkka
that must be liberated. That Cleaver essay from 1969 has great unity
with MIM line and is where we depart with the NABPP and BRLP who uphold
the 1970-1 intercommunalism line of Huey’s.(8)
Black Riders and NABPP Interpret Intercommunalism
To take a closer look at the BRLP itself, let us start with General
T.A.C.O.’s essay “African Intercommunalism I.” Tom Big Warrior of the
NABPP camp has already written a review of it, which makes a number of
critiques that we agree with. He calls out the BRLP for accepting “race”
as a real framework to analyze society, yet the NABPP line also rejects
nation based on Huey’s intercommunalism. At times, the NABPP and BRLP
still use the term nation and colony to refer to New Afrika. This seems
contradictory in both cases. Tom Big Warrior is also very critical of
the BRLP’s claim to update Huey’s theory by adding African cultural and
spiritual elements to it. This is something the Panthers very adamantly
fought against, learning from Fanon who wrote in Wretched of the
Earth, one of the Panthers’ favorite books: “The desire to attach
oneself to tradition or bring abandoned traditions to life again does
not only mean going against the current of history but also opposing
one’s own people”.(9) This revision of intercommunalism is one sign of
the BRLPs conservatism relative to the original BPP who worked to create
the new man/womyn, new revolutionary culture and ultimately a new
society in the spirit of Mao and Che.
The NABPP is really the more consistent proponent of “revolutionary
intercommunalism.” In their analysis a worldwide revolution must occur
to overthrow U.$. imperialism. This differs from the MIM view in that we
see the periphery peeling off from imperialism little-by-little,
weakening the imperialist countries, until the oppressed are strong
enough to impose some kind of international dictatorship of the
proletariat of the oppressed nations over the oppressor nations. The
NABPP says we “must cast off nationalism and embrace a globalized
revolutionary proletarian world view.”(10) They propose “building a
global United Panther Movement.” These are not really new ideas,
reflecting a new reality as they present it. These are the ideas of
Trotsky, and at times of most of the Bolsheviks leading up to the
Russian revolution.
Even stranger is the BRLP suggestion that, “once we overthrow the
Amerikkkan ruling class, there will be a critical need to still liberate
Africa.”(11) The idea that the imperialists would somehow be overthrown
before the neo-colonial puppets of the Third World is completely
backwards. Like the APSP, the NABPP and the BRLP seem to echo this idea
of a New Afrikan vanguard of the African or World revolution.
MIM(Prisons) disagrees with all these parties in that we see New Afrika
as being closer to Amerika in its relation to the Third World, despite
its position as a semi-colony within the United $tates.(12)
The NABPP claims that “Huey was right! Not a single national liberation
struggle produced a free and independent state.”(13) And they use this
“fact” to justify support for “Revolutionary Intercommunalism.” Yet this
new theory has not proven effective in any real world revolutions,
whereas the national liberation struggle in China succeeded in building
the most advanced socialist system known to history. Even the Panthers
saw steep declines in their own success after the shift towards
intercommunalism. So where is the practice to back up this theory?
We also warn our readers that both the NABPP and BRLP make some
outlandishly false statistical claims in order to back up their
positions. For example, the NABPP tries to validate Huey’s predictions
by stating, “rapid advances in technology and automation over the past
several decades have caused the ranks of the unemployed to grow
exponentially.”(13) It is not clear if they are speaking globally or
within the United $tates. But neither have consistent upward trends in
unemployment, and certainly not exponential trends! Meanwhile, in an
essay on the crisis of generational divides and tribal warfare in New
Afrika the BRLP claims that the latter “has caused more deaths in just
Los Angeles than all the casualties in the Yankee imperialist Vietnam
war combined!!!”(14) There were somewhere between 1 million and 3
million deaths in the U.$. war against Vietnamese self-determination.
[EDIT: Nick Turse cites Vietnam official statistics closer to 4
million] Los Angeles sees hundreds of deaths from gang shootings in a
year. We must see things as they are, and not distort facts to fit our
propaganda purposes if we hope to be effective in changing the world.
Black Riders
We will conclude with our assessment of the BRLP based on what we have
read and seen from them. While we dissect our disagreements with some of
their higher level analysis above, many of their articles and statements
are quite agreeable, echoing our own analysis. And we are inspired by
their activity focusing on serving and organizing the New Afrikan lumpen
on the streets. In a time when New Afrikan youth are mobilizing against
police brutality in large numbers again, the BRLP is a more radical
force at the forefront of that struggle. Again, much of this work echoes
that of the original BPP, but some of the bigger picture analysis is
missing.
In our interactions with BRLP members we’ve seen them promote anarchism
and the 99% line, saying that most white Amerikkkans are exploited by
capitalism. BRLP, in line with cultural nationalism, stresses the
importance of “race,” disagreeing with Newton who, even in 1972, was
correctly criticizing in the face of rampant neo-colonialism: “If we
define the prime character of the oppression of blacks as racial, then
the situation of economic exploitation of human beings by human being
can be continued if performed by blacks against blacks or blacks against
whites.”(15) Newton says we must unite the oppressed “in eliminating
exploitation and oppression” not fight “racism” as the BRLP and their
comrades in People Against Racist Terror focus on.
This leads us to a difference with the BRLP in the realm of strategy. It
is true that the original BPP got into the limelight with armed
confrontations with the pigs. More importantly, it was serving the
people in doing so. So it is hard to say that the BPP was wrong to do
this. While Huey concluded that it got ahead of the people and alienated
itself from the people, the BRLP seems to disagree by taking on an even
more aggressive front. This has seemingly succeeded in attracting the
ultra-left, some of whom are dedicated warriors, but has already
alienated potential allies. While BRLP’s analysis of the BPPs failure to
separate the underground from the aboveground is valuable, it seems to
imply a need for an underground insurgency at this time. In contrast,
MIM line agrees with Mao that the stage of struggle in the imperialist
countries is one of long legal battles until the imperialists become so
overextended by armed struggles in the periphery that the state begins
to weaken. It is harder to condemn Huey Newton for seeing that as the
situation in the early years of the Panthers, but it is clearly not the
situation today. In that context, engaging in street confrontations with
racists seems to offer more risk than reward in terms of changing the
system.
While the BRLP doesn’t really tackle how these strategic issues may have
affected the success and/or demise of the BPP, it also does not make any
case for how a lack of cultural and spiritual nationalism were a
shortcoming that set back the Panthers. BRLP also spends an inordinate
amount of their limited number of articles building a cult of
persynality around General T.A.C.O. So despite its claims of learning
from the past, we see its analysis of the BPP legacy lacking in both its
critiques and emulations of BPP practices.
While physical training is good, and hand-to-hand combat is a
potentially useful skill for anyone who might get in difficult
situations, there should be no illusions about such things being
strategic questions for the success of revolutionary organizations in
the United $tates today. When your people can all clean their rifle
blind-folded but they don’t even know how to encrypt their email, you’ve
already lost the battle before it’s started.
Finally, the BRLP has tackled the youth vs. adult contradiction head on.
Its analysis of how that plays out in oppressed nations today parallels
our own. And among the O.G. Panthers themselves they have been very
critical as well, and with good cause. It is clear that we will need a
new generation Black Panthers that is formed of and led by the New
Afrikan youth of today. But Huey was known to quote Mao that with the
correct political line will come support and weapons, and as conditions
remain much less revolutionary than the late 1960s, consolidation of
cadre around correct and clear political lines is important preparatory
work for building a new vanguard party in the future.
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution by Stanley Nelson
2015
This film screened in major U.$. cities in the fall of 2015. I was
planning to use my notes in an article for our 50th issue on the 50th
anniversary of the Black Panther Party. However, in February 2016 the
film was shown on PBS with much publicity. Knowing that our readers have
now seen the film we wanted to put some commentary out sooner rather
than later. But do make sure to check out Under Lock & Key Issue
50 for a more in-depth counter-narrative to this pop culture film.
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is an eclectic
collection of video and photography, along with contemporary commentary
from some who played important roles in the Party. The producer clearly
had no deep ideological understanding of the Black Panther Party, as
critics on the left and the right have already noted. What ey was good
at was picking out some good sound bites and emotionally moving clips.
Yet, even still, as someone with extensive knowledge of Panther history,
i often found the film boring. Most of the audience seemed to enjoy it
based on the loud cheering at the end.
I have not watched Stanley Nelson’s other films, but it seems that a
film on the Panthers is within the realm of previous documentaries ey
has produced (Jonestown, The Black Press, Freedom
Riders and Freedom Summer). It is curious that ey takes on
these topics, and then does such a shallow portrayal of the Panthers.
Nelson says ey was 15 when the Panthers formed and was always fascinated
with them, but was not a participant in the movement emself.(1)
In line with the lack of ideological understanding, the treatment of
Panther leaders was dismissive. The most in-depth discussion of Huey P.
Newton was related to eir downward spiral into drugs and crime after the
Panthers had been well on their way to dissolving. Nelson features sound
bites from interviews calling Newton a “maniac” and Eldridge Cleaver
“insane.” Eldridge Cleaver was cast as a misleader from the beginning in
this film. While both story lines are based in reality, the story that
is missed is the great leadership role that Huey played, both
ideologically and in practice, in building the greatest anti-imperialist
organization this country has seen. At that time Eldridge too played an
important role ideologically and organizationally, even if he was less
consistent than Huey. Fred Hampton was given a more favorable portrayal
by the film, but he died a martyr just as he was getting started. (And
despite the attention given to Hampton’s assassination there is no
mention of him being drugged beforehand, presumably by an FBI spy.)
There is a pattern of character assassination in the film that does
nothing to deepen our understanding of what the Panthers were, why they
succeeded, and why they failed. It will turn some people off to the
Panthers and push people towards an individualist or anarchist approach
to struggle.
To get an accurate portrayal of the Panthers one is better off watching
archival footage, as today you can find ex-Panthers of all stripes, and
very very few who uphold the Maoist ideology of the Panthers at their
height. Former chairman, Bobby Seale, who long ago stopped putting
politics in command, was barely mentioned in the film, perhaps because
he refused to be interviewed.(1) Elaine Brown, who took over the
chairpersyn position after the party had already moved away from a
Maoist political line, does appear but has written a scathing
denunciation of the film and asked to be removed from it.(2)
As other critics have pointed out there is a lack of mention of national
liberation, socialism, communism, and the international situation
overall at the time. It is ironic for a film titled “Vanguard of the
Revolution” to ignore the key ideological foundations of the vanguard.
This reflects a clear effort to build a certain image of what the
Panthers were that ignores the basis of their very existence. As such,
this film contributes to the long effort to revise the history of the
BPP, similar to the efforts to revise the history of other influential
revolutionary communist movements in history. This only stresses the
importance of building independent institutions of the oppressed to
counter the institutions of the bourgeoisie in all aspects of life and
culture.
by PTT of MIM(Prisons) February 2016 permalink
Beyonce’s Michael Jackson homage costume, and Black Panther backup
dancers.
Beyonce is the Queen of pop in the United $tates, so this review isn’t
meant to uphold em as a revolutionary force. Eir ties to Empire and the
lack of internationalism in eir recent series of publicity stunts is a
reminder of Beyonce’s attachment to U.$. institutions. Instead this
article is meant to analyze eir performance at Super Bowl 50, and eir
recently released song and music video, “Formation”, from a
revolutionary Maoist perspective.
The “Formation” video is the
most interesting thing in pop culture in a long time, and the
Super Bowl performance was
likely the most interesting thing in all football history. Beyonce’s
dancers donned afros and berets (yet, not pants), and performed eir new
song “Formation.” Like Nina Simone, Beyonce is being compelled by the
struggle of eir nation to take an explicit political position. Simone
correctly stated that “desegregation is a joke” and Beyonce is
suggesting that cultural integration is not worthwhile. After Martin
Luther King was assassinated, Simone performed a poem which called for
violent uprising against “white things”, imploring New Afrikans to “kill
if necessary” and to “build black things” and “do what you have to do to
create life.”(1) Simone was a reflection of eir nation at the time.
While Beyonce’s twirling of albino alligators is a weak replacement for
Simone’s poetic diatribe, we hope today’s New Afrikans will keep pushing
cultural icons in more militant and separatist directions.
The Song
Let’s start with what holds this whole phenomena together. The lyrics
for “Formation” are not revolutionary.(2) They promote
consumerism, making billions, drinking alcohol, being light-skinned, and
fucking. They primarily promote cultural nationalism and economic
integration with Empire. What comment the lyrics make on the
international relationship between New Afrika and the Third World is
more promotion of Black capitalism, on the backs of the most oppressed
people in the world – those who are slaving over eir Givenchy dress and
dying to mine the diamonds in the Roc necklaces ey is rocking.
Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, correctly calls out
Beyonce’s bad economic recommendations in this song, “her celebration of
capitalism – an economic system that is largely killing black people,
even if some black people, like her, achieve success within it – [has]
also been a source of important critique.”(3) Although Garza’s comment
is tame, it’s an important generalization to be made. Considering
Garza’s following, it’s an important persyn to be making it.
On a positive note, the song celebrates New Afrikan culture that is
still under so much attack in the United $tates. While we prefer the
revolutionary content and gender relations contained in
Dead Prez’s “The
Beauty Within”, “Formation” is still an exercise of Black pride.
Whether that pride is then mobilized into a revolutionary
internationalist direction is up to the New Afrikan masses, who aren’t
getting a whole lot of clarity from Beyonce on that tip.
“Formation” calls for New Afrikan unity of the sexes, and of females as
a group (not unusual for Beyonce’s typical pseudo-feminist fare). In the
lyrics about going to Red Lobster, or going on a flight on eir chopper,
or going to the mall to shop up, Beyonce advocates a reward-based system
for harmonious sexual relations. Beyonce also brings in gay and trans
New Afrikan culture, from the use of the word “slay” over and over, to
the voice samples and New Orleans Bounce style of music used for the
song.(4) Resolution of gender antagonisms within New Afrika are a good
thing. But if the goal is Black capitalism, that’s bad for the
international proletariat and just an extension of the gender
aristocracy phenomenon into the relatively privileged New Afrikan
internal semi-colony.
MIM(Prisons) upholds the line that all sex under patriarchy has elements
of coercion(5), and offering perks for enjoyable sex is still an
expression of patriarchal gender relations even if Beyonce is not a
typical male father figure. Within the predominantly white Amerikkkan
nation, rewards for compliance with patriarchy help to unite Amerika
against the oppressed nations.(6) But within the oppressed internal
semi-colonies, these lyrics are more interesting, especially considering
the long tradition of the Amerikkkan-male-dominated recording industry’s
use of divide-and-conquer tactics in selecting which music to record and
promote. Beyonce isn’t promoting sexual entitlement or sexual passivity
– patriarchal values that do more to divide New Afrika in practice, and
which are heavily promoted in mainstream culture. Assuming whoever is
fucking Beyonce could still feed emself without relying on that trade,
it’s not a matter of life and death, and so these lyrics are less of a
threat of starvation than a promotion of national unity. When united
against a common oppressor, subsuming the gender struggle to the fight
for national liberation, gender harmony in the oppressed nations can be
a revolutionary force.
The best part about the song is the separatism and militancy. If the
song were to get stuck in your head, it could be a mantra for working
hard and uniting. It even gets into who the unity is directed against –
Beyonce twirls on them haters, albino alligators. Ey twirls them, as in
alligator rolls them, as in kills them. The haters are albino
alligators, as in they’re white. Ey calls on others to slay these
enemies, or get eliminated. In other words, choose a side.
The Video
Two middle fingers in the air on the plantation. Moors in the
background.
Beyonce throws a ‘b’ on top of a sinking New Orleans Police car.
Cops surrender to kid dancer.
Beyonce’s kid’s screw face and proud afro.
The “Formation” music video, which was released as a surprise the day
before the Super Bowl, is a celebration of New Afrikan national culture
and a condemnation of oppression of New Afrikans. It is thick with
important and unmistakably New Afrikan cultural references. Beyonce
sings, poses, raises a Black fist, and drowns on top of a New Orleans
Police car, sinking in floodwaters. A little Black kid hypnotizes a line
of cops with eir incredible dancing, and the cops raise their hands in
surrender. Beyonce raises two middle fingers on a plantation. There are
references to the Moorish Science Temple, gay and trans New Afrikan
culture, hand signs, a Black church service, and more, more, more…(7)
“Stop Shooting Us” is spraypainted in the background. The subjects of
the video look directly into the camera, confidently, and say “take
what’s mine,” including Beyonce’s kid Blue Ivy, complete with eir baby
hair and afro.
This video doesn’t clearly distinguish between integration and
secession. Should New Afrikans just keep trying to make peace with
Amerikkka, but while asserting a Black cultural identity? Should New
Afrika honor its culture, and lives, by separating itself from Amerikkka
and forming its own nation-state? Should this nation-state be capitalist
or communist? Outside of a revolutionary context, much of the cultural
markers that are present in this video could be taken as integrationist.
Hopefully the militance and anti-white sentiment of the video will push
New Afrika to get in formation to study up and push for actual (not just
cultural) liberation from the many forms of oppression highlighted in
the video.
The Super Bowl Halftime
That Beyonce was permitted to perform with dancers dressed up like the
former Black Panther Party members is somewhat of a mystery. Is it
because, ignoring any political content, one would still witness a show
of tits and ass, so for the average ignoramus watching the biggest
football event of the year, it’s no different? Maybe it’s because this
year is the semi-centennial anniversary of the Black Panther Party, so
it’s gonna come up in mainstream culture sometime, might as well come up
with lots of distraction from the political content. Or maybe the growth
of the Black Lives Matter movement has made room for this performance to
be possible, and perhaps even necessary to quell uprisings by helping
New Afrika feel included in such a paragon cultural event. For whatever
reason(s), it’s obvious this half-time show would not have happened a
few years ago. In fact, Beyonce led the entire halftime show in 2013 and
while ey avoided any mention of patriorism, ey didn’t reference police
brutality or New Afrikan nationlism either. It’s a milestone, and one
that shows Black pride is definitely resurfacing country-wide.
Not surprisingly, the Super Bowl has a long history of promoting white
nationalism.(8) Some overt examples include in 2002 when U2 helped the
country mourn 9/11, with Bono wearing a jean jacket lined with an
Amerikkkan flag which ey flashed at the audience, with the names of
people who died in the “terrorist” attacks projected in the background.
In 2004, Kid Rock wore an Amerikan flag as a poncho, and when ey sang
“I’m proud to be living in the U.S.A.” over and over, two blondes waved
Amerikan flags behind em. When necessary, the Super Bowl even has a
tradition of promoting integration and “world peace,” some of which we
explore below. At this year’s performance, Coldplay upheld these
decidedly white traditions. Where there was one Amerikan flag, it was
during Coldplay’s portion of the performance. When there was feel-good
bouncing and rainbow-colored multiculturalism, Coldplay was leading it.
When the audience was told “wherever you are, we’re in this together,”
the singer of Coldplay was saying it. It’s not surprising that the white
Coldplay frontman would be the one to promote this misguided statement
of unity. As explored in
the
review of Macklemore’s “White Privilege II” project, no, we’re not
in this together. And we don’t need white do-gooders playing leadership
roles that distract from national divisions, and thus, the potency for
national liberation struggles.
At the end of the Coldplay-led halftime show, the stadium audience made
a huge sign that said “Believe in Love.” On the other hand, some of
Beyonce’s dancers were off-stage holding a sign that said “Justice 4
Mario Woods” for cameras. One is a call to just have faith that our
problems will go away. Another is a call for a change in material
reality: an end to murders by police. (Side note: Someone who was
allegedly stabbed by Mario Woods just prior to Woods’s 20-bullet
execution has come out to tell eir story. Whether ey mean to or not,
this “revelation” is being wielded in an attempt to discredit Beyonce as
a competent political participant, and to lend more justification to the
unnecessary police murder of Woods. Whatever Woods did just prior to eir
execution, that ey is dead now is wholly unjustified. The demand for
“Justice 4 Mario Woods” is correct, and underlines how New Afrikan
people are gunned down in the streets without due process, which is
supposedly guaranteed by the U.$. Constitution.)
Super Bowl dancers form an “X” on the field, and hold a sign reading
“Justice for Mario Woods”.
While Beyonce’s performance didn’t break new ground by bringing up
politics or social problems, it was done in a different way than in the
past, that may be a marker for how our society has changed. The costume
Beyonce wore, which was adorned with many shotgun shells, was a
reference to the costume Michael Jackson wore during eir Super Bowl 1993
performance. Where Michael Jackson had banners of a Black hand shaking a
white hand, Beyonce had Black Panther dancers, so touchdown for Beyonce.
But where Beyonce sings “you might be a Black Bill Gates in the making”,
Jackson advocated for the children of the world because “no one should
have to suffer.” Beyonce’s individualist capitalism is devoid of any
awareness that today’s New Afrikan wealth, especially of Gates
proportions, is stolen by the United $tates military from exploited
nations across the globe. Yet Jackson’s multiculturalism invites unity
with oppressor nation chauvinism, which historically usurps oppressed
nation struggles and drives them into the ground.
In Janet Jackson’s performance in 2004 (you know, the one where Justin
Timberlake stalked em around the stage and then exposed Jackson’s breast
to the world), ey performed the song “Rhythm Nation.” The
video for “Rhythm
Nation” features militant outfits, with pants. In the video, Jackson
and eir dancers intrigue a few Black people who are wandering around
what appears to be the Rhythm Nation’s underground headquarters, another
reference to the enchanting powers of dance. “Rhythm Nation” is about
unity and brotherhood, “break the color lines”, but it’s not about
Blackness.(9) At the Super Bowl, Jackson called out various injustices
faced by oppressed nations (prejudice, bigotry, ignorance, and
illiteracy) and called out “No!” to each one, but didn’t make it about
New Afrikan struggle. That Beyonce clearly delineates eir struggle from
the struggle of whites with this performance is an advancement off of
Jackson’s.
On the topic of organizing females and combating New Afrikan female
internalized racism, Beyonce’s performance is a step above other
performances. A few examples: Nelly and P. Diddy’s dancers in 2004 were
dark-skinned but were straight-haired compared with Beyonce’s backups.
In 2004 they also wore straight hair, as in Madonna’s performance in
2012 as well. Even though Madonna called on “ladies” like Beyonce does,
Madonna called on them to cure their troubles on the dance floor.
Beyonce calls on ladies to get organized (in formation). It should be
obvious which message MIM(Prisons) prefers.
During Madonna’s performance, MIA gave a middle finger to the camera
during the lyric “I’ma say this once, yeah, I don’t give a shit.” But
then MIA and Nikki Minaj joined a tribe of dark-skinned, straight-haired
cheerleaders revering Madonna as their blonde, white idol. Beyonce’s
Panther dance-off with Bruno Mars is a step in a better direction. We
also prefer Beyonce’s dancers forming a letter “X” on the field (likely
another New Afrikan reference), as opposed to Madonna’s
self-aggrandizing “M”.
Whether it’s dancing at the Super Bowl or dancing in front of a line of
pigs, impressive dancing isn’t what’s going to get the New Afrikan
nation out of the scope of Amerikkkan guns. Beyonce is a culture worker,
so that’s eir most valuable weapon at this time. As long as she keeps
shaking her ass, white Amerikkka might stay hypnotized and let Beyonce
continue to promote New Afrikan pride. Hopefully many people in New
Afrika who watched the Super Bowl will study up on history, as Beyonce
hints at, and revolutionary internationalism of the Black Panther Party
can be injected tenfold into the growing Black Lives Matter
movement.(10)
In the 20th century New Afrikans reached out to Islam in an attempt to
find identity outside of Amerikkkan culture. In Islam they found
history, identity, independence, integrity and a connection to the
larger world, in particular the Third World. Today, revolutionary Islam
is reaching out to New Afrikans and the First World lumpen. Just this
month, an Al Shabaab-affiliated video was released featuring the stories
of young men recruited from Minnesota who were martyred in Somalia
fighting the African Union troops who serve their U.$. imperialist
master. The first five minutes of this video is a pointed critique of
the history of national oppression in the United $tates and the idea of
race. It features footage from Rodney King to Michael Brown and
uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, prisoners from Georgia to California,
and sound bites from Malcolm X to Anwar al Awlaki. It is an agitational
piece that clearly promotes the national interests of New Afrika.(1)
In the video, Islam is presented as the answer to the racism and social
hierarchy based on pseudo-biology that is inherent to Amerika. The
conception of Islam as a liberation theology is not difficult to make
given the prominence of the concepts of jihad, or Holy Struggle,
and shahada, translated as witness or martyrdom. The Holy
Struggle is to be one with Allah and to represent righteousness, truth
and goodness as determined by Allah’s divine wisdom. While jihad
and shahada do not require armed struggle, martyrdom in battle
for Allah’s will is one way that Muslims can reach shahada
according to the Qur’an.(2)
Throughout the stories of the Minnesota martyrs there is a theme of not
fearing death, but rather running towards it. In regions where
revolutionary struggle and political dissent of any form has been
brutally crushed, Islam might fulfill a need in providing this basis for
courage in the face of imminent death. There are many examples in
history of the oppressed finding courage in a belief in their own
immortality, but they generally did not end well for the oppressed.
Ultimately, the myth of immortality may be good at recruiting cannon
fodder, but it leads to recklessness and a lack of a scientific approach
that is required for victory. We see the brazen unscientific approach to
battle playing out in the Islamic State, which is now losing ground
after a couple years of impressing the world with their successes.
“You can kill the revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution.” -
Fred Hampton, National Deputy Chairpersyn of the Black Panther Party
Like the Muslim in jihad, the communist struggles to discover truth and
goodness. But the communist serves the people, not Allah, so that
goodness is relative to the real lives of humyn beings, and truth is
that which changes the conditions of that reality. Whether we can serve
the people better in life or in giving our lives will depend on the
situation. But as most Muslims will agree, serving truth and goodness
does not come in seeking death. Rather than finding our strength and
resolve in myths, we look to this world to find strategic confidence in
our victory. The vast majority of the world’s people suffer under the
current imperialist system. Yet that system depends on those same people
to derive the profits that keep the system moving. So there is an
inherent contradiction that will continue to play out in the form of
class and national conflict until the exploitative system is destroyed
and replaced with one that serves humynkind.
Islam is Growing
If there were to be a religion of the Third World proletariat, it would
be Islam, just by the numbers. As of 2010, only 3% of Muslims lived in
the imperialist countries, yet Muslims made up 23.4% of the world’s
population.(3) The Muslim-majority countries are dominated by young
people, with over 60% of their citizens being under 30 years old
today.(3) Thus the Muslim population is projected to increase, as
Muslims will have birth rates twice the rest of the population for the
next couple decades. The contradiction between youth and adults has
always been an important one, with youthful populations being more open
to change.
Of course, Islam has almost no influence in Central and South America
and significant chunks of Africa and Asia. So Islam does not represent
the Third World as a whole. But First Worldist chauvinism is just as
likely to come in anti-Muslim rhetoric as it is to come in the form of
racism these days. And it is interesting how its role among the internal
semi-colonies of the United $tates has also emerged from the oppressor
nation vs. oppressed contradiction, as we will examine in more depth.
source: M Tracy Hunter, wikimedia.org, data from Pew Research Center,
Washington DC,
Religious
Composition by Country (December 2012)
It is of note that France, Belgium and Russia are the only imperialist
countries that are predicted to have more than 10% of their populations
Muslim by 2030.(3) In November 2015, France and Belgium were put under
the equivalent of Martial Law in a search for radical Muslims in their
countries. Paris remains under this oppressive police state months
later. Following the attacks in Paris, there have been attacks in Russia
and the downing of a Russian plane. Anti-Muslim nationalism is also rife
in Russia, which has recently joined the war against the Islamic State
in full force.
In the United $tates, Muslims make up a mere 0.9% of the population.(4)
For this reason there is great ignorance of Islam, but Amerikkkans still
share the anti-Muslim sentiments of other imperialist countries. 2015
saw the greatest number of attacks on Mosques in the United $tates on
record, with a surge following the attacks by Muslims in Paris, France
and San Bernardino, California.(5)
The imperialists have succeeded in creating a new race, that is Muslims,
for the oppressor nation peoples to focus their hate on. Without this
racism, there could be no bombings or occupations in Palestine, Syria,
Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Yet the white nationalists, in their own
twisted logic, can claim Islamophobia is not racism because its based in
religion and not “biology.” Academia and the media have jumped on this
opportunity, presenting Islamophobic papers as legitimate research and
reporting, in a form of modern-day phrenology. There have even been
discussions online, no doubt dominated by Euro-Amerikans, about how
being anti-Jewish is racist but anti-Muslim is not. It is amazing that
in 2016, politricks still trumps science, and most people still believe
in race. Racist has become such a powerful word due to a
combination of the righteous struggles of the oppressed and the
promotion of identity politics, that First Worldists are now convinced
that Islamophobic chauvinism is not as bad as racist chauvinism.
Islam as Philosophy
When you study philosophy you will inevitably study many religious
thinkers. To this day, you will find those who are very deeply involved
in religions to be thinkers and philosophers who are trying to
understand and use that understanding to interact with the world. As
communists, we do the same. So it is no surprise that we often find
ourselves in deep dialogue with those of different religious leanings.
As we’ll get into below, the underlying class makeup of different
religions has more to do with how those religions engage with communism
than anything else.
So what are we talking about then when we talk about religion? Religion
is idealism with organized rituals. The organized rituals part is pretty
straight forward. It implies that there is a group of people who adhere
to the religion in order to participate in the rituals. And the rituals
include all sorts of things from regular meetings, prayer, fasting,
philanthropy, dressing up, studying texts, marriage, etc.
Idealism is a broader category of philosophy that includes religions.
And there are different versions of idealism, as we might expect. What
is common between the different versions is that idealism puts the mind
as primary and matter as secondary or non-existent in terms of
understanding the “real world.” Prior to Hegel, who introduced the
radical method of dialectics, idealism was generally metaphysical.
Metaphysical idealism is the belief in predefined, static
things-in-themselves. For example, for those who believe in one god as
the creator, everything that exists is defined by an ideal image from
that god. For idealists, there is a barrier between what we perceive
through our five senses, and this pre-defined ideal. Philosophers like
Kant, who Engels called an agnostic, falling between idealism and
materialism, believed that the real ideal was unknowable, or knowable
only through faith. For many religions, it is the task of the individual
to attempt to know that ideal or absolute truth by following the rituals
of their religion. In Islam, this is called jihad. The passing
from the material world to the world of ideas is also called
transcendence. Transcendence is a major theme of many religions.
For materialists there is no such thing as transcendence. We see that
truth is obtained through our five senses in a constant process of
gaining knowledge and understanding as a species through practice and
the scientific method. There is no ancient scroll or secret key that
will open our third eye allowing us to suddenly see and understand all
the secrets of the world that are hidden from us by our senses. Or, as
Engels puts it in describing why Hegel marked the end of philosophy:
“As soon as we have once realised – and in the long run no one has
helped us to realize it more than Hegel himself – that the task of
philosophy thus stated means nothing but the task that a single
philosopher should accomplish that which can only be accomplished by the
entire human race in its progressive development – as soon as we realise
that, there is an end to all philosophy in the hitherto accepted sense
of the word. One leaves alone ‘absolute truth’, which is unattainable
along this path or by any single individual; instead, one pursues
attainable relative truths along the path of the positive sciences, and
the summation of their results by means of dialectical thinking.”(6)
Why Do We Still Have Religion?
The United $tates is exceptional in the First World in often defining
itself through religion (Christianity). One recent book describes this
as a fairly recent development, starting from a campaign by industrial
capitalists with libertarian interests opposed to the New Deal.(7) The
author points out, however, that Franklin D. Roosevelt used a lot of
Christian language in his promotion of the New Deal and criticism of the
evils of the capitalist class. Roosevelt used that language to capture
the populist interests of the majority in the United $tates who were
suffering from the Great Depression. The Christian language was an
alternative to the communist language in the Soviet Union, which FDR was
trying to save the United $tates from. Since the Bolshevik revolution,
religious language has been openly used to combat the materialist
language of communists.
The capitalist class took up the religious lingo as a marketing scheme
after they realized that campaigning honestly for their own interests
against the New Deal was not going to get popular support.(7) They
backed the election of Dwight Eisenhower in 1954 who brought “In God We
Trust” to our currency and put “One Nation Under God” into the pledge of
allegience. While Eisenhower did not undo the New Deal as they’d hoped,
this trajectory continued with it’s pinnacle in 1980 with Ronald Reagon
backed by groups like the Moral Majority. It was Reagan who introduced
the tradition of U.$. presidents ending speeches with “God Bless
America.” To this day these evangelical Christian groups have played a
strong roll in U.$. politics.
This is just one example of how religion can be used to mobilize people
behind a political cause. It also demonstrates how religion can be a
very deceptive tool in politics because the politicians avoid talking
about the real issues. While in the realm of philosophy we can talk
about religion as idealism, in the realm of sociology we see it as
culture. And culture is part of the superstructure in that it reflects
the economic substructure; in our world that would be (imperialist)
capitalism. And within capitalism the fundamental contradiction that
defines that system is that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
So, we will see how as the proletarian forces become stronger religion
will reflect the proletarian world view, such as in Central America when
socialism/communism had captured the interests of the masses in those
Catholic countries. Religion must adopt a proletarian worldview to stay
relevant as the scientific method begins to provide the masses with
answers that the religions had failed to. In the status quo under
capitalism religion most often reflects the interests of the
bourgeoisie.
It has been popular in recent decades to talk about the clash of
civilizations between the Muslim and Christian worlds. Some even look to
history to show a long pattern of these clashes along religious lines.
But these lazy historians cherry pick instances in history when religion
is used to further the economic interests of different groups, as it
often is. Yet a study of the causes of the most brutal wars in in our
modern industrial society demonstrate that it was all about trade,
markets and national interests. The two world wars were
inter-imperialist rivalries over these things.(8) Then as communism
threatened to remove vast segments of the world from the capitalist
market economy, the imperialists took aim at countries building
socialism. The focus on religion in the the last couple decades is a
direct result of the victory of the imperialists in crushing socialist
aspirations around the world. This repression, combined with some of the
negative experiences countries in regions like the Middle East had
interacting with revisionists and social-imperialists claiming to be
communists, has led to a significant turning away from the socialist
path in many parts of the Third World.
Islam and New Afrikans
Just as religion is today an outlet for many radical youth in the Third
World, religion has been influenced by revolutionary politics in the
context of New Afrika. In the 20th century we see a turn towards Islam
by a number of New Afrikans who are searching for identity and
liberation from oppression by Amerika. The great migration from the
Black Belt to the industrial centers of the north was a time of great
change for the nation, that left many searching for identity and
culture. In fact, Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammed and Father Allah all
came from the south to face unmet promises of freedom and the American
Dream.(9)
New Afrikan Islam timeline
The appeal of Islam for people like Noble Drew Ali seemed to be in that
it was exotic and unknown in North America, yet well-established
elsewhere in the world. New Afrikans have spent much time trying to
create a new identity by linking their history to lost histories of
other peoples, and this was the tradition that Ali worked in. At this
time, it seems that many would-be leaders presented themselves as
actually being from more exotic places in order to inspire awe and
respect from their would-be followers. But it wasn’t just novelty that
New Afrikans were looking for, it was something that spoke to their
national aspirations, and not the same old Christian doctrines that had
been used to keep their progenitors down.
There is a direct lineage from Ali’s
Moorish
Science Temple of America (MSTA) to Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of
Islam (NOI) to Father Allah’s Five Percenters, later the
Nation
of Gods and Earths (NGE). Even today people move from one
organization to the other, building on the common mythologies between
them. And all three organizations have had important relationships with
various lumpen street organizations.
While loosely based on Islam with their founders basing their studies on
religious texts, these groups represent a unique New Afrikan theology
and culture. The NGE is the most eclectic of the groups because of its
open nature. It had a more direct relationship to street life in New
York City, and had influences from practices such as Rastafari, making
it again a unique New Afrikan culture.(10)
While the NGE has generally shunned being called a religion, its primary
purpose was in the realm of thought and philosophy. Father Allah focused
on teaching, not on organizing people for any political goals aside from
building opportunity for New Afrikan youth. Elsewhere we discuss the
Almighty
Latin King Queen Nation and its openness to representing religious
ideas, while primarily being a lumpen mass organization. In
contrast, the NGE, while rejecting religion ideologically, functioned
primarily as a religious or spiritual organization, at least at first.
It did evolve to take on more characteristics of a lumpen organization
after The Father was killed leaving the youth to organize themselves.
In 1966, a couple years after the Five Percenters began, the New York
City Police Department reported that they saw the decline of 200 street
gangs, and the rise of one – the Five Percenters.(11) While they often
found themselves in violent conflict with the armed wings of other New
Afrikan religious sects, in 1971 the NYPD believed the Five Percenters
worked with Muslims and Rastafarians in a vigilante killing of ten
suspected drug dealers. Around that same time, in the 1970s, the Five
Percenters played a leadership role in inspiring gangs to come together
to obtain anti-poverty funds, parallel to what groups like the Vice
Lords and Black P. Stone Nation were doing in Chicago.(12) In the later
1970s the Five Percenters recruited whole street gangs into their fold
whose members accounted for a significant portion of the arrests in
Brooklyn during those years.(13)
In another
article
on the MSTA, a comrade explains the dual roles of the organization,
which began as a civic organization and later became a religion. This
duality is another thing that MSTA has in common with the NOI, NGE and
other New Afrikan organizations that are just as concerned with the
nation as with spirituality. This role is also seen in leaders of
Christian-based churches, as well as lumpen organizations in the New
Afrikan community. While this is a manifestation of the continued
national interests of New Afrikans separate from Amerika, it has
unfortunately been used against their national interests as well. Some
revolutionary theorists have pointed out that it is the most scientific
revolutionary leadership that has been targeted for complete
annihilation by the state, leaving those with idealist and
profit-motivated views to fill the leadership vacuum.
Back in 1996, MIM Notes criticized the Nation of Islam’s Louis
Farrakhan for stating that an earthquake would strike California in
response to federal agents’ harassment of NOI officials. MIM wrote,
“While Farrakhan’s statement appears on the surface to be an extreme
example of religious metaphysics, Farrakhan was in fact skillfully using
metaphysics as a cover for a crypto-pacifist line directed at his
followers.”(14) Farrakhan followed in Elijah Muhammad’s footsteps, who
predicted many major events that never materialized. The mythology of
Fard (who is considered a prophet by the NOI) and Elijah Muhammad
promoted the idea that the Black man was god and created the white man
over 600 years of grafting by the scientist Yacub. Muhammad, and his
follower Clarence 13X (later Father Allah), believed that after 6000
years the Black man would return to power, which happened to be in 1966.
Muhammad predicted the “Fall of America” to occur that year. The early
years of the Five Percenters focused on preparation for this event.
While Father Allah was close to Malcolm X even after both had left/been
forced out of the NOI, ey did not join up with Malcolm because Malcolm
had rejected the story of Yacub after eir trip to Mecca.(15) Later,
Father Allah would take up the line that devilishment was a state of
mind and not a genetically distinct white man that was bred by
Yacub.(16)
It was Malcolm X who had developed the most scientific theory of
liberation coming out of the NOI, which ey seemed to be separating from
eir religious beliefs before ey was assassinated, by setting up two
separate organizations. Malcolm X inspired many, but it was the Black
Panther Party, a Maoist, and therefore atheist, organization that best
claims to be the direct descendents of Malcolm’s ideas.
The religious side of Malcolm’s evolution was carried on by Elijah
Muhammad’s son, Wallace, who took leadership of the NOI after Elijah’s
death. Wallace had been shunned for siding with Malcolm in the past, so
it was not too surprising when ey took the NOI and transformed it into a
group based in traditional Sunni Islam, rejecting the mythology of Yacub
and the focus on race. But once again, the appeal of that mythology had
not died, and many traditional NOI members left. After originally
following (and praising) Wallace’s leadership, Louis Farrakhan restarted
the Nation of Islam a few years later under the original teachings of
Elijah Muhammad. Ey courted the Five Percenters as part of eir efforts
to rebuild the NOI.(17)
It is MIM(Prisons)’s line that the principal contradiction within the
internal semi-colonies is that between integration with Amerika and
independence from Amerika. The continued interest in the mythology of
Yacub indicates an unscientific rejection of integration by many New
Afrikans. The organizations discussed here all have a significant base
in the New Afrikan lumpen, and have ideologies that reflect a kernel of
the drive for national independence. While some people from MSTA and NGE
have recently distanced themselves from Third World Islam, we shall see
whether this becomes the dominant tendency, indicating a further move
towards integration with Amerikkka for New Afrikans.
“You know back in the day, some of y’all Would shout out Allah’s
name like he was hostin yo’ mixtape Then after 9/11 you got scared
and shut the fuck up Didn’t talk about the demonization of a
culture, immigrants, nothin Now you show up, talk about we takin it
too far Die slow! MOTHERFUCKER!” –Immortal Technique, Watchout
(3rd World Remix) from the album The 3rd World (2008)
Addendum: Islam Still Small in the U.$.
After publishing this article, we thought it instructive to add some
data we came across on the numbers of people, in particular New
Afrikans, who represent some strand of Islam within U.$. borders. That
number is quite small, representing less than 1% of the people in the
country.(1) Even within the New Afrikan nation the percentage is about
the same. Yet, that hides the fact that New Afrikans are
disproportionately represented in the U.$. Muslim because virtually all
other Muslims are recent immigrants (63%) or descendents of recent
immigrants from major Muslim countries.(1) In other words, 0.9% of New
Afrikans is much greater than the almost negligible number of Muslim
Euro-Amerikans. This leads us to the third pie chart above, showing 59%
of Muslims born in the United $tates being New Afrikan. Again, this is
why we stress the connection to the national question in the article
above.
Finally, it should be noted that even among the small percentage of New
Afrikans that do identify as Muslim, most practice a more traditional
form of Islam than the groups discussed in the last section above.(2)
While we didn’t find good numbers on Nation of Islam membership,
estimates put it at in the neighborhood of 10% of New Afrikan Muslims.
The various sects of the Moorish Science Temple of America represent a
much smaller group, though we know that among imprisoned New Afrikans
the percentage is higher and we have gotten many letters of interest
from prisoners in response to this issue of Under Lock & Key.
We do not have numbers on the Five Percenters.
Recently, there has been a lot of confusion and/or misunderstanding with
regard to the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA) and its relation
to the
Sovereign
Citizen Movement. This is partially because some people who may or
may not be a part of the MSTA have taken up certain aspects of the
Sovereign Citizen Movement.
There are over five different splinter groups who operate under the
MSTA that i am aware of, each with its own self-proclaimed leader of the
“Movement” established by Prophet Noble Drew Ali. This is why we have
this confusion as to what the Moorish National and Divine Movement is
about.
Brief Historical Background
The MSTA was founded by Prophet Noble Drew Ali in 1913 and was first
organized as a civic organization. In 1928, it was re-incorporated in
the State of Illinois as a religious corporation. The stated objective
of the MSTA is “to uplift fallen humanity.” Humynity meaning all of the
people of the world, with the understanding that charity starts at home
before it spreads abroad.
The MSTA is decidedly “nationalist.” It proclaims Marcus Garvey as the
forerunner of Noble Drew Ali. It should be of interest to note that
Prophet Noble Drew Ali was pushing the line that New Afrikans (Moors),
were a separate and distinct nation here in the United $tates.
While the MSTA is recognized as a “religious” organization, it also
functions on a social, economic and political level, as all of these
functions are necessary in building and/or re-building a nation. Herein
lies the confusion and/or misunderstanding with regard to the Moorish
Movement. The political line and direction varies depending on which
“Sheik” you are following.
On Nationality
I am a Moor. I am a also a New Afrikan. I am a member of the MSTA and
the 1st Crown Prince of the Black Order Revolutionary Organization
(BORO), a New Afrikan revolutionary nationalist organization. For the
most part, the MSTA is a cultural nationalist organization.
The line of the MSTA is that we are descendants of Morrocans and born in
America. This is based upon the fact that the Moors ruled the
Northwestern and Southwestern shores of Afrika, and that this location
was the center of the Afrikan Holocaust (aka Atlantic Slave Trade).
We all should recognize that through an imposition of war, Afrikans were
brought to these shores from many lands, tribes and cultures with
different languages, traditions, etc. But through our collective
oppression and hystoric collective resistance, we developed into a
social and cultural unit (nation), separate and distinct from any other
people on the planet. WE became a New, Afrikan people. Thus, the term
New Afrikan. The same can be said for the term Moorish American.
Religion and Communism
BORO demonstrates from a secular form of organization because
hystorically and scientifically, secular movements are better political
vehicles than religious movements. This is because one’s religious
orientation does not necessarily determine one’s political positions,
and it is one’s politics that need to form the basis of unity and
disunity if a movement is to maintain a clear political focus.
While most religions and religious groups deal in idealism and
metaphysics, Moors are taught to be scientists. For Moors, we are taught
that the Islamic path to submission to God (Allah) is simplified as a
“Creed.” Moorish scientists are taught to maintain the principles of
Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice. In fact, Temple members are
encouraged to engage the world in the same way as the “spiritual”
principles given, Love being the first and Justice being the last. Moors
should primarily be concerned with spiritual principles rather than some
sort of religious orthodoxy. But again, this is all predicated upon
which “Sheik” you are following.
Moorish Science doesn’t teach that God (Allah) is some great, mysterious
spirit, but that all people have within them the seed of perfect
development. Your “devil” or “God” is within you and it is manifested
through your thinking and words, actions and deeds; which result from
our material conditions.
There are a lot of issues around which the anti-imperialist movement can
unite with the MSTA. The struggle against religious thinking is
secondary to smashing imperialism, militarism, environmental pollution
and other antagonistic contradictions which are manifested in our
struggle, mainly national oppression and gender oppression.
Our task should be to try to find common ground in which we can unite
with those who have religious thinking as their base. We should unite
with them in secular political movement such as BORO, MIM(Prisons), USW,
or RAIL.
“Our principle ideological task in organizing such religious
progressives – as well as the people who take the bourgeoisie’s idealist
talk of ‘eternal truths’ like fraternity, equality and liberty at face
value – is to explain our slogan that ‘there are no rights, only power
struggles.’ That is, these rights are denied the oppressed masses
through economic exploitation and outright violent suppression. The only
way to realize these rights is to overthrow the material systems of
imperialism, capitalism and patriarchy – and the only way to combat
these material forces is to scientifically analyze the contradictions in
society and build a secular revolutionary movement, a movement without
religious bias which can unite all the oppressed.”(1)
Conclusion
While i don’t have the time or space to go into all of the
contradictions within the MSTA, it is safe to say that it has no ties to
the Sovereign Citizen Movement. It is inherently more progressive than
most organized religious groups operating in the New Afrikan community,
but there is a leadership vacuum. A scientific leadership, that knows
how to balance the spiritual aspects of life, with materialism.
At the same time, “some people talk about a ‘nation’ but really don’t
wanna be one (independent), as evidenced by their efforts to crawl back
on the plantation. How can we tell? You can identify those trying to
crawl back on the plantation by the way they identify themselves,
i.e. ‘black’, ‘African-American’, ‘ethnic group’, ‘minority
nationality’, ‘underclass’, anything and everything except New Afrikans,
an oppressed nation. Amerikkka is the plantation, and continuing to
identify yourself within the Amerikkkan context is evidence of the
colonial (slave) mentality. Ain’t no two ways about it.”(2)
It is the people who make hystory and it is our responsibility to create
the type of society that we want to live in. Otherwise, you ain’t got no
right to complain about the oppression you face.
MIM(Prisons) has received a number of other responses to discussion
around the MSTA, following the article “Talks about Sovereignty: A
Scientific Approach” printed in Under Lock & Key 44.
One Illinois prisoner wrote: [The article] described these groups
aforesaid as Sovereign Citizen movements which, in many instances, can
obliquely misrepresent the actual objective these organizations have
struggled to attain. The author’s paralogism can be easily made by
relating the agenda’s of New Afrikan groups like the Moorish Nation and
the Washitaw Nation of Moors to that of the white nationalist groups,
though indeed there are many concrete similarities between the two
movements, yet to the contrary, there are also conceptual differences,
which in respect to the Moorish Divine National Movement and the
Washitaw Nation of Moors theoretical systems warrants elucidation.
…what the author fails to clarify is the Moorish Divine National
Movement in fact has a much different historical perspective on such
matters. Moorish partisans do not acknowledge the feudal British empire
(feudal at the time) nor their posterity, imperialist USA as legitimate
authorities of the land. They recognize that all Moorish people here in
the colonial USA are colonized and have the right for self-determination
and national sovereign independence.
And I thought it would be also critical for comrades to note, that the
Moorish nationality is not a pseudo-scientific theory, it actually has a
historical foundation to support its concept.
A comrade from Michigan wrote: Comrades, I truly appreciate you
and all the things that you have taught me and put me in tune with as
far as the revolutionary movement. Comrades, you have opened my mind and
changed my point of view because I had got caught up under religion but
not the political, social, economic and cultural perspectives. Islam
isn’t a religion at all, it’s a way of life, and this is why Islam is
the fastest growing way of life in the world today.
The letter you sent me asks the question is the Moorish Science Temple
of America a sovereign movement? The answer was No! This is correct
because the MSTA is a religious organization that was founded by Prophet
Noble Drew Ali in 1928… But in the late 1920s the Moors started fighting
over positions and for power. The Moorish movement split up into many
different organizations.
I’m a product of the new generation of Moors. Prophet Noble Drew Ali
said, “there are going to be new Moors coming into the Temple with their
eyes wide open, seeing and knowing they are going to set you old Moors
in the back, and they are going to enforce my laws.”
I see myself as a new generation Moor and I see and understand the weak
and ineffective leadership that’s in the Moorish movement. …I have
decided to bring about a serious change in the Moorish movement and its
ideology and to become politically, socially, economically and
culturally in the struggle to remove oppression and exploitation of the
New Afrikans, poor people and Third World countries. This is the reason
why I founded the Moorish Islamic Liberation Movement as its Chief
Executive Ruler.
…There are more MSTA Temples in the prison system than society now, this
is a damn shame. But Moors in society have forgotten where they came
from…. And yes, I support the Sovereign Freedom Movement, and I
recognize the U.$. Empire government but I’m not a 14th Amendment
Federal Citizen, I’m a state citizen under the 11th Amendment of the
U.$. constitution. …
The Moors are indigenous to the Americas because the old Moorish Empire
extended from the northeast and southwest Afrika across the great
Atlantis even unto the present day North, South and Central America…
This Moorish Islamic Liberation Movement has many different associates
and alliances because to destroy and overthrow imperialism is going to
require a great many alliances. I’m against no other Moorish
organization but I disagree with the methods and ideology of teachings
because it’s too many secrets and not enough action.
I stand with the oppressed, exploited and the poor people of the world
because of the cruel abusive and foul treatment by the imperialist and
the powerful of the proletariat and lumpen. We stand together in
solidarity as Souljas in the revolutionary cause to establish freedom,
justice and equality for all people wherever they may be. Our principles
are Love, Truth, Peace, Freedom and Justice. And when these principles
are violated, justice then must take its course!
A comrade in Illinois wrote: I am writing to you about your
recent article that talks about sovereignty. The Moorish Americans are
not on a sovereign citizen movement, get it right. We are not some new
organization, the Moors are the true indigenous people and nations of
the land as you know that the Moors was denationalized during slavery
and given slave names and Black state of mind, they were made negroes,
colored folks, black people and in 2015, African Americans. Now take a
look at the Constitution of the United States of America, Article 1,
Section 2. You know where it says three fifths of all other persons. Do
you know what they are talking about? They are talking about Willie
Lynch syndrome man breaking and slave making!…
MIM(Prisons) responds: We thank this latter comrade for sending
many pages of materials on the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA).
Much of our response here is based on the information in those
documents.
The MSTA denounces the terms “Negro”, “Colored”, “Black” and “African
American” to describe a people, primarily because it denies the
nationality of said people. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights guarantees all people the right to a nation and to change
their nation, and is cited by the MSTA as part of their claim. We agree
with this foundational aspect of the MSTA that recognizes the
independent nationality of what we call the New Afrikan nation, which
was formed by the importing of slaves of various African nations by
European settlers. MSTA looks at the history of Amerika, and the 14th
and 15th Amendments, and states that it “could never seriously include
people of color, women or commoners.” Again, we agree here that there is
an antagonistic contradiction between the Amerikan oppressor nation and
the oppressed.
As the comrade from BORO describes, MSTA’s idea of a Moorish American
Nation seems to parallel what we call the New Afrikan nation. They
explain their use of the term Moor in that it is an ancient
civilization, with a glorious history, that is found in the bible. They
imply that a nation not found in the bible does not exist. This is a
metaphysical view that nations cannot change, form, or disappear with
time. Their need to define their nation as timeless seems to lead them
to declare the Moorish American Nation to be the indigenous people of
and “Heirs Apparent” to the lands of “North America, South America,
Central America, and the Atlantis Islands, referred to as the Caribbean
Islands.” This is echoed by our comrade from Michigan above. Elsewhere
the MSTA seems to contradict this when writing, “the Moorish, were a new
nation of people, brought forth on this continent by the European
forefathers.” It is not clear from what we’ve read how the MSTA
reconciles their identity as an indigenous nation to America with the
historical fact of the African slave trade and the many First Nations
that existed in America prior to that trade that brought masses of
Africans to this land.
Now to this question of MSTA and sovereignty. While none of our
correspondents above see the MSTA as a Sovereign Citizen movement, at
least one of them was quite well-versed in and supported the Sovereign
Citizen ideas. As established above, there are different sects of the
MSTA. At least a couple of them publicly denounce the Sovereign Citizens
Movement.
Yet, the language in many of the documents sent to us are quite similar
to that of the Sovereign Citizen Movement, so it is easy to see how the
two have merged in some places in recent years. They speak of “legal
trickery” and go on and on about archaic legal language to explain the
situation they are in and how to get out of it. But in reality it was
brute force and oppression that put New Afrikans where they are as a
semi-colony of Amerika. The law is merely a smokescreen to cover that
up. So that is where we disagree with the MSTA and those who look to
Sovereign Citizen ideology for liberation. They treat the legal concepts
they talk about as concepts that define our reality. In contrast, we
believe it is people, and ultimately the masses, who define humyn
destiny. The MSTA’s and Sovereign Citizens Movement’s approach is a sort
of idealism, where the ideas are these legal concepts that they hold up
as the ultimate cause of their predicament and solution to it.
Some of the materials sent to us were from the Moorish Order of the
Roundtable, founded in 1982 (rvbeypublications.com). This group happens
to be the target of an article
“Debunking
sovereignty myths” on moorishsciencetemple.org. So we see there is
disagreement and even confusion among those calling themselves Moors on
this question. We support those who are working towards greater clarity.
The piece by the BORO comrade above puts the issue plainly, and the work
of BORO speaks to their efforts to put a scientific political agenda
into practice. We will continue to work with the comrade trying to start
the Moorish Islamic Liberation Movement to move in a similar direction.
Marcus Garvey and Amy Jacques
In response to the call to honor freedom fighters, it is an honor and
pleasure to journal the commemoration of New Afrikan freedom fighter Amy
Jacques Garvey.
So many today dismiss the Pan-Afrikan movement and its various bodies,
both within and outside of U.$. prisons, as that of an unnecessary call
and reference to an outdated idea. In the context of the proletarian
political causes, it is often the ultra-leftist who has taken up this
position.
However, in our attempts to fast forward the most correct methods of
resolving contradictions, we acknowledge that they come in the form of
class consciousness among nationalist leaders driven by internationalist
struggles led by the proletariat. The Pan-Afrikan movement is one likely
place where we find these elements.
Many prisoners are aware of the name
Marcus
Mosiah Garvey, but very few are familiar with Amy Jacques Garvey,
the wife of Marcus Garvey and the bone and marrow of the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA). Amy Garvey was a special person in the
history of liberation struggles. Born 31 December 1895 in Kingston,
Jamaica to a middle-upper class family, Amy Garvey was ahead of her
time. Though “all identity is individual, there is no individual
identity that is not historical or, in other words, constructed within a
field of social values, norms of behavior and collective symbols.”(1)
The mother of what author Ula Yvette Taylor coined “community feminism,”
Amy Garvey pressed the issue of lower class wimmin not only in serving
their male counterparts, but also educating themselves to become
political leaders in the nation. Today, lumpen wimmin of the internal
semi-colonies still find themselves criticized for either being
home-oriented or for sex. UNIA enjoyed support across gender and
promoted equality of the sexes. Yet, in practice, this “community
feminist” approach was a means of dealing with the expectations put on
wimmin to be supporters of men while still being political leaders.
While wimmin like Amy Garvey had to take on an unequal burden compared
to their male counterparts, their actions served to break down the
expectations of gendered roles, paving the way for others.
Amy Garvey empowered wimmin to confront racism, colonialism and
imperialism, while contesting masculine dominance as well.(2) As she
wrote, wimmin should use their “intelligence in a righteous cause” as
they are needed to “fill the breach, and fight as never before, for the
masses need intelligent dedicated leadership.”(3)
Since the 1920s, Amy Jacques Garvey’s organizing activities had sought
to further the decolonization of West Afrikan nations as people of
African descent endeavored to restructure their societies. The
antecedents of these largely nationalist movements were well-established
in Pan-Afrikan struggle that came into its own during the early 1940s,
including the fifth Pan-Afrikan Congress. Meanwhile, other power shifts
were occurring such as: the rise of the Soviet Union, liberation
struggles in southeast Asia, the independence of China and the
Asian-African
Bandung Conference.(4) Indeed, within this political milieu, “West
Afrikan nationalism and various brands of Pan-Africanism, could mix with
everything from Fabian socialism to Marxism-Leninism.”(5)
While engaging in the international arena, Amy Garvey also struggled
against fellow comrades of the UNIA. She was well known for her refusal
to hold her tongue on the contradictions that arose within, even at
times writing critical positions of Marcus Garvey himself. It resembles
so many of those within the belly of the beast babylon who struggle to
liberate themselves in order to offer liberation to their people, only
to be hushed by LO leadership.
Amy Garvey was from Jamaica and considered herself an Afrikan. She drove
home the point that people of Afrikan descent in the United $tates (New
Afrikans) and elsewhere were living as second-class citizens, largely as
a result of economic oppression. Today we see the second-class
citizenship that New Afrikans and Chican@s face as the biggest targets
of social isolation by the U.$. prison system. The second class that the
oppressed nations are being bred into today is what we call the First
World lumpen class. In the imperialist countries, that is the class that
has nothing to lose from a revolution except the very chains that bind
them to a bourgeois system that doesn’t serve them. “As the lumpen
experience oppression first hand here in Amerika, we are in a position
to spearhead the revolutionary vehicle within the U.$. borders.”(6)
The 2015 release of Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán
by a MIM(Prisons) study group introduces prisoners to the reality of
their class identity with the lumpen of oppressed internal semi-colonies
in North America.
“Kwame Nkrumah in his analysis of neo-colonialism in Africa defined it
as: ‘The essence of neo-colonialism is that the state which is subject
to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of
international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its
political policy is directed from outside.’ Nkrumah stressed the
importance of dividing the oppressed into smaller groups as part of this
process of preventing effective resistance to imperialism as had already
occurred in China, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba and elsewhere.”(7)
Amy Garvey too considered the likes of Kwame Nkrumah as her comrade,
alongside of Nnamdi Azikiwe, W.E.B. DuBois and George Padmore, just to
name a few. She was a disciplined, arduous scholar whose objective was
to fold Garveyism into existing progressive organizations, thus uniting
a divergent Pan-Afrikan world.
Many of the ideas that are circulated amongst the lumpen organizations
within the belly of the beast babylon are grafted from the ideas of the
peoples parties like the UNIA, whether they admit it or not. The proof
is in the pudding. Amy Garvey showed that one could stand on two legs
and not buckle under the pressure of integrationist culture.
Amy Garvey held Marcus Garvey up while he served his prison bid in
Atlanta, and took the driver’s seat of one of the world’s most
influential Negro organizations in its time when wimmin weren’t expected
to be political. It is so similar to the anti-imperialist prisoner
movement; prisoners aren’t expected to be political souljahs.
Death to babylon-imperialism!
MIM(Prisons) adds: MIM said that Pan-Afrikanism should be a
strategic question, and is not worth splitting over.(8) They also said
that Pan-Afrikanism has historically been the most progressive of the
“pan” ideologies. Clearly that the Pan-Afrikan mission has yet to
succeed in the dire need for effective revolutionary leadership is
evident in the recent revelations that
“In 2014, the U.S. carried out 674 military activities across Africa,
nearly two missions per day, an almost 300% jump in the number of annual
operations, exercises, and military-to-military training activities
since U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established in 2008.”(9)
The imperialists continue to foment the tribal divisions across the
African continent to wage proxy wars that amount to inter-proletarian
killing on the ground. The overwhelming proletarian character of the
populations in Africa gives Pan-Afrikanism its strong progressive
character.