Voice of the International African Revolution! - Uhuru News

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4 THE BURNING SPEAR April 2003 APSP intervenes in “peace movement” opposed to anti-colonial resistance ST. PETERSBURG, Fl — As of this writing, U.S. forces have toppled the Iraqi government through massive slaughter and treachery, and Baghdad is in flames. The ancient city is currently in a state of anarchy that is all too convenient for American imperialist goals of re-colonizing the Middle East and the majority of the world. Even as U.S. marines stand by and watch impoverished Iraqis search for meager resources in Iraqi cities after 13 years of U.S. economic sanctions, an impenetrable band of military forces guard the Iraqi oil fields, the real loot that the imperialist masters will guard at any price. Over the past several months, during the U.S. government’s buildup to the invasion of Iraq, a massive anti-war movement has sprung up inside the U.S. and around the world. Millions of people marched internationally and hundreds of thousands inside this country. The clear message that masses of people did not want this genocidal massacre against the Iraqi people was ignored by Bush and his war cabinet. For the first time since the U.S. war against the people of Viet Nam, a mass movement emerged in cities and towns inside the U.S. and across the globe, a movement aided this time around by the internet and the heady sense of global communication. Under the surface, though, this emerging movement has been riddled with struggle and contradictions that reflect the colonial realities inside the belly of parasitic capitalism. As the current situation unfolds, the question facing the peace movement is more critical than ever: peace for whom? Struggle in the peace movement Recent polls show that the African community is strongly opposed to the U.S. military massacre of the Iraqi people. According to statistics, 78 percent of white people supported the war once the U.S. invaded, while 71 percent of African people in the U.S. were against it. According to a column in USA Today, “Though African-Americans have no love for Saddam Hussein, a survey of chat rooms on black Web sites and discussions on black radio talk shows suggest that many, if not most, disbelieve the reasons Bush has given for ordering troops into Iraq. They think the war has more to do with Iraq’s oil than with the weapons of mass destruction the administration claims Saddam’s regime possessed.” Several times a week, members of the African People’s Socialist Party organize street rallies in the African communities where we are located. These rallies elicit an enthusiastic response from African workers. Nevertheless, African people for the most part do not come out to the white-led peace rallies because these rallies do not reflect the conditions that Africans suffer in this country. Around the country, wherever African People’s Socialist Party organizations of African and colonized people attempt to work inside the peace movement, similar struggles emerge. A paper by a group of New York “anti-racist” activists describes the “resistance by predominantly white organizations to sharing leadership” with colonized organizations — much less following their leadership. The New York forces cite the failure of predominantly white organizations to endorse or participate in anti-war activities sponsored by colonized people. White peace groups consistently control the programs at rallies, allowing only those African and colonized speakers who would not challenge “mainstream” white America. African movie stars and cultural workers are acceptable; people working for African liberation are not, and our Party and members of the Uhuru Movement are generally censored. Pacifists, U.S. patriots, Democratic party members, Zionists and the loyal U.S. opposition have attempted to gain control of the peace movement. The view that “all violence and all war is wrong” predominates, a line that maintains “a monopoly of violence in the hands of the oppressor state,” as African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela explains. Peace on the plantation versus national liberation As colonized subjects, African people inside the U.S. experience the full force of U.S. imperialism and imperialist violence every day. Twenty-eight percent of all African men will go to prison in their lifetimes. Millions of us are imprisoned by unjust laws; our children are doomed for failure in hostile white school systems and poverty is ever rampant in our communities. African people live under a militaristic containment policy as vicious as any that the U.S. will impose on the Iraqi people. Living in a country built on slavery, genocide and colonialism, the white population sits on a pedestal of the oppression of Africans and others. White people’s affluence and wellbeing comes at the expense of African, Iraqi and all the other oppressed peoples inside this country and around the world. These two realities produce two different concepts of “peace.” The peace sought by most of the white peace movement is not that much different than the peace George W. Bush is working for. As long as the Iraqi people are not in a state of uprising there is “peace.” Chairman Omali describes it as “peace on the plantation,” peace for white people through the absence of anti-colonial resistance. This is why there are fewer participants in the white peace rallies since the onset of the war and the subsequent occupation of Iraq. The essential question is not the end of military action, but the fact that there can be no genuine peace without Over the past year, huge, predominately white, peace demonstations have occured in the U.S. What these peace demonstrations have not articulated is “peace for whom?”. Pacifists, U.S. patriots, Democratic party members, Zionists and the loyal U.S. opposition have attempted to gain control of the peace movement... African movie stars and cultural workers are acceptable; people working for African liberation are not, and our Party and members of the Uhuru Movement are generally censored national liberation of colonized peoples around the world and inside the United States. It is the right of all African and colonized peoples to struggle for our liberation by any means necessary, and the peace movement must be based on that premise. Party builds principled peace movement Just weeks after the events of September 11, 2001, our Party helped to form the Florida Alliance for Peace and Social Justice in an attempt to bring together as many peace activists from around the state of Florida to stand against the U.S. government’s threatened attacks against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. The Florida Alliance is unique in that it has united a broad array of peace groups of all persuasions in one organization, which has the Party and the American Indian Movement in its leadership. During 2002, the Alliance held three highly successful statewide anti-war mobilizations at the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, the central command of the U.S. war drive. All the MacDill peace rallies were remarkable for their emphasis on national liberation and social justice. Those rallies featured speakers such as Vernon Bellecourt, National Director of the American Indian Movement; Pam Africa of Friends and Family of Mumia Abu Jamal; Dorothy Lewis, leader of the movement for Reparations to the African community and Dr. Sami Al-Arian, the now-imprisoned University of South Florida professor who was targeted by the U.S. government for supporting the just cause of the oppressed Palestinian people. Pacifists claim AIM, Uhuru Movement potentially violent Over the months, predictable contradictions emerged within the Florida Alliance, including charges by some white peace groups that AIM and the Uhuru Movement posed a potential for violence. These backwards allegations flew in the face of the fact that oppressed people inside this country are the ones who have endured genocide, slavery and colonial violence for the past 500 years. As a concession to white pacifists, our Party is committed to tactical nonviolence in Florida Alliance actions. Obviously we are not ready to go up against the military forces at MacDill Air Force base during a peace rally! Chairman Omali Yeshitela led in creating the principles of unity, which are based in nonviolent tactics, and he has coordinated the nonviolent trainings before the marches. Some white people in the Alliance were more honest when they stated flatly that the organization spends “too much time on black and Indian issues.” These struggles culminated when Mark Kamleiter, leader of the Florida Green Party, pulled out of the Alliance and joined with others to form United Voices for Peace, a new all white group which excluded AIM and the Uhuru Movement from participating in their peace actions. At the MacDill peace rally in November, 2002, Kamleiter had angrily and rudely confronted Chairman Omali Yeshitela after his presentation during Continued on next page
April 2003 THE BURNING SPEAR 5 Continued from previous page which the Chairman stated that it was the responsibility of the slave “to kill the slavemaster and destroy the system of slavery.” In an unprincipled and subjective manner, Kamleiter accused the Chairman of using “violence of words,” even as Kamleiter routinely talks about U.S. patriotism and the American flag, the symbol of the most violent social system on Earth, responsible for centuries of genocide, slaughter, terror and rape across the planet. It is interesting that Kamleiter and other white pacifists are never seen demonstrating against police brutality and other forms of colonial violence that plague our community. Nor do they seem to have a problem with the hundreds of white anarchists and students who violently tore up the city of Seattle, Washington during protests against the World Trade Organization. The main concern of pacifists is to protest African people’s right to speak out against our colonial conditions and express our goal to liberate ourselves from the grip of imperialism. Omali Yeshitela censored In Oakland CA, our Party was also instrumental in pulling together the All People’s Coalition Against the War (All Peeps), an organization with African, Mexican, Filipino and Arab people in leading roles. All Peeps has held several successful actions on the terms of colonized people, including the march last May across San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge. At the same time All Peeps and the Uhuru Movement have struggled for Chairman Omali Yeshitela and other African People’s Socialist Party members to be able to speak at the large Bay Area anti-war rallies, many of which have been coordinated by A.N.S.W.E.R., a peace group formed by the white-led Workers World Party. In the past months, A.N.S.W.E.R has been red baiteded — a tactic of discrediting a group, person, project or idea with the claim of communist involvement or association — by pacifist, Zionist and patriotic peace groups. This attack was a response to speakers supporting the African struggle of Mumia Abu Jamal and for supporting the struggle of the Palestinian people at A.N.S.W.E.R -sponosored peace rallies. Despite the fact that A.N.S.W.E.R has been attacked from the right, it has always arrogantly censored Chairman Omali and prevented him from speaking at its rallies. All Peeps did succeed in getting the Chairman to speak at the peace rally held in Oakland on April 5. After weeks of intense struggle with organizers, the Chairman was grudgingly granted three minutes at the end of the program. Nevertheless, Chairman Omali’s presentation was clearly the most dynamic and profound of the day and the crowd cheered in enthusiastic support. Peace for whom? To give leadership to these struggles raging inside the peace movement, Party-led forces called together forums entitled “Peace for Whom?” in St. Petersburg on March 8 and in Oakland on April 8. “Is there room for Africans, Arabs, Indians, Mexicans and other non-white people in the peace ples! InPDUM is calling for “$$$ billions for reparations, not for war, police and prisons!” Distinguishing itself from other anti-war rallies, which simply called for “peace,” this demonstration called for liberation and self-determination for Iraqi, Palestinian and all oppressed peoples. Speakers rallied the people to stand against the U.S. government attacks against the African community in the U.S. and other colonized people in the U.S. and around the world. Participating organizations Anti-war demonstration in Philadelphia, PA included InPDUM, the African- American Freedom and Even before the US-Anglo invasion Reconstruction League, the African of Iraq officially began, the Philadelphia People’s Solidarity Committee, the branch of the International People’s Moorish Unification Council of the Democratic Uhuru Movement World Incorporated, Friends and (InPDUM) mobilized a powerful Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, demonstration in the crowded Monday Palestinian activists, students from evening rush hour of Center City on Moore College of Art, the Germantown March 17th. Unitarian Church and various peace Thousands of city workers on their and anti-war groups. way home heard the chants, saw the After a spirited rally, the demonstrators joined with a student “die-in” to take banners and got a flyer in their hands denouncing the U.S. terrorist aggression against the people of Iraq. The over the streets around City Hall and blocked rush-hour traffic for over an demonstration called for no African hour. This demonstration was the first community participation in Bush’s war of several led by the Uhuru Movement in the Middle East and demanded in Philadelphia, which stood in unity peace through social and economic with the millions of people all over the justice, reparations and liberation for world denouncing U.S. terrorism. African, Arab and all oppressed peo- movement?” asked the fliers circulated for these events. In St. Petersburg, about 90 people came out to enthusiastically participate in this critical discussion, which was facilitated by Jim Harper, the new editor of the Weekly Planet, the popular Tampa Bay free weekly paper. Panelists included Sheridan Murphy, Director of the Florida American Indian Movement; Beth Schrivener of the Community Coalition Against War and Terrorism of Gainesville; Harry Simon, Union del Barrio, San Diego; Bob Tancig, Florida Coalition for Justice and Peace, Tallahassee; Omali Yeshitela, Florida Alliance and Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party and Mark Kamleiter, co-chair of the Florida Green Party and member of United Voices for Peace. Needless to say, Kamleiter’s white nationalist stance was clearly exposed in a principled way. In Oakland, the event opened with a salute to Stephen Funk, U.S. marine conscientious objector. Stephen was followed by a lively panel featuring Noura Erakat, Arab Anti-discrimination Committee; Quetzaoceloaciua, Barrio Defense Committee; Angelica Cabande, Filipinos for Global Justice Not War; Penny Hess, African People’s Solidarity Committee and Chairman Omali Yeshitela. At both events, the majority of the audience united with the struggles being made by the very unified colonized forces that the only true peace is peace through national liberation and social justice. As Chairman Omali Yeshitela summed up in St. Petersburg: Philadelphia Uhuru movement leads anti-war demonstrations The Palestinian and Arab participants were especially appreciative that the Uhuru Movement called to “Free, Free Palestine!” and for self-determination for Iraqi and Arab peoples. The other anti-war mobilizations, led by predominantly white left groups, did not voice unity with the right of the Arab peoples to sovereignty. In fact, mobilizations that had originally supported the Palestinian people’s liberation struggle against Israel had capitulated to criticism by white nationalists. The white left had dropped this demand, raising instead such slogans as “Bring the troops home,” and calling to stop anti-Semitism! The movement also participated in daily rallies and demonstrations in the week after the invasion began, including a massive student walk-out from high school and university campuses. Students expressed enthusiastic support for the presentation made by Philadelphia InPDUM President Kamau Becktemba at their rally. He deepened their understanding of the world situation by explaining that the U.S. is at war with the oppressed and colonized peoples of the world in a desperate struggle to keep control of the people’s resources. Becktemba called on the students to unite with the national liberation struggles taking place all over the world, including in Colombia, Palestine, Africa, the Philippines and the Middle “It’s no secret that historically the peace movement has been a white movement. It may be that I will not be able to participate in the peace movement as it has historically been understood in this country, because that is not the peace that I am looking for. “When you talk about peace you have to talk about national liberation. That is the fundamental question. If you start with the question of national liberation — the right of peoples to be free then you start off recognizing that the conditions of existence for most people in the world, including Indians, Africans and others inside this country are always violent. “There is never a nonviolent period when black people, Native people and oppressed peoples around the world are not suffering from violence. Violence is not something that just disturbs the peace of the white community. “People invoke the names of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. What is profoundly important to understand about both Gandhi and King is that they were both participants in a struggle for self determination of oppressed peoples. They weren’t just standing above the fray. “The question of peace is not just some purely abstract question. It requires us to take sides. If you know that you live in a country that constructed itself of the oppression and blood of the masses of people around the world, then you must take a stand on the side of the liberation of oppressed peoples.” Peace through national liberation and self-determination! What you can do! Tribunal organizing meetings open to the community to join are held every Wednesday night at 7:30pm at the Uhuru House at 1021 S. 49th St, at Chester Avenue in West Philadelphia. Call 215-724-3535 to find out how you can participate! East, and to join the struggle led by the African community inside the U.S. for reparations and social and economic justice. In March, InPDUM and the African People’s Solidarity Committee also held successful anti-war forums on campuses around the Philadelphia area: at Temple University, Rutgers University, New Jersey and at Moore College of Art, as well as at Robin’s Bookstore in Center City and the Uhuru House in West Philadelphia. The anti-war efforts of the Uhuru Movement brought people to realize that there can be no meaningful peace in the world today without genuine justice and liberation for African, Arab and all oppressed people. Armed with this understanding, people signed up to participate in building the World Tribunal for Reparations for African People that the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement is sponsoring in Philadelphia on November 15- 16, 2003. African People’s Socialist Party
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