Asante Sana from Assata Shakur

[XXPANTHAXX]

Asante Sana from Assata Shakur
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http://www.assatashakur.org/asante_sana.htm

First of all, let me say thank you, to the many people who have helped
me to celebrate my 60th birthday. Thank you for your beautiful birthday
cards and for your warm and eloquent messages. Thank you for your
activism, your radiant energy and most of all for your love. I am
sincerely grateful for your support and for your commitment to social
justice, truth and freedom.

It is somehow surprising for me to realize that I have lived on this
planet for 60 years. I never imagined that I would live this long. Some
of those years were very hard years, other years were happier, but I
have never forgotten who I am or where I came from. For as long as I can
remember, I was acutely aware of my oppression and of the oppression of
my people.

In some ways it was easier for my generation. Racism was blatant and
obvious. The "Whites Only" signs let us know clearly, what we were up
against. Not much has changed, but the system of lies and tricknology is
much more sophisticated. Today young people have to be highly informed
and acutely analytical, or they will be swept up into a whirlpool of
lies and deception.

Freedom, justice and liberty are words that are thrown around a lot in
the United States, but for most of us, it is empty rhetoric. With each
and every passing day the country becomes more repressive, the police
more viciously aggressive and the so-called constitutional guarantees
obliterated by scare tactics.

The so-called 'Conservatives' are only interested in conserving their
privileges and power and helping their rich friends to become richer.
Black 'Conservatives' serve their "masters" and are basically interested
in grinning, shuffling and 'Uncle Tomming' all the way to the bank.

This is the most corrupt administration that has ever existed. They have
blatantly stolen not millions, but billions of dollars. They are
actively seeking to preserve the old colonial order with a new face,
where the oppressed people of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle
East are expected to suffer happily, and sing praises to imperialism to
the tune of the star spangled banner.

It is extreme arrogance to attack and occupy a country and expect its
people to rejoice and lick your feet. Not even Roman Emperors were
involved in such misguided conceit. The U.S. government has no right
whatsoever, to force its undemocratic "democracy" on the rest of the
world.

I am 60 years old and I cannot remember a time when my people ever
experienced true democracy. It is still the active policy of the U.S.
government to use a wide variety of tactics to prevent poor people and
people of color from voting. And when we do get to vote, our votes
usually do not count.

For the most part, there are no decent candidates to vote for, because
the U.S, government is a "dollarocracy" where candidates have to beg and
pander to the corporate rich in order to be elected.

I am 60 years old, and I have never in my life seen such widespread
violence and cruelty. The U.S. government has more people in prison than
any other country in the world, and it is now actively involved in
creating prisons all over the world. Abu Gharib is only the tip of the
iceberg.

People all over the world are being imprisoned in secret prisons, with
no formal charges being made against them. They are imprisoned under the
most inhumane conditions, and detained for indeterminate periods of
time, with no rights, no trials, and no justice whatsoever.

In short, the leaders of this country are war criminals. All the U.S.
government has to do is call them terrorists or extremists, enemy
combatants or whatever and they can do anything they want to these
people. I live in Cuba, and the Cuban people watch horrified, as the
U.S. Army illegally occupies their land in Guantanamo and commits
unspeakable acts of torture on their soil, in the name of "freedom."

The U.S. government not only destroys the lives of people around the
world, many mothers have cried because many of our young people have had
their lives destroyed as well. I believe that this earth was meant for
tenderness and not terror. The imperialist countries not only implement
terrorist policies in the Third World, their actions also provoke
terrorist activities and internal disputes between people.

I believe that when Western governments learn to respect the sovereignty
of Third world governments, and to offer solidarity and support rather
that imperialist policies and exploitation, most of the world's problems
will be close to being solved.

Inside the belly of the beast, conditions are also disastrous. Most of
the victims of Katrina are still waiting for decent housing and public
services. Schools and hospitals around the country are either
deteriorating or closing down. Around the country social programs to
help poor and working people are mostly a thing of the past.

Our young people are being marginalized, criminalized and brutalized. It
is often an act of courage to go to school, or simply drive down the
street. The U.S. government's occupation of Afghanistan has produced a
record increase of heroin production, and the "war on drugs" continues
to be a war on poor people and people of color. The police brutality in
our communities is not a simple matter of randomly "bad" cops.

This government is more repressive than ever and more and more of a
police state. When you have a trigger happy president, a trigger happy
vice-president, a trigger happy office of homeland security, you are
bound to have an increase of trigger happy police and many of our young
people are bound to end up dead or imprisoned. The social policies of
the United States have deteriorated from so-called benign neglect to
malignant hostility or indifference.

The role the press and the media have played in all this has been
increasingly malignant. There is no such thing as a free press in the
United States. Journalists receive big salaries for telling "official"
lies. The media both knowingly and naively became the vehicle for
misinforming the people of the United States and convincing the people
that it was "necessary" to go to war. Their "reporting" was based on
outright lies. Now they "embedded" in the military, continuing to
misinform the people, and distort the truth.

I am 60 years old and I am proud to be one of those people who stood up
against the ruthless, evil, imperialist policies of the U.S. government.
In my lifetime I have opposed the war against the Vietnamese people, the
illegal contras – war in Nicaragua, the illegal coup in Chile, the
invasion of Haiti and of Grenada, and every other illegal, immoral and
genocidal war the U.S. government has ever waged. I have never been a
criminal and I never will be one.

I am 60 years old and in spite of government repression, in spite of the
media's lies and distortions, in spite of the U.S, government's
COINTELPRO Program to criminalize and demonize political opponents, I
feel proud to count myself as someone who believes in peace and believes
in freedom.

I am proud to have been a member of the Black Panther Party although the
U.S. government continues try to distort history and continues to
persecute ex-members of the Black Panther Party. Just recently, the U.S.
government has indicted and arrested 8 ex-Black Panthers in a case that
was dismissed 30 years ago.

The case was dismissed some 30 years ago when it became obvious that the
most vicious forms of extreme torture were used to extract false
confessions from some of the so-called defendants.

I am 60 years and it is doubtful that I will ever live to see my people
free of oppression and repression. But I am totally convinced that our
collective dream of freedom will some day be realized. I sincerely
implore young people to develop their minds, to develop their skills, to
expand their states of consciousness, and sharpen their abilities to
analyze reality.

Those Africans who conspired with the European slave trade to sell us
into slavery were seduced by trinkets. I hope and pray that our young
people will not continue to fall into the same traps. I have always
loved my people and always loved our culture. The culture of my people
has always been rich and always been filled with the seeds of
resistance. I hope that young people hold fast to that tradition.

I sincerely hope that all young people will have the courage and the
wisdom to hold on tight to their humanity and their historical mission.
Most people in the Americas, were either indigenous people whose
ancestors were victims of genocide, or brought to this hemisphere as
slaves, or came to this continent seeking freedom. I believe that it is
our collective duty to make freedom a reality.

I truly believe that it is possible to end oppression and repression on
this planet. If we all see ourselves as citizens of this planet, and
citizens of the world, it will be easier for us to save this planet and
recognize the human rights of human beings around the world.

Much love, Much Solidarity,
May we all make freedom a reality,
Assata Shakur

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"Now is the time for us to come together with one another, to organize,
to speak out and speak up on behalf of each other. There is no time to
waste, while we debate, define, and discuss; the enemy continues his
genocidal plan. We need to bear in mind the Ashanti proverb: 'Two men in
a burning house must not stop to argue.' " - Dr. Mutulu Shakur

UHURU!

Assata Shakur Forum - http://www.assatashakur.org/forum
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