African Liberation Day 2009 in Pittsburgh

[Langalibalele]

Little Haiti Opposes ALD Revisionists

African Liberation Day has historically played a major role in keeping the revolutionary tradition alive in the US black community. This day has been used to introduce our community to liberation movements around the world. Held to counter xenophobia and racism, as well as to expose reactionaries, ALD has always served as an important event for building Black unity.

Little Haiti is a name given to Pittsburgh's Black community going as far back as Martin R. Delany. He was a physician, a Civil War major, and an African patriot who fought slavery. Delany settled in Pittsburgh and was its leading black citizen. The name Little Haiti derived from the fighting spirit of its community. Haiti was the first revolutionary workers republic in history. The Haitian uprising was also history's only successful slave revolt. So the name Little Haiti is one rich in heritage, and connotes the tradition of struggle associated with the Black community in this city.

This year we have decided, the Black Radical Congress in conjunction with Maroon Society, to reestablish African Liberation Day along its traditional lines of orientation. We want to do something in honor of who we are as African people, without having the government or white money or Imperialist ideology involved in our efforts. This small forum cannot match larger efforts being held around the country. However, it is a rebuilding effort which intends to take back some of the luster, energy and inspiration which has historically marked African Liberation Day as a day of pride and militancy.


ANTI-UNITY REVISIONISM: WHAT ALD IS NOT

Dramatically dissing a worldwide ALD tradition, last year Pittsburgh's Black Voices for Peace held a discussion on Zimbabwe which amounted to a categorical attack on ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe. The limited mass appeal of this event attracted less than twenty onlookers.

The presenter, Mike Matambanadzo, substantiated very few allegations. His ridiculous assertions seemed at times astonishing even to Black Voices, who upheld his propaganda nonetheless. A professor and a Zimbabwean exile, he framed his presentation on a wholesale repudiation of Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe African National Union/Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and ZANU-PF's fighting spirit.

Wearing a Che Guevara tee, the professor stated early on that Morgan Tsvangarai's MDC had won recent elections outright, an unsupportable position. Tsvangarai and the MDC itself recognized that a runoff was necessary, yet Matambanadzo still insisted that they had won over fifty percent. He said that ZANU has bankrupted the country. The professor denied that ZANU (prior to the merger with Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Patriotic Front) contributed to the liberation struggle and discounted ZANU-PF's long-time popularity not only in Zimbabwe but thru out the region and the rest of Africa.

Needing points from the outset, Black Voices and Matambanadzo cited Fidel Castro and Amilcar Cabral to contextualize their neo-colonialist revision of ALD.

Matambanadzo stated that an impoverished Zimbabwe had no computer at its embassy, therefore preventing him from returning home. As a well-paid professor, he may contribute one himself and thereby expedite the process for obtaining his passport.

He stated that ZANU invaded DR Congo to loot the country of precious resources. Matambanadzo also claimed (at a later event where he presented the case on DR Congo), that Zimbabwe was transporting coltan from Eastern Congo for overseas shipment. Zimbabwe is a landlocked country. When challenged on this point, the professor had no reply. He also could not verify nor explain why ZANU had, at this juncture, turned its back on Black liberation to betray the troubled Congolese government.


THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST PIECE MISSING FROM THE PUZZLE

Black Voices passed out a statement by Syracuse Professor Horace Campbell, posted 31 July 03 in The Black Commentator, which subheads "Charles Taylor and Jonas Savimbi as freedom fighters". Those words constitute revision in any context whatsoever. Obviously, Campbell at some time or another lacked clarity about Taylor and Savimbi, but Black Internationalists knew. CORE's Roy Innis, wed to the Reagan Administration thru ideological linkages, supported Savimbi because both lived on the neo-conservative payroll.

Where did Campbell develop this gaslight theory that the liberation movement ever embraced those criminals? In making that claim, Campbell avoids declaring who took in and accepted Taylor or Savimbi, covering up for them, when the masses should be informed about reactionaries in the Black Liberation Movement. The US black liberation movement basically consists of groups and splinters which had broadly rejected Savimbi and Taylor. Amiri Baraka, tho, had at one time taken an opportunist position supporting Savimbi. But even the NAACP, which is basically collaborationist, had clarity on UNITA's Jonas Savimbi.

In this disjointed article Campbell also slung invective at Saddam Hussein, which did nothing to illuminate his subject, Mugabe. Hence, Campbell comes across like Curveball in the weeks up to and preceding the US invasion of Iraq. The primary contradiction posed by Iraq, the only industrialized Arab country, was its defiance; Iraqi Arab women had greater freedom under the Ba'athists than under US occupation, one of many important points missed by Campbell. It can even be asked whether or not Horace Campbell presented an anti-imperialist position anywhere in his criticisms of either Mugabe or Saddam. He completely missed any opportunity to expose the rotten role of the United States either in Africa or in Iraq.

Has Campbell ever read Galeano, Walter Rodney, Diop, Fanon, Cabral, Biko, George Jackson, Lenin and Mao instead of neo-liberals and Trots. As a professor, he needs open his mind to Akua Njeri, Omali Yeshitela, Bob Brown, Abdul Alkalimat, Elizabeth Sibeko and Fred Hampton Jr. The Black Liberation Movement still lives in the US, the Caribbean and across Africa, little be it known.

So Horace Campbell wants to articulate the Zimbabwe question. ZANU has never played a counterinsurgency role in Africa, despite his inept 2003 comparisons to Savimbi's UNITA or Taylor. Imposing hypocritical US democratic standards on Imperialism's new hot potato in Africa, he offers no solutions to contradictions which degrade life all over the Motherland, including any discussion of ZIDERA, the US sanctions regime imposed on Zimbabwe. Imperialism's transformation under neo-conservatism -- Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, offers the most definitive analysis for the New Millennium to date -- reveals the extent to which Campbell, Bill Fletcher and the rest of the crew actually tail the masses.

Meanwhile, straw man Matambanadzo's unsubstantiated screwball allegations faced challenges but the small audience's anti-Mugabe contingent shouted down and castigated many efforts to correct the record. This is not a matter of differing opinions, but a struggle between the politics of revision versus African Internationlism. As Black Voices required no substantiation for Matabanadzo' ridiculous claims, they must assume full complicity for the “errors” and misrepresentations of fact that the professor propagated.

The speaker even said Zimbabwe's inflation rate hit one million percent, an unheard of ratiocination by any modern economics standard. He repeated this assertion for emphasis. Even 1000% inflation would impose undue suffering on the masses. Africa faces more duress than in the 1929 Weimar Republic, when Germans packed paper money in wheelbarrows to buy bread. Women across Africa travel miles to obtain water for cooking. Endemic parasites like guinea worm and schistosomaisis plague people everywhere because of poor water quality. Zimbabwe suffered a cholera outbreak last year because local power stations could not provide clean drinking water. ZANU-PF was founded to alleviate these conditions, however, retaliation against liberation movements in Southern Africa have not only deepened misery in Zimbabwe but in neighboring countries as well.

The US economic blockade in the form of ZIDERA contributes to conditions surpassing those in blockaded Cuba, another economic zone cut off and starved by US imperialism. However, ZIDERA went unmentioned, as if international finance capitalism plays no role in conditions not only within Zimbabwe but across the African continent. Neither Campbell's article nor Matambanadzo mentioned ZIDERA or the urgent need to repeal this repressive legislation.

Plus, the instructor made this claim as if no world economic crisis exists, as if any African economy may withstand IMF/World Bank and WTO currency manipulations. Nothing happens in a vacuum in the global economy, something conveniently forgotten by that day's hosts and presenters.


ZANU FOUGHT FOR AND DEFENDED BLACK LIBERATION

This Ph.D. denied the critical role ZANU fighters played in bringing about a negotiated settlement after years of violent warfare. ZANLA fighters kept Ian Smith's apartheid regime off balance and unable to operate. Matambanadzo gave all credit to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for settling all scores. He discredited anything ZANU ever accomplished. Yet the British never lived up to the Lancaster House Accords, which proposed to compensate white settlers for any lands returned to the Zimbabwe African masses. The myths put out by the professor totally disgraced the spirit and history not only of Zimbabwe but of African Liberation Day.

He disavowed all reasons for ZANU having ever been immensely popular thru out the African world. Bob Marley played his greatest concert at Zimbabwe's independence celebration. The Congress of South Africa Trade Union's General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has in the recent past issued official remarks expressing admiration and support for ZANU-PF because it assisted Azanian freedom fighters. South Africa's black presidents and members of other liberation movements from Mozambique to Tanzania have in years gone by fiercely defended the ZANU-PF fighting tradition. South African President Jacob Zuma has adamantly refused to distance his country from comradely relations with Zimbabwe.

Chalk ZANU popularity up to an X-File, if we may believe Black Voices for Peace.

Gail Alston joined the attack on ZANU for the AIDS epidemic, for masses of orphans, for patriarchy and sexism and other ills. Of course, AIDS coincidentally entered Africa as colonialism came to an end there. She asserted the former colonial regime had made life better for Africans. Matambanadzo strongly agreed, saying that Africans were better paid and trade unions had greater freedom when apartheid-era Rhodesians held power.

Black Voices' Fred Logan summed up that Africans did not suffer from these conditions under colonialism altho, he said, opposition to white domination seemed to form a sharper struggle than the one against ZANU's "black capitalism".

Indeed, working class attendees seemed at a loss to sum up the event in their usual gracious terms, because the professor's bizarre views conflicted with African Liberation Day tradition.

The Black Internationalist stance does not mean ZANU and its leadership do not have profound contradictions, that they may be at odds with the Zimbabwean masses, and that there may even exist within ZANU-PF a powerful neo-colonial sector there allied with Imperialism. But black capitalism is not necessarily Imperialist, and certainly not the primary contradiction in Zimbabwe, altho all forms of capitalism remain odious. We must understand, the petty bourgeoisie in our community have always transformed from their militant garb when they recognized "race" peace. Telling sensational accounts of the Zimbabwean first lady's wardrobe is best left for Jet Magazine. Then, spreading outright and obvious mendacities to support a half-baked analysis does not separate Black Voices from what they see as wrong with ZANU.

Imperialism remains the root cause of all antagonistic relationships within society. Freedom fighters must continue to develop the analysis of Imperialism and build an ideological culture war to combat conditions imposed on us from this system. Instead, the "Black Left" provides justifications for white supremacy to divide the comradeship between African peoples.


TIME TO DEFINE WHO IS A FREEDOM FIGHTER

Because Matambanadzo hails from Zimbabwe, must we credentialize him as an authority? We would have accepted Jonas Savimbi when the Reagan Administration and CORE's Roy Innis paraded him around this country as a “freedom fighter”. On the same basis, we would have accepted the Contras and perhaps even Luis Posada Carilles, the maniacal bloodthirsty criminal, as freedom fighters. Such unclear logic undermines Black Workers Power; it undermines our ability to make clear distinctions, and places us in league with the worst form of exploitation and oppression.

Pittsburgh has a small activist community where cronyism and self-aggrandizement has in the past scarred mass perceptions of liberation politics. Contradictions which have demobilized the once-promising Little Haiti Black Radical Congress emerge out of this background. In the climate of racist, predatory wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, reactionary forces have now become bold enuf to attack Black liberation in the open. However, this year, we have come back to reclaim African Liberation Day in its well-established, internationalist tradition.

At the same time, Pittsburgh's black workers have a great reputation for struggle. Many of us kno that the liberation dialectic does not involve criticism of a revisionist character. The 2008 revisionist “ALD” sharply contrasts with the Black Internationalist workers who have historically upheld African liberation and the day which commemorates it. The African Liberation Day format for discussing contradictions within the liberation movement has been to frame that struggle within the context of resistance. Because, of course, dialectics is the study of contradictions, and revolution is the practice of freedom fighting.

Unrestrained attacks on black states permit Imperialism to move boldly against our friends and support our enemies. To behave as if ZANU-PF has never been a liberation group, as if Mugabe has become the darling of Imperialism, misrepresents the facts. Mugabe is no Paul Kagame nor is he a Yoweri Musaveni, preying on African people. Which is not to extol Robert Mugabe but to sharpen the contrast.

Remember, the Cuban Revolution – the vanguard society preserving Che Guevara's memory -- has not made broad, categorical denunciations of Zimbabwe. Neither have governments in Mozambique, Angola or South Africa. The distinction between empiricism, and dialectics, is clear. Empiricism arrives at a conclusion that ignores the various contending interactions at play, treating a subject in isolation from the forces which influence it. Dialectics exposes, within the revolutionary context, how bloodsucking Imperialism has warped and contorted even best of us.

Imperialism, the fusion of industrial and banking finance, was called the highest stage of capitalism by Lenin. Which means that Imperialism is the beginning of the end of capitalism. Now, Nkrumah stated that neo-colonialism constitutes the final stage of Imperialism. Which makes it clear that the dilution of the concentrated class struggle, known as racism, shows us that Imperialism itself has come to rely upon the very people that it oppresses to preserve the life of capitalism. That being the case, Africans are the implements of not only our own liberation, but we who shall give White Supremacy/Imperialism its final burial ground.

The lessons we take away from Zimbabwe is not where it has gone wrong, but what has it done correctly, how did the resolve of the ZANU fighting forces defeat the Ian Smith apartheid regime, and how do the Southern Africa liberation movements as a whole remain the greatest show of black unity and solidarity on the planet? How can we, African people in North America, duplicate that model for our people here, in the Caribbean and thru out Latin America and Africa?


ELEVATE BLACK LIBERATION IN ZIMBABWE AND IN AMERICA

In fact, neo-colonialism within Zimbabwe's liberation movement tails behind the plague of neo-colonialism which remains rife thru out the United States. Neo-colonialism within our own liberation movement has taken the form of poverty pimps and other sell-outs on the government dole since 1968 up to this day. Many disparate forces contend to hi-jack and water down the legacies of Malcolm X, SNCC, the Black Panther Party, NBIPP, CAP and others. Our people have begun to think that nothing can be accomplished without the government or that the government is omnipotent. Legitimizing Imperialism on any level -- including the pretense that it functions somewhere quietly in the background -- poses a dangerous precedent in terms of our future as African people.

Neo-colonialism just does not take the form of an apparatus. It also shapes up into co-optation within a movement; it may appear as a political line within an organization. While the prefix “neo” means “new”, it also means “somewhat” or “likened to”, and that is good enuf for our purposes.

When Kwame Nkrumah wrote Neocolonialism, the Final Stage of Imperialism, he elaborated on how Imperialism needed the oppressed to maintain their own oppression. We see this see thru out Africa, the Caribbean and North America. Nkrumah showed how Imperialism arrived at its most degenerate moment in history, and how its collaborators exploit their people for the sake of wealth and power rather than throwing off the shackles of capitalism. He said that neo-colonialism poses the greatest danger to African people, since it waters down the concentrated class question (racism) by replacing the historical oppressor with one from your own community.

For that reason, we have decided to show the African liberation movement on film, in the form of a video that interviews black fighters who took up arms and drove out or overthrew colonialism. While many events in this film wrapped up almost thirty years ago, nevertheless it provides valuable lessons for us in terms of organization, resolve and taking back our community. Our struggle against shape-shifting racism has taken hesitant steps forward over the last thirty years or more, because people no longer recognize the enemy. However, by deepening our understanding of Imperialism and class struggle, we can elevate black consciousness and restore faith in our own community, belief in our own forms of struggle. Because, the Struggle continues!


PAMBERI NE CHIMURENGA! FORWARD THE BLACK REVOLUTION!

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Questions

1. What does the acronym ZANU-PF mean, and who leads the MDC?
2. When did neo-colonialism become entrenched in the black community and why?
3. What is the name of Kwame Nkrumah's book and what does it address?
4. Why is ZANU-PF so popular thru out Southern Africa, and who are some of its supporters?
5. What is Neo-Colonialism and what is Imperialism?
6. Where does Horace Campbell instruct, and what is ZIDERA?
7. Who is Martin R Delany, and what is the legacy of Little Haiti?
8. How did the US invasion affect Iraqi Arab women?
9. What has been taking place in the global economy over the last three years?
10. Who is Jonas Savimbi and who supported him? Who is Luis Posada Carilles?

[Pragmatic]

YouTube - B Movie

YouTube - B Movie

..." who I am in this country..."

In the summer of 1981, a 19-year-old black man went to buy a pack of cigarettes on a cool summer evening. He never returned. The following morning he was found hanging from a tree. This is in 1981! I was 8 years old at the time. There were parts of the country that I was not welcome because of the ebony hue of my skin. Those parts, however large or small, still exist. These photographs bring the reality to your face. I didn't think there was anything else to stop me in my tracks. Yet again, I was mistaken.

In addition to the photographs, there is also a large mural on display at the exhibition. I found myself involuntarily moving closer and closer to it until I was at the foot of this massive, ominous piece. On its black surface, etched in. www.thedetroiter.com






The earliest images found in the catacombs of Rome show Jesus the Christ as an Afrikan with woolly hair. Why do Black people continue worshiping the false, white Italian images painted by Michelangelo? As Europe prospered, it presented the global world with a WHITE Jesus when the Bible was being translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, fooling the world into believing in a WHITE Saviour for soul salvation.
What is wrong with the Black version being embraced and promoted by Black people?


http://www.geocities.com/joao_marri/index.html






Peace be upon you