All African People's Revolutionary Party Position Paper On President Obama

[XXPANTHAXX]

“The total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African Socialist government must be the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and People of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution.” --Kwame Nkrumah



Obama Election: What does it mean to the 1 Billion African Masses Throughout the World?

5th January 2009

The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) joins with African people as they gather in market stalls, dusty roadside villages, rum bars, street corners, barber shops, dormitories, and everywhere else that Africans throughout the world gather and talk about the implications of Barack Obama becoming the next President of the United States of America. As a Pan-African revolutionary party with the objective of one Unified Socialist Africa, we must ask what are the implications of having an African person as president of the largest imperialist country on the planet?

The A-APRP insists, and will continue to make the point that electoral politics alone without an organized peoples revolutionary movement and agenda is a dead-end path for those who struggle for liberation. When the parties represent bourgeois capitalist interests; whether the people elect Democrat or Republican in the U.S., Conservative or Labor in Britain, Likud or Labor in occupied Palestine (the illegal zionist state of Israel), the maintenance of capitalism and imperialism are assured.

However, as revolutionaries we are compelled to observe events through a dialectical lens, and we observe that in various ways, the African Revolution has been affected by President-elect Obama’s work. How has the peoples’ resistance and demand for power brought us to this point? The people are correct to say that there is no Obama without Fannie Lou Hamer (Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party), or Shirley Chisholm’s and Jesse Jackson’s run, and more importantly those who sacrificed there blood to advance the right to vote. Obama’s election is a result of the space created by the continued African struggle for power, the ongoing struggle against occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the struggle of workers (including immigrants) against neo-liberal policies and capitalism in crisis. Obama’s campaign brought these forces together in his support.

The campaign did not organize the people, but it did in certain limited respects demonstrate in concrete ways certain organizing techniques and their potential. New and creative ways were employed to mobilize large numbers of new voters. Not only were Africans (particularly African youth) highly engaged in this process, the African masses responded on election day in record numbers. We are confident that these mobilizing skills will remain with the people, and that they will one day use them to build permanent organizations that are for the sole purpose of attacking and demolishing the capitalist system, its twin sister zionism, and fighting for the building of a United Socialist Africa.

The successful campaign has done much to elevate Africans sense of the possibilities of united, coordinated action, and their hunger for genuine power.

The campaign also laid bare the realities of continuing racial hostility in America and at the same time challenged white workers to become more mature in their political analysis and overcome capitalism’s negative racial baggage. More significant is the opening the campaign created for greater political collaboration between Africans in America, Latino communities and First Nations.


It is also worth noting that the false accusations that President-elect Obama is a socialist open the door for true socialists to explain that socialism is actually the answer to the problems that confront all people. Finally, the Obama campaign became the focus of global African support, and demonstrated that notwithstanding geographic boundaries, like with Mandela’s elections in Azania/ South Africa, there is a Pan-African identity.

A revolutionary analysis requires that we identify that the Obama presidency is a reform of the system and represents no fundamental change in US policy. President-elect Obama has made it abundantly clear that he is wholeheartedly committed to capitalism and zionism. The A-APRP regards both systems as enemies of humanity that must and will be destroyed. The African community in the U.S. should engage in constructive debate about the serious implications of President-Elect Obama’s ideological convictions. President-elect Obama has also voiced unqualified support for a new initiative of the U.S. military called Africa Command (AFRICOM) that is designed to militarize Africa for the purpose of preserving capitalist domination of Africa’s natural resources. He has vowed to recruit more of our youth in the service of the US war machine. With respect to Africans generally, there is no evidence that an Obama Administration will have policies that are informed and beneficial to the African masses in the Gulf coast, the Congo, Zimbabwe or anywhere else.

Although President-elect Obama has been presented as an anti-war candidate, he has spoken often of his plans to in effect sustain the military-industrial complex by redirecting the military focus from Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan – and possibly remaining in Iraq for some time into the future. The incoming President appears to be committed to continuing the so-called “War on Terror.” He has facilitated continuation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Moreover, the President-elect’s inner cabinet, in particular his zionist Chief of staff Rahm Israel Emanuel, and soon to be Vice-President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both voted IN FAVOR of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act introduced in 2001 which was the prelude for the imposition of draconian economic sanctions that continue to devastate the lives of African women, children and men in Zimbabwe. Finally, he has spoken incessantly about the “middle class” without making even passing references to the poor.

Africans are compelled to remember that while President-elect Obama’s victory is “historic” in form, it is not historic in essence. An individual never makes history because only the masses can truly make history. In this instance, history that benefits the African masses will be made only if those who have supported President-elect Obama join with the oppressed around the world in waging a relentless, uncompromising struggle to change those US positions and policies which are harmful to humanity. African people must increase movement toward the next vital step of building a permanent organization that will fight for a United Socialist Africa that will give genuine power to Africans throughout the world instead of the mythical "power" that capitalists say a President possesses.

We must keep in mind that the ultimate enemy of African people is capitalism and imperialism. Capitalism was not defeated on the 4th of November, 2008, only a touch up that represents the people gaining strength and a growing crisis in capitalism’s Neo-Liberal policies. Kwame Nkrumah said the following about reform in his book Conscienscism on page 72, "The essence of reform is to combine a continuity of fundamental principle, with a tactical change in the manner of expression of the fundamental principle. Reform is not a change in the thought, but one in its manner of expression, not a change in what is said but one in idiom." The principles of capitalism are deceit, individualism, oppression and exploitation. These principles are counter to the principles of African people and the foundations of positive human development. The African masses must formulate our own revolutionary agenda and uncompromisingly fight for the supremacy of that agenda. We must not be led into following an agenda that is counter to our development, regardless of who is the mouthpiece for the other agenda.

Therefore, the AAPRP calls upon Africans worldwide to engage in the following positive action:

1. Join or support the AAPRP. If you don’t join or support the AAPRP then join an organization that is fighting for the liberation of African people.

2. Build an African United Front (coalition of African organizations) wherever you are living to create the conditions for more qualitative unity among African people.

3. Attend and support African Liberation Day which is organized on or around May 25th every year.

FORWARD TO A MASS PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY
FORWARD TO ONE UNIFIED SOCIALIST AFRICA!