Bashir the Martyr

[Moorbey]

I write this as a non-Muslim and non-African, and as someone who did not know Bashir for years and years as many comrades have. I attended one of the Queens 2 court hearings, and wrote and called the prison when asked to do so, regarding his health needs, several years back. But I had the good fortune and honor to meet Bashir in the last months of his life, and to have some correspondence with him, originally, in planning the tribute to his comrade and mine, Safiya Bukhari. Suzanne Ross



After Bashir Hameed's Funeral



The State targeted him because of his work to free his people. And more than anything they criminalized him, tried to transform his love for his people into a crime. They harassed him, locked him up again and again, framed him, tried him three times to get the phoney conviction they were determined to get regardless of the truth and their violations of due process. And they finally locked him up for life, throwing away the key. In prison, they continued to harass him, put him in the hole because he did not stop teaching the truth, denied him medical care when he desperately needed it.



But his people continued to fight for him, fight for his medical care, fight for his release and fight for his honor. The funeral at the Masjid in Elizaberth , New Jersey was the final statement on Bashir: Bashir was a much beloved and honored member of the community. The Masjid was packed with Bashir's loving family and his political comrades and supporters. Bashir's message to his family was a moving expression of how much he cared for them, and had always cared for them, even from the confines of his incarceration where he was still able to support, encourage, and teach. His concern that they not suffer from the loss of his life was so palpable as to make one cry. Bashir's funeral was that of a hero, of a beloved martyr in the struggle. This was no criminal. This was not a man who should have been in prison. History HAS absolved him. History has shown our brother to be a revolutionary hero who never abandoned his principles, who fought for his people to the end, and who made his transition in the way he chose to make it, with friends and family following his wishes, leaving a grand legacy. Yes, it is very painful to see our comrades spend their last days in prison, and we must think anew, be smarter, more unified, more focused to free all of our comrades in prison. But in the end, it is we who will define how they will be remembered no matter how hard the State fights for its definition. Long live Bashir Hameed! Long live our revolutionary soldiers!