Handshake In Cyberspace By Bankole Irungu

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Handshake In Cyberspace Hotep Family,
I just wanted to share with ya'll some of the things the talking drum does,

ExiledOne Commentary
By Bankole Irungu
Handshake In Cyberspace


As Political Exiles from the United States of America, a few of the brightest moments are finding common ground with people who are serious about the liberation of African humanity.

Brief exchanges Aisha and I may have with people are sometimes the most heartening-gripping the hand of an Azanian trade unionist on a Stockholm avenue-the three of us wondering at the actual meeting of Africans from two oppressive regimes at the latitude just six hours from the North Pole.
But, also, there is the powerful realization that Africans the world over, from Colombia, Kenya, Ghana, Cameroon and including Africans born in Scotland, Sweden, England and the US, can and will do what is necessary to aid in the well being of Aisha and I in practical ways.
During 2001, Brother Jacuma Kambui and The Talking Drum Collective fostered cyberspace solidarity from their website www.thetalkingdrum.com, linking with our website. As the first media outlet owned by Africans in the US to publish or post our situation as COINTELPRO targets since 1995, Brother Jacuma and The Talking Drum Collective broke the silence this year, shortly after our leaving Sweden in July, 2001 and entering England. This move began to allow direct communication between ourselves and supporters, from Ugandan refugees in Canada to Africans acknowledging state terror within the borders of that place draped in red, white and blue.
Besides joining together African people like ourselves, who are employing dynamic solutions to the dehumanization of African people everywhere, we are healed in reaching out despite the draining climate of fear known to all of us. Knowing that accountability is honored is empowering. Respect for progressive achievements is stimulating.

Commendable Stance

The feature that Aisha and I appreciate most about the website we discovered last year, is what sets it apart from many others. Contained in it is an emphasis on COINTELPRO in the present, and what ordinary persons can do to halt it. For millions of Africans in America, the trauma of what the US government has perpetuated against the Black Movement for Justice over the last 30 years is frightening and has stifled whole families. To have lived through the covert and overt maiming of a people’s natural Human Rights and Self Determination aspirations is to have been injured and be in need of redress. With this site’s context, there is satisfaction that all is not lost, in fact that African people in the US are winning against all odds.
In building an electronic bridge across the oceans and continents where Africans have suffered and left this world, Brother Jacuma and The Talking Drum Collective have enabled many Political Prisoners in America’s dungeons, as well as Political Exiles like ourselves, to be acknowledged. They have been unafraid to utilize resources and facilities to educate for liberation.
This commendable stance is wholly different from rhetoric filled and technically cutting edge websites that change text every three days. The repeating themes of �the illness of the people� and �you must have this information to be free� on these primarily US oriented websites are rehashed endlessly. Apparently, an end goal is the selling of tickets to conventions and meetings, where lectures, books, tapes and workshops are emphasized at the expense of actually doing something.

Blacker Than Thou

In seeking to find websites that would link with ours, including some of the �blackest�, Aisha and I have usually received no answer to our e-mail inquiries. Access to free linking processes have not come through. One Afro-centric website refused to allow us the opportunity to have our website added to their links directory. Due to our material being �unsuitable�! E-mail to the Webmaster went unanswered. Aisha and I only wanted to know what the staffer’s definition of what unsuitable material is.
The time that we are now living in, has many African people in the West (and everywhere, it seems) being assaulted via satellite and fiber optic cable, newsprint, and internet with dehumanizing imagery and disinformation. Where once the physical destruction of the world’s non-White majority was primary, in 2002, devastating spicy, comforting mild or silent unscented mindscrub succeeds. By immobilizing and even self destructively killing people softly, mentally, London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Atlanta or Sydney, or perhaps the capital of them all, Hollywood, can actually get a profit out of this-a wicked bonanza, truly. Yet a determination to refuse to accept the capitalist trap by seeing these �entertainments� as worthy of our money, time or discussion, will lead to a more appropriate use of the technology at hand. www.thetalkingdrum.com has exemplified what is necessary, encouraging the analytical and dropping the relatively easy route of mimicry and stale, defensive and defeatist reaction.

Brother Jacuma and The Talking Drum Collective have wisely chosen to bring humane, interesting reality into view for all, through African eyes, but with a qualifier.

Integrity is the key.

Bankole Irungu
15 November 2001
London, England

[rebelAfrika]

This is the business right here. poundz IT!

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(akuanjeri@xxxxxxxx) on Friday, July 18, 2003 at 10:56:40
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Name: Akua Njeri

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 368255

City, State: Chicago, IL

Zip Code: 60636

Comments: Brother Jacuma Kambui: What an excellent site!!! Thank you
soooo much! And give thanks and appreciation to The Talking Drum
- such genius! On behalf of Chairman Fred Hampton
Jr. (recently released political prisoner 9/14/01), Prisoners
Of Conscious Committee -P.O.C.C., how would the P.O.C.C.
submit the African Anti-Terrorism Bill for posting in
addition to other materials? Keep up the good work! UHURU!
Akua Njeri, Chair, December 4th Committee