IMPERIAL PIQUE IN DURBAN
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
[Col. Writ. 8/30/01]
As organizers, activists, and scholars gather in Durban, South Africa for the UN-sponsored World Conference Against Racism, the United States sends the global gathering an imperial raspberry by not allowing the nation's highest-ranking African-American to attend. Colin Powell, the first black U.S. Secretary of State (in essence, U.S. Foreign Minister), won't be there because the international conference refused to abide by a U.S. pre-conference demand to jettison anti-Zionist language from conference documents (One wonders, is he the Israeli foreign minister-designate?).
Some U.S.-based Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and national civil rights groups expressed shock and dismay that General Powell wouldn't attend the first such conference in decades. That shock and dismay reflects political naivete. For Powell is not, and has never been, the foreign minister of Afro-America. He is the representative of the executive branch of the United States Government. And as he's done all of his professional, military life, the General will follow the orders he's given, even if he is in disagreement with them. After decades of obedience to higher orders to kill in Viet Nam, or the Balkans, or Iraq, the order to dismiss a UN conference, even one on racism, is relatively easy.
If one examines the long and deep national aspirations of Black Americans, for almost two centuries, for national independence from the central, white supremacist state, perhaps two figures emerge who performed, in admirable fashion, as de facto foreign ministers of a nationalistic Afro-America: Malcolm X (after his split with the Nation of Islam), and Eldridge Cleaver (before his split with the Black Panther Party). Malcolm X's historic tours of Africa is still the stuff of legend, and his reception by North African and West African States was more on the order of a Head of State.
When the late Eldridge Cleaver headed the Intercommunal Section (International Section) of the Black Panther Party in Algiers, the voice of militant Afro-America, of revolutionary resistance to U.S. imperialism, was echoed globally, through the Party's popular paper, The Black Panther, and through Eldridge's unremittingly militant messages and pronouncements on matters impacting the global scene.
Neither man could be mistaken for emissaries of the imperialist U.S. They opposed it, with every fiber of their being. Both men came to their historic roles, not by service to their masters, but by long hard service to organizations which represented various nationalistic strains in the Afro-American community.
Both men came from the nation's gutter, it's prisons (ala Tupac) and spoke with an eloquence and passion not learned in the perfumed parlors of higher learning and academia.
They spoke from the heart, what they knew in their hearts, from lives lived on America's margins.
Imagine a UN World Conference Against Racism that had the presence of either a Malcolm X, or an Eldridge Cleaver speaking truth to power, and resistance to the Empire!
Who would care about any government emissary?
Who many great movements in human history have been launched by governments? How many have been stifled and scuttled by governments? The great movements of our times arise, not from the governments, but independent of them, and often, in stark opposition to them!
The Abolition movement was seen as the 'crazies' of their day, and Lincoln made jokes about shooting them!
The Women's Suffrage Movement was widely ridiculed in its day as a bunch of "crazy wimmen" who didn't know their places - home.
The Civil Rights, Anti-War, and Black Liberation Movements were all the targets of government repression, spying, and violence. They were movements of the people -- not governments. And that's why they had meaning, and enduring power in the hearts of people.
The UN Conference will be a success, not because of what any government does, but because of globalist organizing by organizers, and activists, who see, the particular similarities, and discrete differences, between peoples living under various repressive systems, in various parts of the world. Without support in the hearts of the people, no such conference can ever succeed. With it, it cannot fail.
Furthermore, no Empire, no matter the color of its emissaries, can thwart the desires of the majorities of the peoples of the world.
Were it not for Cuba, the apartheid regime would still be in power in Jo'Burg, South Africa. Mandela would be in Robbin Isle. And the U.S. would still be saying, "Constructive Engagement" was the way to deal with the racist regime. Popular, grassroots movements coupled with Cuban military prowess in Southern Africa, changed that horrendous equation. We would do well to remember our history!
Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.International Action Center
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