WHAT INDEPENDENCE
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
[Special to First Day]
copyright 2001 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Every 4th of July, millions of Americans make their way to the park, the nearest shore, a pool, or even the backyard, to celebrate what is called Independence Day.
There are fireworks, cook-outs, feasts and historic re-enactments, all designed to mark the triumph of the American colonies over the tyrannical British Empire.
For many people, it is a day off of the dreaded job, and therefore, one to be treasured. Throughout it all, for all the pomp, the pageantry, the fireworks "bursting in air", how many of us stop to really think of the day's significance?
Lemme ask it another way: How many of us think of independence? And before you answer, ask yourself this: Did the American revolutionaries fight against British repression, or against repressive treatment by a powerful government?
Did people fight for freedom, or did they fight for the right to be oppressed by other Americans?
Now let me go one step further: How free are you--today?
If you're honest, you'll reply, "Not very". In fact, if you go back to 1776, at the time when the revolution was being waged allegedly for "freedom", about one-fourth (or 25 of every 100 people) of the folks in the new nation were held in bondage.
For nearly a century, those people and their descendants remained in bondage--so independence definitly wasn't for them. Today, how free are you?
Over 2,000,000 men, women and children are in U.S. prisons today. And of those who are so-called "free," how free are they to ride a car, or to simply walk down a street?
If the price of driving down a highway is fear, humiliation and the pervasive feeling that you will be stopped, searched and detained because you are the wrong color to drive the car you like, then how free are you?
If a cop can stop you to demand you show him your papers, then how free are you?
If you, your wife, and your kids have to work the live-long day away, so you can pay the bills, then how free are you?
If your boss can treat you like dirt, and you have no recourse because you fear the loss of a job, then how free are you?
Every American is allegedly granted freedom of speech, but what of the hundreds of demonstrators who were beaten, threatened, humiliated, and lied on by cops and a host of politicians for demonstrating at the 2000 Republican National Committee?
If they could be whipped, shackled, shamed and framed for demonstrating, for expressing their views, how could it be called a freedom?
It's simple, if you have to pay for something, then it's not free. If you are treated shabbily, locked away, and lied on by powerful government officials, simply because those in power don't like the speech that you are speaking, then you really don't have freedom of speech. What you have is the illusion of freedom, and an imitation of independence. You have dependence on a government that calls itself public servants, but that too is but an illusion, for, as the great French leader, DeGaulle put it: "In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant." MOVE Founder and Teacher, JOHN AFRICA, makes it crystal clear that there is no freedom in the system: "...YOU'LL SAY PEOPLE CAN SPEAK FREELY UNTIL THE SPEECH BEGINS TO THREATEN YOUR IDEA OF SO-CALLED FREEDOM, THEN FOLKS AIN'T FREE TO SPEAK, THEY'RE KICKED, PUNCHED, CLUBBED, STOMPED, HANDCUFFED, SHOT, JAILED BY THE COPS, AND JAILED AGAIN BY YOU JUDGES WHEN THE TRIAL TAKES PLACE... (from The Judges Letter by JOHN AFRICA).
Does that sound like an independent people? As JOHN AFRICA also rightly proclaimed in 'The Judges Letter' : "...AIN'T NOBODY FREE IN THIS SYSTEM..."
It has been over 225 years since a so-called revolutionary war of independence, yet those who yelled loudest for "independence" were slaveowners, like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and others of the era!
How free are you today?
Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.International Action Center
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