by Kwame Shakur
I open this piece reflecting on the lessons from Chairman Mao because as revolutionary nationalists in the anti-racist-capitalist-imperialist movement, we have failed in recent years. And it is Mao who reminded us that failure is never the fault of the masses but of the cadre.
Although it is beautiful and encouraging to see this many people worldwide standing in unity against a common enemy, we would be witnessing a completely different scene with a more revolutionary fervor in Amerikan cities had our cadre and vanguard formations been visible on the ground raising the consciousness of the people.
As the people started to become “woke” and the reactionary reformist elements began to mobilize tens of thousands nationwide around police brutality, we stressed the importance of winning the minds of the masses. We warned about the dangers of the unconscious being easily led astray in their early rebellious and agitation stage if reactionaries were allowed to hijack and seize the social climate while our revolutionary forces stood back writing articles and typing away on social media.
As all revolutionary cadre are aware, we are not only fighting a war against the colonial government and the upper ruling class, our class struggle extends to the national bourgeoisie, the neo-colonial elements within the “black” colony. During times like these when our people are seeking change and in desperate need of leadership, the neo-liberal passing out the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house is more dangerous than the blatant white supremacists.
For over 100 years, anti-U.S. capitalist-imperialists around the world have been waiting on the most oppressed – New Afrikans in North Amerika – to rise up so that they can get behind us and help liberate the world from Uncle Sam’s fascist stranglehold; however, during this unprecedented mobilization of the human race, we don’t hear a mass movement calling for a complete overthrow of the current system to achieve national liberation, independence and self-determination.
They are still content with being “African-Amerikkkans” asking for the CIVIL RIGHTS granted to them by the same colonial government that oppresses them.
Instead, this once in a lifetime opportunity is being hijacked by neo-colonial liberals trying to convince New Afrikans that the solution to all of our problems is to “vote.” Again, this isn’t the people’s fault; it is the job of the cadre to organize people’s assemblies, political education programs etc. and develop their consciousness to a degree that during “the period of decolonization the colonized masses thumb their noses at those very values, shower them with insults and vomit them up.”
There is a war for the New Afrikan mind. When we have done our job properly transforming the colonial mentality into revolutionary mentalities, then the people themselves will reject these bourgeois leaders and their reformist strategies because they know it isn’t a concrete program for self-determination that will meet the immediate needs of the people.
Right now the masses aren’t demanding the right to self-determination, meaning they don’t necessarily want to be in control of our own destiny. That would mean decolonization in an educational, economic, political, social and cultural sphere. Under the neo-colonial leadership of the national bourgeoisie, the masses do not yet fully overstand their international HUMAN RIGHTS as an oppressed nation. They are still content with being “African-Amerikkkans” asking for the CIVIL RIGHTS granted to them by the same colonial government that oppresses them.
Rather than decolonize and dismantle these institutions, the neo-colonial mentality seeks simply to be accepted into the colonizers’ prestigious schools, allowed access to positions higher up on the capitalist class structure or permitted to vote in an electoral process that will appoint a dictator over the proletariat. This codependency to the oppressor is a mental illness that stems from centuries of psychological slavery and mental and cultural colonialism. Our revolutionary leaders and organizations must begin to administer a cure to this illness through grassroots organizing and decolonization programs.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that the reason we failed to reach the people and give them a program is due to the fact that as a provisional government and independence movement, we ourselves are not properly organized or functioning with a national strategy. I’ve said it before, the provisional government and the New Afrikan nation are not organizations or social movements; therefore, we have to stop operating as such and begin functioning as a colonized nation fighting for self-government and national independence.
NALC (New Afrikan Leadership Collective) overstands that this means we must start rebuilding at the highest level of organizational leadership within the New Afrikan independence movement. All of those who are truly dedicated to standing firm on our New Afrikan Creed, Declaration of Independence and Constitution (Code of Umoja) have to come together and formulate a concrete strategy on turning theory into practice. Aside from FROLINAN (Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation) and its national strategy, there are multiple programs and organizational determinations that can help us achieve this. It’s just a matter of ones taking action and pulling the ranks together in order to put things in motion.
The first step took place on July 18 – International Nelson Mandela Day – in Terre Haute, Indiana. NALC hosted a social-cultural gathering in my ghetto to educate and organize the community following up on the ReBuild: New Afrikan People’s Assembly that we held in Terre Haute last August. Cadre came from around the kountry, including elder comrades Bilal Sunni-Ali and Khaleed London, who were among those on a panel aimed toward raising the consciousness of the people.
The most important thing is that we are able to get this many cadre together at once in order to discuss the necessary steps we must take to establish infrastructure throughout the independence and prison movement. It all starts with political education, as it is our hope that when ones return back to their state, we can begin establishing local units for cadre development and focusing on the retention, reclaiming and recruiting of conscious citizens for minister and unit leadership positions.
REBUILD TO WIN! WE ARE OWN LIBERATORS!
One Love/Struggle
Chairman Kwame Shakur
Send our brother some love and light: Michael Joyner, 149677, WVCF, P.O. Box 1111, Carlisle IN 46391.
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