By Ezrah Aharone
While President Obama revs-up the war machinery during this holiday season as he simultaneously holds the Nobel Peace Prize, it brings ponder to the possibility of lasting peace, considering that this conflict also embodies a borderless ideological “collision of religions.”
Although 9/11 makes the US feel justified in droning Afghanistan into submission, a few factors are worth noting since the groups known as Al Qaeda, Taliban, and Islamists are not all regional members of some Lodge-like fraternity who attend annual conventions to blow-up airplanes. Just as Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden weren’t “colleagues,” they don’t all know each other or have close bonds. I’d bet that 9/11 was just as surprising to Americans as it was to many of the very combatants that the US now targets in the mountains of Afghanistan.
If you read A History of God by Karen Armstrong, you’ll find that the autonomous tribes and clans throughout this region have been warring and exacting “rough-and-ready” justice on themselves and invaders for centuries. Afghanistan is not only called the “Graveyard of Empires” because of its war victories, it’s a land where loyalty can be “rented” to the highest bidder. In fact, Afghans have a term called “Turning Turbans” to signify the switching of sides and loyalties.
But in this case, the one uncompromising factor is their Islamic belief and obligation to rid-out Westerners whom they regard as foreign occupiers and infidels. Before resigning his State Department post, former Marine Captain, Matthew Hoh, aptly assessed that Afghans are fighting in some areas only because the US military “is there.” If American soldiers weren’t “there,” many Afghan fighters would have a pre-9/11 outlook when America was not a “declared enemy.”
Meantime, despite the public’s mounting war outcries and economic anxieties, Obama has done something that can potentially reserve him a seat among the pantheon of the greatest commander-in-chiefs – He has become a “wartime president.” Many of the most renowned American presidents have the “glorified” distinction of being war leaders.
America’s warped fascination with war is openly boasted in its national anthem, which puts a twist of splendor on the butchery during the War of 1812 – “the perilous fight,” “ramparts gallantly streaming,” “rocket’s red glare,” “bombs bursting in air.” If you want instant success, just make a blood-spattering war movie that depicts American bravery and greatness. Don’t make the mistake though of featuring Black heroes like Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna because that lacks comparative box-office appeal.
This cancerous love affair with blood, circulates the veins of society and manifests in everything from the highest crime rate and gun homicides in the world; to belligerent television, movies, and video games for “entertainment” pleasures; to routine abortions and capital punishment; to random mass murders of schoolchildren; to over 90,000 annual rapes of women.
A nation’s true character is defined – not by fluffy words in its constitution – but by the moral and cumulative sum of its historical conduct. Yet America, with its enduring history of questionable wars and centuries of racialized misconduct, has a false self-perception of being a nation of peace. Dr. King called the US government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” . . . and said God hasn’t “appointed America as his messianic force, a kind of policeman of the whole world.”
America has a national holiday recognizing Dr. King and his nonviolent philosophy, but nonviolence is certainly not America’s philosophy. Nonviolence is something that Black America is conditioned to practice towards Euro-Americans, but nonviolence is considered a cardinal weakness by this establishment. Heck, America isn’t even fond of compromise, and it definitely doesn’t “love its enemies.” It practices an unrepentant “eye-for-eye” variety of Christianity that “lives by the sword.”
The religious notion that God endorses the US military is reinforced in the “Oath of Enlistment” that all soldiers must “swear,” which evokes “Faith” and eerily concludes with the words, “So Help Me God.” As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia affirmed, “A religious-neutral government does not fit with an America that reflects belief in God in everything from its money to its military.”
If the reverse occurred whereby the Christian streets of America were stormed by Muslim soldiers with Blackwater-like mercenaries, ordinary Americans would fight no less fiercely than Afghans. Call them terrorists or whatever else, but based on their longstanding heritage and religious convictions they have no intentions to allow America, via the corrupted Hamid Kharzi government, to institute a Plymouth Rock-like presence in Afghanistan.
Consequently, the decade of 2010 launches with an outright, but undeclared, “Religious War” with Crusaders on one side, Jihadists on the other, with no negotiating table between these two Abrahamic faiths that originally share spiritual commonalities without today’s political complexities. So, as with Iraq, it’s near-certain that Afghanistan won’t become a vacation destination for Americans in your lifetime.
Ezrah Aharone is the author of two political books: Sovereign Evolution and Pawned Sovereignty. He is also a founding member of the Center for Sovereignty Advancement. He can be reached at Ezrah@theCSA.org.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
LET’S HAVE A ‘PAN-AFRICAN COMMONWEALTH’
DAVID A COMISSIONG:
LET’S HAVE A ‘PAN-AFRICAN COMMONWEALTH’
A call for the establishment of a ‘Pan-African Commonwealth or League of Nations’ comprised of all of the countries of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean that have been impacted by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was one of the main outcomes of an historic Seminar on African, Caribbean and Latin American unity that was held in St Vincent on the 5th and 6th of December under the auspices of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
This novel proposal was advanced by a Barbadian delegation consisting of Bobby Clarke and David Comissiong of the Peoples Empowerment Party, Trevor Prescod of the Israel Lovell Foundation and John Howell of African Reparations Inc., and was inspired by the intellectual work of the legendary Nigerian Pan-Africanist scholar who goes by the single name of Chinweizu.
In outlining the concept of an association of African, Latin American and Caribbean states that could be variously conceptualized as a ‘Pan African Commonwealth’, a ‘South Atlantic League of Nations’ or a ‘Pan-African Bloc of Countries’, Mr David Comissiong explained that the vast majority of the nations of the three regions are bound together by historical, racial, cultural, geographical and political factors.
In making the case for this new multi-national association of states, Mr Comissiong sketched the common history of European orchestrated slavery, forced migration of large numbers of African people, colonialism and neo-colonialism that has impacted virtually all of the societies of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and referred to the common interest that the people and governments of the three regions possess in pursuing ‘Reparations’ for the damage inflicted on them and the establishment of a ‘New International Economic Order’.
This proposal was unanimously endorsed by the participants in the St Vincent Seminar, and the next steps in the process of making it a reality are to place it before the governing bodies of the ‘African Union’ (AU), the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the ‘Bolivarian Alternative For Latin America’ (ALBA).
However, the ‘Pan-African Commonwealth’ was not the only idea that garnered the approval of the several Vincentian, St Lucian, Venezuelan, Surinamese and Barbadian delegates at the Seminar!
Indeed, in a declaration signed by some 20 leaders and activists of the Caribbean, the Seminar acknowledged the massive flaws inherent in the neo-liberal international capitalist system, and insisted that there is an urgent need for the nations of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean to come together in solidarity and unity if they are to avoid the worst ravages of the diseased capitalist system.
The participants were very clear however that such efforts at unity have to go way beyond "the formal structures of government and state bureaucracies, into the realm of deep people-to-people contacts and relationships". And in this regard, they insisted that a much greater effort has to be made to implement comprehensive programmes of popular education and information dissemination that are designed to sharpen the intellect, critical consciousness and ideological orientation of our people.
The ‘Declaration’ also included a reiteration of "the longstanding clarion call of the progressive world community of nations and peoples for an immediate end to the criminal, illegal and immoral United States blockade against the Caribbean nation of Cuba". In addition, the participants unanimously confirmed their support of the recent declaration made by the ‘Union of South American Nations’ (UNASUR) for the South American region to be a zone of peace, and called on all of the nations of the world to respect the UNASUR declaration.
9 December 2009
DAVID A COMISSIONG
President
clementpaynechambers@gmail.com
Distributed by:
GAC_Canada@yahoogroups.com [mailto:GAC_Canada@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Cikiah Thomas
RESPONSE
by Chinweizu Chinweizu
sundoor777@gmail.com
17dec09
Hi David Commissiong:
I recall we met in Kampala in 1994 at the 7th PAC.
I have just seen your press release about setting up a Pan-African Commonwealth. Congratulations for taking the initiative again, like you did with the GAC. And since the press release mentions me as an inspiration for the project, I feel obliged to clarify what I have been calling for, and to ask some probing questions, lest you guys sink your efforts into bringing into being something inadequate to our needs in the 21st century. Surely, we don't need another jamboree outfit for Black heads of state, or another outfit that is structurally incapable of achieving the paramount goal of Pan-Africanism, namely the total liberation of Global Black Africa from all hegemonic and imperialist powers.
Before we can assess the desirability of this Commonwealth, we need to have a prospectus that clearly sets out its constituency, goals, and the various problems of its constituency that it shall undertake to solve, a prospectus that we all can study and help mature.
Here are some initial issues that come to mind:
If this is to be a Pan-African outfit, it cannot afford to repeat the parochialism of the 1960s when the OAU was formed without including the Black Diaspora in its constituency and its agenda. And without even including the interests of the Afro-Mauritanians and South Sudanese in liberation from Arab colonialism and enslavement. Today, we have a variety of situations and threats to different parts of Global Black Africa. Any new “Pan-African” organization, if it is to be adequate, has to be designed to help each part of the Global Black African constituency solve its peculiar problems using help from the other parts of the constituency.
After all, isn’t that what Pan-African solidarity is about?
However, judging from the press release, this Pan-African Commonwealth is going to be concerned with securing reparations only for the western diaspora. If so, what is Pan-African about it?
What of the interests of the eastern diaspora? Or of the continental Black Africans?
What, in particular, of the interests of the Darfurians, the South Sudanese and the Black Mauritanians in their long struggle for liberation from Arab colonialism and enslavement?
What of the indigenous Fijians in their struggle to prevent political domination by the immigrant Indians?
What of the interests of the West Papuans in their struggle against Indonesian annexation?
What of the interests of the Black Australians?
What, if I may ask, is Pan-African about this proposed Commonwealth if it ignores such parts of Global Black Africa and their interests?
Or has Pan-Africanism ceased to be about the total liberation of the peoples of Global Black Africa?
Here also are some initial questions that need wise answers:
Who are we—the Global Black Africans? And what are our plans and ambitions for ourselves for this century?
Where is our own exclusive interstate organization? For us only?
Before seeking alliances, shouldn’t we create our own home organization, for us alone? Our home base as it were?
What is a black African state? A country with a black majority in the population? A country in which the state apparatus is in the hands of its black population?
Which states are they?
Would the USA qualify just because it has a sizeable captive black African population, or because a blackface now resides in the white house?
What are the plans and ambitions of the ALBA states with whom, from the Press Release, we may be making alliances?
As the Chinese sage Sun Tzu pointed out some 25 centuries ago: “one ignorant of the plans of neighboring states cannot make alliances with them.”
We must bear in mind that one of the fundamental errors of Nkrumah’s generation when they formed the OAU in the 1960s was that they did not find out about the plans and ambitions of the Arab states with whom they went into alliance in the OAU. And even now, many Pan-Africanists don’t know, and don’t want to know, these Arab ambitions in Africa! We cannot afford to be naïve yet again.
How will this new outfit tackle Global Black Africa’s naiveté, weakness and lack of geopolitical purpose? After all, we must articulate a geopolitical purpose other than unity. Unity is not enough. We must insist on an answer to the question: unity for what? We must always bear in mind that we can achieve unity-in-captivity, and that’s hardly what Pan-Africanism is aiming for. So, lets spell out what our liberated condition would look like and how this new outfit proposes to bring it about.
Will the agenda of this Commonwealth, unlike the OAU/AU, include, in particular, the liberation of Black Africans from Arab colonialism and enslavement?
Needless to say, for it to merit the Pan-African name, it has to openly concern itself with the interests and struggles of all the subsections of the Global Black African constituency.
Honest and correct answers to such questions would, I think, help to improve the proposal.
I have no doubt that other readers of the press release will raise additional issues and questions for consideration.
All in all, I would suggest that, instead of implementing new interstate initiatives without first thoroughly debating them, we take the next few years to rigorously think through and debate what we have done or failed to do in the last 50 years. After all, Pan Africanism since 1958, with its ill-conceived OAU and AU has failed us. It has not liberated us from the neo-colonialism and imperialism of the Europeans, let alone from Arab colonialism and enslavement. Why don't we first learn from its failures before setting off in some new direction whose constituency and goals we have not thoroughly studied? We can't afford to get it wrong again. The world is moving on and getting more dangerous for Global Black Africans.
Black World League of Nations I & II .docPlease find attached my original proposal for a Black World League, in two parts: the 1994 proposal that I handed out as a flyer in Kampala; and the earlier 1985 argument for it, that is reproduced in my 1987 book, Decolonising the African Mind. Of course, the basic proposal is still valid and the Black World League is even more urgently needed. But if I were making the case for it today, I would take into consideration the lessons that we should have learned since 1994. I will update the case if required.
But let me urge you to set up a forum where a re-examination of Pan-Africanism for the 21st century can be conducted in detail, with particular attention to its constituency and its goals in the world of today. Maybe your outfit in Barbados can organize a journal or website, perhaps along the lines of Pambazuka, for conducting this re-examination of our situation and possible ways forward.
In the service of global Black Africa,
Chinweizu
LET’S HAVE A ‘PAN-AFRICAN COMMONWEALTH’
A call for the establishment of a ‘Pan-African Commonwealth or League of Nations’ comprised of all of the countries of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean that have been impacted by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was one of the main outcomes of an historic Seminar on African, Caribbean and Latin American unity that was held in St Vincent on the 5th and 6th of December under the auspices of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
This novel proposal was advanced by a Barbadian delegation consisting of Bobby Clarke and David Comissiong of the Peoples Empowerment Party, Trevor Prescod of the Israel Lovell Foundation and John Howell of African Reparations Inc., and was inspired by the intellectual work of the legendary Nigerian Pan-Africanist scholar who goes by the single name of Chinweizu.
In outlining the concept of an association of African, Latin American and Caribbean states that could be variously conceptualized as a ‘Pan African Commonwealth’, a ‘South Atlantic League of Nations’ or a ‘Pan-African Bloc of Countries’, Mr David Comissiong explained that the vast majority of the nations of the three regions are bound together by historical, racial, cultural, geographical and political factors.
In making the case for this new multi-national association of states, Mr Comissiong sketched the common history of European orchestrated slavery, forced migration of large numbers of African people, colonialism and neo-colonialism that has impacted virtually all of the societies of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and referred to the common interest that the people and governments of the three regions possess in pursuing ‘Reparations’ for the damage inflicted on them and the establishment of a ‘New International Economic Order’.
This proposal was unanimously endorsed by the participants in the St Vincent Seminar, and the next steps in the process of making it a reality are to place it before the governing bodies of the ‘African Union’ (AU), the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the ‘Bolivarian Alternative For Latin America’ (ALBA).
However, the ‘Pan-African Commonwealth’ was not the only idea that garnered the approval of the several Vincentian, St Lucian, Venezuelan, Surinamese and Barbadian delegates at the Seminar!
Indeed, in a declaration signed by some 20 leaders and activists of the Caribbean, the Seminar acknowledged the massive flaws inherent in the neo-liberal international capitalist system, and insisted that there is an urgent need for the nations of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean to come together in solidarity and unity if they are to avoid the worst ravages of the diseased capitalist system.
The participants were very clear however that such efforts at unity have to go way beyond "the formal structures of government and state bureaucracies, into the realm of deep people-to-people contacts and relationships". And in this regard, they insisted that a much greater effort has to be made to implement comprehensive programmes of popular education and information dissemination that are designed to sharpen the intellect, critical consciousness and ideological orientation of our people.
The ‘Declaration’ also included a reiteration of "the longstanding clarion call of the progressive world community of nations and peoples for an immediate end to the criminal, illegal and immoral United States blockade against the Caribbean nation of Cuba". In addition, the participants unanimously confirmed their support of the recent declaration made by the ‘Union of South American Nations’ (UNASUR) for the South American region to be a zone of peace, and called on all of the nations of the world to respect the UNASUR declaration.
9 December 2009
DAVID A COMISSIONG
President
clementpaynechambers@gmail.com
Distributed by:
GAC_Canada@yahoogroups.com [mailto:GAC_Canada@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Cikiah Thomas
RESPONSE
by Chinweizu Chinweizu
sundoor777@gmail.com
17dec09
Hi David Commissiong:
I recall we met in Kampala in 1994 at the 7th PAC.
I have just seen your press release about setting up a Pan-African Commonwealth. Congratulations for taking the initiative again, like you did with the GAC. And since the press release mentions me as an inspiration for the project, I feel obliged to clarify what I have been calling for, and to ask some probing questions, lest you guys sink your efforts into bringing into being something inadequate to our needs in the 21st century. Surely, we don't need another jamboree outfit for Black heads of state, or another outfit that is structurally incapable of achieving the paramount goal of Pan-Africanism, namely the total liberation of Global Black Africa from all hegemonic and imperialist powers.
Before we can assess the desirability of this Commonwealth, we need to have a prospectus that clearly sets out its constituency, goals, and the various problems of its constituency that it shall undertake to solve, a prospectus that we all can study and help mature.
Here are some initial issues that come to mind:
If this is to be a Pan-African outfit, it cannot afford to repeat the parochialism of the 1960s when the OAU was formed without including the Black Diaspora in its constituency and its agenda. And without even including the interests of the Afro-Mauritanians and South Sudanese in liberation from Arab colonialism and enslavement. Today, we have a variety of situations and threats to different parts of Global Black Africa. Any new “Pan-African” organization, if it is to be adequate, has to be designed to help each part of the Global Black African constituency solve its peculiar problems using help from the other parts of the constituency.
After all, isn’t that what Pan-African solidarity is about?
However, judging from the press release, this Pan-African Commonwealth is going to be concerned with securing reparations only for the western diaspora. If so, what is Pan-African about it?
What of the interests of the eastern diaspora? Or of the continental Black Africans?
What, in particular, of the interests of the Darfurians, the South Sudanese and the Black Mauritanians in their long struggle for liberation from Arab colonialism and enslavement?
What of the indigenous Fijians in their struggle to prevent political domination by the immigrant Indians?
What of the interests of the West Papuans in their struggle against Indonesian annexation?
What of the interests of the Black Australians?
What, if I may ask, is Pan-African about this proposed Commonwealth if it ignores such parts of Global Black Africa and their interests?
Or has Pan-Africanism ceased to be about the total liberation of the peoples of Global Black Africa?
Here also are some initial questions that need wise answers:
Who are we—the Global Black Africans? And what are our plans and ambitions for ourselves for this century?
Where is our own exclusive interstate organization? For us only?
Before seeking alliances, shouldn’t we create our own home organization, for us alone? Our home base as it were?
What is a black African state? A country with a black majority in the population? A country in which the state apparatus is in the hands of its black population?
Which states are they?
Would the USA qualify just because it has a sizeable captive black African population, or because a blackface now resides in the white house?
What are the plans and ambitions of the ALBA states with whom, from the Press Release, we may be making alliances?
As the Chinese sage Sun Tzu pointed out some 25 centuries ago: “one ignorant of the plans of neighboring states cannot make alliances with them.”
We must bear in mind that one of the fundamental errors of Nkrumah’s generation when they formed the OAU in the 1960s was that they did not find out about the plans and ambitions of the Arab states with whom they went into alliance in the OAU. And even now, many Pan-Africanists don’t know, and don’t want to know, these Arab ambitions in Africa! We cannot afford to be naïve yet again.
How will this new outfit tackle Global Black Africa’s naiveté, weakness and lack of geopolitical purpose? After all, we must articulate a geopolitical purpose other than unity. Unity is not enough. We must insist on an answer to the question: unity for what? We must always bear in mind that we can achieve unity-in-captivity, and that’s hardly what Pan-Africanism is aiming for. So, lets spell out what our liberated condition would look like and how this new outfit proposes to bring it about.
Will the agenda of this Commonwealth, unlike the OAU/AU, include, in particular, the liberation of Black Africans from Arab colonialism and enslavement?
Needless to say, for it to merit the Pan-African name, it has to openly concern itself with the interests and struggles of all the subsections of the Global Black African constituency.
Honest and correct answers to such questions would, I think, help to improve the proposal.
I have no doubt that other readers of the press release will raise additional issues and questions for consideration.
All in all, I would suggest that, instead of implementing new interstate initiatives without first thoroughly debating them, we take the next few years to rigorously think through and debate what we have done or failed to do in the last 50 years. After all, Pan Africanism since 1958, with its ill-conceived OAU and AU has failed us. It has not liberated us from the neo-colonialism and imperialism of the Europeans, let alone from Arab colonialism and enslavement. Why don't we first learn from its failures before setting off in some new direction whose constituency and goals we have not thoroughly studied? We can't afford to get it wrong again. The world is moving on and getting more dangerous for Global Black Africans.
Black World League of Nations I & II .docPlease find attached my original proposal for a Black World League, in two parts: the 1994 proposal that I handed out as a flyer in Kampala; and the earlier 1985 argument for it, that is reproduced in my 1987 book, Decolonising the African Mind. Of course, the basic proposal is still valid and the Black World League is even more urgently needed. But if I were making the case for it today, I would take into consideration the lessons that we should have learned since 1994. I will update the case if required.
But let me urge you to set up a forum where a re-examination of Pan-Africanism for the 21st century can be conducted in detail, with particular attention to its constituency and its goals in the world of today. Maybe your outfit in Barbados can organize a journal or website, perhaps along the lines of Pambazuka, for conducting this re-examination of our situation and possible ways forward.
In the service of global Black Africa,
Chinweizu
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
An Open Email to Dr. Darsi Ferrer Ramirez: Imprisonment is an occupational hazard for activists who make mistakes!
All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
The Inheritor and Continuator of the Revolutionary Theory and Practice of
Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure and Kwame Ture
www.a-aprp-gc.org – info@a-aprp-gc.org
Part 1 of 3 parts – December 14, 2009
An Open Email to Dr. Darsi Ferrer Ramirez:
Imprisonment is an occupational hazard for activists who make mistakes!
Dr. Ferrer,
You are accused of illegal possession of two bags of cement that cost about $8 in state-owned stores. Yusnaimy Jorge Soca, your wife, has publicly said, in the Uncommon Sense blog, that “When he was arrested, the police raided our house, supposedly, due to [a] tip that we were buying construction materials with an illegal origin. During that fake search in our house, they confiscated two bags of cement and some metal sheets. … What nobody understands is, why they didn’t show any interest in the bag of cement, the gravel and the sand piles we have had in the house’s front porch, in plain view, for almost a year?” She also said that you were using the cement to fix a hole in the ceiling of your house. If this is true, this was not a political act. It was an error, with tragic repercussions for you, your family, and the people and cause you serve. We beg you, as members of the A-APRP (GC), to not compound this error, this tragedy, by attempting to politicize and build a movement around your case. We speak to you as your older sisters and brothers. We speak to you from experience---collective and individual.
You know that stealing from state workplaces in Cuba, the “rerouting of resources,” is so common that some Cubans dismiss it as an acceptable part of daily life. Cubans call it “por la izquierda,” on the left. In November 2005, Fidel calculated that this “rerouting” could be costing the state as much as $200 million. He accidentally discovered state workers boldly selling stolen construction materials in a public market, and reportedly asked, “Just how many ways of stealing do we have in this country?” Raul has called it a “deadly cancer,” plaguing the Revolution. In March 2009, he allegedly replaced most of his cabinet, “in part, on the grounds that they were too cozy with foreign business men and lax in controlling graft beneath them.”
Corruption in Cuba did not begin in 1959, when the July 26 Movement seized power. “There is hardly a period in the history of Cuba,” according to Robert Buddan, on page 97 of The Foundation of Caribbean Politics, “that is not replete with descriptions of corruption in government, through every administration.” In 1942, according to Wikipedia, “the British Foreign Office reported that the U.S. State Department was “very worried” about corruption under Fulgencio Batista, describing the problem as “endemic” and exceeding “anything which had gone on previously.” Batista was African. He was also a prostitute and a pimp for U.S. Mafia bosses and businessmen, who by the way were European. Eduardo Chibas dedicated his life to fighting corruption under the presidencies of Ramon Grau and Carlos Prio. Dating as far back as August 23, 1498, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain sent Francisco de Bobadilla to Havana to relieve Christopher Columbus, and his two brothers, Diego and Bartholomew, of their command in Cuba. They were accused of mismanagement and of being rebellious subjects. They were arrested and shipped back to Spain in chains. When it became clear to the Monarchs that Bobadilla had abused the trust they placed in him, they ordered Columbus’ release, and assured him of their royal favor. But they did not restore him to his position as Governor of the West Indies.
In their paper, Housing Policy in Castro’s Cuba, Teddy Kapur and Alastair Smith, report that from 1959 to 1993, the housing stock in Cuba grew 80%, with the construction by the government of 1.3 million dwellings, while the population only grew 57%. The largest population growth occurred in the African community. The gusanos, the Cuban worms, fled to the comfort and safety of Miami. That exodus was overwhelmingly European/persons of Spanish descent. “The staggering need for housing,” according to Kapur and Smith, “has left the government in a perpetual chase to build enough units to distribute to needy families. … From 1971 to 1985, the need for housing grew from 745,000 units to 888,000 units.” The proportion of housing in good or average condition grew from 53% in 1953 to 83% in 1993. Leaseholders in government housing pay no more than 10% of their income on rent. The actual range is from 3-7%. The average state employee makes $10 per month. The price of vacant lots was set at $4 per square meter. Homeownership in Cuba is 85%, higher than in the African community in Chicago. A typical apartment in Havana is valued at between 4,500 to 10,500 pesos. Between 1996 and 2000, 141,000 units were added and 250,000 units restored in the Habana Vieja district. One half of these units were through individual efforts thanks to remittances from Cubans in Miami and one half through governmental efforts. The cost of rehabilitating all of Havana is estimated to be $14 billion.
Members of our organization, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), have traveled to Cuba, for more than 4 decades. And we will travel to Cuba again, again, and again. We do not respect, accept, and will not obey the illegal and immoral ban on travel to Cuba. We know how the people of Cuba live, because we stay with them, not in tourist hotels. We know that one of Cuba’s greatest needs is for paint and cement. We know that Cuba is a major producer of cement, for the entire Caribbean, but its production capacity is outstripped by its needs; and severely damaged by the illegal and immoral embargo which the government of the united snakes has imposed for more than 40 years. Cuba is also suffering, like many countries in the Caribbean, from a wave of hurricanes that ravage its infrastructure. Thanks to its planning and organization however, the best in the world, few casualties are sustained. We have heard that the penalty for stealing a cow is higher than for killing a child, a woman or a man. If so, it should be, since that cow, in its lifetime, produces milk for thousands of children, and will feed, when it can produce no more milk, hundreds of women and men.
Dr. Ferrer,
Corruption is also pandemic in the united snakes, from Wall Street to the White House to the Governors Mansion in Illinois and the Mayor’s Office in Chicago. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell Barrack Obama’s senatorial seat to the highest bidder. Blago is also accused of attempting to “use a $1.8-billion tollway project as a carrot to lure $500,000 in campaign contributions” from a Toronto-based cement company. These are not political acts! Michael Scott, the chairperson of the Chicago School Board, an African, plead guilty to misusing his School Board credit card to pay $3,000 in expenses for his and his wife’s trip to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. His death, whether by murder as some believe or suicide as the coroner and police have ruled, is not political! The Mayor of Baltimore, an African woman, was recently convicted for buying a Nintendo with gift cards that were donated to the City for distribution to the poor. Her crime was not political! It was a crime against the City of Baltimore and all its citizens. She is not a political prisoner!
Theft of public resources and public trust, the creative “mobilization of resources,” is called many names in Chicago, including “pay-to-play,” patronage, etc. The bourgeois Nationalist Movement calls it “nationalization,” not socialist nationalization, but nationalization for individuals and elites, and justifies it by saying that they are taking back what the slave masters, the imperialists stole from us. Some call it “reparations” for the crimes they committed against us during our almost 6 centuries-long and continuing Maafa (1415 to today). But, there can be no justification for theft from the people, from the people’s institutions, from the people’s state. There can be no justification for stealing xerox paper or toilet paper from Bennett College, Cornell University, Emory University, the University of Maryland at College Park, the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University or Princeton University; or for stealing pennies from the collection plates or frozen chicken from the kitchens at Trinity United Church of Christ and Allen Temple Baptist Church. God forbade it, and the laws of Cuba and the united snakes forbid it as well. Corruption and confusion—moral and spiritual, political and economic, is also pandemic in the civil and women’s rights, nationalist and Pan-African Movements in the united snakes and worldwide, and in the church as well. It is a ticking time bomb that is waiting to explode/implode and be exposed.
Our Party, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), is the inheritor and continuator of the revolutionary theory and practice of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure and Kwame Ture. We have supported the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959, and will continue to do so. We will not join forces with the enemies of the Cuban Revolution, who are also the enemies of African and World Humanity, not even to save our own lives. We are asked to support you, simply because of the color of your skin. You and we know that this request is unacceptable. The A-APRP (GC), adheres to the principle of class as primary in relationship to nationality, as enunciated by Ahmed Sekou Toure who correctly said at the so-called 6th Pan-African Congress in Dar es Salaam in 1974: “Fidel is more of a brother to me than Mobutu.” We say today, for the entire world to hear, that Raul is more of a brother to us than Batista or Carlos Moore. The class implications of this statement are undeniable, correct and clear.
Dr. Ferrer,
The crime that you are accused of is not political; and you are not a political prisoner. If you had those bags of cement, as your wife reported, and can not produce a valid receipt documenting there purchase, then you are guilty of possessing stolen property, the peoples’ property, state property at the very least. You are simply another brother who made a mistake, a tragic mistake, like millions of our brothers and sisters who are languishing in prisons in every corner of Africa and the African Diaspora. You are at best, a socio-economic prisoner, not a political one. If you insist that you are a political prisoner, please explain to us what your political ideology and objectives are. We beg you to not make another mistake. Please, do not be misused by forces that have no regard for you or for African People in any corner of the world. Do not become a pawn, cannon fodder, in a filthy and immoral game. It will be tragic for all forces concerned.
Raul,
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) is confident that you and the highest levels of the Cuban government will insure and protect Dr. Ferrer’s civil rights, especially his human and civil right to a just, impartial and swift hearing. We know the Cuban Revolution will ensure his health and safety while he is incarcerated. We are also confident that you will continue to root out and crush corruption in any and all of its manifestations and forms, in Cuba in general, and in the housing and cement industry in particular, without pity or mercy, without regard to national (race or ethnicity), gender or age, status, stature or situation. Oppressed humanity will be forever grateful to you!
Ready for the Revolution!
Members of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
See also:
Part 2: Open Email to African Intellectuals: Conscience cannot be sustained on a foundation of corruption!
Part 3: Open Email to Dr. Carlos Moore: We are known by the company we keep, and the lies we tell!
The Inheritor and Continuator of the Revolutionary Theory and Practice of
Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure and Kwame Ture
www.a-aprp-gc.org – info@a-aprp-gc.org
Part 1 of 3 parts – December 14, 2009
An Open Email to Dr. Darsi Ferrer Ramirez:
Imprisonment is an occupational hazard for activists who make mistakes!
Dr. Ferrer,
You are accused of illegal possession of two bags of cement that cost about $8 in state-owned stores. Yusnaimy Jorge Soca, your wife, has publicly said, in the Uncommon Sense blog, that “When he was arrested, the police raided our house, supposedly, due to [a] tip that we were buying construction materials with an illegal origin. During that fake search in our house, they confiscated two bags of cement and some metal sheets. … What nobody understands is, why they didn’t show any interest in the bag of cement, the gravel and the sand piles we have had in the house’s front porch, in plain view, for almost a year?” She also said that you were using the cement to fix a hole in the ceiling of your house. If this is true, this was not a political act. It was an error, with tragic repercussions for you, your family, and the people and cause you serve. We beg you, as members of the A-APRP (GC), to not compound this error, this tragedy, by attempting to politicize and build a movement around your case. We speak to you as your older sisters and brothers. We speak to you from experience---collective and individual.
You know that stealing from state workplaces in Cuba, the “rerouting of resources,” is so common that some Cubans dismiss it as an acceptable part of daily life. Cubans call it “por la izquierda,” on the left. In November 2005, Fidel calculated that this “rerouting” could be costing the state as much as $200 million. He accidentally discovered state workers boldly selling stolen construction materials in a public market, and reportedly asked, “Just how many ways of stealing do we have in this country?” Raul has called it a “deadly cancer,” plaguing the Revolution. In March 2009, he allegedly replaced most of his cabinet, “in part, on the grounds that they were too cozy with foreign business men and lax in controlling graft beneath them.”
Corruption in Cuba did not begin in 1959, when the July 26 Movement seized power. “There is hardly a period in the history of Cuba,” according to Robert Buddan, on page 97 of The Foundation of Caribbean Politics, “that is not replete with descriptions of corruption in government, through every administration.” In 1942, according to Wikipedia, “the British Foreign Office reported that the U.S. State Department was “very worried” about corruption under Fulgencio Batista, describing the problem as “endemic” and exceeding “anything which had gone on previously.” Batista was African. He was also a prostitute and a pimp for U.S. Mafia bosses and businessmen, who by the way were European. Eduardo Chibas dedicated his life to fighting corruption under the presidencies of Ramon Grau and Carlos Prio. Dating as far back as August 23, 1498, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain sent Francisco de Bobadilla to Havana to relieve Christopher Columbus, and his two brothers, Diego and Bartholomew, of their command in Cuba. They were accused of mismanagement and of being rebellious subjects. They were arrested and shipped back to Spain in chains. When it became clear to the Monarchs that Bobadilla had abused the trust they placed in him, they ordered Columbus’ release, and assured him of their royal favor. But they did not restore him to his position as Governor of the West Indies.
In their paper, Housing Policy in Castro’s Cuba, Teddy Kapur and Alastair Smith, report that from 1959 to 1993, the housing stock in Cuba grew 80%, with the construction by the government of 1.3 million dwellings, while the population only grew 57%. The largest population growth occurred in the African community. The gusanos, the Cuban worms, fled to the comfort and safety of Miami. That exodus was overwhelmingly European/persons of Spanish descent. “The staggering need for housing,” according to Kapur and Smith, “has left the government in a perpetual chase to build enough units to distribute to needy families. … From 1971 to 1985, the need for housing grew from 745,000 units to 888,000 units.” The proportion of housing in good or average condition grew from 53% in 1953 to 83% in 1993. Leaseholders in government housing pay no more than 10% of their income on rent. The actual range is from 3-7%. The average state employee makes $10 per month. The price of vacant lots was set at $4 per square meter. Homeownership in Cuba is 85%, higher than in the African community in Chicago. A typical apartment in Havana is valued at between 4,500 to 10,500 pesos. Between 1996 and 2000, 141,000 units were added and 250,000 units restored in the Habana Vieja district. One half of these units were through individual efforts thanks to remittances from Cubans in Miami and one half through governmental efforts. The cost of rehabilitating all of Havana is estimated to be $14 billion.
Members of our organization, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), have traveled to Cuba, for more than 4 decades. And we will travel to Cuba again, again, and again. We do not respect, accept, and will not obey the illegal and immoral ban on travel to Cuba. We know how the people of Cuba live, because we stay with them, not in tourist hotels. We know that one of Cuba’s greatest needs is for paint and cement. We know that Cuba is a major producer of cement, for the entire Caribbean, but its production capacity is outstripped by its needs; and severely damaged by the illegal and immoral embargo which the government of the united snakes has imposed for more than 40 years. Cuba is also suffering, like many countries in the Caribbean, from a wave of hurricanes that ravage its infrastructure. Thanks to its planning and organization however, the best in the world, few casualties are sustained. We have heard that the penalty for stealing a cow is higher than for killing a child, a woman or a man. If so, it should be, since that cow, in its lifetime, produces milk for thousands of children, and will feed, when it can produce no more milk, hundreds of women and men.
Dr. Ferrer,
Corruption is also pandemic in the united snakes, from Wall Street to the White House to the Governors Mansion in Illinois and the Mayor’s Office in Chicago. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell Barrack Obama’s senatorial seat to the highest bidder. Blago is also accused of attempting to “use a $1.8-billion tollway project as a carrot to lure $500,000 in campaign contributions” from a Toronto-based cement company. These are not political acts! Michael Scott, the chairperson of the Chicago School Board, an African, plead guilty to misusing his School Board credit card to pay $3,000 in expenses for his and his wife’s trip to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. His death, whether by murder as some believe or suicide as the coroner and police have ruled, is not political! The Mayor of Baltimore, an African woman, was recently convicted for buying a Nintendo with gift cards that were donated to the City for distribution to the poor. Her crime was not political! It was a crime against the City of Baltimore and all its citizens. She is not a political prisoner!
Theft of public resources and public trust, the creative “mobilization of resources,” is called many names in Chicago, including “pay-to-play,” patronage, etc. The bourgeois Nationalist Movement calls it “nationalization,” not socialist nationalization, but nationalization for individuals and elites, and justifies it by saying that they are taking back what the slave masters, the imperialists stole from us. Some call it “reparations” for the crimes they committed against us during our almost 6 centuries-long and continuing Maafa (1415 to today). But, there can be no justification for theft from the people, from the people’s institutions, from the people’s state. There can be no justification for stealing xerox paper or toilet paper from Bennett College, Cornell University, Emory University, the University of Maryland at College Park, the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University or Princeton University; or for stealing pennies from the collection plates or frozen chicken from the kitchens at Trinity United Church of Christ and Allen Temple Baptist Church. God forbade it, and the laws of Cuba and the united snakes forbid it as well. Corruption and confusion—moral and spiritual, political and economic, is also pandemic in the civil and women’s rights, nationalist and Pan-African Movements in the united snakes and worldwide, and in the church as well. It is a ticking time bomb that is waiting to explode/implode and be exposed.
Our Party, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), is the inheritor and continuator of the revolutionary theory and practice of Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure and Kwame Ture. We have supported the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959, and will continue to do so. We will not join forces with the enemies of the Cuban Revolution, who are also the enemies of African and World Humanity, not even to save our own lives. We are asked to support you, simply because of the color of your skin. You and we know that this request is unacceptable. The A-APRP (GC), adheres to the principle of class as primary in relationship to nationality, as enunciated by Ahmed Sekou Toure who correctly said at the so-called 6th Pan-African Congress in Dar es Salaam in 1974: “Fidel is more of a brother to me than Mobutu.” We say today, for the entire world to hear, that Raul is more of a brother to us than Batista or Carlos Moore. The class implications of this statement are undeniable, correct and clear.
Dr. Ferrer,
The crime that you are accused of is not political; and you are not a political prisoner. If you had those bags of cement, as your wife reported, and can not produce a valid receipt documenting there purchase, then you are guilty of possessing stolen property, the peoples’ property, state property at the very least. You are simply another brother who made a mistake, a tragic mistake, like millions of our brothers and sisters who are languishing in prisons in every corner of Africa and the African Diaspora. You are at best, a socio-economic prisoner, not a political one. If you insist that you are a political prisoner, please explain to us what your political ideology and objectives are. We beg you to not make another mistake. Please, do not be misused by forces that have no regard for you or for African People in any corner of the world. Do not become a pawn, cannon fodder, in a filthy and immoral game. It will be tragic for all forces concerned.
Raul,
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) is confident that you and the highest levels of the Cuban government will insure and protect Dr. Ferrer’s civil rights, especially his human and civil right to a just, impartial and swift hearing. We know the Cuban Revolution will ensure his health and safety while he is incarcerated. We are also confident that you will continue to root out and crush corruption in any and all of its manifestations and forms, in Cuba in general, and in the housing and cement industry in particular, without pity or mercy, without regard to national (race or ethnicity), gender or age, status, stature or situation. Oppressed humanity will be forever grateful to you!
Ready for the Revolution!
Members of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
See also:
Part 2: Open Email to African Intellectuals: Conscience cannot be sustained on a foundation of corruption!
Part 3: Open Email to Dr. Carlos Moore: We are known by the company we keep, and the lies we tell!
Free Trip to Egypt for 1000 Students and 500 Adults
The d'Zert Club and The African Genesis Institute are sponsoring a free, all expense paid, trip to Egypt, North Africa for 1000 students nationwide between the ages of 7 and 14 and 500 adult group leaders.
These travelers will participate in the Annual Teen Summit 1000.
The d'Zert Club is a Philadelphia-based, non-profit travel organization founded in 1997 by the husband and wife team of Ali and Helen Salahuddin. It specializes in coordinating national and international educational field trips for African Americans.
The African Genesis Institute is a proactive, 3 semester, educational and cultural program for African American youth between the ages of 7 and 14 focused on developing an understanding and awareness of the African experience in America. Over this 27-month period students are exposed to their rich and extraordinary ancient African history through bi-monthly classes, seminars and field trips. At the end of the program the students and group leaders sojourn to Egypt for the Teen Summit 1000 where they examine the land of their ancestors and share their culture and lifestyle with African youth. The trip to Egypt is sponsored by the d'Zert Club and is absolutely free to the students and adults serving as the graduation reward for those who complete the program.
All those interested in earning this free trip to the Motherland should call toll free 1-888-257-5991, email dzertclub@aol.com or visit www.africangenesis.org.
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