Beyond the 60′s: Supporting the Ongoing Struggle for Black Community Self-Reliance

Chairman Omali Yeshitela speaks at Beyond the 60′s: Supporting the Ongoing Struggle for Black Community Self-Reliance in 2011, an Uhuru Solidarity Movement Event held at the University South Florida St. Petersburg campus on July 26, 2011 as part of the Uhuru Movement’s 2011 Freedom Summer Project in St. Petersburg, Florida. Check out the Summer Project events at uhurusummerproject.org

Colombia: Indigenous Peoples Mobilize For Autonomy And Peace On Their Territories

The oldest and strongest grassroots indigenous organization in Colombia, The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), has issued a call for a “Minga of resistance” to restore autonomy and peace throughout Indigenous territories in the Colombian state of Cauca.

The call for a “Minga”–a term that refers to a traditional gathering or activity for the collective good–arrives just ten days after The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) carried out a series of violent attacks in at least 5 indigenous communities.

As noted by the WW4 Report, “In the early hours of July 9, FARC guerillas attacked the central plaza of the indigenous Nasa (Páez) village Toribio in Colombia’s Cauca department, leaving two civilian residents dead and 73 injured. The attack, with improvised explosives, came at the start of a market day in the village.”

Charu Majumdar – The Father of Naxalism – The Architect of CPI (M-L)

Today marks the 39th anniversary of a true Indian revolutionary. Someone who really fought, and died, for the people. 39 years ago today Charu Majumdar, founder of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the father of Naxalism, was killed by police in police custody at the Laal Bazar police Station because of the struggles he waged for the people of India for true liberation.

Born in a progressive landlord family in Siliguri in 1918, he not only dedicated his entire life to peasants’ cause but also authored the historic 1968 Naxalbari uprising, the ideology that guides the red radicals even today.

Son of an active freedom fighter, Charu Majumdar or CM rebelled against social inequalities even as a teenager. Later, impressed by “petty-bourgeois” national revolutionaries, he joined All Bengal Students Association affiliated to Anusilan group.Dropping out of college in 1937-38 he joined the Congress party and devoted himself in organising bidi workers. He later crossed over to CPI to work in its peasant front and soon won respect of the poor and downtrodden of Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling. Soon an arrest-warrant forced him to go underground for the first time as a Left activist.

Gandhi, Non-Violence and the Liberation of the Proletariat from Imperialism

Gandhi: apostle of nonviolence - liberator of the people?

Without endorsing the Leading Light Communist Organization, I am reposting this piece because I must say this it is an uncharacteristically  great article. As my readers should be aware I have been heavily critical of the LLCO before from a Yeshitelaist position.

However, as they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this regard this article really draws out why Gandhi is not someone that should be upheld by people struggling against oppression. It draws out Gandhi’s hypocrisy when it came to nonviolence (denying the revolutionary rage of the people but openly supporting the violence waged by the British Empire), his racism and support of the Indian caste system and finally his open collusion with the interests of Indian semi-feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

Living While Indian in Occupied Anówara

In the last couple of days comrades and other people in the so-called “United States” have been passing around the results of a recent survey which has demonstrated the (obvious) huge gulf in wealth between the white oppressor nation and the colonized African nation and so-called “Hispanics.” According to the study, the widening wealth gap of 20 to 1 for Africans and 18 to 1 for “Hispanics” was the largest since the organisation that conducted the survey began collecting data 25 years ago.

As is pretty par for the course with this kind of thing we who are the original people of this occupied continent are conveniently left out of any discussion. To help add a red perspective on the discussion of just how shitty it is to live as a member of the colonized nations on this continent I present to you these stats (that I have posted before) before that paint a picture of what it is like to live on one of “America’s” most well known reservations, the Lakota community of Pine Ridge.

Africans Around the World Meet in Venezuela

A report from International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement President Diop Olugbala of the 4th International Meeting of Afro-Descendents and Revolutionary Transformations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The meeting was held in Caracas, Venezuela and was attended by African delegates from around the world, including the African Socialist International.

CARACAS—From June 19 through the 22, 2011, a contingent of organizers from the North American and South American Regions of the African Socialist International (ASI) attended the “4th International Meeting of Afro-Descendents and Revolutionary Transformations in Latin America and the Caribbean” held at the historic Hotel ALBA in Caracas, Venezuela.

Feliz Cumpleaños a la Movimiento 26 de Julio y la Revolución Cubana

Today is the birthday of the Movimiento 26 de Julio (M-26-7), aka the 26th of July Movement, the revolutionary organization planned and led by Fidel Castro, and which included (or came to include) in its ranks Celia Sánchez, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and other heroes and martyrs. What began as a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, an army facility in the city of Santiago de Cuba, on 26 July 1953, overthrew the US-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959, in one of the most important revolutionary struggles of the period following the second great inter-imperialist world war.

The African Internationalist Critique of Marxism & The National Question

In the following are excerpts from a workshop around the national question that was facilitated by Luwezi Kinshasa, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party-UK and the Secretary General of the African Socialist International and Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party-USA and the African Socialist International. It was held during the 2006 Conference to Build the African Socialist International, which was held in London, England.

 It should of particular interest because it openly takes to task the most widely accepted “scientific” analysis of just what a nation is, Joseph Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question. Stalin’s work on this topic forms the basis of the Marxist-Leninist, Maoist and other anti-revisionist trend’s stance towards national liberation, especially what group are considered able to have self-determination. Even many a Trotskyist has admitted to me over the years (in private conversation of course!) that they have a begrudging respect for Stalin on this point. 

Communiqué from Barriere Lake: No More Exploration of Unceded Algonquin Territory

Algonquins of Barriere Lake are celebrating the suspension of mining exploration in their territory by Cartier Resources Inc. — a Val d’Or based corporation – after it had begun line-cutting in preparation for its mining exploration earlier this year. On the company’s request, the government of Quebec has now suspended the term of Cartier Resource’s 1,052 mineral claims in the territory until July 3, 2013, No exploration activity can take place on the claims during this time period while further consultations take place.

This prompted fierce resistance from members of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake who expressed concerns about the resource extraction, especially with regards to land ownership – the Algonquin Territory is considered as unceded according to British Common Law – and mining ethics,  both are situations that apparently violate international and nation-to-nation protocols for the management of indigenous lands.

More on the Splits & Possible Splits in the ILPS, CPI(M) & UCPN(M)

Full disclosure: While I do not consider myself a Maoist, I was for a brief time, between January and May, a member of the Canada-wide Coordinating Committee to form the ILPS-Canada. My task was to dialogue with Native organizations to attempt to bring them into the nascent ILPS-Canada. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) nothing panned out and none of the organizations I contacted ultimately joined. I write this because I want it to be known that despite my brief time in the ILPS-Canada I have no allegiance to either of the factions in the split in that organization.

[Via The Workers Dreadnought] Whilst the latest news from Nepal seems to suggest that the UCPN(Maoist) has been able again to avoid a split within the party and sees Chairman Prachanda acquiescing to demands from a Kiran-Bhattarai alliance for greater decentralization of power from the office of the Chairman and will see Bhattarai running as the next PM candidate for the Maoists and Kiran leading the party apparatus; news from the Philippines and India suggest an increasingly divided Maoist movement. Indeed, at a time in which the Maoist movement seemed to have overcome the sectarianism that has marked the movement for the last 30 years, such news seems to indicate a return to the sectarianism of yesteryear. However, it also speaks to a continuing ideological confusion within the international Maoist movement about the content of Maoist politics.

In Support of the Revolutionary Communist Party Arrestees

Contingent of the PCR-RCP at the Toronto G8/G20 Last Summer

On June 29, 2011, arrests and searches of the homes of four Revolutionary Communist Party activists were carried out by the Anti-Gang unit of the Montréal Police Service’s Organized Crime Division. The raids were carried out early in the day and involved some 30 agents of the Canadian state. This crackdown of Canadian Maoist activists was allegedly in response to these activists’ connections with the most recent May Day demonstration in Montreal. The demonstration in question was organized by Montréal’s Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC) and was one of the more successful ones in recent Canadian memory. 

A Defining Moment for Africa: North Atlantic Terrorists Will Be Defeated in Libya

The article is by Gerald A. Perreira. Gerald is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations, Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Libyan revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli.

Please note that the posting this article does not imply complete endorsement of it and its author’s analysis. I post for it out of interest and for discussion in light of the continuing attack by imperialist white power on Libya and the whole of the African continent.

The White “Left” Talks Against Self-Determination for the Colonized in 1907

Dutch military force in the colonization in Indonesia

This an excerpt from the discussions around self-determination within the the Second International. The following is quoted Van Cole (or something like that), a Dutch Socialist speaking against the Minority Report of the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart in 1907. LaDebour (or something like that) is the source of his ire because he had dared to speak of an incremental granting of self-determination to the colonies.

It’s also interesting because while it may be shocking to many folks that people who used to spak like this once were able to pass themselves off as socialists, the truth is the same thing continues to be the norm today. Today white “socialists” and “communists” continue to to talk like this (and like LaDebour) today, though it is much more veiled in revolutionary sounding rhetoric. 

Why Native and Anti-Colonial Struggles Will Always Be Appendixed by the White “Left”

For 500 years our traditions have driven our struggles against oppression, yet the settler radicals just don't seem to get it!

By Zainab Amadahy. She is a mother, writer and activist. Her publications include the novel Moons of Palmares as well as an essay in the anthology Strong Women’s Stories: Native Vision & Community Activism. Most recently Amadahy has contributed to In Breach of the Colonial Contract by co-authoring Indigenous Peoples and Black People in Canada: Settlers or Allies?

While this article is not perfect, especially because it reliance on “anti-racist” analysis (though of course the author is far fron alone on this) Zainab says lots that is very important, and that white people who want to be genuine internationalists and allies of our struggle need to hear.

Occupied Azania: African National Congress Leader Mandela Turns 93

Yesterday was African Nation Congress (ANC) patriarch Nelson Mandela’s 93rd birthday. In response there was the usual flurry of pro-Mandela, pro-ANC, pro-Triparite Alliance posts from leftists on this side of the Atlantic and in Europe as well. To them Mandela is a hero of the anti-colonial struggle – the father of the modern South African “rainbow” nation who was forced by pressure to give into neoliberal development projects.

What this of course misses is that this was par for the course for the ANC and Mandela. Mandela and the ANC were always neocolonial compradors representing the Azanian petty bourgeoisie. People have to realize this.