Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Remembering George Jackson - Brixton - London 23rd September 2010
The George Jackson Socialst League, The Pan Afrikan Community Forum invite you to the Karibu Centre Brixton to remember and celebrate the the life of George Jackson .
Date & Time: 7 PM –10 pm 23rd September 2010
Venue: KARIBU EDUCATION CENTRE, 7 GRESHAM ROAD, BRIXTON, LONDON SW9 7PH
(Third Right Street From Brixton Tube Station)
George Jackson : text written by Walter Rodney, November 1971
To most readers in this continent, starved of authentic information by the imperialist news agencies, the name of George Jackson is either unfamiliar or just a name. The powers that be in the United States put forward the official version that George Jackson was a dangerous criminal kept in maximum security in Americas toughest jails and still capable of killing a guard at Soledad Prison. They say that he himself was killed attempting escape this year in August. Official versions given by the United States of everything from the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to the Bay of Tonkin in Vietnam have the common characteristic of standing truth on its head. George Jackson was jailed ostensibly for stealing 70 dollars. He was given a sentence of one year to life because he was black, and he was kept incarcerated for years under the most dehumanizing conditions because he discovered that blackness need not be a badge of servility but rather could be a banner for uncompromising revolutionary struggle. He was murdered because he was doing too much to pass this attitude on to fellow prisoners. George Jackson was political prisoner and a black freedom fighter. He died at the hands of the enemy.
Once it is made known that George Jackson was a black revolutionary in the white mans jails, at least one point is established, since we are familiar with the fact that a significant proportion of African nationalist leaders graduated from colonialist prisons, and right now the jails of South Africa hold captive some of the best of our brothers in that part of the continent. Furthermore, there is some considerable awareness that ever since the days of slavery the U.S.A. is nothing but a vast prison as far as African descendants are concerned. Within this prison, black life is cheap, so it should be no surprise that George Jackson was murdered by the San Quentin prison authorities who are responsible to Americas chief prison warder, Richard Nixon. What remains is to go beyond the generalities and to understand the most significant elements attaching to George Jacksons life and death.
When he was killed in August this year, George Jackson was twenty nine years of age and had spent the last fifteen [correction: 11 years] behind bars—seven of these in special isolation. As he himself put it, he was from the lumpen. He was not part of the regular producer force of workers and peasants. Being cut off from the system of production, lumpen elements in the past rarely understood the society which victimized them and were not to be counted upon to take organized revolutionary steps within capitalist society. Indeed, the very term lumpen proletariat was originally intended to convey the inferiority of this sector as compared with the authentic working class.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Mumia Abu-Jamal : “I am an outlaw journalist”
Published on 3 September 2010
On August 29th, 2010, Reporters Without Borders Washington DC representative, Clothilde Le Coz, visited Mumia Abu-Jamal, prisoner on death row for nearly three decades. Ms. Le Coz was accompanied by Abu-Jamal’s lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, and his legal assistant, Nicole Bryan. The meeting took place in room 17 of the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Waynesburg, Greene county, Pennsylvania.
Reporters Without Borders:
As a journalist who continues to work in prison, what are your latest reports focused on?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: The prison population in the United States is the highest in the world. Over the past year, for the first time in 38 years, the prison population declined.
Some states, like California or Michigan, are taking fewer prisoners because of overcrowding. State budgets are restrained and some prisoners are released because of the economic situation.
Prisons in America are vast and the number of prisoners is immense. It’s impressive to see how much money is spent by the US government and how invisible we are. No one knows. Most people don’t care. Some journalists report when there is a drama in prison and think they know about it. But this is not real : it is sensationalist. You can find some good writings. But they are unrealistic. My reporting is what I have seen with my eyes and what people told me. It is real. My reporting has to do with my reality. They mostly have been focusing on death row and prison. I wish it were not so. There is a spate of suicides on death row in the last year and a half. But this is invisible. I broke stories about suicide because it happened on my block.
I need to write. There are millions of stories and some wonderful people here. Among these stories, the ones I chose to write are important, moving, fragile. I decide to write them but part of the calculation is to know whether it’s helpful or not. I have to think about that. As a reporter, you have a responsability when you publish those kind of stories. Hopefully, it will change their lives for the better.
Do you think the fact you were a reporter affected your case ?
Being the "Voice of the Voiceless" played a significant role. And this expression actually comes from the title of a Philadephia Inquirer headline after I was arrested in 1981. As a teenager, I was a radical journalist working on the staff of the Black Panthers national newspaper. The FBI was actually monitoring my writings since I was 14. My first job was being a reporter. Because of my writings, I am far better known that any inmate in America. If it were not the case, I think there would have been less pressure for the Court to create a special law to affect my conviction. Most of the men and women on death row are not well known. Because I continue to write, this is an element that would have affected the thinking of the judges and made them change the ruling for not giving me a new trial. I think they were thinking “You’re a big mouth, you won’t get a new trial”. You expect a little more from a federal Court. Because of my case, a dozen of other cases can be affected.
What do you think of the media coverage of your case ?
Once, I read that I was no longer on death row. I was sitting here when I read it. I haven’t stopped sitting here for one second.
Because I was coming from the craft, a lot of reporters did not want to cover my case because they feared they would be attached. They had to face criticisms for being partial and sometimes they were told by their editors they could not cover it. Since the beginning of the case, people who could cover me best were not allowed to. Most of reporters I worked with are no longer working. They retired and nobody took the work over.
But the press should have a role to play here. Millions of people saw what was done in Abu Ghraib. Its leader, smiling on the pictures that have been published, worked here before going to Abu Ghraib. In death row, you have people without a high school degree who can decide whether someone lives or dies. For whatever reason, they have the power to make you not eat if they don’t want to. And none of that power is checked by anyone. There are informal rules. These people can make someone’s life a living hell on a wink. When I chose which stories I want to write about, I am never short on material. From a writing perspective, this field is rich.
No matter what my detractors are saying about me, I am a reporter. This country would be a whole lot worse without journalists. But to many of them, I am an outlaw reporter. Prior to prison, in my work for various radio stations, I met people from all around the world and despite my conflicts with some editors, I had the greatest job.
The support you receive in Europe compared to the support you receive here in the United States, is very different. How do you explain the difference and do you still believe international mobilization will be helpful ?
Of course it will. The European mobilization might be pressuring the US regarding the death penalty. Foreign countries, like European ones, went through a specific history of repression. There was an in-their-bones-knowledge of what it is to be in prison. They know about prison, death row and concentration camps. In the US, very few people had that experience. That speaks to how cultures look at things in the world. In Europe, the very ideal of death penalty is an anathema.
9/11 changed a lot of things in the US. People challenging or opposing the government would not be supported anymore. The press also changed. Things that were “allowable” became unacceptable after 9/11. I think 9/11 changed the way people thought and it changed the tolerance of the media. For example, even though 9/11 happened in Manhattan and Washington DC, the jail was closed for an entire day, here in Pennsylvania, and we were locked down.
To motivate more people around your cause, it might be helpful to get an up to date picture of you, today, on death row. Does the fact that we don’t have any updated picture of you affect your situation and the ability of more people to mobilize around your cause ?
Having a public image is partly helpful. The essence of an image is propaganda. Pictures are therefore not that important. The human image is the true one. There, I try to do my best. In 1986, prison authorities took recorders from reporters and you were only allowed a pen and a paper. Now that there is only the meaning of one article left, one can make monsters and models from his article.
On August 29th, 2010, Reporters Without Borders Washington DC representative, Clothilde Le Coz, visited Mumia Abu-Jamal, prisoner on death row for nearly three decades. Ms. Le Coz was accompanied by Abu-Jamal’s lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, and his legal assistant, Nicole Bryan. The meeting took place in room 17 of the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Waynesburg, Greene county, Pennsylvania.
As a journalist who continues to work in prison, what are your latest reports focused on?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: The prison population in the United States is the highest in the world. Over the past year, for the first time in 38 years, the prison population declined.
Some states, like California or Michigan, are taking fewer prisoners because of overcrowding. State budgets are restrained and some prisoners are released because of the economic situation.
Prisons in America are vast and the number of prisoners is immense. It’s impressive to see how much money is spent by the US government and how invisible we are. No one knows. Most people don’t care. Some journalists report when there is a drama in prison and think they know about it. But this is not real : it is sensationalist. You can find some good writings. But they are unrealistic. My reporting is what I have seen with my eyes and what people told me. It is real. My reporting has to do with my reality. They mostly have been focusing on death row and prison. I wish it were not so. There is a spate of suicides on death row in the last year and a half. But this is invisible. I broke stories about suicide because it happened on my block.
I need to write. There are millions of stories and some wonderful people here. Among these stories, the ones I chose to write are important, moving, fragile. I decide to write them but part of the calculation is to know whether it’s helpful or not. I have to think about that. As a reporter, you have a responsability when you publish those kind of stories. Hopefully, it will change their lives for the better.
Do you think the fact you were a reporter affected your case ?
Being the "Voice of the Voiceless" played a significant role. And this expression actually comes from the title of a Philadephia Inquirer headline after I was arrested in 1981. As a teenager, I was a radical journalist working on the staff of the Black Panthers national newspaper. The FBI was actually monitoring my writings since I was 14. My first job was being a reporter. Because of my writings, I am far better known that any inmate in America. If it were not the case, I think there would have been less pressure for the Court to create a special law to affect my conviction. Most of the men and women on death row are not well known. Because I continue to write, this is an element that would have affected the thinking of the judges and made them change the ruling for not giving me a new trial. I think they were thinking “You’re a big mouth, you won’t get a new trial”. You expect a little more from a federal Court. Because of my case, a dozen of other cases can be affected.
What do you think of the media coverage of your case ?
Once, I read that I was no longer on death row. I was sitting here when I read it. I haven’t stopped sitting here for one second.
Because I was coming from the craft, a lot of reporters did not want to cover my case because they feared they would be attached. They had to face criticisms for being partial and sometimes they were told by their editors they could not cover it. Since the beginning of the case, people who could cover me best were not allowed to. Most of reporters I worked with are no longer working. They retired and nobody took the work over.
But the press should have a role to play here. Millions of people saw what was done in Abu Ghraib. Its leader, smiling on the pictures that have been published, worked here before going to Abu Ghraib. In death row, you have people without a high school degree who can decide whether someone lives or dies. For whatever reason, they have the power to make you not eat if they don’t want to. And none of that power is checked by anyone. There are informal rules. These people can make someone’s life a living hell on a wink. When I chose which stories I want to write about, I am never short on material. From a writing perspective, this field is rich.
No matter what my detractors are saying about me, I am a reporter. This country would be a whole lot worse without journalists. But to many of them, I am an outlaw reporter. Prior to prison, in my work for various radio stations, I met people from all around the world and despite my conflicts with some editors, I had the greatest job.
The support you receive in Europe compared to the support you receive here in the United States, is very different. How do you explain the difference and do you still believe international mobilization will be helpful ?
Of course it will. The European mobilization might be pressuring the US regarding the death penalty. Foreign countries, like European ones, went through a specific history of repression. There was an in-their-bones-knowledge of what it is to be in prison. They know about prison, death row and concentration camps. In the US, very few people had that experience. That speaks to how cultures look at things in the world. In Europe, the very ideal of death penalty is an anathema.
9/11 changed a lot of things in the US. People challenging or opposing the government would not be supported anymore. The press also changed. Things that were “allowable” became unacceptable after 9/11. I think 9/11 changed the way people thought and it changed the tolerance of the media. For example, even though 9/11 happened in Manhattan and Washington DC, the jail was closed for an entire day, here in Pennsylvania, and we were locked down.
To motivate more people around your cause, it might be helpful to get an up to date picture of you, today, on death row. Does the fact that we don’t have any updated picture of you affect your situation and the ability of more people to mobilize around your cause ?
Having a public image is partly helpful. The essence of an image is propaganda. Pictures are therefore not that important. The human image is the true one. There, I try to do my best. In 1986, prison authorities took recorders from reporters and you were only allowed a pen and a paper. Now that there is only the meaning of one article left, one can make monsters and models from his article.
The Mass Line in China - Quotations from Mao Zedong
THE MASS LINE
The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.
"On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 257.*
The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge.
"Preface and Postscript to Rural Surveys" (March and April 1941), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 12.*
The masses have boundless creative power. They can organize themselves and concentrate on places and branches of work where they can give full play to their energy; they can concentrate on production in breadth and depth and create more and more undertakings for their own well-being.
Introductory note to "Surplus Labour Has Found a Way Out" (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. II
The present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.
"Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (March 1927), Selected Works, Vol. I, pp. 23-24.*
The high tide of social transformation in the countryside, the high tide of co-operation, has already reached some places and will soon sweep over the whole country. It is a vast socialist revolutionary movement involving a rural population of more than 500 million, and it has extremely great and world-wide significance. We should give this movement active, enthusiastic and systematic leadership, and not drag it back by one means or another. Some errors are unavoidable in the process; this is understandable, and they will not be hard to correct. Shortcomings or mistakes among cadres and peasants can be remedied or overcome provided we give them positive help.
On the Question of Agricultural Co-operation (July 31, 1955), 3rd ed., p. 1.*
Maoist Polemics - the Mass Line in India by Harsh Thakor
This article has been submitted by Harsh Thakor. The author, it must be mentioned has written this work on his own initiative and not been asked by any individual or group. He is no member, or supporter of any organization discussed, but historian.The opinions expressed in this article are not those of Democracy and Class Struggle but we publish this article to further debate issues in the Indian Revolution.The view of Democracy and Class Struggle of the Struggle in India is contained in Seven Questions on the Struggle in India.
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.com/2010/08/seven-questions-on-struggle-in-india.html
One of the most important theoretical issues in the Communist Movement is the issue of the mass Line. The most authentic practice of revolutionary mass line took place in the 1946-1951 Telengana Armed Struggle. There after armed mass peasant movements took place like In Srikakulam or Naxalbari but all of them fell victim to left deviation. The principal precursor of this was the left adventurist line of Charu Mazumdar,who called for disbanding mass organizations and called for annihilation of class enemies. Trade Unions and mass struggles had no place in his programme..
The most important historical question is whether conditions ever existed historically for armed struggle since the days of the Naxalbari movement . and if it is correct to defer armed Struggle In this debate the revolutionary camp remained divided. From the late 1970’s Organizations upholding armed struggle(now constituents of the C.P.I-Maoist) like the Andhra Pradesh State Committee, the Maoist Communist Centre and the Unity Organisation in Bihar made rectification in their line and upheld the formation of revolutionary mass organizations and movements. In fact there was a thaw in the post-emergency period in Andhra Pradesh,when armed actions were stopped to concentrate on building mass agitations, particularly of the peasantry. However these sections persisted with the line of ‘annihilation of class enemies’ and although significant peasant movements were built up Mass organizations were not given their independent identity, and often armed squads replaced the mass movements.Today, although leading a huge mass Movement the line of the C.P.I(Maoist)is vitiated by these trends.
In the author’s view today there is no trend completely upholding the revolutionary mass line. Within the camp that defers armed struggle there are strong revisionist, semi-revisionist or right deviationist tendencies. Although they take progressive stands on several issues they are hardly effective in upholding revolutionary mass resistance. The best example of these are groups that originally belonged to the various sections of the U.C.C.R.I, the Janashakti groups, the Red Flag Group, and the organization led by Com Kanu Sanyal. In the present polarisation of revolutionary groups in this camp the chief representatives are the C.P.I.(M.L.)Liberation,C.P.I(M.L.)led by K.N.Ramchandran and the C.P.I(M.L)New Democracy groups.One feature of these groups is that they have All-India Trade Union Centers or platforms uniting peasant organisations. However their style of functioning is not coherent with that of building revolutionary mass resistance, and display reformist tendencies. True the New Democracy Group still leads mass agitations, particularly in Punjab.Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, but powerful rightist tendencies are reflected. One of the most capitulationist tendencies within the revolutionary camp was the line of participation in parliamentary elections. This line led to some groups openly capitulating to revisionism like the C.P.I(M.L.) Liberation Group.
Quoting Com.Scott Harrison “From what I’ve read, the dominant concept of the mass line in the overall revolutionary movement in India is mostly incorrect: For groups other than the CPI(Maoist) it means something like “organizing the masses in their own (mostly) legal struggles as opposed to illegal revolutionary mass action and armed struggle.” That’s clearly a deeply rightist conception.”
Today groups like the C.P.I (M.L.) led by K.N.Ramchandran (earlier known as Red Flag Group)have virtually become revisionist ,abandoning the path of revolutionary resistance and resorting to total open functioning. They go out of the way to condemn the military actions of the C.P.I-(Maoist) and assert that India is a neo-colony.The major contribution of the C.P.I(M.L.) Red Flag Group in it’s earlier phase(1988-1992) was to launch a struggle against sectarianism and for the unity of the Party. It also launched a major struggle defending the concept of the dictatorship of the Proletariat as against the line of upholding nationality line as the principle one. Earlier a line was advocated within the organization upholding the struggle for nationalities as the principal contradiction by K.Venu..A unity platform was launched for all sections of Communist revolutionaries within the camp, which was significant since there was so much disunity within the movement. Several seminars and rallies were held on defending the achievements of Socialism in U.S.S.R and China, after the toppling of the erstwhile U.S.SR. and the East European regimes. All-India efforts were initiated against Communalism and State repression . Great Emphasis was paced on launching mass struggles and the need for mass movements to substantiate armed struggle. Great efforts were made to defend important aspects of Leninist polemics through open theoretical journals brought out regularly. However where this organization erred was the analysis of taking Imperialism as the principal contradiction and also resorting to open party functioning. . One historical Contribution of Red Flag Group was that they defended Mao Tse Tung Thought against using the term Maoism.and tooth and nail refuted the Dengist theory of 3 Worlds upheld by the majority section of the revolutionary camp. What was significant was the All-India perspective the organization implemented. However later they capitulated to right deviation by participating in election and resorting to open functioning..A major aspect that went against them was their assesment that Lin Biaoism existed in the C.P.C in the late 1960’s and that that trend caused left adventurism. It virtually accused the Chinese Communist Party of exhibiting revisionism. The second factor was their rejecting the semi colonial ,semi feudal structure, Characterizing India as a neo-conly-thus a state with bargaining rights.
The C.P.I(ML.)New Democracy, although adhering to many of the formulations of the mass line, have displayed several rightist-deviationist tendencies by embracing the path of participation in elections .It is significant that at one time the same organisation,then known as the Chandra Pulla Reddy Group, was the strongest group in India, which asserted secret party functioning. True later they built mass organizations and struggles and expanded to the urban areas but have sowed the seeds for capitulationism by almost resorting to total open functioning.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
News Flash !!! Nepal fails to elect Prime Minister again
Kathmandu: Nepal's Parliament failed to elect a Prime Minister for the sixth time on Sunday. Both candidates — Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda' and Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel — were unable to obtain a simple majority in the house of 601.
Mr. Prachanda got 240 votes in his favour. 101 MPs voted against the Maoist candidate, and 163 remained neutral. 504 MPs registered their presence during the vote.
Mr. Poudel got 122 in his favour while 242 opposed his candidature and 172 stayed neutral. 536 lawmakers attended the proceedings during the vote for Mr. Poudel.
PFLP is considering freezing its membership of EC of Palestine Liberation Organisation
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said on August 31, 2010 that it was considering freezing its membership in the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization in protest of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' actions in entering into direct negotiations with the occupation state. Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the PFLP, said that "The Front's leadership in Palestine and abroad is engaged in consultations and discussions, including with the Front's imprisoned General Secretary, Comrade Ahmad Sa'adat, to discuss freezing our participation in the Executive Committee."
Comrade Mizher said that there is an immense public backlash and a need for action in response to the direct negotiations, saying that Abbas' actions are deeply harmful to the Palestinian cause. He emphasized that under the PLO's own rules, the vote of the Executive Committee to return to negotiations was illegitimate and invalid, and that the meeting which took such a vote did not even include a quorum of members, saying the body had become a "Rubber stamp."
Comrade Marwan Fahoum, known as Abu Sami, member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, said on September 2 that the Front remains options to all possibilities in the future regarding its relationship with the PLO, saying that the decision to go to these negotiations stands in direct contradiction to the national consensus expressed by Palestinian factions and independent civil society, and lacks any legitimacy.
He described the negotiations as nothing more than a new trick meant to lure the Palestinians to compromise fundamental rights and cover up the crimes of the occupation, as well as serving U.S. interests to maintain complete regional hegemony. He emphasized that the Quartet's statement on the negotiations offers
nothing but legitimacy to the occupation and the siege, saying that this poses a serious threat to Palestinian rights to return and self-determination and a waiver of international resolutions on Palestinian rights.
Comrade Abu Sami raised that the U.S./Israeli military threats against Iran,Lebanon and Syria must be recognized as relevant to the negotiations, saying that such negotiations set the stage for official Palestinian acquiescence and/or silence in the face of a war of aggression. He emphasized that it is critical to activate and support the resistance in all forms - including armed resistance - against Israeli occupation - and called for a broad Palestinian national front to mobilize against the negotiations, build the resistance and call for international solidarity and support for our cause.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
"When somebody cannot react politically against a civilian party, he resorts to conspiracy."says Krishna Bahadur Mahara of UCPN Maoist
Chief of foreign relations department of the Unified CPN (Maoist) Krishna Bahadur Mahara Saturday said recent audio tape (which is yet to be verified independently) of a telephone conversation with a Chinese man in which he asks for Rs 500 million to 'buy' lawmakers to vote for Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal was a conspiracy tool against the party's political image.
In an exclusive interview with Rajendra Pokharel of Nepalnews, Mahara said the audio scandal is nothing new for the party. He vehemently denied any conversation with the Chinese man in question.
"There had been many such allegations and propaganda against our party in the past," Mahara said, "When somebody cannot react politically against a civilian party, he resorts to conspiracy."
For background to falsification of telephone conversations read this article:
http://www.forensictapeexpert.com/published/authentication.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)