AMMA AND KIMORA
Monday, October 27, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
THE NEW JIM CROW
The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander December 6, 2010How mass incarceration turns people of color into permanent second-class citizens
The first time I encountered the idea that our criminal-justice system functions much like a racial caste system, I dismissed the notion. It was more than 10 years ago in Oakland when I was rushing to catch the bus and spotted a bright orange sign stapled to a telephone pole. It screamed in large, bold print: "The Drug War is the New Jim Crow." I scanned the text of the flyer and then muttered something like, "Yeah, the criminal-justice system is racist in many ways, but making such an absurd comparison doesn't help. People will just think you're crazy." I then hopped on the bus and headed to my new job as director of the Racial Justice Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.What a difference a decade makes. After years of working on issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and drug-law enforcement in poor communities of color as well as working with former inmates struggling to "re-enter" a society that never seemed to have much use for them, I began to suspect that I was wrong about the criminal-justice system. It was not just another institution infected with racial bias but a different beast entirely. The activists who posted the sign on the telephone pole were not crazy, nor were the smattering of lawyers and advocates around the country who were beginning to connect the dots between our current system of mass incarceration and earlier forms of racial control. Quite belatedly, I came to see that mass incarceration in the United States has, in fact, emerged as a comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow. What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify severe inequality. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as justification for discrimination, exclusion, or social contempt. Rather, we use our criminal-justice system to associate criminality with people of color and then engage in the prejudiced practices we supposedly left behind. Today, it is legal to discriminate against ex-offenders in ways it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, depending on the state you're in, the old forms of discrimination -- employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, and exclusion from jury service -- are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights and arguably less respect than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.
More than two million African Americans are currently under the control of the criminal-justice system -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole. During the past few decades, millions more have cycled in and out of the system; indeed, nearly 70 percent of people released from prison are re-arrested within three years. Most people appreciate that millions of African Americans were locked into a second-class status during slavery and Jim Crow, and that these earlier systems of racial control created a legacy of political, social, and economic inequality that our nation is still struggling to overcome. Relatively few, however, seem to appreciate that millions of African Americans are subject to a new system of control -- mass incarceration -- which also has a devastating effect on families and communities. The harm is greatly intensified when prisoners are released. As criminologist Jeremy Travis has observed, "In this brave new world, punishment for the original offense is no longer enough; one's debt to society is never paid."The scale of incarceration-related discrimination is astonishing. Ex-offenders are routinely stripped of essential rights. Current felon-disenfranchisement laws bar 13 percent of African American men from casting a vote, thus making mass incarceration an effective tool of voter suppression -- one reminiscent of the poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crow era. Employers routinely discriminate against an applicant based on criminal history, as do landlords. In most states, it is also legal to make ex-drug offenders ineligible for food stamps. In some major urban areas, if you take into account prisoners -- who are excluded from poverty and unemployment statistics, thus masking the severity of black disadvantage -- more than half of working-age African American men have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. In Chicago, for instance, nearly 80 percent of working-age African American men had criminal records in 2002. These men are permanently locked into an inferior, second-class status, or caste, by law and custom. The official explanation for this is crime rates. Our prison population increased sevenfold in less than 30 years, going from about 300,000 to more than 2 million, supposedly due to rising crime in poor communities of color.
Crime rates, however, actually have little to do with incarceration rates. Crime rates have fluctuated during the past 30 years and today are at historical lows, but incarceration rates have consistently soared. Most sociologists and criminologists today will acknowledge that crime rates and incarceration rates have moved independently of each other; incarceration rates have skyrocketed regardless of whether crime has gone up or down in any particular community or in the nation as a whole.What caused the unprecedented explosion in our prison population? It turns out that the activists who posted the sign on the telephone pole were right: The "war on drugs" is the single greatest contributor to mass incarceration in the United States. Drug convictions accounted for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison system and more than half of the increase in the state prison system between 1985 and 2000 -- the period of the U.S. penal system's most dramatic expansion.
Contrary to popular belief, the goal of this war is not to root out violent offenders or drug kingpins. In 2005, for example, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, while only one out five were for sales. A 2007 report from Sentencing Project found that most people in state prison for drug offenses had no history of violence or significant selling activity. Nearly 80 percent of the increase in drug arrests in the 1990s, when the drug war peaked, could be attributed to possession of marijuana, a substance less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and at least as prevalent in middle-class white communities and on college campuses as in poor communities of color.The drug war, though, has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, despite the fact that studies consistently indicate that people of all races use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. This is not what one would guess by peeking inside our nation's prisons and jails, which are overflowing with black and brown drug offenders. In 2000, African Americans made up 80 percent to 90 percent of imprisoned drug offenders in some states.
The extraordinary racial disparities in our criminal-justice system would not exist today but for the complicity of the United States Supreme Court. In the failed war on drugs, our Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures have been eviscerated. Stop-and-frisk operations in poor communities of color are now routine; the arbitrary and discriminatory police practices the framers aimed to prevent are now commonplace. Justice Thurgood Marshall, in a strident dissent in the 1989 case of Skinner v. Railway Labor Executive Association, felt compelled to remind the Court that there is "no drug exception" to the Fourth Amendment. His reminder was in vain. The Supreme Court had begun steadily unraveling Fourth Amendment protections against stops, interrogations, and seizures in bus stops, train stations, schools, workplaces, airports, and on sidewalks in a series of cases starting in the early 1980s. These aggressive sweep tactics in poor communities of color are now as accepted as separate water fountains were several decades ago.If the system is as rife with conscious and unconscious bias, many people often ask, why aren't more lawsuits filed? Why not file class-action lawsuits challenging bias by the police or prosecutors? Doesn't the 14th Amendment guarantee equal protection of the law?
What many don't realize is that the Supreme Court has ruled that in the absence of conscious, intentional bias -- tantamount to an admission or a racial slur -- you can't present allegations of race discrimination in the criminal-justice system. These rulings have created a nearly insurmountable hurdle, as law-enforcement officials know better than to admit racial bias out loud, and much of the discrimination that pervades this system is rooted in unconscious racial stereotypes, or "hunches" about certain types of people that come down to race. Because these biases operate unconsciously, the only proof of bias is in the outcomes: how people of different races are treated. The Supreme Court, however, has ruled that no matter how severe the racial disparities, and no matter how overwhelming or compelling the statistical evidence may be, you must have proof of conscious, intentional bias to present a credible case of discrimination. In this way, the system of mass incarceration is now immunized from judicial scrutiny for racial bias, much as slavery and Jim Crow laws were once protected from constitutional challenge.As a nation, we have managed to create a massive system of control that locks a significant percentage of our population -- a group defined largely by race -- into a permanent, second-class status. This is not the fault of one political party. It is not merely the fault of biased police, prosecutors, or judges. We have all been complicit in the emergence of mass incarceration in the United States. In the so-called era of colorblindness, we have become blind not so much to race as to the re-emergence of caste in America. We have turned away from those labeled "criminals," viewing them as "others" unworthy of our concern. Some of us have been complicit by remaining silent, even as we have a sneaking suspicion that something has gone horribly wrong. We must break that silence and awaken to the human-rights nightmare that is occurring on our watch. We, as a nation, can do better than this.
BRENDA HARDAWAY VICTIM OF POLICE BRUTALITY
Impossible choices: Brenda Hardaway pleads guilty to assault in the second degreeSubmitted by T. Forsyth on Sat, 2014-01-18 16:46
On Friday, January 17, 2014, Brenda Hardaway, between five and seven days past her due date, stood before state Supreme Court Justice Francis A. Affronti and plead guilty to felony second degree assault with the understanding that she would get a reduced sentence of six months in jail and five years of probation.The Friday appearance was meant to be a Huntley hearing before the start of a trial on February 10, until Assistant District Attorney Brian Green said that he had spoken to several parties—his boss—District Attorney Sandra Doorley, the injured officer, Justice Affronti, and the defendant's attorney Eric Teifke—and felt that “a resolution in this matter is appropriate.”
Ms. Hardaway's case went viral on YouTube, when a video surfaced on August 27, 2013. The video showed an RPD officer—Lucas Krull—attempting to arrest her after it was alleged that she interfered with the arrest of her younger brother (a minor) Romengeno Hardaway. The video starts with her screaming that she's pregnant; officer Krull is behind her attempting to handcuff her. Eventually, she is thrown into a railing, punched in the back of the head multiple times, dropped to the ground belly first, and then kneed by the officer. While she is being attacked, her brother can be seen in the background with three or four officers attempting to subdue him. At one point during this attack, Romengeno expressed at a later date, the side of his head was smashed against a railing with an exposed nail causing the nail to be driven into the side of his temple. The video ends with Brenda and Romengeno being lead away in handcuffs with family members and friends protesting to more than 10 police officers. What began as a domestic dispute between family members escalated into a full-scale RPD brawl against the Hardaways.Part of the plea deal involves Ms. Hardaway explaining and acknowledging her actions on the day in question. After Justice Affronti checked in with Ms. Hardaway about her first, late pregnancy, the judge acknowledged that ADA Green's statements in favor of a resolution were accurate. He said that he had had conversations with the different parties on December 17, 2013. He then posed a question to ADA Green: “I'm also asking, at this time, about the police officer. What is his medical status?” Earlier in the proceeding, the judge identified the officer as “the victim in this case.” ADA Green replied, “He's on light duty right now—he has a shoulder injury and is scheduled for exploratory surgery because it has not healed right.”
Justice Affronti acknowledged the statement and moved on. “The court is deciding whether it is legally and procedurally appropriate to allow this resolution.” Mr. Teifke reminded the judge that aside from the incident on August 27, Ms. Hardaway has no prior criminal record and that she has had no interactions with law enforcement since. The judge agreed with Mr. Teifke's comments and then proceeded to ask Ms. Hardaway questions about her age and schooling; if she knew about the hearing today; that her case could go to trial before 12 people that would decide the outcome and where she would not be obligated to testify, offer evidence, or call witnesses. She acknowledged all of the questions asked of her. He asked if she was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. She responded in the negative. “If you tell me today that you are guilty of assault in the second degree then you won't have a trial,” the judge said. “Do you understand that?” “Yes,” Ms. Hardaway said. The judge acknowledged that she was “clear minded” and able to enter into a plea deal. “Do you know what your sentence will be?” the judge asked. “Yes. Six months in Monroe County and five years probation,” she responded. “What happened on August 27, 2013 Ms. Hardaway? What did you do? I want you to be as specific as possible,” the judge said. “The officers were trying to arrest my little brother and i got involved with the arrest and I had pepper spray on me. I tried to stop the arrest,” she started. “Wait a minute,” said Justice Affronit, “Where did it happen?” “It happened at 384 Selye Terrace.” “And where did it happen? Was it inside that address? Outside?” “Outside in the front yard.” “What is your brother's name?” “Romengeno Hardaway.” “Go on Ms. Hardaway.” “I was trying to get them off my brother. I was trying to break them up. I didn't do anything with the pepper spray—we were grabbing and pulling at each other as I tried to break up the fight.” “Did you hit or strike one of the officers, Ms. Hardaway?” “I did not strike a police officer,” she said. She continued, “As I tried to break the fight up I was pulled away from them and I fell to the ground. When I got up, then they arrested me. When the two of us fell to the ground, that's when the shoulder injury happened to the officer. I was pushing away from him—I never hit him. Could I show you?” she asked. “Assault in the second degree requires that we know what if any part of your body came in contact with the officer causing injury,” said the judge. “This needs to be on the record, so you cannot show me.” “I was telling him that I was five months pregnant and I was trying to get away from him.” Mr. Teifke interjected here, “When her arms were pulled behind her back, she complained about the pain and then proceeded to try to bring her arms forward when the pain did not cease. At that point, they were moving forward together and fell to the ground. That's when the injury to the officer occurred. Assault in the second degree requires only that an officer was injured without any indication of her intent to injure. We do not dispute the injuries.” The judge accepted this. ADA Green then asked Ms. Hardaway, “how do you plead to assault in the second degree?” “Guilty,” she said.Her plea was entered into the record. “This matter will be adjourned until her sentencing which will be on March 18, 2014, at 9:30AM,” said the judge. Justice Affronti then looked at Ms. Hardaway and said, “Between now and March 18, you are to have contact with the Monroe County probation office. You must make all your appointments with them so that I can have their report on March 18. Between now and then you are not to be arrested for any violation of the law. If you don't keep your appointments or have involvement with the police, I can't keep my promise regarding your sentence.” Court was adjourned.
After court I asked Mr. Teifke about the plea deal. “It's a deal she can live with. Going to trial always has risks and in this case, all the prosecution has to prove to get a conviction for assault in the second degree, is that the officer was injured during the arrest.” He told me that the statue is “extremely police friendly” and joked that it seems like every year a new type of civil servant is added to the list of the protected. Reading the statute, you get a sense of that: sanitation workers, first responders, police officers, and everyone in between is protected by this law. He also told me that the maximum sentence is seven years in jail. “You could be running from the police, two blocks ahead of them, and one of the cops chasing you trips and wrecks his elbow. Once arrested, you can be charged with assault in the second degree because that's the way the statue is written,” said Mr. Teifke. “There doesn't have to be intent to injure—just that an injury has occurred.”The plea deal says six months of jail and five years of probation. Mr. Teifke thinks that she will be out in two months because of time served and good behavior. There was no misdemeanor offered by the DA, so his client went with the next best thing—pleading to a felony conviction with minimal time in jail. Part of that decision was influenced by her impending delivery.
Impossible choices Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness makes the argument that “mass incarceration in the United States has, in fact, emerged as a comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.” Under this “well-disguised system” people are forced to make impossible choices that may lessen their bodily punishment now (shortened jail sentences), but in the end, creates a life-time of punishment (a felony conviction) where there is no way to atone for one's transgressions.Eric Teifke, a lawyer with the Monroe County Public Defender Office and Ms. Hardaway's lawyer, told me that a trial was risky and that this was a deal that Ms. Hardaway could live with. It seems to me that this is an impossible choice: have your child and then go to jail for two months with a felony conviction, or take your case to trial where your chances of being found not guilty are slim compounded by a heavy amount of anxiety that is neither good for you nor your newborn. On top of that, if you are in fact found guilty, be prepared to be sentenced to a potential seven years in jail with a felony conviction.
The way Justice Affronti talks about police being victims in this case makes me think he would not have much compassion for Ms. Hardaway. Neither choice is appealing when police go crazy by storming the front lawn of the Hardaways' home, escalating instead of de-escalating a verbal dispute, and then arresting a minor after smashing his head into a post driving a nail into his temple and then punching and dropping a pregnant woman to the ground. This kind of insanity would never fly in the suburbs of Rochester, NY so why is it allowed to flourish in the city? (It's a rhetorical question; one doesn't have to look far beyond race and class.)The life-time punishment of being convicted of a felony is listed in Alexander's book as well as the article published in The American Prospect: http://prospect.org/article/new-jim-crow-0 ...we use our criminal-justice system to associate criminality with people of color and then engage in the prejudiced practices we supposedly left behind. Today, it is legal to discriminate against ex-offenders in ways it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, depending on the state you're in, the old forms of discrimination -- employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, and exclusion from jury service -- are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights and arguably less respect than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.
She calls the system colorblind because instead of it being an explicitly racially discriminatory system, it is predicated on one's criminal status—and it doesn't just happen to be a coincidence that people most targeted by law enforcement are people of color. (Thanks, War on Drugs!) The lack of confidence in the public defender's office by many people of color I've spoken to is of high concern. A lot of folks think the judges, district attorneys, and public defenders collude to get those charged with crimes—though innocent until proven guilty—convictions and jail time. This does not bode well for an office that is supposed to fight and advocate for their court-appointed clients. I've also had conversations with lawyers who think that part of the problem stems from the county's lack of funding and staffing for both offices. In the end though, it is the people who have to make the impossible choices, not their lawyers. This has to end.Coming up Romengeno Hardaway, also arrested on August 27 and charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, has court before Judge Thomas Rainbow Morse on January 27, at 9:30AM. Brenda Hardaway's sentencing is March 18 at 9:30AM before Justice Affronti. Enough is enough.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
OBEAH OPERA
The infamous Melda of the Mighty Sparrow’s Obeah Wedding calypso http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhBoQufPq4E did not have to fear that she would suffer death by hanging at the hands of her irate lover when he accuses her of trying to lead him to the altar through obeah. However the characters of the play Obeah Opera did have to fear hanging when they were accused of practicing witchcraft as obeah is often mistakenly portrayed. Obeah Opera which plays until March 4 is a collaboration of Rhoma Spencer’s Theatre Archipelago and b current Performing Arts whose artistic director is ahdri zhina mandiela.
Growing up in Guyana I had heard of obeah. Every Guyanese has heard of obeah whether or not they understand what it means. There were those who feared obeah, those who practised obeah, those who thought it was a joke or some combination. Some obeah practitioners (at least the adults thought they were obeah practitioners) regularly left food in apparently expensive china dinnerware (probably Royal Doulton as Guyana was a British colony) at the koker in Stanleytown, Berbice. We (Berbicians) are famous in Guyana as obeah people being close to Suriname a place many Guyanese consider the obeah epicenter. There was an elderly woman who would, in spite of dire warnings from other adults in the community, take the food and dinnerware left at the koker. She thought it was nonsensical for people to waste good food and expensive dishes to feed spirits. While others watched in fascinated horror expecting that she would be struck down by some malevolent spirit, she lived to celebrate her 90th birthday.
According to information on the website Obeah Opera tells a story of women silenced by the most infamous 'witch-hunt' in history. The opera is set in the late 17th century where Tituba, Mary, Candy and Sarah enslaved African women from the Caribbean sold to owners in the North American colony established by Puritans at Salem are arrested and accused of practicing obeah. To find out what else happens in this groundbreaking collaboration between two artistic companies owned by African Caribbean Canadian women you have to attend one of the performances by March 4. It is an eye-opening experience with amazing performances by a group of 15 women who seamlessly transform from Puritans to enslaved African women while singing acapella. The songs performed by this group of talented singers celebrate the range of African inspired music including blues, gospel, jazz and spirituals.
It was a learning experience for me as I had never connected the Salem witchcraft trials with obeah. After all witches were part of white culture and obeah is an expression of African spirituality. I had read about witches including the various wicked step-mothers from fairy tales and wizards including Merlin from King Arthur’s round table, but in my youthful Guyanese mind, they really had nothing to do with us in Guyana, they all lived in Europe. I knew of Tituba, Mary Black and Candy who were the enslaved African women accused during the hysteria of the Salem witch hunt and trials, I learned about Sarah from Obeah Opera.
I was struck by the similarity between the Puritan pastor lusting after the body of the enslaved African woman while blaming the woman and the protagonist in the calypso Obeah Wedding who hypocritically finds fault with Melda when she suggests marriage. The protagonist in Sparrow’s Obeah Wedding is obviously a man with commitment issues who accuses the woman of dastardly acts when she demands a formal commitment. In an effort to discourage Melda’s real or imagined machinations he warned/threatened that he had protection against “necromancy” in the person of his grandfather Papa Neeza. However according to Frances Henry, a white Canadian anthropologist who met and interviewed Ebenezer “Papa Neezer” Elliot, he was not an “obeah man.” In her book Beliefs, doctrines and practices of the Orisha religion in Trinidad, 1958 – 1999 published in 2002 Henry writes: Elliot was raised a London Baptist, the Church in the Fifth Company Village, and he remained a devout Baptist and a conscientious Christian all his life, in addition to practising his African Shango faith. Elliot was a descendant of the African American group (known locally as the Merikens) that settled in Trinidad between 1815 and 1816. My sister friend Brenda Pierre who transitioned last year April was also a descendant of the Merikens and shared stories about the spirituality of that community and of her ancestors Amphy and Bashana Jackson. The history of the Merikens is documented in The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad 1815-16 (published 2002) written by John McNish Weiss: The Baptist faith was brought to Trinidad by the "Merikens", former American slaves who were recruited by the British to fight with them, as the Corps of Colonial Marines, against the Americans during the War of 1812. After the end of this war, these ex-slaves were settled in the south of the country, to the east of the Mission of Savannah Grande (now known as Princes Town) in six villages, since then called The Company Villages.
Obeah like all other African belief systems was demonized and actively discouraged by the white slave holders in an effort to strip the Africans of their humanity. Whether the European enslavers were the French in Haiti, the Portuguese in Brazil, the Spanish in Colombia, Cuba or Puerto Rico they all brutalized any African who expressed their spirituality; this caused syncretism in some places. The syncretism which hid African spirituality under a thin veneer of Catholicism resulted in Candomble, Santeria, Shango and Voodoo. The enslaved Africans continued to worship their deities but used the names of Catholic saints to avoid the brutal punishment for practicing their indigenous beliefs. Obeah is not interchangeable with the syncretic religions because there is no worship of European saints and while Candomble, Santeria, Shango and Voodoo are derived from the Yoruba culture of Nigeria, obeah is from the Akan of Ghana and is not syncretic. Writing of obeah in his 2010 published Afro-Caribbean Religions Professor Nathaniel Samuel Murrell explains: The art was common among the Efik, Akan, Edo, and Twi ethnic groups of West Africa; and scholars say it is derived from the Twi word obeye, a minor deity associated with the Obboney, the malicious spirit of the Rada and Dahomey sacred powers. The use of the word obayi or obaye is seen as evidence of the Ashanti people in Jamaica and other Caribbean states; the most well known freedom fighters in the British colonies were the Ashantis. Ashanti and Twi speaking peoples whom slave traders labeled Koromantyns were taken from the Gold Coast to the British colonies rather than to French islands or the Spanish main. Kormantyns were freedom fighters, and British slave markets accepted them when other depots did not.
In Encyclopedia of African American history, Volume 1 Leslie M. Alexander and Walter C Rucker argue: In the British imagination, Obeah has historically been the umbrella term for any African-based spiritual practice unknown to the European tradition that purports to give the black population a sense of agency or authority. In British Guiana an Obeah Ordinance was enacted on January 8, 1855 making it a criminal offence to practice obeah. The practice of obeah was so feared that in November 1973 when then Guyanese Prime Minister Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham proposed repealing the ordinance it created a firestorm of media stories not only in the Caribbean but also internationally. The story even appeared in two editions of Jet Magazine January 17 and March 14, 1974. The performance of Obeah Opera in the 21st century is a testament to how far we have come in embracing our history and culture. It is a performance that must be seen and loudly applauded.
Growing up in Guyana I had heard of obeah. Every Guyanese has heard of obeah whether or not they understand what it means. There were those who feared obeah, those who practised obeah, those who thought it was a joke or some combination. Some obeah practitioners (at least the adults thought they were obeah practitioners) regularly left food in apparently expensive china dinnerware (probably Royal Doulton as Guyana was a British colony) at the koker in Stanleytown, Berbice. We (Berbicians) are famous in Guyana as obeah people being close to Suriname a place many Guyanese consider the obeah epicenter. There was an elderly woman who would, in spite of dire warnings from other adults in the community, take the food and dinnerware left at the koker. She thought it was nonsensical for people to waste good food and expensive dishes to feed spirits. While others watched in fascinated horror expecting that she would be struck down by some malevolent spirit, she lived to celebrate her 90th birthday.
According to information on the website Obeah Opera tells a story of women silenced by the most infamous 'witch-hunt' in history. The opera is set in the late 17th century where Tituba, Mary, Candy and Sarah enslaved African women from the Caribbean sold to owners in the North American colony established by Puritans at Salem are arrested and accused of practicing obeah. To find out what else happens in this groundbreaking collaboration between two artistic companies owned by African Caribbean Canadian women you have to attend one of the performances by March 4. It is an eye-opening experience with amazing performances by a group of 15 women who seamlessly transform from Puritans to enslaved African women while singing acapella. The songs performed by this group of talented singers celebrate the range of African inspired music including blues, gospel, jazz and spirituals.
It was a learning experience for me as I had never connected the Salem witchcraft trials with obeah. After all witches were part of white culture and obeah is an expression of African spirituality. I had read about witches including the various wicked step-mothers from fairy tales and wizards including Merlin from King Arthur’s round table, but in my youthful Guyanese mind, they really had nothing to do with us in Guyana, they all lived in Europe. I knew of Tituba, Mary Black and Candy who were the enslaved African women accused during the hysteria of the Salem witch hunt and trials, I learned about Sarah from Obeah Opera.
I was struck by the similarity between the Puritan pastor lusting after the body of the enslaved African woman while blaming the woman and the protagonist in the calypso Obeah Wedding who hypocritically finds fault with Melda when she suggests marriage. The protagonist in Sparrow’s Obeah Wedding is obviously a man with commitment issues who accuses the woman of dastardly acts when she demands a formal commitment. In an effort to discourage Melda’s real or imagined machinations he warned/threatened that he had protection against “necromancy” in the person of his grandfather Papa Neeza. However according to Frances Henry, a white Canadian anthropologist who met and interviewed Ebenezer “Papa Neezer” Elliot, he was not an “obeah man.” In her book Beliefs, doctrines and practices of the Orisha religion in Trinidad, 1958 – 1999 published in 2002 Henry writes: Elliot was raised a London Baptist, the Church in the Fifth Company Village, and he remained a devout Baptist and a conscientious Christian all his life, in addition to practising his African Shango faith. Elliot was a descendant of the African American group (known locally as the Merikens) that settled in Trinidad between 1815 and 1816. My sister friend Brenda Pierre who transitioned last year April was also a descendant of the Merikens and shared stories about the spirituality of that community and of her ancestors Amphy and Bashana Jackson. The history of the Merikens is documented in The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad 1815-16 (published 2002) written by John McNish Weiss: The Baptist faith was brought to Trinidad by the "Merikens", former American slaves who were recruited by the British to fight with them, as the Corps of Colonial Marines, against the Americans during the War of 1812. After the end of this war, these ex-slaves were settled in the south of the country, to the east of the Mission of Savannah Grande (now known as Princes Town) in six villages, since then called The Company Villages.
Obeah like all other African belief systems was demonized and actively discouraged by the white slave holders in an effort to strip the Africans of their humanity. Whether the European enslavers were the French in Haiti, the Portuguese in Brazil, the Spanish in Colombia, Cuba or Puerto Rico they all brutalized any African who expressed their spirituality; this caused syncretism in some places. The syncretism which hid African spirituality under a thin veneer of Catholicism resulted in Candomble, Santeria, Shango and Voodoo. The enslaved Africans continued to worship their deities but used the names of Catholic saints to avoid the brutal punishment for practicing their indigenous beliefs. Obeah is not interchangeable with the syncretic religions because there is no worship of European saints and while Candomble, Santeria, Shango and Voodoo are derived from the Yoruba culture of Nigeria, obeah is from the Akan of Ghana and is not syncretic. Writing of obeah in his 2010 published Afro-Caribbean Religions Professor Nathaniel Samuel Murrell explains: The art was common among the Efik, Akan, Edo, and Twi ethnic groups of West Africa; and scholars say it is derived from the Twi word obeye, a minor deity associated with the Obboney, the malicious spirit of the Rada and Dahomey sacred powers. The use of the word obayi or obaye is seen as evidence of the Ashanti people in Jamaica and other Caribbean states; the most well known freedom fighters in the British colonies were the Ashantis. Ashanti and Twi speaking peoples whom slave traders labeled Koromantyns were taken from the Gold Coast to the British colonies rather than to French islands or the Spanish main. Kormantyns were freedom fighters, and British slave markets accepted them when other depots did not.
In Encyclopedia of African American history, Volume 1 Leslie M. Alexander and Walter C Rucker argue: In the British imagination, Obeah has historically been the umbrella term for any African-based spiritual practice unknown to the European tradition that purports to give the black population a sense of agency or authority. In British Guiana an Obeah Ordinance was enacted on January 8, 1855 making it a criminal offence to practice obeah. The practice of obeah was so feared that in November 1973 when then Guyanese Prime Minister Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham proposed repealing the ordinance it created a firestorm of media stories not only in the Caribbean but also internationally. The story even appeared in two editions of Jet Magazine January 17 and March 14, 1974. The performance of Obeah Opera in the 21st century is a testament to how far we have come in embracing our history and culture. It is a performance that must be seen and loudly applauded.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, March 20, 2011
A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective of Libya
http://www.countercurrents.org/print.html
Libya, Getting It Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective
By Gerald A. Perreira
04 March, 2011
BlackAgendaReport
“The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia.”
Thousands of Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Filipinos, Turks, Germans, English, Italians, Malaysians, Koreans and a host of other nationalities are lining up at the borders and the airport to leave Libya. It begs the question: What were they doing in Libya in the first place? Unemployment figures, according to the Western media and Al Jazeera, are at 30%. If this is so, then why all these foreign workers?
For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts, who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on. Let us be clear - there is no possibility of understanding what is happening in Libya within a Eurocentric framework. Westerners are incapable of understanding a system unless the system emanates from or is attached in some way to the West. Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.
News coverage by the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera has been oversimplified and misleading. An array of anti-Qaddafi spokespersons, most living outside Libya, have been paraded in front of us – each one clearly a counter-revolutionary and less credible than the last. Despite the clear and irrefutable evidence from the beginning of these protests that Muammar Qaddafi had considerable support both inside Libya and internationally, not one pro-Qaddafi voice has been allowed to air. The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia and that Qaddafi is just another tyrant amassing large sums of money in Swiss bank accounts. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot make Qaddafi into a Mubarak or Libya into Egypt.
“Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.”
The first question is: Is the revolt taking place in Libya fuelled by a concern over economic issues such as poverty and unemployment as the media would have us believe? Let us examine the facts.
Under the revolutionary leadership of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has attained the highest standard of living in Africa. In 2007, in an article which appeared in the African Executive Magazine, Norah Owaraga noted that Libya, “unlike other oil producing countries such as Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, utilized the revenue from its oil to develop its country. The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa, falling in the category of countries with a GNP per capita of between USD 2,200 and 6,000.”
This is all the more remarkable when we consider that in 1951 Libya was officially the poorest country in the world. According to the World Bank, the per capita income was less than $50 a year - even lower than India. Today, all Libyans own their own homes and cars. Two Fleet Street journalists, David Blundy and Andrew Lycett, who are by no means supporters of the Libyan revolution, had this to say:
“The young people are well dressed, well fed and well educated. Libyans now earn more per capita than the British. The disparity in annual incomes... is smaller than in most countries. Libya's wealth has been fairly spread throughout society. Every Libyan gets free, and often excellent, education, medical and health services. New colleges and hospitals are impressive by any international standard. All Libyans have a house or a flat, a car and most have televisions, video recorders and telephones. Compared with most citizens of the Third World countries, and with many in the First World, Libyans have it very good indeed.” (Source: Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution)
Large scale housing construction has taken place right across the country. Every citizen has been given a decent house or apartment to live in rent-free. In Qaddafi’s Green Book it states: “The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others.” This dictum has now become a reality for the Libyan people.
Large scale agricultural projects have been implemented in an effort to “make the desert bloom” and achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Any Libyan who wants to become a farmer is given free use of land, a house, farm equipment, some livestock and seed.
“The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa.”
Today, Libya can boast one of the finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people have access to doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of all charges. The fact is that the Libyan revolution has achieved such a high standard of living for its people that they import labor from other parts of the world to do the jobs that the unemployed Libyans refuse to do. Libya has been called by many observers inside and out, “a nation of shop keepers.” It is part of the Libyan Arab psyche to own your own small business and this type of small scale private enterprise flourishes in Libya. We can draw on many examples of Libyans with young sons who expressed the idea that it would be shameful for the family if these same young men were to seek menial work and instead preferred for them to remain at home supported by the extended family.
No system is perfect, and Libya is no exception. They suffered nine years of economic sanctions and this caused huge problems for the Libyan economy. Also, there is nowhere on planet earth that has escaped the monumental crisis of neo-liberal capitalism. It has impacted everywhere – even on post revolutionary societies that have rejected “free market” capitalism. However, what we are saying is that severe economic injustice is not at the heart of this conflict. So then, what is?
A Battle for Africa
The battle that is being waged in Libya is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi's vision of Libya as part of a united Africa and want to ally themselves instead with the EU and look toward Europe and the Arab World for Libya's future.
One of Muammar Qaddafi's most controversial and difficult moves in the eyes of many Libyans was his championing of Africa and his determined drive to unite Africa with one currency, one army and a shared vision regarding the true independence and liberation of the entire continent. He has contributed large amounts of his time and energy and large sums of money to this project and like Kwame Nkrumah, he has paid a high price.
Many of the Libyan people did not approve of this move. They wanted their leader to look towards Europe. Of course, Libya has extensive investments and commercial ties with Europe but the Libyans know that Qaddafi’s heart is in Africa.
Many years ago, Qaddafi told a large gathering, which included Libyans and revolutionaries from many parts of the world, that the Black Africans were the true owners of Libya long before the Arab incursion into North Africa, and that Libyans need to acknowledge and pay tribute to their ancient African roots. He ended by saying, as is proclaimed in his Green Book, that “the Black race shall prevail throughout the world.” This is not what many Libyans wanted to hear. As with all fair skinned Arabs, prejudice against Black Africans is endemic.
Brother Leader, Guide of the Revolution and King of Kings are some of the titles that have been bestowed on Qaddafi by Africans. Only last month Qaddafi called for the creation of a Secretariat of traditional African Chiefs and Kings, with whom he has excellent ties, to co-ordinate efforts to build African unity at the grassroots level throughout the continent, a bottom up approach, as opposed to trying to build unity at the government/state level, an approach which has failed the African unification project since the days of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure. This bottom up approach is widely supported by many Pan Africanists worldwide.
African Mercenaries or Freedom Fighters?
In the past week, the phrase “African mercenaries” has been repeated over and over by the media and the selected Libyan citizens they choose to speak to have, as one commentator put it, “spat the word ‘African’ with a venomous hatred.”
The media has assumed, without any research or understanding of the situation because they are refusing to give any air time to pro-Qaddafi forces, that the many Africans in military uniform fighting alongside the pro-Qaddafi Libyan forces are mercenaries. However, it is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars and this assumption is based solely on the usual racist and contemptuous view of Black Africans.
Actually, in truth, there are people all over Africa and the African Diaspora who support and respect Muammar Qaddafi as a result of his invaluable contribution to the worldwide struggle for African emancipation.
“It is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars.”
Over the past two decades, thousands of Africans from all over the continent were provided with education, work and military training – many of them coming from liberation movements. As a result of Libya's support for liberation movements throughout Africa and the world, international battalions were formed. These battalions saw themselves as a part of the Libyan revolution, and took it upon themselves to defend the revolution against attacks from within its borders or outside.
These are the Africans who are fighting to defend Qaddafi and the gains of the Libyan revolution to their death if need be. It is not unlike what happened when internationalist battalions came to the aid of the revolutionary forces against Franco's fascist forces in Spain.
Malian political analyst, Adam Thiam, notes that “thousands of Tuaregs who were enrolled in the Islamic Legion established by the Libyan revolution remained in Libya and they are enrolled in the Libyan security forces.”
African Migrants under Attack
As African fighters from Chad, Niger, Mali, Ghana, Kenya and Southern Sudan (it should be noted that Libya supported the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army under John Garang in their war of liberation against Arab hegemonists in Khartoum, while all other Arab leaders backed the Khartoum regime) fight to defend this African revolution, a million African refugees and thousands of African migrant workers stand the risk of being murdered as a result of their perceived support for Qaddafi.
One Turkish construction worker described a massacre: “We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Qaddafi. The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.”
This is a far cry from what is being portrayed in the media as “peaceful protesters” being set upon by pro-Qaddafi forces. In fact, footage of the Benghazi revolt shows men with machetes, AK 47s and RPGs. In the Green Book, Qaddafi argues for the transfer of all power, wealth and arms directly into the hands of the people themselves. No one can deny that the Libyan populace is heavily armed. This is part of Qaddafi's philosophy of arms not being monopolised by any section of the society, including the armed forces. It must be said that it is not usual practice for tyrants and dictators to arm their population.
Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe, where they are met with racism, more poverty, violence at the hands of extreme right wing groups and in many cases death, when the un-seaworthy boats they travel in sink.
“Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe.”
Moved by their plight, a conference was held in Libya in January this year, to address their needs and concerns. More than 500 delegates and speakers from around the world attended the conference titled “A Decent Life in Europe or a Welcome Return to Africa.”
“We should live in Europe with decency and dignity,” Qaddafi told participants. “We need a good relationship with Europe not a relationship of master and slave. There should be a strong relationship between Africa and Europe. Our presence should be strong, tangible and good. It’s up to you as the Africans in the Diaspora. We have to continue more and more until the unity of Africa is achieved.
From now on, by the will of God, I will assign teams to search, investigate and liaise with the Africans in Europe and to check their situations...this is my duty and role towards the sons of Africa; I am a soldier for Africa. I am here for you and I work for you; therefore, I will not leave you and I will follow up on your conditions.”
Joint committees of African migrants, the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and international organizations present at the conference discussed the need to coordinate the implementation of many of the conference's recommendations.
Statements are appearing all over the internet from Africans who have a different view to that being perpetuated by those intent on discrediting Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution. One African commented:
“When I was growing up I first read a comic book of his revolution at the age of ten. Since then, as dictators came and went, Colonel Qaddafi has made an impression on me as a man who truly loves Africa! Libyans could complain that he spent their wealth on other Africans! But those Africans he helped put in power, built schools and mosques and brought in many forms of development showing that Africans can do for themselves. If those Africans would abandon him to be swallowed by Western Imperialism and their lies and just let him go as a dictator in the name of so-called democracy...if they could do that...they should receive the names and fate that the Western press gives our beloved leader. If there is any one person who was half as generous as he is, let them step forward.”
And another African comments:
“This man has been accused of many things and listening to the West who just recently were happy to accept his generous hospitality, you will think that he is worse than Hitler. The racism and contemptuous attitudes of Arabs towards Black Africans has made me a natural sceptic of any overtures from them to forge a closer link with Black Africa but Qaddafi was an exception.”
Opportunistic Revolt
This counter-revolutionary revolt caught everyone, including the Libyan authorities, by surprise. They knew what the media is not reporting: that unlike Egypt and Tunisia and other countries in the region, where there is tremendous poverty, unemployment and repressive pro-Western regimes, the Libyan dynamic was entirely different. However, an array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup and to advance their own agenda for the Libyan nation. Many of these former officials were the authors of, and covertly fuelled the anti-African pogrom in Libya a few years ago when many Africans lost their lives in street battles between Africans and Arab Libyans. This was a deliberate attempt to embarrass Qaddafi and to undermine his efforts in Africa.
Qaddafi has long been a thorn in the Islamists side. In his recent address to the Libyan people, broadcast from the ruins of the Bab al-Azizia compound bombed by Reagan in 1986, he asked the “bearded ones” in Benghazi and Jabal al Akhdar where they were when Reagan bombed his compound in Tripoli, killing hundreds of Libyans, including his daughter. He said they were hiding in their homes applauding the US and he vowed that he would never allow the country to be returned to the grip of them and their colonial masters.
Al Qaeda is in the Sahara on his borders and the International Union of Muslim Scholars is calling for him to be tried in a court. One asks why are they calling for Qaddafi's blood? Why not Mubarak who closed the Rafah Border Crossing while the Israeli's slaughtered the Palestinians in Gaza. Why not Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair who are responsible for the murder of millions of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan?
“An array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup.”
The answer is simple - because Qaddafi committed some “cardinal sins.” He dared to challenge their reactionary and feudal notions of Islam. He has upheld the idea that every Muslim is a ruler (Caliph) and does not need the Ulema to interpret the Quran for them. He has questioned the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda from a Quranic/theological perspective and is one of the few political leaders equipped to do so. Qaddafi has been called a Mujaddid (this term refers to a person who appears to revive Islam and to purge it of alien elements, restoring it to its authentic form) and he comes in the tradition of Jamaludeen Afghani and the late Iranian revolutionary, Ali Shariati.
Libya is a deeply traditional society, plagued with some outmoded and bankrupt ideas that continue to surface to this day. In many ways, Qaddafi has had to struggle against the same reactionary aspects of Arab culture and tradition that the holy prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was struggling against in 7th century Arabia – Arab supremacy/racism, supremacy of family and tribe, historical feuding tribe against tribe and the marginalisation of women. Benghazi has always been at the heart of counter-revolution in Libya, fostering reactionary Islamic movements such as the Wahhabis and Salafists. It is these people who founded the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group based in Benghazi which allies itself with Al Qaeda and who have, over the years, been responsible for the assassination of leading members of the Libyan revolutionary committees.
These forces hate Qaddafi's revolutionary reading of the Quran. They foster an Islam concerned with outward trappings and mere religiosity, in the form of rituals, which at the same time is feudal and repressive, while rejecting the liberatory spirituality of Islam. While these so-called Islamists are opposed to Western occupation of Muslim lands, they have no concrete programmatic platform for meaningful socio-economic and political transformation to advance their societies beyond semi-feudal and capitalist systems which reinforce the most backward and reactionary ideas and traditions. Qaddafi's political philosophy, as outlined in the Green Book, rejects unfettered capitalism in all its manifestations, including the “State capitalism” of the former communist countries and the neo-liberal capitalist model that has been imposed at a global level. The idea that capitalism is not compatible with Islam and the Quran is not palatable to many Arabs and so-called Islamists because they hold onto the fallacious notion that business and trade is synonymous with capitalism.
Getting it Right
Whatever the mistakes made by Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution, its gains and its huge contribution to the struggle of oppressed peoples worldwide cannot and must not be ignored. Saif Qaddafi, when asked about the position of his father and family, said this battle is not about one man and his family, it is about Libya and the direction it will take.
That direction has always been controversial. In 1982, The World Mathaba was established in Libya. Mathaba means a gathering place for people with a common purpose. The World Mathaba brought together revolutionaries and freedom fighters from every corner of the globe to share ideas and develop their revolutionary knowledge. Many liberation groups throughout the world received education, training and support from Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution including ANC, AZAPO, PAC and BCM of Azania (South Africa), SWAPO of Namibia, MPLA of Angola, The Sandinistas of Nicaragua, The Polisario of the Sahara, the PLO, The Native American Movements throughout the Americas, The Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan to name but a few. Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters, and insisted that the eventual collapse of the apartheid system owed much to Qaddafi and Libyan support. Mandela said that in the darkest moments of their struggle, when their backs were to the wall, it was Muammar Qaddafi who stood with them. The late African freedom fighter, Kwame Ture, referred to Qaddafi as “a diamond in a cesspool of African misleaders.”
“Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters.”
The hideous notion being perpetuated by the media and reactionary forces, inside and outside of Libya, that this is just another story of a bloated dictatorship that has run its course is mis-information and deliberate distortion. Whatever one’s opinions of Qaddafi the man, no one can deny his invaluable contribution to human emancipation and the universal truths outlined in his Green Book.
Progressive scholars in many parts of the world, including the West, have acclaimed The Green Book as an incisive critique of capitalism and the Western Parliamentary model of multi-party democracy. In addition, there is no denying that the system of direct democracy posited by Qaddafi in The Green Book offers an alternative model and solution for Africa and the Third World, where multi-party so-called democracy has been a dismal failure, resulting in poverty, ethnic and tribal conflict and chaos.
Every revolution, since the beginning of time, has defended itself against those who would want to roll back its gains. Europeans should look back into their own bloody history to see that this includes the American, French and Bolshevik revolutions. Marxists speak of Trotsky and Lenin’s brutal suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Red Army as being a “tragic necessity.”
Let's get it right: The battle in Libya is not about peaceful protestors versus an armed and hostile State. All sides are heavily armed and hostile. The battle being waged in Libya is essentially a battle between those who want to see a united and liberated Libya and Africa, free of neo-colonialism and neo-liberal capitalism and free to construct their own system of governance compatible with the African and Arab personalities and cultures and those who find this entire notion repugnant. And both sides are willing to pay the ultimate price to defend their positions.
Make no mistake, if Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution are defeated by this opportunistic conglomerate of reactionaries and racists, then progressive forces worldwide and the Pan African project will suffer a huge defeat and set back.
Gerald A. Perreira has lived in Libya for many years and was an executive member of the World Mathaba. He can be contacted at mojadi94@gmail.com.
Libya, Getting It Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective
By Gerald A. Perreira
04 March, 2011
BlackAgendaReport
“The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia.”
Thousands of Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Filipinos, Turks, Germans, English, Italians, Malaysians, Koreans and a host of other nationalities are lining up at the borders and the airport to leave Libya. It begs the question: What were they doing in Libya in the first place? Unemployment figures, according to the Western media and Al Jazeera, are at 30%. If this is so, then why all these foreign workers?
For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts, who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on. Let us be clear - there is no possibility of understanding what is happening in Libya within a Eurocentric framework. Westerners are incapable of understanding a system unless the system emanates from or is attached in some way to the West. Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.
News coverage by the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera has been oversimplified and misleading. An array of anti-Qaddafi spokespersons, most living outside Libya, have been paraded in front of us – each one clearly a counter-revolutionary and less credible than the last. Despite the clear and irrefutable evidence from the beginning of these protests that Muammar Qaddafi had considerable support both inside Libya and internationally, not one pro-Qaddafi voice has been allowed to air. The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia and that Qaddafi is just another tyrant amassing large sums of money in Swiss bank accounts. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot make Qaddafi into a Mubarak or Libya into Egypt.
“Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.”
The first question is: Is the revolt taking place in Libya fuelled by a concern over economic issues such as poverty and unemployment as the media would have us believe? Let us examine the facts.
Under the revolutionary leadership of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has attained the highest standard of living in Africa. In 2007, in an article which appeared in the African Executive Magazine, Norah Owaraga noted that Libya, “unlike other oil producing countries such as Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, utilized the revenue from its oil to develop its country. The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa, falling in the category of countries with a GNP per capita of between USD 2,200 and 6,000.”
This is all the more remarkable when we consider that in 1951 Libya was officially the poorest country in the world. According to the World Bank, the per capita income was less than $50 a year - even lower than India. Today, all Libyans own their own homes and cars. Two Fleet Street journalists, David Blundy and Andrew Lycett, who are by no means supporters of the Libyan revolution, had this to say:
“The young people are well dressed, well fed and well educated. Libyans now earn more per capita than the British. The disparity in annual incomes... is smaller than in most countries. Libya's wealth has been fairly spread throughout society. Every Libyan gets free, and often excellent, education, medical and health services. New colleges and hospitals are impressive by any international standard. All Libyans have a house or a flat, a car and most have televisions, video recorders and telephones. Compared with most citizens of the Third World countries, and with many in the First World, Libyans have it very good indeed.” (Source: Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution)
Large scale housing construction has taken place right across the country. Every citizen has been given a decent house or apartment to live in rent-free. In Qaddafi’s Green Book it states: “The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others.” This dictum has now become a reality for the Libyan people.
Large scale agricultural projects have been implemented in an effort to “make the desert bloom” and achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Any Libyan who wants to become a farmer is given free use of land, a house, farm equipment, some livestock and seed.
“The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa.”
Today, Libya can boast one of the finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people have access to doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of all charges. The fact is that the Libyan revolution has achieved such a high standard of living for its people that they import labor from other parts of the world to do the jobs that the unemployed Libyans refuse to do. Libya has been called by many observers inside and out, “a nation of shop keepers.” It is part of the Libyan Arab psyche to own your own small business and this type of small scale private enterprise flourishes in Libya. We can draw on many examples of Libyans with young sons who expressed the idea that it would be shameful for the family if these same young men were to seek menial work and instead preferred for them to remain at home supported by the extended family.
No system is perfect, and Libya is no exception. They suffered nine years of economic sanctions and this caused huge problems for the Libyan economy. Also, there is nowhere on planet earth that has escaped the monumental crisis of neo-liberal capitalism. It has impacted everywhere – even on post revolutionary societies that have rejected “free market” capitalism. However, what we are saying is that severe economic injustice is not at the heart of this conflict. So then, what is?
A Battle for Africa
The battle that is being waged in Libya is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi's vision of Libya as part of a united Africa and want to ally themselves instead with the EU and look toward Europe and the Arab World for Libya's future.
One of Muammar Qaddafi's most controversial and difficult moves in the eyes of many Libyans was his championing of Africa and his determined drive to unite Africa with one currency, one army and a shared vision regarding the true independence and liberation of the entire continent. He has contributed large amounts of his time and energy and large sums of money to this project and like Kwame Nkrumah, he has paid a high price.
Many of the Libyan people did not approve of this move. They wanted their leader to look towards Europe. Of course, Libya has extensive investments and commercial ties with Europe but the Libyans know that Qaddafi’s heart is in Africa.
Many years ago, Qaddafi told a large gathering, which included Libyans and revolutionaries from many parts of the world, that the Black Africans were the true owners of Libya long before the Arab incursion into North Africa, and that Libyans need to acknowledge and pay tribute to their ancient African roots. He ended by saying, as is proclaimed in his Green Book, that “the Black race shall prevail throughout the world.” This is not what many Libyans wanted to hear. As with all fair skinned Arabs, prejudice against Black Africans is endemic.
Brother Leader, Guide of the Revolution and King of Kings are some of the titles that have been bestowed on Qaddafi by Africans. Only last month Qaddafi called for the creation of a Secretariat of traditional African Chiefs and Kings, with whom he has excellent ties, to co-ordinate efforts to build African unity at the grassroots level throughout the continent, a bottom up approach, as opposed to trying to build unity at the government/state level, an approach which has failed the African unification project since the days of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure. This bottom up approach is widely supported by many Pan Africanists worldwide.
African Mercenaries or Freedom Fighters?
In the past week, the phrase “African mercenaries” has been repeated over and over by the media and the selected Libyan citizens they choose to speak to have, as one commentator put it, “spat the word ‘African’ with a venomous hatred.”
The media has assumed, without any research or understanding of the situation because they are refusing to give any air time to pro-Qaddafi forces, that the many Africans in military uniform fighting alongside the pro-Qaddafi Libyan forces are mercenaries. However, it is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars and this assumption is based solely on the usual racist and contemptuous view of Black Africans.
Actually, in truth, there are people all over Africa and the African Diaspora who support and respect Muammar Qaddafi as a result of his invaluable contribution to the worldwide struggle for African emancipation.
“It is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars.”
Over the past two decades, thousands of Africans from all over the continent were provided with education, work and military training – many of them coming from liberation movements. As a result of Libya's support for liberation movements throughout Africa and the world, international battalions were formed. These battalions saw themselves as a part of the Libyan revolution, and took it upon themselves to defend the revolution against attacks from within its borders or outside.
These are the Africans who are fighting to defend Qaddafi and the gains of the Libyan revolution to their death if need be. It is not unlike what happened when internationalist battalions came to the aid of the revolutionary forces against Franco's fascist forces in Spain.
Malian political analyst, Adam Thiam, notes that “thousands of Tuaregs who were enrolled in the Islamic Legion established by the Libyan revolution remained in Libya and they are enrolled in the Libyan security forces.”
African Migrants under Attack
As African fighters from Chad, Niger, Mali, Ghana, Kenya and Southern Sudan (it should be noted that Libya supported the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army under John Garang in their war of liberation against Arab hegemonists in Khartoum, while all other Arab leaders backed the Khartoum regime) fight to defend this African revolution, a million African refugees and thousands of African migrant workers stand the risk of being murdered as a result of their perceived support for Qaddafi.
One Turkish construction worker described a massacre: “We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Qaddafi. The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.”
This is a far cry from what is being portrayed in the media as “peaceful protesters” being set upon by pro-Qaddafi forces. In fact, footage of the Benghazi revolt shows men with machetes, AK 47s and RPGs. In the Green Book, Qaddafi argues for the transfer of all power, wealth and arms directly into the hands of the people themselves. No one can deny that the Libyan populace is heavily armed. This is part of Qaddafi's philosophy of arms not being monopolised by any section of the society, including the armed forces. It must be said that it is not usual practice for tyrants and dictators to arm their population.
Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe, where they are met with racism, more poverty, violence at the hands of extreme right wing groups and in many cases death, when the un-seaworthy boats they travel in sink.
“Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe.”
Moved by their plight, a conference was held in Libya in January this year, to address their needs and concerns. More than 500 delegates and speakers from around the world attended the conference titled “A Decent Life in Europe or a Welcome Return to Africa.”
“We should live in Europe with decency and dignity,” Qaddafi told participants. “We need a good relationship with Europe not a relationship of master and slave. There should be a strong relationship between Africa and Europe. Our presence should be strong, tangible and good. It’s up to you as the Africans in the Diaspora. We have to continue more and more until the unity of Africa is achieved.
From now on, by the will of God, I will assign teams to search, investigate and liaise with the Africans in Europe and to check their situations...this is my duty and role towards the sons of Africa; I am a soldier for Africa. I am here for you and I work for you; therefore, I will not leave you and I will follow up on your conditions.”
Joint committees of African migrants, the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and international organizations present at the conference discussed the need to coordinate the implementation of many of the conference's recommendations.
Statements are appearing all over the internet from Africans who have a different view to that being perpetuated by those intent on discrediting Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution. One African commented:
“When I was growing up I first read a comic book of his revolution at the age of ten. Since then, as dictators came and went, Colonel Qaddafi has made an impression on me as a man who truly loves Africa! Libyans could complain that he spent their wealth on other Africans! But those Africans he helped put in power, built schools and mosques and brought in many forms of development showing that Africans can do for themselves. If those Africans would abandon him to be swallowed by Western Imperialism and their lies and just let him go as a dictator in the name of so-called democracy...if they could do that...they should receive the names and fate that the Western press gives our beloved leader. If there is any one person who was half as generous as he is, let them step forward.”
And another African comments:
“This man has been accused of many things and listening to the West who just recently were happy to accept his generous hospitality, you will think that he is worse than Hitler. The racism and contemptuous attitudes of Arabs towards Black Africans has made me a natural sceptic of any overtures from them to forge a closer link with Black Africa but Qaddafi was an exception.”
Opportunistic Revolt
This counter-revolutionary revolt caught everyone, including the Libyan authorities, by surprise. They knew what the media is not reporting: that unlike Egypt and Tunisia and other countries in the region, where there is tremendous poverty, unemployment and repressive pro-Western regimes, the Libyan dynamic was entirely different. However, an array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup and to advance their own agenda for the Libyan nation. Many of these former officials were the authors of, and covertly fuelled the anti-African pogrom in Libya a few years ago when many Africans lost their lives in street battles between Africans and Arab Libyans. This was a deliberate attempt to embarrass Qaddafi and to undermine his efforts in Africa.
Qaddafi has long been a thorn in the Islamists side. In his recent address to the Libyan people, broadcast from the ruins of the Bab al-Azizia compound bombed by Reagan in 1986, he asked the “bearded ones” in Benghazi and Jabal al Akhdar where they were when Reagan bombed his compound in Tripoli, killing hundreds of Libyans, including his daughter. He said they were hiding in their homes applauding the US and he vowed that he would never allow the country to be returned to the grip of them and their colonial masters.
Al Qaeda is in the Sahara on his borders and the International Union of Muslim Scholars is calling for him to be tried in a court. One asks why are they calling for Qaddafi's blood? Why not Mubarak who closed the Rafah Border Crossing while the Israeli's slaughtered the Palestinians in Gaza. Why not Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair who are responsible for the murder of millions of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan?
“An array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup.”
The answer is simple - because Qaddafi committed some “cardinal sins.” He dared to challenge their reactionary and feudal notions of Islam. He has upheld the idea that every Muslim is a ruler (Caliph) and does not need the Ulema to interpret the Quran for them. He has questioned the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda from a Quranic/theological perspective and is one of the few political leaders equipped to do so. Qaddafi has been called a Mujaddid (this term refers to a person who appears to revive Islam and to purge it of alien elements, restoring it to its authentic form) and he comes in the tradition of Jamaludeen Afghani and the late Iranian revolutionary, Ali Shariati.
Libya is a deeply traditional society, plagued with some outmoded and bankrupt ideas that continue to surface to this day. In many ways, Qaddafi has had to struggle against the same reactionary aspects of Arab culture and tradition that the holy prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was struggling against in 7th century Arabia – Arab supremacy/racism, supremacy of family and tribe, historical feuding tribe against tribe and the marginalisation of women. Benghazi has always been at the heart of counter-revolution in Libya, fostering reactionary Islamic movements such as the Wahhabis and Salafists. It is these people who founded the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group based in Benghazi which allies itself with Al Qaeda and who have, over the years, been responsible for the assassination of leading members of the Libyan revolutionary committees.
These forces hate Qaddafi's revolutionary reading of the Quran. They foster an Islam concerned with outward trappings and mere religiosity, in the form of rituals, which at the same time is feudal and repressive, while rejecting the liberatory spirituality of Islam. While these so-called Islamists are opposed to Western occupation of Muslim lands, they have no concrete programmatic platform for meaningful socio-economic and political transformation to advance their societies beyond semi-feudal and capitalist systems which reinforce the most backward and reactionary ideas and traditions. Qaddafi's political philosophy, as outlined in the Green Book, rejects unfettered capitalism in all its manifestations, including the “State capitalism” of the former communist countries and the neo-liberal capitalist model that has been imposed at a global level. The idea that capitalism is not compatible with Islam and the Quran is not palatable to many Arabs and so-called Islamists because they hold onto the fallacious notion that business and trade is synonymous with capitalism.
Getting it Right
Whatever the mistakes made by Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution, its gains and its huge contribution to the struggle of oppressed peoples worldwide cannot and must not be ignored. Saif Qaddafi, when asked about the position of his father and family, said this battle is not about one man and his family, it is about Libya and the direction it will take.
That direction has always been controversial. In 1982, The World Mathaba was established in Libya. Mathaba means a gathering place for people with a common purpose. The World Mathaba brought together revolutionaries and freedom fighters from every corner of the globe to share ideas and develop their revolutionary knowledge. Many liberation groups throughout the world received education, training and support from Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution including ANC, AZAPO, PAC and BCM of Azania (South Africa), SWAPO of Namibia, MPLA of Angola, The Sandinistas of Nicaragua, The Polisario of the Sahara, the PLO, The Native American Movements throughout the Americas, The Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan to name but a few. Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters, and insisted that the eventual collapse of the apartheid system owed much to Qaddafi and Libyan support. Mandela said that in the darkest moments of their struggle, when their backs were to the wall, it was Muammar Qaddafi who stood with them. The late African freedom fighter, Kwame Ture, referred to Qaddafi as “a diamond in a cesspool of African misleaders.”
“Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters.”
The hideous notion being perpetuated by the media and reactionary forces, inside and outside of Libya, that this is just another story of a bloated dictatorship that has run its course is mis-information and deliberate distortion. Whatever one’s opinions of Qaddafi the man, no one can deny his invaluable contribution to human emancipation and the universal truths outlined in his Green Book.
Progressive scholars in many parts of the world, including the West, have acclaimed The Green Book as an incisive critique of capitalism and the Western Parliamentary model of multi-party democracy. In addition, there is no denying that the system of direct democracy posited by Qaddafi in The Green Book offers an alternative model and solution for Africa and the Third World, where multi-party so-called democracy has been a dismal failure, resulting in poverty, ethnic and tribal conflict and chaos.
Every revolution, since the beginning of time, has defended itself against those who would want to roll back its gains. Europeans should look back into their own bloody history to see that this includes the American, French and Bolshevik revolutions. Marxists speak of Trotsky and Lenin’s brutal suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Red Army as being a “tragic necessity.”
Let's get it right: The battle in Libya is not about peaceful protestors versus an armed and hostile State. All sides are heavily armed and hostile. The battle being waged in Libya is essentially a battle between those who want to see a united and liberated Libya and Africa, free of neo-colonialism and neo-liberal capitalism and free to construct their own system of governance compatible with the African and Arab personalities and cultures and those who find this entire notion repugnant. And both sides are willing to pay the ultimate price to defend their positions.
Make no mistake, if Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution are defeated by this opportunistic conglomerate of reactionaries and racists, then progressive forces worldwide and the Pan African project will suffer a huge defeat and set back.
Gerald A. Perreira has lived in Libya for many years and was an executive member of the World Mathaba. He can be contacted at mojadi94@gmail.com.
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