To stop police brutality, we have to kill the roots. Pigs are wildin’ out on our youth and we’re doing nothing about it. Oh yeah, Rev. Al Sharpton comes to town to lead marches. In addition, we hear many good speeches and some good music. In between all the entertainment, we hear the chants of “No Justice, No Peace”. Okay, now we’re dealt injustice after injustice with no end in sight as the [In]Justice department sits stagnant, when do we resort to actions of no peace?
Marches and protests outside of city hall and police headquarters have no effect at all. Prosecutors and civilian review boards and countless lawsuits have not worked either.
What’s to stop the boys in blue from doing us harm if they’re not held accountable? What’s there to stop the rampant abuse and murder if all these officers get is slaps on their wrist?
Who protects us when their system of “due process” and law fails? If whitey refuses to enforce the law in a fair and just manner, is it not our responsibility to protect ourselves?
It’s time Black people use a more radical approach. If we are to survive, then we must defend ourselves in the Name of Allah (God). Otherwise, we’re just propagating another field of victims for state repression at the hands of police. State repression must be resisted and destroyed.
Police are killing our youth, some as young as 12 years old. At the rate we’re going, they’ll be killing our six and seven year olds. What’s to stop cops from gunning down our infants and toddlers? In Pittsburgh, Pamela Lawton’s seven-year old daughter had a gun put in her face, with the officer threatening to kill her child. In the aftermath, Pamela Lawton was charged with disorderly conduct when she called out for help because of the pig threatening to blow her daughter’s head off.
It’s time we stand up and put an end to police repression and murder. Our children is our future and its time we start protecting them like a lioness protecting her cubs, even if it means killing police in the process. Self-defense is not murder; it’s a God-given right and it’s time we start exercising that right!
It’s time we start being victims and start fighting back. It’s time we respond in the language of our open enemies. It’s time we stop riding on each other over infinitesimal bullshit like drugs, turf, gang affiliation, “wrong” looks, and pussy. We must embrace a greater cause for the survival of our people. We must stop sitting around, waiting for the next Black leader to step up and guide us because we are that leader. We’ve had enough leaders and teachers.
Black people must look to the leader within. Our greats like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad (The Messenger of Allah) have all served their purpose. In addition, the Messenger left behind for a blueprint to follow. Now the choice is ours. We must take a bolder stance. The future of our people, our race depends upon it.
-This is your Brother, Aquil Aziz
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Baseball Over Terrorism by Mumia Abu-Jamal
* Baseball Over 'Terrorism? *
* {col. writ. 12/13/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
As the global news media salivated over charges of steroid use in professional baseball, what got lost in most of the sauce is the news emerging from the nation's chief Latin city: Miami.
There, 7 young Black men from Liberty City were either acquitted or received a hung jury in a case that ex-Attorney General Alberto 'Fredo' Gonzales described at the time as "homegrown terrorism."
The 7, known as the Liberty City Seven, were charged with plotting to bomb the famed Sears Tower of Chicago, as part of a broader Al Qaeda terror plot.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie argued to jurors, "These defendants came together with the sole purpose of waging war in the United States." According to federal prosecutors, these 7 guys planned to destroy federal buildings, and even to poison salt shakers in restaurants.
One of the men's defense lawyers, Ana M. Jhones, told the jury that this was more a case of a con job than terrorism, and that her client, Narseal Batiste, wanted to coax a Yemeni man lining in Miami into giving him money. The man, an FBI informant, held the keys to this alleged plot from the get - go. He bought and equipped the men with uniforms (which looked like jumpsuits in news photos) and boots. He also promised weapons and explosives, but delivered none.
Homegrown terrorism. indeed.
These were poor men, living in a poor, neglected side of town.
To say that they has a beef with the well to do society around them is kind of like calling pig pork -- it's obvious -- but 'homegrown terrorism?'
It might be more apt to call it 'hyped up terrorism", for this was a classic case of government entrapment.
Poor men, without resources, can't wage war on cockroaches.
They claimed membership in the Black religious group known as the Moorish Science Temple, a community founded in 1913 by a man who came to be called Noble Drew Ali, in Newark, New Jersey. The MST spread up and down the East Coast, took root in several southern cities, but really took off in Chicago, which featured it's largest community.
Some have looked at the MST as a kind of Muslim vector through which Al Qaeda used its call to jihad to entice the men.
That only makes sense if one knew nothing about the Moorish Science Temple, which in belief and practice would be regarded by Mahhabis as anathema. For in the MST, followers read a Koran written, not by followers of the Arab prophet, Muhammad, but by Ali. It is a surprisingly slim, yet readable, philosophical and poetic work, that borrows more from Christian, Theosophical, and even Jewish influences than the Arabic.
That said, the jury took a while. But it is interesting that, in these post 9/11 times, a federal jury looked at the government's case, and most said, "Nah -- we'll pass."
In a time of the so-called War on Terror, isn't this case more important than guys bulking up for baseball games? Sport is, after all, entertainment.
What's more important- entertainment or war? The national, corporate media has answered that question, once again.
We shouldn't forget, the nation's premier sports channel is ESPN - which stands for /Entertainment/ Sports Network.
What's that tell ya? --
(c) '07 maj
{Source: Goodhough, Abby, "Trial Starts for Men in Plot to Destroy Sears Tower," New York Times , Wed., Oct. 3, 2007, p.A16}
* {col. writ. 12/13/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
As the global news media salivated over charges of steroid use in professional baseball, what got lost in most of the sauce is the news emerging from the nation's chief Latin city: Miami.
There, 7 young Black men from Liberty City were either acquitted or received a hung jury in a case that ex-Attorney General Alberto 'Fredo' Gonzales described at the time as "homegrown terrorism."
The 7, known as the Liberty City Seven, were charged with plotting to bomb the famed Sears Tower of Chicago, as part of a broader Al Qaeda terror plot.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie argued to jurors, "These defendants came together with the sole purpose of waging war in the United States." According to federal prosecutors, these 7 guys planned to destroy federal buildings, and even to poison salt shakers in restaurants.
One of the men's defense lawyers, Ana M. Jhones, told the jury that this was more a case of a con job than terrorism, and that her client, Narseal Batiste, wanted to coax a Yemeni man lining in Miami into giving him money. The man, an FBI informant, held the keys to this alleged plot from the get - go. He bought and equipped the men with uniforms (which looked like jumpsuits in news photos) and boots. He also promised weapons and explosives, but delivered none.
Homegrown terrorism. indeed.
These were poor men, living in a poor, neglected side of town.
To say that they has a beef with the well to do society around them is kind of like calling pig pork -- it's obvious -- but 'homegrown terrorism?'
It might be more apt to call it 'hyped up terrorism", for this was a classic case of government entrapment.
Poor men, without resources, can't wage war on cockroaches.
They claimed membership in the Black religious group known as the Moorish Science Temple, a community founded in 1913 by a man who came to be called Noble Drew Ali, in Newark, New Jersey. The MST spread up and down the East Coast, took root in several southern cities, but really took off in Chicago, which featured it's largest community.
Some have looked at the MST as a kind of Muslim vector through which Al Qaeda used its call to jihad to entice the men.
That only makes sense if one knew nothing about the Moorish Science Temple, which in belief and practice would be regarded by Mahhabis as anathema. For in the MST, followers read a Koran written, not by followers of the Arab prophet, Muhammad, but by Ali. It is a surprisingly slim, yet readable, philosophical and poetic work, that borrows more from Christian, Theosophical, and even Jewish influences than the Arabic.
That said, the jury took a while. But it is interesting that, in these post 9/11 times, a federal jury looked at the government's case, and most said, "Nah -- we'll pass."
In a time of the so-called War on Terror, isn't this case more important than guys bulking up for baseball games? Sport is, after all, entertainment.
What's more important- entertainment or war? The national, corporate media has answered that question, once again.
We shouldn't forget, the nation's premier sports channel is ESPN - which stands for /Entertainment/ Sports Network.
What's that tell ya? --
(c) '07 maj
{Source: Goodhough, Abby, "Trial Starts for Men in Plot to Destroy Sears Tower," New York Times , Wed., Oct. 3, 2007, p.A16}
The Idea of a Black President by Mumia Abu-Jamal
* The Idea of a Black President *
* [col. writ. 12/18/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
For much of the US populace, the very idea of a Black president is one so new, so novel, that it forces many people to think of it as if it is barely possible; as if it is the stuff of fiction, not fact.
Fiction has indeed been the realm of this idea, as in movies, and television series, actors have played the part, but that, of course, is on TV.
Of course, time will tell if that is more than imagination, but for millions of people who share this vast land space we call North America, the idea is neither new nor ground-breaking.
That's because there are some 100 million people living in Mexico, and that country had a Black president (albeit briefly) --some 173 years ago.
It was during their war for independence from Spain, when a warrior emerged, a Black Indian named Vicente Guerrero. In his first battle, he was commissioned a Captain. As the independence war raged on, many of the leading revolutionaries were either killed, or captured. Guerrero fought on, leading some 2,000 men into the Sierra Madre mountains to continue the fight.
By 1821, the Mexicans were prevailing over the Spanish, and Guerrero was hailed as an incorruptible independence fighter. In 1829 he became President of Mexico, and as scholar William Loren Katz writes in his 1986 book, Black Indians : He began a program of far-reaching reforms, abolishing the death penalty, and starting construction of schools and libraries for the poor. He ended slavery in Mexico. Yet, because of his skin color, lack of education, and country manner, he was held in contempt by the upper classes in Mexico City. This president who had, according to {US. historian M.H.} Bancroft, " a gentleness and magnetism that inspired love among his adherents." was still " a triple-blooded outsider." Black historian J. A. Rogers summarized Guerrero's striking accomplishments by calling him 'the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Mexico."[p.48]
Guerrero, who in his youth was an illiterate mule driver, once bitten by the bug of Mexican independence, rose to the highest office in the land. He learned to read when he was about 40, and helped craft the Mexican Constitution, of which he wrote the following provision: "All inhabitants whether white, African, or Indian, are qualified to hold office." He wrote this in /1824/, over 30 years before the US Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision, which announced, emphatically, that"...a black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect." and that black people weren't, /and could never be/ citizens of the United States.
In that era of revolution and social transformation, a Black man became president of the second largest country in North America.
Today, 178 years later, we still wonder if such a thing is possible.
What does that say about the United States?
--(c) '07 maj
{Source: Katz, William Loren, Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage (New York: Simon Pulse, 1986 [Simon Pulse/pb ed.,2005], p.42}
* [col. writ. 12/18/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
For much of the US populace, the very idea of a Black president is one so new, so novel, that it forces many people to think of it as if it is barely possible; as if it is the stuff of fiction, not fact.
Fiction has indeed been the realm of this idea, as in movies, and television series, actors have played the part, but that, of course, is on TV.
Of course, time will tell if that is more than imagination, but for millions of people who share this vast land space we call North America, the idea is neither new nor ground-breaking.
That's because there are some 100 million people living in Mexico, and that country had a Black president (albeit briefly) --some 173 years ago.
It was during their war for independence from Spain, when a warrior emerged, a Black Indian named Vicente Guerrero. In his first battle, he was commissioned a Captain. As the independence war raged on, many of the leading revolutionaries were either killed, or captured. Guerrero fought on, leading some 2,000 men into the Sierra Madre mountains to continue the fight.
By 1821, the Mexicans were prevailing over the Spanish, and Guerrero was hailed as an incorruptible independence fighter. In 1829 he became President of Mexico, and as scholar William Loren Katz writes in his 1986 book, Black Indians : He began a program of far-reaching reforms, abolishing the death penalty, and starting construction of schools and libraries for the poor. He ended slavery in Mexico. Yet, because of his skin color, lack of education, and country manner, he was held in contempt by the upper classes in Mexico City. This president who had, according to {US. historian M.H.} Bancroft, " a gentleness and magnetism that inspired love among his adherents." was still " a triple-blooded outsider." Black historian J. A. Rogers summarized Guerrero's striking accomplishments by calling him 'the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Mexico."[p.48]
Guerrero, who in his youth was an illiterate mule driver, once bitten by the bug of Mexican independence, rose to the highest office in the land. He learned to read when he was about 40, and helped craft the Mexican Constitution, of which he wrote the following provision: "All inhabitants whether white, African, or Indian, are qualified to hold office." He wrote this in /1824/, over 30 years before the US Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision, which announced, emphatically, that"...a black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect." and that black people weren't, /and could never be/ citizens of the United States.
In that era of revolution and social transformation, a Black man became president of the second largest country in North America.
Today, 178 years later, we still wonder if such a thing is possible.
What does that say about the United States?
--(c) '07 maj
{Source: Katz, William Loren, Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage (New York: Simon Pulse, 1986 [Simon Pulse/pb ed.,2005], p.42}
Slavery in the 21st Century
Abolished but Not Destroyed: Slavery in the 21st Century
A statement from the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed: Remembering the Slave Trade in the 21st Century" in Runaway Bay, Jamaica; December 2007
The 200th anniversary of the formal abolition of the British Transatlantic Trade in Africans in 2007 is a significant historical marker. We - the delegates from the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Church, and the Council for World Mission - gathered in Jamaica in December 2007 around the commemoration of this anniversary as representatives of the global ecumenical community. Gathered from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, we are people representing churches and grassroots initiatives, and we assembled to analyze, and make recommendations around modern forms of slavery and the continued legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans in the 21st century.
Between the 16th and 19th century, an estimated 15 million enslaved African peoples were forcibly taken from Africa, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean and landed in the Caribbean and the Americas. This horrific voyage was named the Middle Passage; and over these hundreds of years, an additional 40% of enslaved people who left Africa died en route. This Transatlantic Trade in Africans particularly profited England, Portugal, France, Spain, and Holland. An integral component of the European-American world's economy, the Transatlantic Trade in Africans powerfully linked together Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas.
Many churches were actively involved in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism; hence, the church's mission has been seriously compromised and betrayed by its historic complicity with two of the most blatant forms of oppression that occurred within the 16th to 19th century. Further, the church's pastoral and prophetic roles in the contemporary period are obstructed by its voluntary amnesia about its past corporate sin and silence regarding the past - as well as regarding the present - responsibility to bring justice to those still suffering from the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and cultural imperialism. While there have been some acts of repentance and confessional statements made by some churches, for the most part, those statements have not been effective enough in eradicating White supremacy, systemic racism and the ongoing legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
We recognize that there were faithful members among churches and in society who worked alongside those who were enslaved, to ameliorate the conditions of enslaved peoples, and who continued the struggle to abolish the slave trade and gain freedom for enslaved peoples. Their witness should inspire us today for renewed action and faithful resistance against exploitative powers.
We also realize, however, that people of White European ancestry, whether they were anti- or pro-slavery, benefited from the entitlements accruing to them by virtue of being White-skinned peoples. For example, in late 1800s, in Brazil and many other colonies, although Black peoples were being emancipated from legal slavery, they were not given land, and had to pay high rent for tools and other resources; at the same time, White European immigrants were given incentives such as land and other resources. Thus, people of White European ancestry who had no direct involvement in the slavery or the slave trade became never-the-less beneficiaries of the enslavement system. Much has been written today about White privilege; this privilege is one of the legacies of the ideology of racial superiority that infused the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
However, we, the descendants of this legacy of racism, are not without memory, voice, cultural resources, religious resources, and spiritual gifts prerequisite for helping the church address its current predicament. What our memories, voices, cultural expressions, and spiritual groans signify and articulate are the cries of the oppressed. If these cries are heeded by the church, both in its universal and local expressions, it will be better able to participate in the saving of the "oikumene" [1]. If our voices are heard, then, the church might be better able to realize true community in identifying with the oppressed through the cross of Jesus Christ, and the church might be better able to live out an action-reflection model by verily assuming the form of the enslaved.
With this in mind, we name several dimensions of the current struggle, and make recommendations for the future.
Theological Dimensions:
The Bible, as sacred text, is a key source for people of faith. But there are also several sources of theological reflection are embedded in the cultures, communities and individual lives of oppressed people. We believe that as people of faith, we need to recognize that God's creation, God's care, and God's presence encompass all of creation, and that this reality calls people of faith to a theology and engagement that cooperates with people of all religions and spiritualities who work for justice in the world.
We also believe that as people of faith, we need to engage heart, soul, mind, and strength in critically analyzing the historical context of the Bible as well as the text of our cultures, communities, and individual lives. As people of faith, we need to create support systems of teaching and learning for those with hardened hearts who reject the church's culpability and complicity in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. We believe that churches that were complicit in the slave trade need to name that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans - and other modern forms of slavery - are sin. And, as people of faith, we need to speak a new language which reflects the insights of God with all, and that fosters relationships which express the values of the reign of God, in which the lion and lamb live together.
Prophetic Issues and Action-Reflection Models:
We believe that reparations are essential for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved. Reparations go far beyond a financial figure; rather, reparations are about recognizing the wrong that has been done. It is a process that compels confession, contrition, restoration and reconciliation; it also involves a process or truth-telling that sets rights, makes amends and restores breached relationships. Reparations from both the church and society are needed, and these reparations are both praxis and prophetic - naming the wrongs that have been done is praxis or an action-reflection model; righting the wrongs, is a prophetic action.
The process of reparations requires the restoration of relationships that affirm the dignity and humanity of all parties in order to repair what has been broken. Reparations also challenge the perpetrator to confession and repentance and ministers restoration and healing to those who have been exploited.
The Transatlantic Trade in Africans destroyed the roots of nation building and enriched the oppressors to build its nations and states. Thus, we believe that mere financial aid is no replacement; rather, full nationhood and community restoration of peoples impacted should be the condition of reparations. In today's global context, a lingering effect of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism has been the displacement of millions of people. Thus, reparations and immigration in a global context means dismantling communities of refugees, claiming and reclaiming the rights to movement of people regionally and inter-regionally without insults and suspicions. This includes the millions who are forced off their homelands to those who are internally displaced within their homeland in many places in the world.
We also recognize that oppression continues to operate in India through the caste system, a system whose origin precedes European colonization. The caste system may serve as a model for understanding the effects of slavery and colonialism in Europe and America. The fight, therefore, against racism can be linked to the Dalit struggle against the caste system. This parallel allows people of the African Diaspora and Dalit communities to be in solidarity with one another.
The reality of human trafficking, child labour, child soldiers, enslaved labour in the Amazon, and others, are modern forms of slavery that too need to be addressed. A strong solidarity system needs to be put into place so that concerted social pressure continues to be exerted against those structures which sustain the injustices.
We believe that in considering communities that have been marginalized, it is essential to avoid embracing a hierarchy of oppression, but instead to consider ways in which people's forms of oppression are interrelated; we cannot privilege one form of oppression over another. We need to stop reinventing the wheel of imitating the oppressors, or that of oppressive models. We must create alternative models of deconstructing oppression in relation to caste, race, gender, ethnicity, and other identifiers of marginalization. Enslaved peoples need to break into the entire hegemonic [2] power system, and disrupt it. In order to do this, we need a critical critique of the logic and assumptions, spoken and unspoken, that under gird this entire hegemonic power system. Enslaved peoples will no doubt continue to participate in this work.
We also recognize that all peoples have been impacted by the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Collectively, therefore, we need to destroy the power and institutional relationships of contemporary beneficiaries[3] of the historic and corporate sin and crimes against humanity. Thus, the descendants of the buyers of the enslaved also need to be actively engaged in this process of deconstruction and reconciliation, and in the process of reparation and the restoration of relationships. We believe that there needs to be a process of mutual education; the need to research more, to write, speak, share and tell our stories.
We maintain that it is essential to kill the root of what is sustaining the power structure. A triangular approach is needed, which includes people from Africa, people in the Diaspora, and the descendants of those who benefited from the institutional relationships of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Among those who have benefited, includes the structures and assets of many churches. Many churches could not offer a prophetic voice at the time of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans because they were eating at the table of the hegemonic power. Many churches instituted, participated in, sanctioned and sustained the system, the enslavers and the buyers. Today, therefore, the church needs to offer a prophetic voice, and rather than be reactive, needs to be proactive.
We also believe that we need an organic, holistic approach to contend with the legacies of colonialism and of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans. The concept of ubuntu[4] may offer theological and sociological principles around which to move forward.
Cultural Sites of Memories:
Balm Yaad[5] sessions, and other cultural rituals, are important parts of religio-cultural expressions and strategies for healing in community settings. In addition, we believe that we must continue to write and creatively express our own stories and say who we are to start the process of healing and extend it to others, individuals, churches, and communities. Storytelling, iconic and creative expressions are critically important in the process of healing; therefore, the production of knowledge created through our lived stories must be part and parcel of sites of memories.
The church must also involve itself in the struggle of people who live new forms of enslavement, including human trafficking. We believe that open spaces must be set up and existing events such as and World Social Forums, the Zanzibar International Festival of Dhow (ZIFF), and many others should be used to create awareness and compel changes. These types of strategies would assist in healing stigmatized identities of marginalized peoples.
Theories of the Social Construction of Knowledge:
We have been asking the question where does knowledge come from, and how do we know what we know? We believe that if we are not questioning what we know, and how we know it, then we remain captives of dominant frameworks of knowing.
We believe that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and colonialism, call into question all systems and institutions, their structures, their constructions of knowledge, and the ways these constructions of knowledge function to endorse notions of hierarchies of rights and unjust practices. Some of these practices are grounded in understandings that are contrary to human dignity and the integrity of God's creation. The legacies of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism also call into question all norms and conventions that implicitly and explicitly put in dispute the understanding of the centrality of the image of God in all human beings.
Two areas of human relations that exemplify these inequitable realities are race and gender. The basis of the social construction of race and gender must be challenged with regards to the interests they serve and for the purpose of discovering and disrupting the logic that govern the ways in which they were constructed by human beings. We must recognize how specific identities, including race and gender, function in overlapping ways to prevent human beings from experiencing life in its fullness. We must engage in gender and race analyses that approach oppression from the perspective of its interlocking, intersecting, and interrelated nature, so that we may recognize the ongoing multi-level construction and reconstruction processes that are involved, and the implications that they bear for economic justice. This process is absolutely necessary to provide appropriate frameworks from which we strategize for justice.
Oppression operates not only through physical force and coercion, but also at the discursive level of language where the ways in which knowledge is constructed, and the ways in which we use language to describe reality and human relations show elements of oppression. Since the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism were such essential components in the emergence of modernity, it, in turn, produced many categories related to notions of being human, the creation, and God that are often taken for granted. There is power in naming - and re-naming - our ourselves, our situations, and our relationships. It is essential, therefore, that we examine and critique the categories we use to define ourselves in relationship to other human beings and God. When we do not examine and critique our human-created categories, we remain enslaved to the old framework, and fail to fully appreciate how the system of oppression functions in its totality.
Pastoral Dimensions:
The church is being urged to re-assess its pastoral role. This role is derived from Matthew 22:36-39, in which Jesus explained that humanity's greatest duty is to love God and love thy neighbour as thyself. In a historical and current context of patriarchy, which entrenches hierarchies of caste, class, gender, ethnicity, and age, the local church is urged to make use of relevant rituals, including those inspired by indigenous religions and spiritualities towards the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation.
We believe that the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation must be built on a naming of sin and the claiming of salvation. Salvation encompasses the wholeness of life and the wholeness of humanity in all of its dimensions, and in the context of community. The issues of shame and fear, resistance and compliance, on the part of descendants of the enslaved and the enslavers must be central to the process of healing. Pastorally speaking, therefore, the church cannot make assumptions around the knowledge and conscientiousness of people based on age. Many young people who are descendants of the enslaved, for example, are already actively engaged in learning about their histories, resisting oppression, and striving to create alternatives to hegemonic powers. The church must create welcoming environments for the youth and young adults, and at the same time must seek to remove barriers of caste, class, ethnicity and insularity, which effectively exclude others.
Recommendations and Affirmations:
As representatives of the global ecumenical community, we, therefore, offer the following recommendations and affirmations as those who are numbered within the church and also among the descendants of the enslaved.
We the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed" commit ourselves to: start a list of resources and recommended readings about the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and its ongoing legacy. This recommended list is one step towards sharing stories and knowledge, and this list of information could be made available on ecumenical websites, including the World Council of Churches, the Council on World Mission, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, create a variety of media (including CDs of papers from the conference) to give to congregations for reflection, discussion, and action, publish and share religio-cultural rituals, create and have rites of passages, link to women's international sites of memory, and also publish those rituals and sites for others to access, continue to question our sources of knowledge (including bibliographies) , and strive to address our knowledge gaps through continual learning and analysis, share our collective resources within the global ecumenical community, including but not limited to sharing a statement and offering input into 2010 mission conference in Edinburgh; this input might include bringing discourses and analysis on racism, slavery, and patriarchy to this meeting, rewrite history at the grassroots level and from the perspective of those who were enslaved and marginalized, and continue to do intergenerational storytelling, maintain a system of communication among ourselves, and others who strive to become engaged in this work.
We recommend to the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Council for World Mission that:a comprehensive and exhaustive history of the role of the oppressive theological ideations and actual church systems towards the implementation, sustainability, and expansion of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans be developed and institutionalized. Special effort should be made to ensure that such an undertaking is pursued from an African worldview, to hear today's cries of oppression, and to respond to these cries, the global ecumenical church community should encourage and support the local churches and clusters of churches in collecting stories of oppression and resistance, and publish those stories,
an ecumenical youth initiative focused on the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans takes place, and that young people's authentic participation be affirmed. Further, that a comprehensive media strategy must be part of the ecumenical youth project so that the initiative not only affects those who go, but also those at home, opportunities are created and enabled for interfaith and inter-religious dialogue, and work in solidarity with African indigenous religious, a process is created to examine the tools of empire, and how these tools are used, resources are created for churches on how to identify and challenge institutional racism, and that intentional racial justice analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes (such as AGAPE, Accra confession, millennium development goals, etc).
We recommend to governments that: financial and human resources be identified and made available, in trust and otherwise, with appropriate church, community, and academic entities to effect institutional development and remedies from the transatlantic slave trade system and colonialism at the local, national and global levels, support is offered to masters levels and doctoral levels research centers of excellence related to the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
We recommend to congregations and people of faith that:
new educational programs are created that build upon the best of the past, that produces pastors for communities whose folks are crying, and that intentionally address community problems,
churches to take on creative projects, for example, young people interviewing elders in communities to learn and write down stories. Resources are actively used in churches on that identify and challenge systemic and institutional racism, that a race analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes, and that churches teach those of privilege on how to divert privilege in the realm of Jesus and justice, the church take seriously the social construction of knowledge and identities, and social location in its reading and understanding of scriptures, churches be engaged in identifying historical sites of memory, and creating new sites of memory, in recognition of the power of naming, and re-naming, that the church divest of language which can be disempowering, churches that operate camps for children to develop creative curriculum to teach the history of the people, teach traditional songs, meet leaders from the community. This inclusive curriculum should be both interdisciplinary and intergenerational. Further, any curriculum that is used should embrace the fullness of the imago dei, churches continue to be in solidarity with Dalit peoples, and other marginalized and oppressed peoples around the world, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
As the church has stated that it's mission was and is to spread the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ, the people of the church now request that the church speak truth to power by informing and supporting educational initiatives, at many levels, on the systemic impact of enslavement upon the lives of African descendant peoples and communities throughout the world.
[1] Oikumene is a term that refers to the whole, inhabited earth.
[2] Hegemony is all encompassing; it is focuses with overarching issues of dominance and control. It also names the totality of interconnected systems of power and oppression.
[3]Today's unequal flow of the world's goods and resources is due, in part to, the legacies of colonialism and slavery. Some economies were built through slave labour, and colonial exploitation of human and national resources. These legacies have benefited some and disadvantaged others over the centuries. The long-lasting impact of these legacies is made to appear natural through unspoken entitlements based race, class, gender, and other inequities, but in reality is unnatural and based on socially constructed ideologies of superiority.
[4] Ubuntu is an expression of human relations lived in community and in harmony with the whole of creation ('African anthropology and cosmo-vision lived in community'). Ubuntu a possibility of reflecting, analyzing and protecting life based on the Ubuntu principle “I am because you are, you are because I am.” Both these principles are about the eradication of hate, anger, private wealth without sharing, oppression, exploitation as well as harmony and peace with the cosmos.
[5] Balm Yaad is a place for healing, reading and 'science', where persons who consider themselves ill, hurt, or in need of spiritual aid would seek the services of a 'Madda' or a 'science' man; a revivalist, who discerns the ailment and prescribes cures. A Balm Yaad can apply Christian principles, with distinctive blends of the folk tradition.
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© World Council of Churches (page 5388)
A statement from the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed: Remembering the Slave Trade in the 21st Century" in Runaway Bay, Jamaica; December 2007
The 200th anniversary of the formal abolition of the British Transatlantic Trade in Africans in 2007 is a significant historical marker. We - the delegates from the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Church, and the Council for World Mission - gathered in Jamaica in December 2007 around the commemoration of this anniversary as representatives of the global ecumenical community. Gathered from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, we are people representing churches and grassroots initiatives, and we assembled to analyze, and make recommendations around modern forms of slavery and the continued legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans in the 21st century.
Between the 16th and 19th century, an estimated 15 million enslaved African peoples were forcibly taken from Africa, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean and landed in the Caribbean and the Americas. This horrific voyage was named the Middle Passage; and over these hundreds of years, an additional 40% of enslaved people who left Africa died en route. This Transatlantic Trade in Africans particularly profited England, Portugal, France, Spain, and Holland. An integral component of the European-American world's economy, the Transatlantic Trade in Africans powerfully linked together Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the Americas.
Many churches were actively involved in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism; hence, the church's mission has been seriously compromised and betrayed by its historic complicity with two of the most blatant forms of oppression that occurred within the 16th to 19th century. Further, the church's pastoral and prophetic roles in the contemporary period are obstructed by its voluntary amnesia about its past corporate sin and silence regarding the past - as well as regarding the present - responsibility to bring justice to those still suffering from the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and cultural imperialism. While there have been some acts of repentance and confessional statements made by some churches, for the most part, those statements have not been effective enough in eradicating White supremacy, systemic racism and the ongoing legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
We recognize that there were faithful members among churches and in society who worked alongside those who were enslaved, to ameliorate the conditions of enslaved peoples, and who continued the struggle to abolish the slave trade and gain freedom for enslaved peoples. Their witness should inspire us today for renewed action and faithful resistance against exploitative powers.
We also realize, however, that people of White European ancestry, whether they were anti- or pro-slavery, benefited from the entitlements accruing to them by virtue of being White-skinned peoples. For example, in late 1800s, in Brazil and many other colonies, although Black peoples were being emancipated from legal slavery, they were not given land, and had to pay high rent for tools and other resources; at the same time, White European immigrants were given incentives such as land and other resources. Thus, people of White European ancestry who had no direct involvement in the slavery or the slave trade became never-the-less beneficiaries of the enslavement system. Much has been written today about White privilege; this privilege is one of the legacies of the ideology of racial superiority that infused the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.
However, we, the descendants of this legacy of racism, are not without memory, voice, cultural resources, religious resources, and spiritual gifts prerequisite for helping the church address its current predicament. What our memories, voices, cultural expressions, and spiritual groans signify and articulate are the cries of the oppressed. If these cries are heeded by the church, both in its universal and local expressions, it will be better able to participate in the saving of the "oikumene" [1]. If our voices are heard, then, the church might be better able to realize true community in identifying with the oppressed through the cross of Jesus Christ, and the church might be better able to live out an action-reflection model by verily assuming the form of the enslaved.
With this in mind, we name several dimensions of the current struggle, and make recommendations for the future.
Theological Dimensions:
The Bible, as sacred text, is a key source for people of faith. But there are also several sources of theological reflection are embedded in the cultures, communities and individual lives of oppressed people. We believe that as people of faith, we need to recognize that God's creation, God's care, and God's presence encompass all of creation, and that this reality calls people of faith to a theology and engagement that cooperates with people of all religions and spiritualities who work for justice in the world.
We also believe that as people of faith, we need to engage heart, soul, mind, and strength in critically analyzing the historical context of the Bible as well as the text of our cultures, communities, and individual lives. As people of faith, we need to create support systems of teaching and learning for those with hardened hearts who reject the church's culpability and complicity in the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. We believe that churches that were complicit in the slave trade need to name that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans - and other modern forms of slavery - are sin. And, as people of faith, we need to speak a new language which reflects the insights of God with all, and that fosters relationships which express the values of the reign of God, in which the lion and lamb live together.
Prophetic Issues and Action-Reflection Models:
We believe that reparations are essential for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved. Reparations go far beyond a financial figure; rather, reparations are about recognizing the wrong that has been done. It is a process that compels confession, contrition, restoration and reconciliation; it also involves a process or truth-telling that sets rights, makes amends and restores breached relationships. Reparations from both the church and society are needed, and these reparations are both praxis and prophetic - naming the wrongs that have been done is praxis or an action-reflection model; righting the wrongs, is a prophetic action.
The process of reparations requires the restoration of relationships that affirm the dignity and humanity of all parties in order to repair what has been broken. Reparations also challenge the perpetrator to confession and repentance and ministers restoration and healing to those who have been exploited.
The Transatlantic Trade in Africans destroyed the roots of nation building and enriched the oppressors to build its nations and states. Thus, we believe that mere financial aid is no replacement; rather, full nationhood and community restoration of peoples impacted should be the condition of reparations. In today's global context, a lingering effect of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism has been the displacement of millions of people. Thus, reparations and immigration in a global context means dismantling communities of refugees, claiming and reclaiming the rights to movement of people regionally and inter-regionally without insults and suspicions. This includes the millions who are forced off their homelands to those who are internally displaced within their homeland in many places in the world.
We also recognize that oppression continues to operate in India through the caste system, a system whose origin precedes European colonization. The caste system may serve as a model for understanding the effects of slavery and colonialism in Europe and America. The fight, therefore, against racism can be linked to the Dalit struggle against the caste system. This parallel allows people of the African Diaspora and Dalit communities to be in solidarity with one another.
The reality of human trafficking, child labour, child soldiers, enslaved labour in the Amazon, and others, are modern forms of slavery that too need to be addressed. A strong solidarity system needs to be put into place so that concerted social pressure continues to be exerted against those structures which sustain the injustices.
We believe that in considering communities that have been marginalized, it is essential to avoid embracing a hierarchy of oppression, but instead to consider ways in which people's forms of oppression are interrelated; we cannot privilege one form of oppression over another. We need to stop reinventing the wheel of imitating the oppressors, or that of oppressive models. We must create alternative models of deconstructing oppression in relation to caste, race, gender, ethnicity, and other identifiers of marginalization. Enslaved peoples need to break into the entire hegemonic [2] power system, and disrupt it. In order to do this, we need a critical critique of the logic and assumptions, spoken and unspoken, that under gird this entire hegemonic power system. Enslaved peoples will no doubt continue to participate in this work.
We also recognize that all peoples have been impacted by the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Collectively, therefore, we need to destroy the power and institutional relationships of contemporary beneficiaries[3] of the historic and corporate sin and crimes against humanity. Thus, the descendants of the buyers of the enslaved also need to be actively engaged in this process of deconstruction and reconciliation, and in the process of reparation and the restoration of relationships. We believe that there needs to be a process of mutual education; the need to research more, to write, speak, share and tell our stories.
We maintain that it is essential to kill the root of what is sustaining the power structure. A triangular approach is needed, which includes people from Africa, people in the Diaspora, and the descendants of those who benefited from the institutional relationships of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism. Among those who have benefited, includes the structures and assets of many churches. Many churches could not offer a prophetic voice at the time of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans because they were eating at the table of the hegemonic power. Many churches instituted, participated in, sanctioned and sustained the system, the enslavers and the buyers. Today, therefore, the church needs to offer a prophetic voice, and rather than be reactive, needs to be proactive.
We also believe that we need an organic, holistic approach to contend with the legacies of colonialism and of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans. The concept of ubuntu[4] may offer theological and sociological principles around which to move forward.
Cultural Sites of Memories:
Balm Yaad[5] sessions, and other cultural rituals, are important parts of religio-cultural expressions and strategies for healing in community settings. In addition, we believe that we must continue to write and creatively express our own stories and say who we are to start the process of healing and extend it to others, individuals, churches, and communities. Storytelling, iconic and creative expressions are critically important in the process of healing; therefore, the production of knowledge created through our lived stories must be part and parcel of sites of memories.
The church must also involve itself in the struggle of people who live new forms of enslavement, including human trafficking. We believe that open spaces must be set up and existing events such as and World Social Forums, the Zanzibar International Festival of Dhow (ZIFF), and many others should be used to create awareness and compel changes. These types of strategies would assist in healing stigmatized identities of marginalized peoples.
Theories of the Social Construction of Knowledge:
We have been asking the question where does knowledge come from, and how do we know what we know? We believe that if we are not questioning what we know, and how we know it, then we remain captives of dominant frameworks of knowing.
We believe that the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and colonialism, call into question all systems and institutions, their structures, their constructions of knowledge, and the ways these constructions of knowledge function to endorse notions of hierarchies of rights and unjust practices. Some of these practices are grounded in understandings that are contrary to human dignity and the integrity of God's creation. The legacies of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism also call into question all norms and conventions that implicitly and explicitly put in dispute the understanding of the centrality of the image of God in all human beings.
Two areas of human relations that exemplify these inequitable realities are race and gender. The basis of the social construction of race and gender must be challenged with regards to the interests they serve and for the purpose of discovering and disrupting the logic that govern the ways in which they were constructed by human beings. We must recognize how specific identities, including race and gender, function in overlapping ways to prevent human beings from experiencing life in its fullness. We must engage in gender and race analyses that approach oppression from the perspective of its interlocking, intersecting, and interrelated nature, so that we may recognize the ongoing multi-level construction and reconstruction processes that are involved, and the implications that they bear for economic justice. This process is absolutely necessary to provide appropriate frameworks from which we strategize for justice.
Oppression operates not only through physical force and coercion, but also at the discursive level of language where the ways in which knowledge is constructed, and the ways in which we use language to describe reality and human relations show elements of oppression. Since the Transatlantic Trade in Africans and colonialism were such essential components in the emergence of modernity, it, in turn, produced many categories related to notions of being human, the creation, and God that are often taken for granted. There is power in naming - and re-naming - our ourselves, our situations, and our relationships. It is essential, therefore, that we examine and critique the categories we use to define ourselves in relationship to other human beings and God. When we do not examine and critique our human-created categories, we remain enslaved to the old framework, and fail to fully appreciate how the system of oppression functions in its totality.
Pastoral Dimensions:
The church is being urged to re-assess its pastoral role. This role is derived from Matthew 22:36-39, in which Jesus explained that humanity's greatest duty is to love God and love thy neighbour as thyself. In a historical and current context of patriarchy, which entrenches hierarchies of caste, class, gender, ethnicity, and age, the local church is urged to make use of relevant rituals, including those inspired by indigenous religions and spiritualities towards the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation.
We believe that the process of healing, restoration and reconciliation must be built on a naming of sin and the claiming of salvation. Salvation encompasses the wholeness of life and the wholeness of humanity in all of its dimensions, and in the context of community. The issues of shame and fear, resistance and compliance, on the part of descendants of the enslaved and the enslavers must be central to the process of healing. Pastorally speaking, therefore, the church cannot make assumptions around the knowledge and conscientiousness of people based on age. Many young people who are descendants of the enslaved, for example, are already actively engaged in learning about their histories, resisting oppression, and striving to create alternatives to hegemonic powers. The church must create welcoming environments for the youth and young adults, and at the same time must seek to remove barriers of caste, class, ethnicity and insularity, which effectively exclude others.
Recommendations and Affirmations:
As representatives of the global ecumenical community, we, therefore, offer the following recommendations and affirmations as those who are numbered within the church and also among the descendants of the enslaved.
We the delegates of the ecumenical conference "Abolished, but Not Destroyed" commit ourselves to: start a list of resources and recommended readings about the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, and its ongoing legacy. This recommended list is one step towards sharing stories and knowledge, and this list of information could be made available on ecumenical websites, including the World Council of Churches, the Council on World Mission, and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, create a variety of media (including CDs of papers from the conference) to give to congregations for reflection, discussion, and action, publish and share religio-cultural rituals, create and have rites of passages, link to women's international sites of memory, and also publish those rituals and sites for others to access, continue to question our sources of knowledge (including bibliographies) , and strive to address our knowledge gaps through continual learning and analysis, share our collective resources within the global ecumenical community, including but not limited to sharing a statement and offering input into 2010 mission conference in Edinburgh; this input might include bringing discourses and analysis on racism, slavery, and patriarchy to this meeting, rewrite history at the grassroots level and from the perspective of those who were enslaved and marginalized, and continue to do intergenerational storytelling, maintain a system of communication among ourselves, and others who strive to become engaged in this work.
We recommend to the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Council for World Mission that:a comprehensive and exhaustive history of the role of the oppressive theological ideations and actual church systems towards the implementation, sustainability, and expansion of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans be developed and institutionalized. Special effort should be made to ensure that such an undertaking is pursued from an African worldview, to hear today's cries of oppression, and to respond to these cries, the global ecumenical church community should encourage and support the local churches and clusters of churches in collecting stories of oppression and resistance, and publish those stories,
an ecumenical youth initiative focused on the legacy of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans takes place, and that young people's authentic participation be affirmed. Further, that a comprehensive media strategy must be part of the ecumenical youth project so that the initiative not only affects those who go, but also those at home, opportunities are created and enabled for interfaith and inter-religious dialogue, and work in solidarity with African indigenous religious, a process is created to examine the tools of empire, and how these tools are used, resources are created for churches on how to identify and challenge institutional racism, and that intentional racial justice analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes (such as AGAPE, Accra confession, millennium development goals, etc).
We recommend to governments that: financial and human resources be identified and made available, in trust and otherwise, with appropriate church, community, and academic entities to effect institutional development and remedies from the transatlantic slave trade system and colonialism at the local, national and global levels, support is offered to masters levels and doctoral levels research centers of excellence related to the Transatlantic Trade in Africans, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
We recommend to congregations and people of faith that:
new educational programs are created that build upon the best of the past, that produces pastors for communities whose folks are crying, and that intentionally address community problems,
churches to take on creative projects, for example, young people interviewing elders in communities to learn and write down stories. Resources are actively used in churches on that identify and challenge systemic and institutional racism, that a race analysis is built into church and ecumenical processes, and that churches teach those of privilege on how to divert privilege in the realm of Jesus and justice, the church take seriously the social construction of knowledge and identities, and social location in its reading and understanding of scriptures, churches be engaged in identifying historical sites of memory, and creating new sites of memory, in recognition of the power of naming, and re-naming, that the church divest of language which can be disempowering, churches that operate camps for children to develop creative curriculum to teach the history of the people, teach traditional songs, meet leaders from the community. This inclusive curriculum should be both interdisciplinary and intergenerational. Further, any curriculum that is used should embrace the fullness of the imago dei, churches continue to be in solidarity with Dalit peoples, and other marginalized and oppressed peoples around the world, reparations are offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.
As the church has stated that it's mission was and is to spread the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ, the people of the church now request that the church speak truth to power by informing and supporting educational initiatives, at many levels, on the systemic impact of enslavement upon the lives of African descendant peoples and communities throughout the world.
[1] Oikumene is a term that refers to the whole, inhabited earth.
[2] Hegemony is all encompassing; it is focuses with overarching issues of dominance and control. It also names the totality of interconnected systems of power and oppression.
[3]Today's unequal flow of the world's goods and resources is due, in part to, the legacies of colonialism and slavery. Some economies were built through slave labour, and colonial exploitation of human and national resources. These legacies have benefited some and disadvantaged others over the centuries. The long-lasting impact of these legacies is made to appear natural through unspoken entitlements based race, class, gender, and other inequities, but in reality is unnatural and based on socially constructed ideologies of superiority.
[4] Ubuntu is an expression of human relations lived in community and in harmony with the whole of creation ('African anthropology and cosmo-vision lived in community'). Ubuntu a possibility of reflecting, analyzing and protecting life based on the Ubuntu principle “I am because you are, you are because I am.” Both these principles are about the eradication of hate, anger, private wealth without sharing, oppression, exploitation as well as harmony and peace with the cosmos.
[5] Balm Yaad is a place for healing, reading and 'science', where persons who consider themselves ill, hurt, or in need of spiritual aid would seek the services of a 'Madda' or a 'science' man; a revivalist, who discerns the ailment and prescribes cures. A Balm Yaad can apply Christian principles, with distinctive blends of the folk tradition.
Contact us
Site map
© World Council of Churches (page 5388)
Families (Unknown Enemies)
*Families (Unknown Enemies) *
* [col. writ. 12/20/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
There is an old saying: 'knowledge is power.'
The axiom sprang to mind unbidden, when I read an article recently on a distraught, single, Liberian mother, in fear of the violent drug trade engulfing her Staten Island, N. Y. neighborhood, who promptly shipped her oldest son back to their West African homeland.
She reasoned that even war-torn Liberia, which has been plunged into civil war for at least the last generation, would prove a safer place than a project in a New York borough.
What was thought to be a summer vacation with relatives turned into several years amidst a real war, a war which taught the teenaged youth important life lessons about the iniquity of death, hunger, and abundance.
When 17 year-old Augustus Massalee initially arrived in Liberia, he was as mindlessly materialistic as any other over-fed American kid. But life in West Africa gave him a broader, deeper insight.
Like many of his peers, stealing was probably regarded as, at best, a prank; at worst, a hustle. In a recent article in the New York Times , Massalee spoke laconically about the prospects of theft in a poor, mostly rural country: "On that side, if you steal, they beat you or kill you or burn you to ashes."*
But what was most remarkable, according to the article, was the tale of conflict between native-born Blacks and African from the continent, who, /in grade school/, launched slurs at each other, like "cotton picker" and "why don't you go back to the jungle!" / "Cotton pickers?" "Go back to Africa?"/
Not surprisingly, the paper doesn't note how ironic such slurs appear given the specific histories of these two communities of Black people.
For Liberia was established in 1822 by Blacks freed from American bondage. In other words, the African-born children shared nationality with former "cotton pickers." And the ancestors of American born Blacks had indeed "gone back to Africa," to establish the nation of Liberia 185 years ago.
Indeed, beyond their Blackness, it is possible that these two conflicting communities shared the commonality of familial blood -- but who will teach these children that?
How will they learn such powerful lessons within the false, narrow confines of No Child Left Behind?
And if the children were able to read the New York Times account, what would they really learn, other than the Black on Black conflict?
In a nation where whiteness is prized and Blackness is demonized, why are we surprised that conflict is the enduring story, while commonality is virtually ignored?
Knowledge /is/ power: but the converse is also true...'ignorance is powerlessness.'
--(c) '07 maj
{*Source: Barry, Ellen, "Exiled to a War Zone, for His Safety: Staten Island Mother Chooses Africa as a Haven," New York Times , Dec. 14, 2007, pp.A1 - A34.}
* [col. writ. 12/20/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
There is an old saying: 'knowledge is power.'
The axiom sprang to mind unbidden, when I read an article recently on a distraught, single, Liberian mother, in fear of the violent drug trade engulfing her Staten Island, N. Y. neighborhood, who promptly shipped her oldest son back to their West African homeland.
She reasoned that even war-torn Liberia, which has been plunged into civil war for at least the last generation, would prove a safer place than a project in a New York borough.
What was thought to be a summer vacation with relatives turned into several years amidst a real war, a war which taught the teenaged youth important life lessons about the iniquity of death, hunger, and abundance.
When 17 year-old Augustus Massalee initially arrived in Liberia, he was as mindlessly materialistic as any other over-fed American kid. But life in West Africa gave him a broader, deeper insight.
Like many of his peers, stealing was probably regarded as, at best, a prank; at worst, a hustle. In a recent article in the New York Times , Massalee spoke laconically about the prospects of theft in a poor, mostly rural country: "On that side, if you steal, they beat you or kill you or burn you to ashes."*
But what was most remarkable, according to the article, was the tale of conflict between native-born Blacks and African from the continent, who, /in grade school/, launched slurs at each other, like "cotton picker" and "why don't you go back to the jungle!" / "Cotton pickers?" "Go back to Africa?"/
Not surprisingly, the paper doesn't note how ironic such slurs appear given the specific histories of these two communities of Black people.
For Liberia was established in 1822 by Blacks freed from American bondage. In other words, the African-born children shared nationality with former "cotton pickers." And the ancestors of American born Blacks had indeed "gone back to Africa," to establish the nation of Liberia 185 years ago.
Indeed, beyond their Blackness, it is possible that these two conflicting communities shared the commonality of familial blood -- but who will teach these children that?
How will they learn such powerful lessons within the false, narrow confines of No Child Left Behind?
And if the children were able to read the New York Times account, what would they really learn, other than the Black on Black conflict?
In a nation where whiteness is prized and Blackness is demonized, why are we surprised that conflict is the enduring story, while commonality is virtually ignored?
Knowledge /is/ power: but the converse is also true...'ignorance is powerlessness.'
--(c) '07 maj
{*Source: Barry, Ellen, "Exiled to a War Zone, for His Safety: Staten Island Mother Chooses Africa as a Haven," New York Times , Dec. 14, 2007, pp.A1 - A34.}
Still the Politics of Fear
* Still the Politics of Fear *
* [col. writ. 12/23/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
We live, all of us, amidst what has become an almost permanent campaign. And the central theme is the politics driven by fear; fear of the Other (the immigrant): fear of each other: fear of the outside world: and fear of the future.
Few politicians have played the fear card with more deftness than President Bush. No matter what one may think of him today, it took considerable skill to convince folks to fight a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11; to fight it, bomb it, occupy it, and then dare to try to remake it.
And while it's certainly true to call it a disastrous policy, it's also true that, in large part, he's done it. This is not a statement of the rightness of it, but a simple averment of fact. When the ravenous chickens of revenge finally come home to roost, he'll be out of the White House, and safely ensconced in some pricey think tank, his presidential library, or on the board of an oil company, counting his pile. And there's the payoff from the politics of fear: /it works./ When you try to stoke the flames of fear, it catches on in the minds of many Americans. And why shouldn't it? There's a long history of just this tactic in American politics. As Russian writer, Svetlana Alexisvitch has noted, "We are turning into a civilization of fear. Because what is a disaster? A disaster is a high concentration of fear. The commodity that our civilization creates in the largest quantity is fear."*
For the English and Spanish colonizers of this land, fear of the far more numerous Indians was a constant. That fear was met by a ubiquitous campaign of virtual genocide against red people that lasted for generations. When Indian populations were sufficiently reduced, and there were too few to efficiently labor as slaves, white colonies began the infamous transatlantic slave trade, which brought millions of Africans to these shores.
With this change of conditions came a change in the focus of the object of the politics of fear: Black people. Anyone who has studied southern politics from the 17th to the 20th centuries has seen masters of these politics at work.
Today, that same politics has considerable potency, as we utilize codes that disguise our meaning, while still tapping into the deep American well of fear. Post 9/11, we have seen most of that traditional fear transmuted into a dread of brown people (as in Arabs, and occasionally, Mexicans). Today, we are awash in political shorthand that sufficiently communicates loads in little more than a word: /illegal/ immigration; borders; crime; and the phrase that has come to define our era (even as it has lost a good deal of its juice of late), the so-called 'Global War on Terror.)
The corrosive politics of fear continues, as long as politicians ply that set of wares.
-- (c) '07 maj
{*Source: Pan America: A Journal for Writers and Readers . (N. Y.: {Pan American Center, 2006) }
* [col. writ. 12/23/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
* *
* *
We live, all of us, amidst what has become an almost permanent campaign. And the central theme is the politics driven by fear; fear of the Other (the immigrant): fear of each other: fear of the outside world: and fear of the future.
Few politicians have played the fear card with more deftness than President Bush. No matter what one may think of him today, it took considerable skill to convince folks to fight a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11; to fight it, bomb it, occupy it, and then dare to try to remake it.
And while it's certainly true to call it a disastrous policy, it's also true that, in large part, he's done it. This is not a statement of the rightness of it, but a simple averment of fact. When the ravenous chickens of revenge finally come home to roost, he'll be out of the White House, and safely ensconced in some pricey think tank, his presidential library, or on the board of an oil company, counting his pile. And there's the payoff from the politics of fear: /it works./ When you try to stoke the flames of fear, it catches on in the minds of many Americans. And why shouldn't it? There's a long history of just this tactic in American politics. As Russian writer, Svetlana Alexisvitch has noted, "We are turning into a civilization of fear. Because what is a disaster? A disaster is a high concentration of fear. The commodity that our civilization creates in the largest quantity is fear."*
For the English and Spanish colonizers of this land, fear of the far more numerous Indians was a constant. That fear was met by a ubiquitous campaign of virtual genocide against red people that lasted for generations. When Indian populations were sufficiently reduced, and there were too few to efficiently labor as slaves, white colonies began the infamous transatlantic slave trade, which brought millions of Africans to these shores.
With this change of conditions came a change in the focus of the object of the politics of fear: Black people. Anyone who has studied southern politics from the 17th to the 20th centuries has seen masters of these politics at work.
Today, that same politics has considerable potency, as we utilize codes that disguise our meaning, while still tapping into the deep American well of fear. Post 9/11, we have seen most of that traditional fear transmuted into a dread of brown people (as in Arabs, and occasionally, Mexicans). Today, we are awash in political shorthand that sufficiently communicates loads in little more than a word: /illegal/ immigration; borders; crime; and the phrase that has come to define our era (even as it has lost a good deal of its juice of late), the so-called 'Global War on Terror.)
The corrosive politics of fear continues, as long as politicians ply that set of wares.
-- (c) '07 maj
{*Source: Pan America: A Journal for Writers and Readers . (N. Y.: {Pan American Center, 2006) }
The Power of Black Music by Mumia Abu-Jamal
* The Power of Black Music *
* [col. writ. 12/19/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
**
**
Music is far more than a multi-million dollar business in the US, and around the world.
It is far more than the stuff that comes out of your radio in an unending roll.
For some people, music, the /right /music, can transform one's way of looking at the world, and even change lives.
By music (as you may have guessed) I'm not talking about bubble gum pop, or rap.
I'm talking about a music form that has been called classical (at least by Black listeners) for generations. I speak of jazz.
I speak specifically, of the music of the late saxophonist John Coltrane (1928-1987), an adherent of the form that came to be called /avant-garde/ (French for advance guard), or free form jazz. In the '50's he was a star player in the Miles Davis quintet.
Later, he would lead several groups, and when not zonked out high on heroin, would play such music as would move millions, even now, decades after his death.
In San Francisco, a church stands today, which has named the musician a Saint of the African Orthodox rite. This is the same church that was the religious branch of the Marcus Garvey Black nationalist movement of the early 20th century.
At the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church, Archbishop Franzo Wayne King presides, and his appreciation of Coltrane's music may be shown as often by his preaching as by his playing of the saxophone in tribute to the Saint. In a recent interview, Archbishop King explained that he heard Coltrane live in 1966, at a local club called the Jazz Workshop, where he and his girlfriend (soon to be wife, Marina) got front row seats. What they heard that evening almost literally blew him away.
King would later explain the experience as his "sound baptism."*
So taken was he by the power and beauty of Coltrane's music that her first organized a small congregation called the Yardbird Temple, named after the nickname of another famous sax player, Charlie Parker. In this initial gathering Coltrane was worshipped as a god, and Parker was seen as a John the Baptist - type figure.
Years later, when he joined the African Orthodox Church, Coltrane was "demoted" to saint.
Today, People come from all around the world to visit the San Francisco church.
The influence of Coltrane has also had far less spectacular, but still meaningful impact, on the lives of people during the '60's.
As Black revolutionary and later scholar, Muhammad Ahmad (who worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), and other such movements) would later write in his political autobiography, We Will Return in the Worldwind: Black Radical Organizations: 1960 - 1975 (Chi., IL: Karr Publishing, 2007), music opened his mind to political ideas and possibilities:
First was going to see Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln present their "Freedom Now" suite at the national convention of the NAACP, which was held in Philadelphia that year. I had been raised on Jazz and had done my homework with Eddie Collier while listening to John Coltrane's Giant Steps . I had gone to the Newport Jazz festival and was an avid fan of both Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderly. But this was the first time I had heard "message music" so direct for my generation.
The "Freedom Now" suite immediately raised my political/cultural consciousness. It wouldn't be until a year later that I would listen to John Coltrane's /My //Favorite Things/ and become a "Tranite" until "Trane" passed on in 1967. {p.xxvi}
As Ahmad explained, music was a powerful social force that opened new ways of looking at and thinking about, and living in the world. Music is more, much more than a commodity.
Free jazz of that period represented, quite simply, freedom, in breaking away from the restraints of the past.
This power of music must be recaptured, to become a resource for a people, who are still not free.
--(c) '07 maj
{*Source: Freedman, Samuel C., "Sunday Afternoon Faith, Inspired by Saturday Nights," New York Times, (12/1/07), p.85:Ahmad, M (a/k/a Max Stanford, Jr.) We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960 - 1975 (Chi., IL.: Karr Publ., 2007.}
* [col. writ. 12/19/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal *
**
**
Music is far more than a multi-million dollar business in the US, and around the world.
It is far more than the stuff that comes out of your radio in an unending roll.
For some people, music, the /right /music, can transform one's way of looking at the world, and even change lives.
By music (as you may have guessed) I'm not talking about bubble gum pop, or rap.
I'm talking about a music form that has been called classical (at least by Black listeners) for generations. I speak of jazz.
I speak specifically, of the music of the late saxophonist John Coltrane (1928-1987), an adherent of the form that came to be called /avant-garde/ (French for advance guard), or free form jazz. In the '50's he was a star player in the Miles Davis quintet.
Later, he would lead several groups, and when not zonked out high on heroin, would play such music as would move millions, even now, decades after his death.
In San Francisco, a church stands today, which has named the musician a Saint of the African Orthodox rite. This is the same church that was the religious branch of the Marcus Garvey Black nationalist movement of the early 20th century.
At the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church, Archbishop Franzo Wayne King presides, and his appreciation of Coltrane's music may be shown as often by his preaching as by his playing of the saxophone in tribute to the Saint. In a recent interview, Archbishop King explained that he heard Coltrane live in 1966, at a local club called the Jazz Workshop, where he and his girlfriend (soon to be wife, Marina) got front row seats. What they heard that evening almost literally blew him away.
King would later explain the experience as his "sound baptism."*
So taken was he by the power and beauty of Coltrane's music that her first organized a small congregation called the Yardbird Temple, named after the nickname of another famous sax player, Charlie Parker. In this initial gathering Coltrane was worshipped as a god, and Parker was seen as a John the Baptist - type figure.
Years later, when he joined the African Orthodox Church, Coltrane was "demoted" to saint.
Today, People come from all around the world to visit the San Francisco church.
The influence of Coltrane has also had far less spectacular, but still meaningful impact, on the lives of people during the '60's.
As Black revolutionary and later scholar, Muhammad Ahmad (who worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), and other such movements) would later write in his political autobiography, We Will Return in the Worldwind: Black Radical Organizations: 1960 - 1975 (Chi., IL: Karr Publishing, 2007), music opened his mind to political ideas and possibilities:
First was going to see Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln present their "Freedom Now" suite at the national convention of the NAACP, which was held in Philadelphia that year. I had been raised on Jazz and had done my homework with Eddie Collier while listening to John Coltrane's Giant Steps . I had gone to the Newport Jazz festival and was an avid fan of both Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderly. But this was the first time I had heard "message music" so direct for my generation.
The "Freedom Now" suite immediately raised my political/cultural consciousness. It wouldn't be until a year later that I would listen to John Coltrane's /My //Favorite Things/ and become a "Tranite" until "Trane" passed on in 1967. {p.xxvi}
As Ahmad explained, music was a powerful social force that opened new ways of looking at and thinking about, and living in the world. Music is more, much more than a commodity.
Free jazz of that period represented, quite simply, freedom, in breaking away from the restraints of the past.
This power of music must be recaptured, to become a resource for a people, who are still not free.
--(c) '07 maj
{*Source: Freedman, Samuel C., "Sunday Afternoon Faith, Inspired by Saturday Nights," New York Times, (12/1/07), p.85:Ahmad, M (a/k/a Max Stanford, Jr.) We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960 - 1975 (Chi., IL.: Karr Publ., 2007.}
Lies Told By The Bush Idiocracy (Administration)
Key False Statements
On September 8, 2002, Bush administration officials hit the national airwaves to advance the argument that Iraq had acquired aluminum tubes designed to enrich uranium. In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney flatly stated that Saddam Hussein "now is trying through his illicit procurement network to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium."
Condoleezza Rice, who was then Bush's national security adviser, followed Cheney that night on CNN's Late Edition. In answer to a question from Wolf Blitzer on how close Saddam Hussein's government was to developing a nuclear capability, Rice said: "We do know that he is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know there have been shipments going into . . . Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to—high-quality aluminum tools that only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."
In April 2001, however, the Energy Department had concluded that, "while the gas centrifuge application cannot be ruled out, we assess that the procurement activity more likely supports a different application, such as conventional ordnance production." During the preparation of the September 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the Energy Department and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research stated their belief that Iraq intended to use the tubes in a conventional rocket program, but the Central Intelligence Agency's contrary view prevailed.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence subsequently concluded that postwar findings supported the assessments of the Energy Department and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
______________________________
There was dissent within the intelligence community in the first 48 hours after 9/11 over the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Richard Clarke, President Bush's chief counterterrorism adviser, has written that President Bush asked him on September 12 to "see if Saddam did this. See if he is linked in any way. . ." Clarke said that he responded by saying, "Absolutely, we will look . . . again," and then adding, "But you know, we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq."
Beginning apparently in late November 2001, a team in the office of Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith, working independently of the formal intelligence community, reviewed intelligence data related to Al Qaeda. In August and September 2002, this team provided three separate briefings to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, and finally to high-level White House officials. The briefings, titled "Assessing the Relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," included the assessment that "Intelligence indicates cooperation [with Al Qaeda] in all categories: mature, symbiotic relationship."
Bush administration officials were soon publicly linking the two. For example, on September 25, 2002, in response to a reporter's question, President Bush said: "They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that Al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world."
Such statements were not supported by the intelligence community's findings. In July 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda has not been established, despite a large body of anecdotal information."
In September, the CIA circulated a draft report titled Iraqi Support for Terrorism, which found "no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaeda strike." On September 17, CIA Director George Tenet reiterated this point in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "The intelligence indicates that the two sides at various points have discussed safe-haven, training, and reciprocal non-aggression," he said. "There are several reported suggestions by Al Qaeda to Iraq about joint terrorist ventures, but in no case can we establish that Iraq accepted or followed up on these suggestions."
The 9/11 Commission Report found that while there may have been meetings in 1999 between Iraqi officials and Osama Bin Ladin or his aides, it had seen no evidence that the contacts "ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship." It added: "Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
______________________________
In a speech on August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney flatly asserted that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet later wrote that Cheney's statement "went well beyond what our own analysis could support." Tenet was not alone within the CIA. As one of his top deputies later told journalist Ron Suskind: "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from? Does he have a source of information that we don't know about?'"
______________________________
In a national radio address on September 28, 2002, President Bush flatly asserted: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."
What the American people did not know at the time was that, just three weeks before Bush's radio address, in early September, Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that there was no National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Such an assessment had not been done in years because nobody within the intelligence community had deemed it necessary, and, remarkably, nobody at the White House had requested that it be done.
The CIA put the NIE together in less than three weeks. It proved to be false. As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later concluded, "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
______________________________
In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, President Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
But as early as March 2002, there was uncertainty within the intelligence community regarding the sale of uranium to Iraq. That month, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research published an intelligence assessment titled, "Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq Is Unlikely." In July 2002, the Energy Department concluded that there was "no information indicating that any of the uranium shipments arrived in Iraq" and suggested that the "amount of uranium specified far exceeds what Iraq would need even for a robust nuclear weapons program." In August 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency made no mention of the Iraq-Niger connection in a paper on Iraq's WMD capabilities.
Just two weeks before the president's speech, an analyst with the Bureau of Intelligence and Research had sent an e-mail to several other analysts describing why he believed "the uranium purchase agreement probably is a hoax." And in 2006 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded: "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake' from Africa. Postwar findings support the assessment in the NIE of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are 'highly dubious.'"
______________________________
In his dramatic presentation to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources." In preparation for his presentation, Powell had spent a week at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters sifting through intelligence.
One of the "human sources" that Powell referenced turned out to be "Curveball," whom U.S. intelligence officials had never even spoken to. "My mouth hung open when I saw Colin Powell use information from Curveball," Tyler Drumheller, the CIA's chief of covert operations in Europe, later recalled. "It was like cognitive dissonance. Maybe, I thought, my government has something more. But it scared me deeply."
In his presentation to the U.N. Security Council, Powell described another of the human sources as "a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons [of mass destruction] to Al Qaeda." Six days earlier, however, the CIA itself had come to the conclusion that this source, a detainee, "was not in a position to know if any training had taken place."
In a report completed in 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded: "Much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for inclusion in Secretary Powell's speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect."
_____________________________
In an interview with Polish television on May 29, 2003, President Bush stated: "We found the weapons of mass destruction." Bush was referencing two trailers or "mobile labs" discovered in Iraq.
Just days earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that the trailers "could not be used as a transportable biological production system as the system is presently configured." It was ultimately acknowledged that the trailers had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and were probably used to manufacture hydrogen employed in weather balloons.
______________________________
On July 30, 2003, in an interview with Gwen Ifill of PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, Condoleezza Rice said: "What we knew going into the war was that this man was a threat. He had weapons of mass destruction. He had used them before. He was continuing to try to improve his weapons programs. He was sitting astride one of the most volatile regions in the world, a region out of which the ideologies of hatred had come that led people to slam airplanes into buildings in New York and Washington. Something had to be done about that threat and the president to simply allow this brutal dictator, with dangerous weapons, to continue to destabilize the Middle East."
Just two days earlier, David Kay, the Bush administration's top weapons inspector in Iraq, had briefed administration officials. "We have not found large stockpiles," he told them. "You can't rule them out. We haven't come to the conclusion that they're not there, but they're sure not any place obvious. We've got a lot more to search for and to look at."
On September 8, 2002, Bush administration officials hit the national airwaves to advance the argument that Iraq had acquired aluminum tubes designed to enrich uranium. In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney flatly stated that Saddam Hussein "now is trying through his illicit procurement network to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium."
Condoleezza Rice, who was then Bush's national security adviser, followed Cheney that night on CNN's Late Edition. In answer to a question from Wolf Blitzer on how close Saddam Hussein's government was to developing a nuclear capability, Rice said: "We do know that he is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know there have been shipments going into . . . Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to—high-quality aluminum tools that only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."
In April 2001, however, the Energy Department had concluded that, "while the gas centrifuge application cannot be ruled out, we assess that the procurement activity more likely supports a different application, such as conventional ordnance production." During the preparation of the September 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the Energy Department and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research stated their belief that Iraq intended to use the tubes in a conventional rocket program, but the Central Intelligence Agency's contrary view prevailed.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence subsequently concluded that postwar findings supported the assessments of the Energy Department and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
______________________________
There was dissent within the intelligence community in the first 48 hours after 9/11 over the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Richard Clarke, President Bush's chief counterterrorism adviser, has written that President Bush asked him on September 12 to "see if Saddam did this. See if he is linked in any way. . ." Clarke said that he responded by saying, "Absolutely, we will look . . . again," and then adding, "But you know, we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq."
Beginning apparently in late November 2001, a team in the office of Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith, working independently of the formal intelligence community, reviewed intelligence data related to Al Qaeda. In August and September 2002, this team provided three separate briefings to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, and finally to high-level White House officials. The briefings, titled "Assessing the Relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," included the assessment that "Intelligence indicates cooperation [with Al Qaeda] in all categories: mature, symbiotic relationship."
Bush administration officials were soon publicly linking the two. For example, on September 25, 2002, in response to a reporter's question, President Bush said: "They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that Al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world."
Such statements were not supported by the intelligence community's findings. In July 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda has not been established, despite a large body of anecdotal information."
In September, the CIA circulated a draft report titled Iraqi Support for Terrorism, which found "no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaeda strike." On September 17, CIA Director George Tenet reiterated this point in testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "The intelligence indicates that the two sides at various points have discussed safe-haven, training, and reciprocal non-aggression," he said. "There are several reported suggestions by Al Qaeda to Iraq about joint terrorist ventures, but in no case can we establish that Iraq accepted or followed up on these suggestions."
The 9/11 Commission Report found that while there may have been meetings in 1999 between Iraqi officials and Osama Bin Ladin or his aides, it had seen no evidence that the contacts "ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship." It added: "Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
______________________________
In a speech on August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney flatly asserted that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet later wrote that Cheney's statement "went well beyond what our own analysis could support." Tenet was not alone within the CIA. As one of his top deputies later told journalist Ron Suskind: "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from? Does he have a source of information that we don't know about?'"
______________________________
In a national radio address on September 28, 2002, President Bush flatly asserted: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."
What the American people did not know at the time was that, just three weeks before Bush's radio address, in early September, Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that there was no National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Such an assessment had not been done in years because nobody within the intelligence community had deemed it necessary, and, remarkably, nobody at the White House had requested that it be done.
The CIA put the NIE together in less than three weeks. It proved to be false. As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later concluded, "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
______________________________
In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, President Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
But as early as March 2002, there was uncertainty within the intelligence community regarding the sale of uranium to Iraq. That month, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research published an intelligence assessment titled, "Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq Is Unlikely." In July 2002, the Energy Department concluded that there was "no information indicating that any of the uranium shipments arrived in Iraq" and suggested that the "amount of uranium specified far exceeds what Iraq would need even for a robust nuclear weapons program." In August 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency made no mention of the Iraq-Niger connection in a paper on Iraq's WMD capabilities.
Just two weeks before the president's speech, an analyst with the Bureau of Intelligence and Research had sent an e-mail to several other analysts describing why he believed "the uranium purchase agreement probably is a hoax." And in 2006 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded: "Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake' from Africa. Postwar findings support the assessment in the NIE of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are 'highly dubious.'"
______________________________
In his dramatic presentation to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources." In preparation for his presentation, Powell had spent a week at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters sifting through intelligence.
One of the "human sources" that Powell referenced turned out to be "Curveball," whom U.S. intelligence officials had never even spoken to. "My mouth hung open when I saw Colin Powell use information from Curveball," Tyler Drumheller, the CIA's chief of covert operations in Europe, later recalled. "It was like cognitive dissonance. Maybe, I thought, my government has something more. But it scared me deeply."
In his presentation to the U.N. Security Council, Powell described another of the human sources as "a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons [of mass destruction] to Al Qaeda." Six days earlier, however, the CIA itself had come to the conclusion that this source, a detainee, "was not in a position to know if any training had taken place."
In a report completed in 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded: "Much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for inclusion in Secretary Powell's speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect."
_____________________________
In an interview with Polish television on May 29, 2003, President Bush stated: "We found the weapons of mass destruction." Bush was referencing two trailers or "mobile labs" discovered in Iraq.
Just days earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded that the trailers "could not be used as a transportable biological production system as the system is presently configured." It was ultimately acknowledged that the trailers had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and were probably used to manufacture hydrogen employed in weather balloons.
______________________________
On July 30, 2003, in an interview with Gwen Ifill of PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, Condoleezza Rice said: "What we knew going into the war was that this man was a threat. He had weapons of mass destruction. He had used them before. He was continuing to try to improve his weapons programs. He was sitting astride one of the most volatile regions in the world, a region out of which the ideologies of hatred had come that led people to slam airplanes into buildings in New York and Washington. Something had to be done about that threat and the president to simply allow this brutal dictator, with dangerous weapons, to continue to destabilize the Middle East."
Just two days earlier, David Kay, the Bush administration's top weapons inspector in Iraq, had briefed administration officials. "We have not found large stockpiles," he told them. "You can't rule them out. We haven't come to the conclusion that they're not there, but they're sure not any place obvious. We've got a lot more to search for and to look at."
War Based On Lies And Propaganda
False Pretenses
Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.
In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.
President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).
The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.
Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war:
On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "
In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year." A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction — an analysis that hadn't been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn't requested it.
In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: "Sure." In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda." What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said that "the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear."
On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team's final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.
On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement "probably is a hoax."
On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources." As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named "Curveball," whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had "decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government]."
The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion.
It was during those critical weeks in early 2003 that the president delivered his State of the Union address and Powell delivered his memorable U.N. presentation. For all 935 false statements, including when and where they occurred, go to the search page for this project; the methodology used for this analysis is explained here.
In addition to their patently false pronouncements, Bush and these seven top officials also made hundreds of other statements in the two years after 9/11 in which they implied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or links to Al Qaeda. Other administration higher-ups, joined by Pentagon officials and Republican leaders in Congress, also routinely sounded false war alarms in the Washington echo chamber.
The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, "independent" validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq.
The "ground truth" of the Iraq war itself eventually forced the president to backpedal, albeit grudgingly. In a 2004 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, for example, Bush acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: "It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power."
Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual "ground truth" regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who's Who of domestic agencies.
On the other hand, a growing number of critics, including a parade of former government officials, have publicly — and in some cases vociferously — accused the president and his inner circle of ignoring or distorting the available intelligence. In the end, these critics say, it was the calculated drumbeat of false information and public pronouncements that ultimately misled the American people and this nation's allies on their way to war.
Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government's pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.
Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.
Above all, the 935 false statements painstakingly presented here finally help to answer two all-too-familiar questions as they apply to Bush and his top advisers: What did they know, and when did they know it?
Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.
In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.
President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).
The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.
Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war:
On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "
In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year." A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction — an analysis that hadn't been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn't requested it.
In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: "Sure." In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda." What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said that "the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear."
On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team's final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.
On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement "probably is a hoax."
On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources." As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named "Curveball," whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had "decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government]."
The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion.
It was during those critical weeks in early 2003 that the president delivered his State of the Union address and Powell delivered his memorable U.N. presentation. For all 935 false statements, including when and where they occurred, go to the search page for this project; the methodology used for this analysis is explained here.
In addition to their patently false pronouncements, Bush and these seven top officials also made hundreds of other statements in the two years after 9/11 in which they implied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or links to Al Qaeda. Other administration higher-ups, joined by Pentagon officials and Republican leaders in Congress, also routinely sounded false war alarms in the Washington echo chamber.
The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, "independent" validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq.
The "ground truth" of the Iraq war itself eventually forced the president to backpedal, albeit grudgingly. In a 2004 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, for example, Bush acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: "It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power."
Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual "ground truth" regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who's Who of domestic agencies.
On the other hand, a growing number of critics, including a parade of former government officials, have publicly — and in some cases vociferously — accused the president and his inner circle of ignoring or distorting the available intelligence. In the end, these critics say, it was the calculated drumbeat of false information and public pronouncements that ultimately misled the American people and this nation's allies on their way to war.
Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government's pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.
Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.
Above all, the 935 false statements painstakingly presented here finally help to answer two all-too-familiar questions as they apply to Bush and his top advisers: What did they know, and when did they know it?
The 'Oops!' Factor by Mumia Abu-Jamal
* The 'Oops!' Factor ** {col. writ. 1/10/08}
**(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal **
*
*
*
As the race for presidential primaries and caucuses gains in speed and tempo, this current campaign has taught me at least one important lesson: "You can't rely on polls!"
Talking heads are sounding sillier by the day trying to explain how the junior senator from Illinois went from a double digit lead a day before the New Hampshire primaries, to losing by 2 percentage points by night's end.
I wrote a piece, but just like those talking heads, I got it wrong, and wrote as much. If I'm lucky, you'll never get to hear it.
(OOPS!)
I, too, was shocked by Sen. Hillary Clinton's win over Barack Obama (I bet you so was she!), but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. In my view, it had absolutely nothing to do with Hillary's tears, nor any such nonsense.
It had everything to do with people walking into the booth, pulling a curtain, /and having second thoughts./
It had everything to do with what, to some, is still unimaginable: a Black president of the United States of America. I don't think people consciously lied to pollsters. I think they really believed what they said; but belief and action are two separate things.
Blacks have dreamed of the idea for more than 1/2 a century (if not longer), and past nominees, more often than not ran on third parties, or were 'favorite sons' of certain regions; yet, almost always, they were protest votes, safe alternatives, votes meant to show support, but not to elect.
Some of the names will doubtless ring a bell, but many won't elicit a bare ripple of recognition.
Rev. Channing Phillips of Washington, D.C., was nominated for President at the raucous Chicago Democratic National Convention on August 28, 1968, and received 67 1/2 votes from delegates. Throughout that year, two other Black men, Eldridge Cleaver (then Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party), and comedian turned civil rights activist, Dick Gregory, shared the presidential nominations of the Peace & Freedom Party. Cleaver was on the ballot in at least 5 states, while Gregory polled in at least 9 states. When the votes were tallied, Cleaver took roughly 10,000 votes, while Gregory garnered nearly 50,000.
In July , 1972, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (N.Y.-Dem) received 151.95 votes on her presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Miami, out of 2,000 delegates' votes.
By 1988, Independent (New Alliance Party) Dr. Lenora Fulani, on the ballot in at least 35 states (and Washington, D.C.) netted over 218,159 votes. While seemingly impressive, it pales when one considers that 91.5 million people voted in the 1988 presidential elections (her share of the vote was thus 0.24%). Four years later (1992), with new laws in place restricting ballot access, she would pull perhaps a fourth of that number, as she had considerably fewer states (about 20) in which to find her party represented on the ballot.
It's virtually forgotten now that Rev. Jesse Jackson got over 7 million votes, won 13 primaries and caucuses, and controlled almost a third (29%) of the party delegates in his second run in 1988. Though Rev. Al Sharpton would try his hand in the 2000 and 2004 races, his campaign was widely regarded (at least by the corporate media, and through them, the predominantly white electorate), as a symbolic run, in the long tradition of protest candidacies. Indeed, one observer, law professor Kimerle W. Crenshaw has opined that Sharpton's July 2004 Democratic convention speech "electrified" the place, with his critique of the Bush administration's penchant for appointing right wing judges to the U.S. Supreme Court would whittle away rights won over long, hard struggles. Crenshaw noted:
Not only did journalists such as Wolf Blitzer and others perform a questionable disciplinary role in denouncing Sharpton as being "off message" -- CNN's Jeff Greenfield went further to declare that Sharpton delivered the most incendiary comment of the entire convention. [Fr.: Crenshaw, K.W., "Sharpton Sharpens the Challenge with an Overtime Victory," CommonDreams.org (July 30, 2004).]
In this context, the apparent fawning over Obama by many of these same media figures may owe more to his seeming nonracial presentation, than any real concern for Black political empowerment.
Politics is about more than strange bedfellows. It's ultimately about power, and that's why there are second thoughts.
--(c) '08 maj
**(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal **
*
*
*
As the race for presidential primaries and caucuses gains in speed and tempo, this current campaign has taught me at least one important lesson: "You can't rely on polls!"
Talking heads are sounding sillier by the day trying to explain how the junior senator from Illinois went from a double digit lead a day before the New Hampshire primaries, to losing by 2 percentage points by night's end.
I wrote a piece, but just like those talking heads, I got it wrong, and wrote as much. If I'm lucky, you'll never get to hear it.
(OOPS!)
I, too, was shocked by Sen. Hillary Clinton's win over Barack Obama (I bet you so was she!), but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. In my view, it had absolutely nothing to do with Hillary's tears, nor any such nonsense.
It had everything to do with people walking into the booth, pulling a curtain, /and having second thoughts./
It had everything to do with what, to some, is still unimaginable: a Black president of the United States of America. I don't think people consciously lied to pollsters. I think they really believed what they said; but belief and action are two separate things.
Blacks have dreamed of the idea for more than 1/2 a century (if not longer), and past nominees, more often than not ran on third parties, or were 'favorite sons' of certain regions; yet, almost always, they were protest votes, safe alternatives, votes meant to show support, but not to elect.
Some of the names will doubtless ring a bell, but many won't elicit a bare ripple of recognition.
Rev. Channing Phillips of Washington, D.C., was nominated for President at the raucous Chicago Democratic National Convention on August 28, 1968, and received 67 1/2 votes from delegates. Throughout that year, two other Black men, Eldridge Cleaver (then Minister of Information of the Black Panther Party), and comedian turned civil rights activist, Dick Gregory, shared the presidential nominations of the Peace & Freedom Party. Cleaver was on the ballot in at least 5 states, while Gregory polled in at least 9 states. When the votes were tallied, Cleaver took roughly 10,000 votes, while Gregory garnered nearly 50,000.
In July , 1972, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (N.Y.-Dem) received 151.95 votes on her presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Miami, out of 2,000 delegates' votes.
By 1988, Independent (New Alliance Party) Dr. Lenora Fulani, on the ballot in at least 35 states (and Washington, D.C.) netted over 218,159 votes. While seemingly impressive, it pales when one considers that 91.5 million people voted in the 1988 presidential elections (her share of the vote was thus 0.24%). Four years later (1992), with new laws in place restricting ballot access, she would pull perhaps a fourth of that number, as she had considerably fewer states (about 20) in which to find her party represented on the ballot.
It's virtually forgotten now that Rev. Jesse Jackson got over 7 million votes, won 13 primaries and caucuses, and controlled almost a third (29%) of the party delegates in his second run in 1988. Though Rev. Al Sharpton would try his hand in the 2000 and 2004 races, his campaign was widely regarded (at least by the corporate media, and through them, the predominantly white electorate), as a symbolic run, in the long tradition of protest candidacies. Indeed, one observer, law professor Kimerle W. Crenshaw has opined that Sharpton's July 2004 Democratic convention speech "electrified" the place, with his critique of the Bush administration's penchant for appointing right wing judges to the U.S. Supreme Court would whittle away rights won over long, hard struggles. Crenshaw noted:
Not only did journalists such as Wolf Blitzer and others perform a questionable disciplinary role in denouncing Sharpton as being "off message" -- CNN's Jeff Greenfield went further to declare that Sharpton delivered the most incendiary comment of the entire convention. [Fr.: Crenshaw, K.W., "Sharpton Sharpens the Challenge with an Overtime Victory," CommonDreams.org (July 30, 2004).]
In this context, the apparent fawning over Obama by many of these same media figures may owe more to his seeming nonracial presentation, than any real concern for Black political empowerment.
Politics is about more than strange bedfellows. It's ultimately about power, and that's why there are second thoughts.
--(c) '08 maj
The Madhouse Called 'Home' (Kenya)
* The Madhouse Called 'Home' (Kenya) *
* {col. writ. 1/12/08} (c) 08' Mumia Abu-Jamal *
The continuing carnage in Kenya (E. Africa) evokes feelings of confusion mixed with shame.
Confusion because if the cause of such infernal conflict is tribalism, the word has little meaning for U.S. Blacks, for the grandchildren of slaves were detribalized, or perhaps more accurately, compressed into a single national tribe of Blackness.
Shame, because Blacks still feel a kinship for (an idealized) Africa, and thus, their calamities seem like ours, and, since the relatively recent end of colonialism, many African countries have had more than their share of calamities.
Kenyan human rights activist and writer, Koigi wa Wamwere, in his 2003 book, Negative Ethnicity (Seven Stories Press/Open Media) records a harrowing event in 1998 Kenya, when a man named John Mwangi detailed what happened to him in the Makuru district of Kenya:
I am down, and around me a big fire rages. Our village is razed and destroyed. There are screams everywhere. They are hurt and down. I inhale smoke and smell burning flesh, food, and timber everywhere. I see a man coming with a flaming torch for burning houses and food stores, a spear to stab my heart and sword to slit my throat and kill me as they have others. I think this is the end, but not yet. Please, don't kill me, I plead with whatever breath I have left.
We are Africans. We are brothers. Without looking at me, he thrusts the spear into my side and cuts my throat. Die, die, you dirty louse, he says. I am not your brother. I am not your tribe. Tasting blood in my mouth, I slide into unconsciousness with that word ringing -- /tribe, tribe/ - until the world falls silent. When I wake up, I am in the hospital, wrapped in bandages from head to foot. A Good Samaritan picked me up and brought me here. Several months later, I go to my village, but it is no more. Both the new house and the land now belong to him who tried to kill me. Because I am from another ethnic community I am evicted from my home and land and cleansed from the Rift Valley Province where anyone who is not Kalenjin is called a foreigner. I cry and ask, Why? No one answers. [pp. 9-10]
Although the U.S. press has reported that the present tribal warfare was unprecedented in modern Kenya, in fact, such clashes happened as recent as a decade ago (1998), and nearly a decade before that (in 1992). Such clashes are usually manipulated by political leaders for communal ( read: 'tribal') support for a ruthless struggle for resources, cattle, and yes -- lebensraum (German for 'living room').
Wamwere put it pointedly when he recounted a quasi-joking between he and some other Gikuyu and Kalenjin friends. They joked about Kalenjin getting the best jobs, the best spots in school, or bank loans. The Kalenjin would retort, "Now is our time to eat. You Gikuyu had yours." (66)
For Wamwere, tribalism (or in his term, 'negative ethnicity') has been a powerful tool used by politicians to communicate the notion of 'it's our time to eat.'
Wamwere tells a classic and chilling tale of when Jomo Kenyatta came to power after colonialism, and his government slew one of its own ministers, Tom Mboya, a prominent Luo politician. Luo riots shook Nairobi and Kisumu. Wamwere recalls how Kenyatta responded by forcing Gikuyus to take a loyalty oath.
Those who didn't take it were beaten or killed. Wamwere explained that he too took the oath, partly in fear, and partly in fascination. This oath was against the Luos. This took place in 1969.
The notion of nation is a transient one; for nations come and go; tribe remains.
So, politicians run on the implicit promise that, 'if you elect me, we will eat.'
And while tribe fights tribe over crumbs, the whole socio-economic order serves to send the fat of the land into the kitchens and coffers of Europe and America, while politicians ship their excess wealth to Western banks to hold. For what are these countries but Western creations, with borders designed to preserve corrupt economic relations where the continent becomes a vast plantation, with Black overseers, who manage Black workers for Western profits and exploitation?
While millions of Africans suffer from malnutrition, millions of Americans and Europeans spend billions to try to manage their rampant obesity.
Tribalism? Negative Ethnicity? Or poor people fighting for scraps? --
(c) '08 maj
{Sources: Wamwere, Koigi wa, Negative Ethnicity: From Bias to Genocide (New York: Seven Stories Press/Open Media, 2003); Wamwere, Koigi wa, I Refuse to Die: My Journey for Freedom (New York: Seven Stories, 2002) (for the author's critique of the Moi dictatorship).}
* {col. writ. 1/12/08} (c) 08' Mumia Abu-Jamal *
The continuing carnage in Kenya (E. Africa) evokes feelings of confusion mixed with shame.
Confusion because if the cause of such infernal conflict is tribalism, the word has little meaning for U.S. Blacks, for the grandchildren of slaves were detribalized, or perhaps more accurately, compressed into a single national tribe of Blackness.
Shame, because Blacks still feel a kinship for (an idealized) Africa, and thus, their calamities seem like ours, and, since the relatively recent end of colonialism, many African countries have had more than their share of calamities.
Kenyan human rights activist and writer, Koigi wa Wamwere, in his 2003 book, Negative Ethnicity (Seven Stories Press/Open Media) records a harrowing event in 1998 Kenya, when a man named John Mwangi detailed what happened to him in the Makuru district of Kenya:
I am down, and around me a big fire rages. Our village is razed and destroyed. There are screams everywhere. They are hurt and down. I inhale smoke and smell burning flesh, food, and timber everywhere. I see a man coming with a flaming torch for burning houses and food stores, a spear to stab my heart and sword to slit my throat and kill me as they have others. I think this is the end, but not yet. Please, don't kill me, I plead with whatever breath I have left.
We are Africans. We are brothers. Without looking at me, he thrusts the spear into my side and cuts my throat. Die, die, you dirty louse, he says. I am not your brother. I am not your tribe. Tasting blood in my mouth, I slide into unconsciousness with that word ringing -- /tribe, tribe/ - until the world falls silent. When I wake up, I am in the hospital, wrapped in bandages from head to foot. A Good Samaritan picked me up and brought me here. Several months later, I go to my village, but it is no more. Both the new house and the land now belong to him who tried to kill me. Because I am from another ethnic community I am evicted from my home and land and cleansed from the Rift Valley Province where anyone who is not Kalenjin is called a foreigner. I cry and ask, Why? No one answers. [pp. 9-10]
Although the U.S. press has reported that the present tribal warfare was unprecedented in modern Kenya, in fact, such clashes happened as recent as a decade ago (1998), and nearly a decade before that (in 1992). Such clashes are usually manipulated by political leaders for communal ( read: 'tribal') support for a ruthless struggle for resources, cattle, and yes -- lebensraum (German for 'living room').
Wamwere put it pointedly when he recounted a quasi-joking between he and some other Gikuyu and Kalenjin friends. They joked about Kalenjin getting the best jobs, the best spots in school, or bank loans. The Kalenjin would retort, "Now is our time to eat. You Gikuyu had yours." (66)
For Wamwere, tribalism (or in his term, 'negative ethnicity') has been a powerful tool used by politicians to communicate the notion of 'it's our time to eat.'
Wamwere tells a classic and chilling tale of when Jomo Kenyatta came to power after colonialism, and his government slew one of its own ministers, Tom Mboya, a prominent Luo politician. Luo riots shook Nairobi and Kisumu. Wamwere recalls how Kenyatta responded by forcing Gikuyus to take a loyalty oath.
Those who didn't take it were beaten or killed. Wamwere explained that he too took the oath, partly in fear, and partly in fascination. This oath was against the Luos. This took place in 1969.
The notion of nation is a transient one; for nations come and go; tribe remains.
So, politicians run on the implicit promise that, 'if you elect me, we will eat.'
And while tribe fights tribe over crumbs, the whole socio-economic order serves to send the fat of the land into the kitchens and coffers of Europe and America, while politicians ship their excess wealth to Western banks to hold. For what are these countries but Western creations, with borders designed to preserve corrupt economic relations where the continent becomes a vast plantation, with Black overseers, who manage Black workers for Western profits and exploitation?
While millions of Africans suffer from malnutrition, millions of Americans and Europeans spend billions to try to manage their rampant obesity.
Tribalism? Negative Ethnicity? Or poor people fighting for scraps? --
(c) '08 maj
{Sources: Wamwere, Koigi wa, Negative Ethnicity: From Bias to Genocide (New York: Seven Stories Press/Open Media, 2003); Wamwere, Koigi wa, I Refuse to Die: My Journey for Freedom (New York: Seven Stories, 2002) (for the author's critique of the Moi dictatorship).}
America's Martin & Martin's America by Mumia Abu-Jamal
America's Martin & Martin's America
[col. writ. 1/11/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As millions of people ready themselves for a (hopefully) paid holiday in remembrance of assassinated civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are forced to come to grips with who the man was, rather than who he has been projected to be.
In the words of noted historian (and once King's close confidant) Vincent Harding, America has largely chosen the path of amnesia rather than true remembrance of the man. Prof. Harding wrote, in his 1998 book, Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (Orbis Books):
It appears as if the price for the first nationalist holiday honoring a black man is
the development of a massive case of national amnesia concerning who that
black man really was. At both personal and collective levels, of course, it is often
the case that amnesia is not ultimately harmful to the patient. However, in this case
it is very dangerous, for the things we have chosen to forget about King (and about
ourselves) constitute some of the most hopeful possibilities and resources for our
magnificent and very needy nation. Indeed, I would suggest that we Americans have
chosen amnesia rather than continue King's painful, uncharted, and often
disruptive struggle toward a more perfect union. I would also suggest that those
of us who are historians and citizens have a special responsibility to challenge the
loss of memory, in ourselves and others, to allow our skills in probing the past to
become resources for healing and for hope. In other words, [if] Martin King cannot
challenge those who make him a harmless black icon, then we surely can raise
such a challenge -- assuming that we are still alive. {p.60}
What distinguishes the life and work of King towards his latter days, was his dedication to Black poor folks, a group that seems to be all but forgotten in the years since his passing.
While today's America seems to be on the brink of electing a Black person (or at least possibly nominating one), the plight of the Black poor could hardly be more perilous.
For it is on them that the twin weights of poverty and state repression are dropped, with little relief from a civil rights leadership which occasionally seems overwhelmed with the threats and conflicts facing those of better means and resources.
Indeed, much of that leadership is, as was Dr. King himself, quite highly educated, and seeking entree into the highest levels of state and corporate power; levels virtually impenetrable to millions of Black poor folks.
For them is reserved: the worst of public education the worst housing; brutal treatment by cops; ignored by political leaders (at least until election time rolls around), highest rates of joblessness; the highest incarceration rates -- we know this list can go on and on.
King Day may be remembered, but the man behind the name is fast disappearing.
It is virtually forgotten that he sacrificed his life on behalf of striking garbage men, Black workers who wanted a decent wage to be sure, but also wanted simple, human dignity.
In 1967, one year before his assassination, a perceptive journalist, the late David Halberstam wrote, in Harper's magazine his impressions:
"King has decided to represent the ghettos, he will work in them and speak for them. But their voice is harsh and alienated. If King is to speak for them truly, then his voice must reflect theirs; it, too, must be alienated, and it is likely to be increasingly at odds with American society." [Harding, 62]
America establishes a holiday, and promptly forgets what he lived for.
--(c) '08 maj
[col. writ. 1/11/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As millions of people ready themselves for a (hopefully) paid holiday in remembrance of assassinated civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are forced to come to grips with who the man was, rather than who he has been projected to be.
In the words of noted historian (and once King's close confidant) Vincent Harding, America has largely chosen the path of amnesia rather than true remembrance of the man. Prof. Harding wrote, in his 1998 book, Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (Orbis Books):
It appears as if the price for the first nationalist holiday honoring a black man is
the development of a massive case of national amnesia concerning who that
black man really was. At both personal and collective levels, of course, it is often
the case that amnesia is not ultimately harmful to the patient. However, in this case
it is very dangerous, for the things we have chosen to forget about King (and about
ourselves) constitute some of the most hopeful possibilities and resources for our
magnificent and very needy nation. Indeed, I would suggest that we Americans have
chosen amnesia rather than continue King's painful, uncharted, and often
disruptive struggle toward a more perfect union. I would also suggest that those
of us who are historians and citizens have a special responsibility to challenge the
loss of memory, in ourselves and others, to allow our skills in probing the past to
become resources for healing and for hope. In other words, [if] Martin King cannot
challenge those who make him a harmless black icon, then we surely can raise
such a challenge -- assuming that we are still alive. {p.60}
What distinguishes the life and work of King towards his latter days, was his dedication to Black poor folks, a group that seems to be all but forgotten in the years since his passing.
While today's America seems to be on the brink of electing a Black person (or at least possibly nominating one), the plight of the Black poor could hardly be more perilous.
For it is on them that the twin weights of poverty and state repression are dropped, with little relief from a civil rights leadership which occasionally seems overwhelmed with the threats and conflicts facing those of better means and resources.
Indeed, much of that leadership is, as was Dr. King himself, quite highly educated, and seeking entree into the highest levels of state and corporate power; levels virtually impenetrable to millions of Black poor folks.
For them is reserved: the worst of public education the worst housing; brutal treatment by cops; ignored by political leaders (at least until election time rolls around), highest rates of joblessness; the highest incarceration rates -- we know this list can go on and on.
King Day may be remembered, but the man behind the name is fast disappearing.
It is virtually forgotten that he sacrificed his life on behalf of striking garbage men, Black workers who wanted a decent wage to be sure, but also wanted simple, human dignity.
In 1967, one year before his assassination, a perceptive journalist, the late David Halberstam wrote, in Harper's magazine his impressions:
"King has decided to represent the ghettos, he will work in them and speak for them. But their voice is harsh and alienated. If King is to speak for them truly, then his voice must reflect theirs; it, too, must be alienated, and it is likely to be increasingly at odds with American society." [Harding, 62]
America establishes a holiday, and promptly forgets what he lived for.
--(c) '08 maj
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