'Afrikan Youth: State Destruction or Self Liberation'

Position Statement of the Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum

Pan-Afrikan People's Phone-in Sundays, 7pm-10pm

On air number to call: 0208 144 4547

                                    

Pan-Afrikan Society

Community Forum

07944-204-955

www.pascf.org.uk; pascfevents@gmail.com

 

Statement of the PASCF on the London Uprisings

 

In solidarity with the family and friends of our son Mark Duggan

The PASCF extends our deepest sympathy and forthright solidarity to the family and friends of our son Mark Duggan. Between 6.15pm and 6.41pm on Thursday 4^th August 2011 our 29 year old son Mark was shot dead by London Metropolitan Police gunmen in Tottenham Hale North London.

 

Coming two weekends before our Marcus Garvey African Family Day with its theme of African Youth Thirty Years On: State Destruction or Self-Liberation, the Tottenham Uprising of 6-7th August 2011 confirms something that was never in doubt: the capacity of our African Youth (and our wider African community) militantly to resist injustice and oppression.

 

Contextualizing the current uprising

There is a rising amount of injustice and oppression around at the moment. The racist ruling class is making working people (Africans especially) pay for the destructive structure and operation of a capitalism increasingly dominated by finance capital. This system commodities everything (including nothing) in pursuit of super profits. When this blows up in its face with bogus AAA instruments proving to be what they always were - worthless - it is the capitalist state that 'saves' the finance sector and the economy as a whole. It has to do so by printing and borrowing money.

 

Ideologically right wing capitalists then attack the state for being too large and too debt-burdened. They demand 'cuts' to 'save the nation and posterity.' Poor people pay. The objective noose around the neck of capitalism tightens. The right wing demands tax cuts for the rich. The banks, for their part, as part of 'rebuilding their balance sheets' virtually refuse to lend or lend at interest rates of way above that at which they borrow. The banks pay next to nothing on savings. The finance houses (banks by another name) make super profit by attacking money (the national currencies of all nation-states are commodities that are not just traded but attacked for profits).

 

This completely irrational aspect of the system cannot be curbed because finance capital is king. And so the crisis deepens. The USA and the EU/Euro Zone and the UK (Sterling) are in trouble. So is Japan (its industrial production-based miracle has run its course). So too is China, the leading lender into this system and itself a social powder keg. The question there is: can a Communist/(Stalinist) party structure successfully manage a corrupt capitalist economy in which workers are exploited in myriad un/traditional ways? Those (like Ghaddafi) who dare to propose currency (absolutely not system) alternatives get targeted for murder/regime change. Well serious!

 

State oppression brings people’s resistance

Injustice and oppression reign on the streets of the UK (and elsewhere) as well. The Metropolitan Police is not only in bed with the corporate criminals like News International, taking bribes left right and Centre. It also has its officers killing, humiliating and criminalizing Africans. If they can get away with shooting our sons Derrick Bennett, Azelle Rodney and a Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes (shot some 7/8 or more times in the head in public) why not the killing of Smiley Culture (What were handcuff marks doing on his wrists if he stabbed himself to death using a knife with body-penetrating force?) and why not Mark Duggan on Thursday 4^th August. Eye witnesses say Mark was shot dead by armed police after being 'subdued' and fully under their control. The bullet he is alleged to have fired is now being said to have come from a police issued firearm. It is now officially admitted that the media facilitated the police in the telling their usual lies that Mark had shot one of them before himself being shot dead. If Mark's unlawful killing was fuel, the open assault upon a young African sister towards the end of a peaceful demonstration was more fuel, and lighted match.

 

On top of that, we have a national DNA data base with African people massively over-represented on it! We have Joint Enterprise Statute, dangerous in conception being abused by the police, the state prosecution services and the courts! The Police are in Schools - taking names and information, managing the long-term criminalization of another generation of an entire community as they participate in process of rampant exclusion and false charging of African Youth!

 

Perhaps more than ever and disproportionately at the expense of African people, the police are dealing in drugs and facilitating gangs of many sorts! The police are abusing stop and Search powers exploiting fears about gun and knife crime in trying to justify this humiliating outrage?

 

Late on Saturday 6^th August PASCF members witnessed a search on Railton Road, Brixton (Starting point of the Brixton Uprising of 1981 provoked by the Swamp 81 stop and search Operation!) The victim of that search was an African who appeared well into middle age. One of the police men doing the search had on surgical gloves and only barely avoided stripping the man, so invasive was he. Our member asked that policeman if, having found no evidence of a crime, he had ever had reasonable grounds for suspecting the African and as he walked off he said the African man would tell us what it was about. The poor victim had no idea what the search had been about. He had been asked for a search and had felt obliged to say 'yes'.

 

On 8^th August the Hackney part of the ongoing Uprising followed immediately upon precisely one of these lawless fishing exhibition type searches by Metropolitan Policemen.

 

Youth are the spark of the revolution

Of course the struggle continues with London in flames. So far our children are rising up in Tottenham, Enfield, Islington, Waltham Forest, Walthamstow, Wood Green, Camden, Harlesden, Shepards Bush, Ealing, Queensway, Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, Chelsea, Hounslow, Croydon, Brixton, Loughborough Junction, Crystal Palace, Tooting, Streatham, Clapham, Merton, Camberwell, Peckham, Lewisham, Catford, Lee, Blackheath, Woolwich, Surrey Quays, Old Kent Road, Tower Bridge, Bromley, East Dulwich, Ilford, Chingford, Dalston, Hackney, Canning town, East Ham, Barking, Isle of Dogs, Oxford Circus, Bristol, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Surrey and Suffolk. In addition to militarily defeating the British police force, they summoned Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Home secretary, the Mayor of London and other officials all of whom were on holiday.

 

Not only do our young people presently have the capitalist state on the run but they are demonstrating its logistical limitations for all who have eyes to see. The political pity is that Marx’s working class/proletariat - theoretically history’s appointed "grave diggers of capitalism" - is visible only as one source, along with Black Members of Parliament, of scared, inane and reactionary comments about the spreading Uprising.

 

11th August 2011

THE  5th year this street in Paris named after MUMIA ABU JAMAL 30.April 2011

The PASCF in Paris at the 5th year this street named after MUMIA ABU JAMAL 30.April 2011.

( centre Pam Afrika & Ramoa Afrika from The Move &  Mumia Campiagn along with many others from around the world in support )

Ancestors Shrine

OATH TO OUR ANCESTORS

O Ancestors! Blacker than a thousand midnights…

Afrikan Ancestors! It is to YOU that we, your children, give respect and honor.

O Ancestors! We call upon YOU and welcome you in this place…

Afrikan Ancestors! Let your presence fill this place.

O Ancestors! Who have been purposely excluded from the history books,

so that the world would not know of your greatness…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave civilization to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave the arts to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave music to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave the sciences to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave mathematics to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave medicine to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave literature to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave philosophy to the world…

Our Afrikan Ancestors! Who gave God consciousness to the world…

O Ancestors! We thank you for devoting your life to make a future for us,

your children, grand children, and great grandchildren.

Now, stand with us; strengthen us; guide us; teach us,

and protect us from the snare of our enemies!

Rise up, O Afrikan Ancestors, and let our enemies be scattered!

And give us the wisdom and the boldness to deal with our oppressors

and those who would hinder the liberation and empowerment of our people.

Rise up, O Afrikan Ancestors, and live in us.
And we will not fail to honor you;

We will not fail to respect you;

We will not fail to hear you,

And we will NOT betray you.

Ase`

By Chief Elder Ray Hagins

(Sa Ra Ankhotep Maakheru Setep En Ra)

Issue 5 Revised: Liberation Times newsletter features: 'Free Mumia Campaign' - 'Haiti earthquake, one year on' - The Meaning of Kwanzaa' - 'PASCF Workshops'  - See Document downloads

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Aim: To equip African people locally & globally with skills, knowledge & a common understanding to achieve self determination

Objectives:

• To further study & promote the ideas of Marcus Garvey & the UNIA to all African people regarding methods of organization, unity & economic self reliance.
• To work toward ending universal racism / white supremacy in all areas of people activity 
• To Promote and work toward the unity and understanding of all African people
• To promote the teaching of African world history & its specific connections with African Liberation today & the ending of Racism (white supremacy)
• To further develop & promote African peoples potential to create economic growth
• To realize the call for reparations
• To respect & find a unitary way of working with Africans of varying faiths and political persuasions within the objectives of the PASCF

PASCF open Planning Meetings (Mondays 6.30pm to 9pm) 
The purpose of these meetings is to plan Kwanzaa, African Liberation Day as well as lead up and other workshops which take place throughout the year. Planning meetings and workshops are open to all Africans (including those from the Caribbean and Americas) only. You don’t need to be a member to attend however you need to be a member of the PASCF to vote (See Membership page). For further details come along to a meeting, workshop or contact us. Members are notified when PASCF or MGOC committees are meeting

Meeting & Workshop venue Lysada :DexterAdventure Playground 2-30 Railton Road, Brixton, SE24 0LN                                                                                                                                       
Tube: Brixton - Buses: 3, 37,45 , 59, 432, 159,196, 333