PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANTS: Lee Ocran calls them Dreamers and More

Ambassador Lee Ocran

Comrade Lee Ocran, National Vice Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said that many of the people who want to become Presidential candidates of the party are dreamers.

He said “many of them are just dreamers and they are amusing themselves”.

Mr Ocran was speaking in an interview on “Talk Time” a current affairs programme on Pan African Television.

Asked what he made of the many party members who were springing up and declaring themselves as presidential aspirants, he said “sometimes I wonder if they think contesting for the presidency is like contesting district assembly elections”.

“Things will cool down and everybody will see his or her level very soon”, he said.

Asked about why the NDC lost the last election, Comrade Ocran said “we believed that infrastructural development was the way forward and the people said no, they wanted the wild promises of the NPP”.

He said the NDC has started its reorganisation and could return to power sooner than later.

Comrade Ocran said leading members of the party have been asked to contribute financially to the reorganisation of the party.

Editorial

LEE IS RIGHT

Uncle Lee as he is popularly called is saying something interesting and we feel that he ought to be listened to.

Of course, being National Vice Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Lee Ocran must have some deeper understanding of the contest for the presidential candidature of the party.

He says that many of the numerous party members who are busily proclaiming themselves as presidential aspirants are nothing more than dreamers who are amusing themselves.

Speaking in an interview on “Talk Time” on Pan African Television, he said sometimes when he listens to some of them he wonders if they think that the presidential contest is like contesting District Assembly elections.

It is time some of these people stopped their very cruel joke on a party whose members are still struggling to overcome defeat and to rebuild.

This is not the time for egoists who think that the world begins and ends with them.

These dreamers are dreaming useless dreams which will not do the people of Ghana any good.

What we should be focusing on now is not who will lead but what can be done to salvage our country and people.

‘GREAT THREAT TO GLOBAL SECURITY’

Maria Zakharova

Moscow has urged US intelligence services to provide a detailed and open response to WikiLeaks’ accusations of CIA hacking activities as #Vault7 constitutes a serious threat to international security, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

 “We’d really like the security services in Washington to respond fully and openly to the released documents with specific facts, and if this information is confirmed then it poses a great threat to the world and international security,” Zakharova said at a briefing in the Russian capital.

Moscow “occasionally” receives information about the activities of the American special services, she pointed out.    

Previously, such reports “were always confirmed, but also there always attempts to retouch this information and remove it from the front pages,” Zakharova said. 

“In any case, almost every time this information was confirmed,” the ministry’s spokeswoman said. 

On Tuesday, WikiLeaks released the first installment of the #Vault7 leak, revealing the scope of the CIA’s hacking capabilities. 

According to the whistleblower group, the batch of 8,761 documents accounts for only 1 percent of the total files to be released.

The leaks have revealed the CIA’s covert hacking targets, which included computers, smartphones, routers and even smart TVs infiltrated for the purpose of collecting audio, even when the device is switched off.

The Google Android operating system, used in 85 percent of the world’s smartphones, was also exposed as having severe vulnerabilities, which allowed the CIA to “weaponize” the devices.

The US government hackers were able to access data from social messaging platforms, including WhatsApp, Weibo and Clockman before encryption, the leaks revealed. 

During his livestream on Thursday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised that the group would provide tech companies that suffered "billions of dollars of damage" due to the CIA hacking "exclusive access" to technical data it has obtained.

Trial Of Saharawi Nationalists Resumes

By Peter Kenworthy

International presence and pressure was necessary to ensure a fair re-trial, that continue on March 13, against the Gdeim Izik Group from Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, who Amnesty International says were “unfairly convicted.” The Group strenuously denies the charges, claim that they are politically motivated, and insist that confessions used at the trial were obtained using torture.

In 2013, 21 members of the so-called Gdeim Izik Group were given sentences of between 20 years and life imprisonment in a military court for allegedly belonging to a “criminal group” and for acts of “deadly violence” against Moroccan “public forces in the line of duty.”

The offenses allegedly happened during and after the violent Moroccan raid of the Saharawi Gdeim Izik protest camp outside El Aaiun in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, where over 15,000 Saharawis peacefully protested against Moroccan occupation in late-2010. The Group strenuously denies the charges, claim that they are politically motivated, and insist that confessions used at the trial were obtained using torture.

Amnesty International stated in 2016 that the 2013-trial was “grossly unfair,” that the Gdeim Izik Group were “unfairly convicted”, and that the claims of confessions obtained by torture must be independently investigated for the re-trial to be fair.

Unfair trial
But the re-trial of the Gdeim Izik Group has so far been biased and politically motivated, the most basic principles of a fair trial have not been met, and a court representing a colonial power does not have any jurisdiction in their homeland, Western Sahara.

Nevertheless, the judge has said that he did not see the international agreements that Morocco has signed as legally binding in the trial and furthermore refused the defendants bail, even though they have been in prison for six years after a trial that was declared null and void. The most basic principles of a fair trial have thus not been met.

These are the overall conclusions, made by Norwegian law student Tone Moe and Portuguese human rights activist Isabel Lourenco, who were present at the initial court sessions of the re-trial on December 26, 2016 and 23-25 January in Sale near Rabat.

Hostile environment
Other findings made by Moe and Lourenco were that the defence team were not given access to the full contents of the case file, were interrupted “numerous times” by the judge and prosecutor while the prosecution was allowed to speak freely, were not allowed to speak about the political background for the Gdeim Izik protest camp, and that the defendants were often unable to speak with their lawyers, to hear what was said in the courtroom or to take notes due to being denied pens and paper.

There was also a lot of hostility directed towards the Saharawis who took an interest in the case, according to Moe and Lourenco.

The Moroccan press referred to the defendants as “criminals” and seemingly regarded them as guilty before the case was concluded. Saharawis who wished to protest or enter the court room had dead rats and other objects thrown at them or were threatened by Moroccan bystanders, and some were refused admission to the court room.

Business as usual
According to Abba Malainin, the representative in Denmark of Saharawi liberation movement Polisario, these conclusions are consistent with how Morocco deals with matters regarding Western Sahara, or “the southern provinces” as the colony is usually called by the Moroccan authorities and in the Moroccan media.

He therefore doubts if they will receive a fair trial without any real pressure being put on Morocco, both in regard to the case and Western Sahara in general.

“Many of the accused are leading members of Saharawi organizations and were conducting negotiations with the Moroccan authorities prior to the violent dismantlement of the Gdeim Izik camp. The real reason for their detention is their activism for human rights in occupied Western Sahara, their support for the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination, and their work to expose the illegal exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources by Morocco and third parties such as the EU, says Malainin.

Even so, the spirits of the 21 Saharawi defendants were apparently still high during the court sessions. On more than one occasion upon arriving in court, where they appeared dressed in traditional Saharawi Daraa’s, they chanted "Labadil, Labadil, Antakrir El Masir” - "there is no other solution than self-determination.”

Morocco invaded Western Sahara and suppressed the indigenous Saharawi population in 1975 in violation of international law. They have consistently stalled UN demands for a referendum on the status of the colony since the cease-fire with Polisario in 1991. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Freedom House regard the Moroccan regime in Western Sahara as one of the most repressive in the world, and the UN Special Rapporteur for Torture, Juan Mendez, reported “systematic patterns of acts of torture and ill-treatment during the detention and arrest process” in Western Sahara in 2013.

India’s God Industry

By Stefan

Politicised Hinduism or ‘Hindutva’ has not attracted the same attention – outside India at least – as similar movements in Islam and Christianity. But it is no less remarkable. The social forces underlying Hindutva are analyzed by Meera Nanda in her books Prophets Looking Backward (Rutgers University Press, 2003) and The God Market (Random House India, 2009).

Invented ‘traditions’
What is happening in India may look like the revival of old traditions, but Nanda points out that many ‘traditions’ were invented quite recently. For example, a “brand new hybrid god” has been created by combining the head of the elephant god Ganesha with the features of the ape god Hanuman. A high school science teacher has recast Mariamman, who used to be the goddess of smallpox, as the goddess of AIDS.

New ceremonies have also proven popular – and money spinners for the priests who preside over them. Thus, many temples have installed “golden cars” – chariot-like vehicles in which an idol “is taken around the temple perimeter in a procession led by priests, musicians, elephants, etc.” Huge crowds watch re-enactments of the divine wedding between Meenakshi and Sundareshwara.

Ritual for the upper strata
In the early and mid-twentieth century it was common for educated Indians (if religious at all) to take pride in their “philosophical” approach to Hinduism, as opposed to the superstitious practice of the benighted masses, centred on idol worship, rituals, fasts and sacrifices. By contrast, the current fashion for religious ritual is strongest among the upper strata of society. A 2007 survey found that educated urban Indians are more – not less – religious than rural illiterates.

Why should this be? Part of the reason may well be simply that only the relatively well-off can afford the costs associated with ostentatious religious observance. By no means everyone, for instance, can afford to go off on long pilgrimages, though the numbers who do are still mind-boggling. (The Balaji temple at Tirupati was visited by over 23 million pilgrims in 2004.)

The state-temple-corporate complex
Whatever else it may be, the god industry in India is a big business with enormous political clout. Priests and gurus receive generous material support from the supposedly secular government, such as land and infrastructure for new temples, and ashrams and schools for training priests. In some provinces, priests are now paid directly by the government. All this is justified in the name of promoting culture, tourism and economic development.
Religious institutions also get financial support from leading Indian companies, prompting Nanda to speak of a “state-temple-corporate complex.” The privatisation of higher education has enabled the priests to make major inroads in this sector.

A game for everyone
The ideology of Hindutva, which fuses Hinduism with Indian nationalism, is associated most closely with the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party or, in English, Indian People’s Party) and its allies. It is, indeed, these forces that are most adept at exploiting religious sentiment to mobilize political support.

Since the late 1970s, however, the other main national party, the Indian National Congress, has increasingly compromised its original commitment to secularism and tried to use religion in its own interests. Even the ‘communists’ and other ‘leftists’ play the same game. Thus, in 2007 top officials of the Left Front government of West Bengal participated in a ceremony to bless land that they had forcibly taken from farmers in order to build a car factory for Tata Motors.

The atomic elephant
Hindutva also serves the great-power ambitions of the Indian state. The BJP stands for “a foreign policy driven by a nationalist agenda” and “a strong national defence” (www.bjp.org). The ‘Indian nation’ is imbued with sacred qualities, while ‘Greater India’ is conceived of as a Hindu realm extending over all of South Asia and much of Southeast Asia. 

When India conducted a successful nuclear test, idols of Ganesh appeared at festivals around the country with guns in the elephant’s hands and atomic orbits in place of the halo traditionally placed around his head. There was a plan to build a temple dedicated to Shakti, goddess of energy, at the site of the test explosion, but fear of radioactivity led to its abandonment.

What about globalisation?
The rise of a religiously based Indian nationalism is at variance with the stereotype of globalisation as a process leading to cultural homogenisation, with American culture becoming global culture – the Macdonaldisation or Coca-Colonisation of the world. Let us note here that in the economic sphere the BJP enthusiastically embraces globalisation. The BJP, according to its website, favors “small government and free-market economic policies.”
The stereotype is vulnerable to criticism on several grounds. Globalisation facilitates the expansion not only of American or Western corporations, but also of sufficiently competitive companies based in other regions. That includes at least some Indian companies, as shown by Mittal’s takeover of East European steel mills. The same applies to the religion business: witness the success of various Indian guru-entrepreneurs in Western markets.

Nanda develops another interesting argument. She observes that during the early Nehruvian period of Indian independence (1947 - 1975), when Indian nationalism had real material content (a national development strategy based on a strong state sector, protectionism, etc.) religious nationalism was very weak. When economic nationalism was abandoned, religious nationalism rushed in to fill the ideological vacuum. That is, economic and religious-cultural nationalism are functional substitutes not complements.
Socialists do not take sides in the contest between national capitalism and global capitalism. We are not just against capitalist globalization but capitalism in all its various forms.

A Tale of Two Realities: Donald Trump and Israel

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, Global Research

After what came out after the meeting between Netanyahu and Trump, I am not exaggerating if I say that yesterday there was a semi-official announcement of the death of the path of negotiations. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Feb 16, 2017.

It was supremely wicked, and rapidly meandered into horse muddied waters.  US President Donald J. Trump had openly expressed what many a US politician has felt but avoided for the sake of false decency: the two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine was “a bad idea”.  There was only one supremo in this fight, and it certainly did not entail the downtrodden in Gaza or the West Bank.

In his consistently inconsistent manner before a press corps he has come to loathe, Trump also claimed that he could, “live with two-state or one-state”: “I’m looking at two-state and one-state and I like the one both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like.”

Another comment, of the same ilk, was equally gravity defying.  “I thought for a while it looked like the two-state, looked it may be the easier of the two, but honestly if Bibi and if the Palestinians, if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I’m happy with the one they like the best.”

Not exactly high flying wisdom, given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s general reluctance about giving ground on the issue, or mixed Palestinian stances on the subject. The general US approach to this has been to back Israel with few qualifications and insist that both sides yield in some undefined manner.

The tone has varied at stages, be it the Clinton guidelines set out at the Camp David summit or the meaningless “road map for peace” outlined at the Annapolis conference by George W. Bush.  The Obama administration kept the circus going, with a few neat additions, and failed.  The bitter icing on these fruitless efforts came from an indignant and frustrated Secretary of State, John Kerry.

Veteran Palestinian negotiator and member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Hanan Ashrawi was understandably baffled by this change in the air, though the air on this subject had already thickened with Trump’s election.   “Accommodating the most extreme and irresponsible elements in Israel and in the White House is no way to make responsible foreign policy.”

A livid, ashen-looking Saeb Erekat saw even darker implications.  “Those who believe that they can undermine the two-state solution and replace it with what I call one state two systems – apartheid – I don’t think in the 21^st century they will get away with it. It’s impossible.”  Fine sentiments indeed, though states continue “getting away” with atrocious conduct under the cover of law, provided they receive the relevant backing, or impotent complicity.

There was a moment when a bemused Netanyahu was faced with another observation from Trump: that Israel tread carefully on its illegal settlements, that great weapon that continues to render a two-state solution nugatory.

For Trump, the aggressive policy of continued building was perhaps not such a good idea, though there was nothing stopping the state of Israel from pushing on with it in cautious fashion.  “I would like to see you pull back on settlements a little bit.”  “The Art of the Deal!” exclaimed Netanyahu.

The Israeli Prime Minister has been pursuing his own variant of the deal, though there is very little artistic about it. In his Bar-Ilan University speech in 2009, Netanyahu accepted the two-state solution.  Before the 2015 election, he changed his mind, only to repudiate that stance after he won a fourth term.  His current approach is to render any discussion about the Jewish settlement problem irrelevant to the main discussions with the Palestinians.

Such a position is also allied to another, more invidious approach: that of assuming that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are simply incapable of unifying on the issue of how best to pursue a two-state solution.  The comment from Abba Eben has become something of a reflex: “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Divided, the Palestinian house has effectively fallen on the sword of a perceived Realpolitik: that a true stance to negotiate over would assume that Israel also include the occupied territories, but within a secular arrangement of equal rights. (This has a certain sinister tone of being different yet equal, though it seems to have wings in some circles.)

Even Erekat noted that vision of “one single secular and democratic state with equal rights for everyone, Christians, Muslims and Jews, on all of historic Palestine.”  That would effectively ditch the notion of Israel as the supreme Jewish state, singular and exclusive, a stance that is nigh impossible to envisage.

It remains to be seen whether that fateful press conference buried the two-state idea with few funeral rites.  If so, such a process can hardy banish the militant misery and indignation that Palestinians will continue to nurse and express.  The implacable enemy within remains the most dangerous of all.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn Co

‘BOURGEOIS’ IDEOLOGY

One of my less endearing characteristics, according to some friends, is my condemnation of anything I find politically or culturally objectionable as ‘bourgeois’. It is a polemical convention that socialists sometimes use as a description of values and concepts we find to be provocatively antithetical. For non-socialists this kind of political shorthand can be mystifying and downright annoying. So what exactly do we mean when we use this most cutting and dismissive of critiques? Is there a coherent set of values and principles that underlies the constant drone of contemporary cultural commentary which represents a conscious attempt to control our response to events and ideas and make them conform to political norms?

Before continuing our analysis we must define what we mean by ‘bourgeois’. Historically it defined the capitalists who were to challenge the political hegemony of the king and aristocracy. After having been successful in their quest for power they now represent a ruling class. Today’s ‘middle class’ can be defined as members of the working class who are relatively a little more affluent than their fellows and who, more importantly, aspire to the position and values of the ruling class. In many ways it is this section of our society that has attempted a political defence of their masters in terms of a value system (ideology).

Throughout this article when referring to this ideology it is not a reference to any work done specifically by members of the bourgeoisie themselves, but rather to the efforts of those who seek to proclaim and defend their legitimacy. Bourgeois economics for instance, is rarely, if ever, the product of the class that bears its name but rather that of those who are blessed and sponsored by them (including mainstream media etc).

So what is the essence of this ideology? Perhaps there are three elements that are always present: (a) the deification of the market, (b) the need for authoritarian social structures and (c) the contempt for real ‘work’. Other bourgeois ideologists replace these three categories with: (a) rational economic exchange, (b) democratic security and (c) success as a celebration of ‘hard work’. This obvious dialectically opposed description of the same ideology is an illustration of what Marx called the ‘internal contradictions’ within the attempt to rationalise the ruling class’s power. As to which description is more relevant or which better represents ‘reality’ let us now revisit our categories in turn.

Adam Smith’s celebration of the ‘invisible hand’ in his work The Wealth of Nations was an important step towards the deification of the market system. It is both a supernatural metaphor for the economic mechanism of capitalism together with a quasi-religious admiration for it. In a way Marx also shared this admiration but only insofar as it made socialism possible. Marx systematically demystified capitalist economics and although he represented the climax of Smith’s classical tradition, subsequent economists have sought to distance themselves from his work. Why? Because he revealed it for what it was, and still is – the exploitation of the majority by a parasitic tiny minority.

Most contemporary economists work within the narrow paradigms of capitalist ideology that refute the possibility of any alternative economic relationship and, through ignorance, proclaim it as the ‘true faith’. As a result of their attempt to ‘rationalise the irrational’ most people are totally mystified and believe that these high priests of bourgeois ideology must have access to some profound secret that explains it all – when all they have, in reality, is their faith.

Given the stark contradiction between the social production of everything and the individual ownership of what’s produced it is not surprising that this tiny minority feel the need for the threat of force to be available to defend their wealth. This is the only reason for the existence of the state and its enforcers: the armed services and police. Bourgeois ideology depends on a phantom of ‘human nature’ as greedy, envious and violent in order to rationalise this ever-present threat. Enshrined in their ‘laws’ are the rights to defend their stolen wealth with violence and imprisonment. This authoritarian ethos becomes even more dangerous when, as periodically occurs, capitalism crashes and the subsequent chaos encourages people to blame immigrants and foreigners for their economic suffering, which in turn, enables the authoritarian character of the state to flourish.

Bourgeois ideology has no interest in whether ‘work’ is fulfilling, meaningful or even destructive just so long as it’s profitable. If, as socialists believe, the very essence of our humanity is our creative work and the benefits it brings to the community, then capitalism has rendered us ‘inhuman’. An employer once told me, when asked what motivated him, that: ‘I want to lie around on a desert island and never work again’. Such a sad superficial understanding of what brings happiness to humanity together with the obvious contempt for any kind of ‘work’ is an indictment of their ideological perversion of a basic human need.

This then, is the ideology created by the intelligentsia of capitalism. It is debatable how appropriate or informative the use of the term ‘bourgeois’ is for all of the intellectual and productive endeavours within capitalism, but given the above definition it seems always present to a greater or lesser degree. We have to bear in mind that socialism will be born out of capitalism and so some of its activities are potentially subversive and progressive. Although there is much talk of ‘bourgeois science’ it is hard to recognize an ideological element within mathematics or geometry; that particular debate has yet to be resolved. Of course the uses to which science is put in this benighted culture of ours are readily explained by bourgeois ideology but perhaps the ‘scientific method’ itself, however problematic, will aid and not hinder the cause of revolution.

The Detroit Rebellion of 1967 and Its Global Significance

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Lessons for the 21st century and the continuing need for revolutionary organization 

This program was designed to acknowledge, commemorate and celebrate the historic July 1967 African American working class rebellion in Detroit and other cities across the United States during the same time period. It is also the beginning of a year-long dialogue on the political significance of this monumental development and what it portended for the world then and some five decades later in the 21^st century.

We know that this anniversary will be a nervous one from the standpoint of the white-dominated ruling class and its surrogates. There will be an attempt to frame the Detroit Rebellion as a series of criminal acts devoid of social significance.

Although we are five decades removed from this outbreak of righteous indignation on the part of the oppressed people, the capitalist rulers can never admit that their systematic institutional racism and exploitation serves as the underpinning for all forms of resistance aimed at national liberation and social justice. From the period of slavery right through the failure of Reconstruction to Jim Crow segregation, lynching, the Great Depression, Cold War, and the contemporary period of benign neglect and state repression, African people have fought back against what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described as the “triple evils” of racism, war and poverty.

The deliberate distortion of the actual history of Detroit and its African American community is crafted to maintain the social status-quo. Despite the fact that gains were made from the self-organization and emancipatory movements of the post-World War II awakenings and increasing levels of national consciousness, the ruling capitalist class has sought to reverse all   advancements won by the people.

Moreover, there are striking parallels with the situation in 2017 and that of 1967. Racism is still very much in evidence. African Americans and other oppressed people are subjected to economic deprivation such as higher unemployment rates, deeper levels of poverty and desperation along with political suppression. The governmental system in the U.S. has never recognized through the Constitution and its amendments the special oppression of the African people who were brought here as slaves.

It was the profits accrued from the exploitation of slave labor and the land stolen from the indigenous people that built America into the most powerful imperialist state. Fundamentally there has been no transformation of the ownership of the means of production or the relations of production.

Consequently, the ruling billionaire firms, their corporate media enablers and the bureaucratic petty-bourgeois functionaries have a vested interest in ignoring the importance of 1967 and all other symbols of resistance and affirmation by the oppressed. They tell us on a daily basis that we should have faith in the capitalist rulers who will save us from the ills that they themselves have perpetuated for centuries.

Therefore, it is essential that we tell our own story. We must remind them of the ongoing exploitation which has rendered the city of Detroit as the most impoverished major municipality in the U.S.

This situation did not develop spontaneously. It is a by-product of a host of policies which favor the rich and deprive the workers and poor. Objectively, we are still locked into to colonial and neo-colonial oppression where the priorities of the wealthy supersede those of the needy and most worthy.

Just over the last decade at least 100,000 households have been dislocated in the city. Many of these people were forced out of Detroit into the suburbs or other cities. Many have remained in the city living in most cases under worst conditions than just a few years ago.

Our homes and apartments have been stolen by the banks and their agents in government working for the ruling class and not the people. Schools within the communities have been closed. The infrastructure of the city has been neglected in its crumbling state. These factors create human ecological damage which propelled hundreds of thousands into uncertainty, sickness and death.

No matter how many lies we are told by the corporate media and the bourgeois politicians it is quite obvious that the situation is getting more dangerous for the people. We know that what is described as the “revitalization” of Detroit is merely another method of extracting more wealth from the majority of the population through low-wage employment, tax captures, and the runaway spending on “prestige projects” which have no real benefit for the masses of working people and the poor.

We have to continue to be the voice of the voiceless. We must project an image of positivity for the struggle against racism, national oppression and super-exploitation. In actuality there is no other solution than the destruction of the capitalist system and the construction of socialism.

The wealth of the city, the state and the U.S. as a whole rightfully belongs to the people. It is our task to organize and mobilize for its seizure and redistribution to those who do the work and have been aggrieved by the ravages of injustice and expropriation on the part of the rich. There can be no compromise in these critical times. The current administration of President Donald Trump represents not a triumph of the ruling class but an illustration of its weakness and desperation. The ideology of the ruling class in the U.S. today is heavily influenced by the shifting demographics where the so-called minorities will become the majority in another quarter century; while at the same time the concentration of wealth is becoming more narrow every decade; and the repressive apparatus of the state is increasing militarized and rationalized under the false notions of combating “illegal immigration”, “Islamic terrorism”, and “crime in the streets.” Indeed we are fighting for our very lives and those of our children along with future generations.

Nonetheless, the real criminals, the capitalist ruling class of bankers, retailers and industrialists remain free to conduct their business of systematic theft. They pay no taxes while we are forced out of our homes, jobs and schools whose value has been reduced to nothing due to the activities of the financial institutions and their collaborators.

As tensions mount throughout the country and indeed the world, it is incumbent upon us to do all that we can to put an end to these violations of human rights and decency. The lessons of 1967 can be quite instructive to the task we are facing in the modern era.

What Actually Happened in 1967?

There are striking similarities between the ruling class narrative of five decades ago and 2017.

Detroit was a “model city” after 1966 ostensibly poised for revitalization in light of already industrial and geographic restructuring. The city was led by a white liberal Democratic Party Mayor Jerome Cavanaugh who was often spoken of a lesser version of President John F. Kennedy. In fact Detroit was even being considered to host the 1968 Olympics and a promotional film was issued in 1963 promoting the city as an ideal setting for the world event.

A peaceful demonstration by Wayne State University students from the group called Uhuru (freedom) that was founded in 1963, at an official event designed to attract attention to Detroit for consideration as the venue for the 1968 Olympics, resulted in arrests. At least one student, John Watson, who later became editor of the South End in 1968 during its revolutionary phase, was taken out of class by the police and charged with a crime even though he was not at the protest action. These students were later acquitted due to the absurd nature of the charges however it was a reflection of the nervousness that prevailed in this time period.

Later in 1966, a mini-rebellion erupted around Kercheval Street on the city’s eastside. The unrest was contained and the Cavanaugh administration was hailed by the corporate media for taking measures that curtailed a large outbreak. That same summer of 1966, urban rebellions took place in 40 cities throughout the U.S. with the largest being in the Hough section of Cleveland in May and in Chicago during July amid the Freedom Movement and the intervention of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The Civil Rights organization in the wake of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 shifted its focus to Chicago in an attempt to see if the tactics of nonviolent, civil disobedience and mass demonstrations could win concessions from the ruling class.

The Chicago Rebellion of July 1966 came on the heels of the advent of the Black Power slogan enunciated by Willie Ricks and Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the “March Against Fear” through the Delta Mississippi in June of that year. Both SCLC and SNCC were blamed for the urban rebellions of 1966 by the racist city administrations and their capitalist benefactors. It was said that the conditions for African Americans in Chicago were far better than what existed in the South and that the problems of slums, joblessness, lack of political representation and police brutality could not be solved overnight.

By early 1967 the social situation in the U.S. had grown more volatile. The escalation of the War in Vietnam robbed resources from the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s so-called “Great Society” programs, two of which being “Model Cities” and the “War on Poverty.” Both SCLC and SNCC by 1967 had come out publicly against the occupation of South Vietnam and bombing of the North under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Rebellions began to erupt in various cities with Newark, New Jersey being the most widespread starting on July 12.

Nevertheless, just 11 days later the city of Detroit seething from decades of de facto segregation and a split racist labor market exploded. Police raided a private club located on 12^th Street between Clairmount and Atkinson. The intrusion prompted outrage in the neighborhood as people flooded out into the streets throwing rocks and bottles at the police.

Within a brief period of time windows of the local businesses were smashed while people liberated merchandise. The old Virginia Park 12th Street area was an overcrowded district with deteriorating housing stock and schools, lacking proper resources and public services. African Americans were largely disenfranchised through the citywide municipal governing structure allowing only one Councilperson, Nicholas Hood, in the legislative branch of government.

Police in the initial hours of the rebellion were forced to pull back their forces. It was assumed that the anger would soon subside and people would leave the streets. Congressman John Conyers and Deputy Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Arthur Johnson were sent over to 12th Street in an effort to calm the crowds. The masses were not having any conciliatory talk. They shouted Conyers down. A missile was thrown as a warning for them to leave. Both men soon vanished from the scene.

Hours later in the early afternoon some two dozen businesses were firebombed by youths using Molotov cocktails in rapid succession. The unrest soon expanded to Linwood Avenue just three blocks west of 12th Street. As the news spread through informal channels and the corporate media more people pour onto the streets in the Virginia Park area as well as other parts of the city extending to the east side.

City authorities feeling overwhelmed in the first half-day of the rebellion summoned the-then Governor George Romney of Michigan to deploy the National Guard. These troops began to arrive by the late afternoon and early evening. The people continued to challenge the authorities by liberating merchandise, setting fires to businesses and firing rifles and shotguns at the police and National Guard from buildings.

By late Sunday evening, Gov. Romney was compelled to conduct a flyover of the impacted areas of the city. Large sections of the city were already in flames. Romney then was taken on a guided tour of impacted areas of Detroit concluding that the situation was beyond the capacity of both the local and state police as well as the National Guard to contain. Romney then sent a telegram to President Johnson asking for the deployment of federal troops to assist in restoring order.

Johnson balked at the request from Romney. The Michigan governor had declared recently that he would be seeking the 1968 Republican nomination for the presidency. Romney, a former president and Chairman of the Board of the now-defunct Detroit-based American Motors Corporation (AMC), was a political adversary of LBJ who at that time had a strong possibility of winning re-election the following year. However, the proliferation of urban rebellions and the exposure of the futility of U.S. military policy in Vietnam would result in Johnson’s withdrawal from politics just eight months following the Detroit Rebellion.

The following day as the Rebellion spread throughout larger areas of Detroit, Johnson deployed Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance to the city to survey the situation to determine if the dispatching of federal troops was warranted. By Monday evening July 24, Vance informed Johnson that additional reinforcements were required. Johnson went on national television to explain why troops were being deployed to Detroit. He decried the violence and called for the Rebellion to be halted.

By late Monday evening, thousands of troops from the 82^nd and 101^st Airborne Divisions of the U.S. Army were deployed in Detroit. They were to serve as a reserve unit in case the violence escalated to higher levels. By this time National Guard and police were engaging in a reign of terror throughout the city. People were being gunned down at random. Homes and apartments were shot up by Guardsmen saying that were suspected of harboring snipers.

The unrest continued through Thursday July 27. The city was placed under a curfew from 9:00pm to 6:00am. Anyone caught on the street without proper authorization would be arrested. There were several people killed for simply traveling in their vehicles and on foot during the curfew hours.

An article published by Bridge magazine recalled: “The Detroit Fire Department responded to 3,034 calls during the…week. A total of 690 buildings were destroyed or had to be demolished. Two firefighters died and 84 were seriously injured. A fire expert who studied Detroit’s… blazes concluded the ‘city had narrowly averted a firestorm’ like those in Tokyo, Berlin other urban war zones during World War II. Dozens of suburban departments came to Detroit’s aid….It took about 17,000 members of various organizations to quell the [rebellion]: Vietnam-hardened – and integrated – U.S. Army troops from the 82d and 101st Airborne units; Detroit Police; Michigan National Guard; and Michigan State Police. ” (March 11, 2016)

Initial property damage estimates in the Detroit Rebellion extended up to $1 billion. It was later lowered largely for political reasons. By the time the unrest had subsided some 43 people had been killed, the majority of whom were African Americans. Hundreds of others were wounded and suffered multiple injuries. Over 7,200 people were arrested filling the jails beyond capacity leading to the detention of people on busses and at Belle Isle.

Johnson in the same week announced the establishment of a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder chaired by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois. When the report of the panel was issued in late March of 1968, Johnson refused to accept its findings. The Kerner Commission said what most African Americans already knew: that American society was divided into two, one Black and one White. It cited the biased role of the corporate media for fueling tensions and criticized the lack of quality housing, education and employment available to most African Americans.

The Fire Next Time

A recently-released documentary entitled “I Am Not Your Negro” by Raoul Peck, focuses on the life, times and legacy of legendary African American novelist, essayist, playwright and public intellectual James Baldwin (1924-1987). Baldwin had rose to prominence beginning in the late 1940s when he lived as an expatriate in Paris, fleeing from the horrendous levels of racism then prevalent in the U.S.

By the 1950s, Baldwin became a leading literary figure with a string of novels, articles and books of essays which sold millions. In the early 1960s, as the Civil Rights Movement grew more militant, he joined in anti-segregation efforts throughout the South and the North.

The documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson is based on the text of an incomplete book by Baldwin in which he was working on at the time of his death. The book was autobiographical in nature, looking at his own experiences through the lives of three leading African American political figures of the period: Medgar Evers, the field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi; Malcom X, the former spokesperson for the Nation of Islam founded in Detroit in 1930; and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had evolved into a principal enemy of the U.S. ruling class by 1967. All three men were assassinated between 1963 and 1968.

Baldwin’s most well-known book is entitled “The Fire Next Time” published in 1963. The work prefigures the rising militancy within the African American nation. It foresaw the urban rebellions based upon the failure of the U.S. ruling class to effectively address the race problem.

What is important to consider in the history of the Civil Rights Movement of the Post-World War II period is the impact of the Cold War generated by the competition surrounding the systems of capitalism and socialism. The U.S. ruling class was compelled in the struggle with the USSR, China, Cuba, Democratic Korea, Vietnam and the national liberation movements, among others, to institute reforms that were being demanded by the domestic situation. The anti-U.S. propaganda value of the continued apartheid conditions existing among African Americans was immense. There was no way that Washington could justify waging war on the socialist countries and the national liberation movements while Africans were being barred from public institutions in the areas of municipal services, education, housing and employment.

The Fire Next Time observes that: “White Americans have contended themselves with gestures that are now described as ‘tokenism.’ For hard example, white Americans congratulate themselves on the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the schools; they suppose, in spite of the mountain of evidence that has since accumulated to the contrary, that this was proof of a change of heart—or, as they like to say, progress. Perhaps. It all depends on how one reads the word ‘progress’. Most of the Negroes I know do not believe that this immense concession would ever have been made if it had not been for the competition of the Cold War, and the fact that Africa was clearly liberating herself and therefore had, for political reasons, to be wooed by the descendants of her former masters. Had it been a matter of love or justice, the 1954 decision would surely have occurred sooner; were it not for the realities of power in this difficult era, it might very well not have occurred yet.” (pp. 86-87)

As it relates to the social conditions of the African American people there was never any intention by the ruling class to make fundamental changes to the system of national oppression and class exploitation. The appearance of change, or even quantitative improvements, does not equal transformation. If there are no basic alterations of the structural barriers to the achievement of full equality and self-determination, then the question of liberation remains unanswered.

In the Fire Next Time, Baldwin notes: “I think this is a fact, which serves no purpose to deny, but, whether it is a fact or not, this is what the black population of the world, including black Americans, really believe. The word ‘independence’ in Africa and the word ‘integration’ here are almost equally meaningless; that is, Europe has not yet left Africa, and black men here are not yet free. And both of these last statements are undeniable facts, related facts, containing the gravest implications for us all. The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream.” (pp. 87-88)

1967: High Tide of Black Resistance

Nevertheless, other voices within the African American liberation struggle in subsequent years did articulate a view of not only creating disorder but also working towards the seizure of state power leading to the eradication of the capitalist system. This view was developed in Detroit in the aftermath of the 1967 Rebellion when organizations were founded to bring about what they saw a total freedom.

The findings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder could not be accepted by Johnson or the following administration of President Richard M. Nixon. Sentiment in favor of even minimal reforms had shifted to an emphasis on the liquidation of the African American liberation movement through the social containment of the oppressed nation. U.S. imperialism’s priorities in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa, the most evident during the late 1960s and 1970s, influenced the domestic policies in an economic crisis which took hold in the years of 1971-75.

Soon enough an unprecedented level of capitalist restructuring became entrenched within the system itself. This process continues well into the 21^st century.

During 1968, an organization was formed in Detroit which distinguished the movement here from anywhere else in the U.S. In February of 1968, a wildcat strike at the Dodge Main Chrysler facility in Hamtramck soon resulted in the formation of the Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM). This organizing model spread to other production facilities in the Detroit area threatening the viability of industrial capitalism at the point of production. These factories employed young African American workers in significant numbers in critical areas of production. Revolutionaries saw this as providing the potential for the disruption of capitalist manufacturing, which was at the time the lifeblood of the profit system.

The following year in April 1969, DRUM, FRUM, ELRUM and other independent African American worker organizations came together with student, youth and community counterparts to form the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW). The objective of the LRBW was national liberation for the African American people and socialist revolution.

James Foreman, who in 1967 was Director of the International Affairs Commission for SNCC, wrote of that year stressing: “The year 1967 marked a historic milestone in the struggle for the liberation of black people in the United States and the year that revolutionaries throughout the world began to understand more fully the impact of the black movement. Our liberation will only come when there is final destruction of this mad octopus-the capitalistic system of the United States with all its life-sucking tentacles of exploitation and racism that choke the people of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.”

This same document continues saying: “To work, to fight, and to die for the liberation of our people in the United States means, therefore, to work for the liberation of all oppressed people around the world. Liberation movements in many parts of the world are now aware that, when they begin to fight colonialism, it becomes imperative that we in this country try to neutralize the possibilities of full-scale United States intervention as occurred in Santa Domingo, as is occurring in Vietnam, and as may occur in Haiti, Venezuela, South Africa or wherever. While such a task may well be beyond our capacity, an aroused, motivated, and rebelling black American population nevertheless helps in our indivisible struggles against racism, colonialism and apartheid.”

After the formation of the LRBW, the National Black Economic Development Conference (NBEDC) was held in Detroit at Wayne State University from April 25-27, 1969. The gathering sponsored by the Inter-Religious Foundation for Community Organizations (IFCO), brought together a broad range of groups concerned about the future of the African American liberation movement. Out of this Conference a document entitled “The Black Manifesto” was presented and adopted by the BEDC on April 26. The Manifesto was drafted by Forman and it was the first modern-day call for reparations that linked the demand to the struggle against capitalism, imperialism and for socialism in the U.S. and the world.

Forman was invited to relocate in Detroit by Mike Hamlin, a leading member of the LRBW and veteran activist in the revolutionary movement of the 1960s. The former SNCC leader, who had worked briefly as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1968, was placed on the executive board of the LRBW in 1969 and would later co-found the International Black Workers Congress (BWC) established in late 1970.

The Black Manifesto sought reparations from the white Christian churches and Jewish synagogues which Forman said had benefitted from the national oppression of the African American people. He demanded the immediate payment of $500 million to fund a myriad of projects including printing houses, televised educational projects, a university teaching a revolutionary curriculum, the initiation of an African skills bank to solidify alliances and cooperation between African Americans and independent African states, etc.

In the book entitled “The Political Thought of James Forman” which was compiled, edited and published in the city of Detroit by Black Star in 1970, a division of the LRBW funded by the resources acquired through the Black Manifesto project, Forman says in a letter written from Martinique, the home of the late Dr. Frantz Fanon: “I am in Martinique precisely because I believe that the ideological struggle is most important and that Frantz Fanon has much to say to those of us who are colonized in the United States.  More than that, if we do not arm ourselves with sound theoretical concepts we will not survive the severe period of repression which is upon us.”

This same letter written by Forman goes on to observe that: “We all know of too many people and leading personalities who have abdicated the struggle inside the United States for various reasons, but one of them comes from not understanding the long term nature of our struggle and a sound theoretical position that our fight is against racism, colonialism, capitalism and imperialism and that world socialism is the only permanent answer to our economic and political exploitation. Personally, while I believe that ultimately the fight is for world socialism, I am not opposed to short term objectives.  For instance, the issue of Pan Africanism is going to hit the stage inside the United States.  This will be an advancement over many concepts, but it will not be enough if it does not speak to the economic framework of that Pan Africanism.  For inside Africa today there are many bourgeois nationalists running African governments and exploiting the people in the name of Pan Africanism.  We have the right to at least demand that people regress from Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois who in his later years was pleading for Pan African Socialism.  I am for Pan African socialism if it means taking all the wealth of Africa away from the imperialists and using it for the disposition of all oppressed people. Our ideological positions must lead us to the position that it is the poor, the working class among black people who must have power.  During the sixties we concentrated too much on the middle class.  Most of the gains except the long range political consciousness have resulted in the middle class of the black community entrenching itself further.  Our failure to actively work with black workers is a serious indictment of our movement as well as the abdication of our bases in the rural South.”

Our Task in the 21^st Century: Completing the Struggle for National Liberation and Socialism

A combination of state repression, objective factors in the economic restructuring of the U.S. and subjective weaknesses within the revolutionary movement, lead to the demise of the mass mobilizations of the African American liberation struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Scores of Black mayors and other politicians came into office in Detroit and other cities. Although these events represented a degree of political self-determination, the economic basis for the national oppression and economic exploitation of African American remained intact.

In the present period the capitalist system is even more resistant to tokenism and minimal reforms in the areas of institutional access and expansion of opportunities in the educational sector along with the widening of the labor market. Despite the rhetoric of Donald Trump, the reality of modern-day capitalism is that its survival depends upon the ever increasing rates of profit through the domination of international markets and the super-exploitation of the labor force.

The prison industrial complex provides an excellent example related to the character of global capitalism today. Since 1980, the rate of incarceration in the U.S. has risen by at least 500 percent, with a disproportionate number of inmates being African Americans and Latinos, including immigrants. Trump’s policy of increasing criminalization of the oppressed nations within the U.S. is nothing new. This program has been in existence now for decades.

As a revolutionary organization and movement we must continue to recruit and mobilize among the most potentially organized and disciplined social forces in capitalist society, the nationally oppressed and working class youth. These efforts will advance the level of struggle against the capitalist system. Our efforts are both ideological and political. We must effectively deconstruct the philosophical underpinnings of capitalism and imperialism and then win over the workers and oppressed peoples through our examples of selfless sacrifice and revolutionary commitment.

There is no viable alternative for the future other than socialist construction. This is the contribution that our generations must make to the realization of a world devoid of imperialist war, economic exploitation and national oppression.

The above text was delivered at the Annual African American History Month Forum on Feb. 25, 2017 under this year’s theme focusing on the 50^th anniversary of the Great Detroit Rebellion of July 1967 and the lessons learned for the 21^st century.

Additional speakers included Mond Toussaint Louverture, youth organizer for Workers World Party in Michigan, who discussed the impact of the theoretical contributions of Frantz Fanon on the worldwide African Revolution; Dorothy Aldridge, chairperson of the Detroit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee, reflected on the Detroit People’s Tribunal established after the 1967 Rebellion; and remarks were made by Lori Parks, an organizer for the Detroit Fight for $15 low-wage workers’ movement. The event was chaired by Debbie Johnson of Workers World Party Detroit branch.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Abayomi Azikiwe, Global Research, 2017