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Title: African Inter-Communalism
Author: Black Autonomy Federation
Date: December 2, 2012
Language: en
Topics: Black Anarchism, communalism, history, political philosophy, Africa, African anarchism, internationalism
Source: Retrieved on 24th October 2020 from https://blackautonomyfederation.blogspot.com/2014/09/african-inter-communalism.html

Black Autonomy Federation

African Inter-Communalism

The Black Autonomy Federations / Anarchist ideals lead logically to

internationalism or more precisely trans-nationalism, which means beyond

the nation-state. Anarchists foresee a time when the nation-state will

cease to have any positive value at all for most people, and will in

fact be junked. But that time is not yet here, and until it is, we must

organize for inter-communalism, or world relations between African

people and their revolutionary social movements, instead of their

governments and heads of state.

The Black Panther Party first put forward the concept of

inter-communalism in the 1960s and, although slightly different, is very

much a libertarian concept at its core. (This used to be called “Pan

Africanism,” but included mainly “revolutionary” governments and

colonial or independence movements as allies). Because of the legacy of

slavery and continuing economic neocolonialism, which has dispersed

Blacks to every continent, it is feasible to speak of Black

international revolutionary solidarity.

Here is how African / Black Anarchists see the world: the world is

presently organized into competing nation-states, which through the

Capitalist Western nations have been responsible for most of the world’s

famine, imperialism and exploitation of the non-white peoples of the

earth. In fact, all states are instruments of oppression. Even though

there are governments that claim to be “workers states,” “Socialist

countries” or so-called “Revolutionary governments,” in essence they all

have the same function: Dictatorship and oppression of the many over the

few. The bankruptcy of the state is further proven when one looks at the

millions of dead over two world wars, sparked by European Imperialism,

(1914–198 and 1939–1945), and hundreds of “brush wars” incited by the

superpowers of the West or Russia in the 1950s and continuing to this

day. This includes “workers’ states” like China-Russia, Vietnam-China,

Vietnam-Cambodia. Somalia- Ethiopia, Russia-Czechoslovakia and others

who have gone to war over border disputes, political intrigue, invasion

or other hostile action. As long as there are nation-states, there will

be war, tension and national enmity.

In fact, the sad part about the decolonization of Africa in the 1960s

was that the countries were organized into the Euro-centric ideal of the

nation-state, instead of some sort of other formation more applicable to

the continent, such as a continental federation. This, of course, was a

reflection of the fact that although the Africans were obtaining “flag

independence” and all the trappings of the sovereign European state,

they instead were not obtaining freedom. The Europeans still controlled

the economies of the African continent, and the nationalist leaders who

came to the fore were for the most part the most pliable and

conservative possible.

Entire countries of Africa were like a dog with a leash around its neck;

although the Europeans could no longer rule the continent directly

thorough colonial rule, it now did so through puppets it controlled and

defended, like Mobutu in the Congo, Mengistu Haile Mariam, leader of the

Derg in Ethiopia, and Kenyatta in Kenya. Many of these men were

dictators of the worst sort and their regimes existed strictly because

of European finance capital In addition, there were white settler

communities in the Portuguese colonies, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, who

oppressed the African peoples even worse than the old colonial system.

This is why the national liberation movements made their appearances in

the 1960s and 70s.

Anarchists support national liberation movements to the degree that they

struggle against a colonial or imperialist power; but also note that in

almost every instance where such liberation front’s have assumed state

power, they have become “State Communist” parties and new dictators over

the masses of the people. These include some who had engaged in the mass

epic struggles, but also include many based on the most obvious military

dictatorship from the start.

They are not progressive and they tolerate no dissent For instance, no

sooner had the MPLA government been in power in Angola, than it began to

arrest all its left-wing ideological opponents (Maoists, Trotskyites,

Anarchists, and others) and began to forcibly quell strikes by workers

for higher pay and better working conditions, calling such job actions

“blackmail” and ‘economic sabotage.” And with the Nito Alves affair and

his alleged coup attempt, (Alves was a hero of the revolution and a

popular military leader), theirs was the first party purge of opponents

in the new government. Something similar to this also took place when

the Sandinista National Liberation movement took over in Nicaragua in

the 1980s. None of this should seem strange or uncharacteristic to

Anarchists, when we consider that the Bolshevik party did the same thing

when it consolidated state power during the Russian Revolution

(1917–1921).

Countries such as Benin, Ethiopia, the People’s Republic of the Congo

and other “revolutionary” governments in Africa, are not in power as the

result of a popular social revolution, but rather because of a military

coup or being installed by one of the major world powers Further; many

of the national liberation movements were not independent social

movements, but were rather under the influence or control of Russia or

China as part of their geopolitical struggle against Western imperialism

and each other. This is not to say that revolutionary movements should

not accept weapons and other material support from an outside power, as

long as they remain independent politically and determine their own

policies, without such aid being conditional on the political dictates

and the “party line” of another country.

But even though we may differ with them politically and tactically in

many areas, and even with all their flaws after assuming State power,

the revolutionary liberation fighters are our comrades and allies in

common struggle against the common enemy — the U.S. imperialist ruling

class, while the fight goes on. Their struggle releases the death grip

of U.S. and western imperialism or as Anarchists more precisely call it

Capitalist world power), and while the fight goes on we are bound

together in comradeship and solidarity.

Yet we still cannot overlook atrocities committed by movements like the

Khmer Rouge, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla movement in Cambodia, which

just massacred millions of people to carry out rigid Stalinist political

policies and to consolidate the country. We must lay this butchery and

other crimes committed by State Communism bare for all to see. We do not

favor this kind of revolution, which is just sheer power seeking and

terrorism against the people. This is why Anarchism has always disagreed

with how the Bolsheviks seized power in Soviet Russia; and Stalin’s

butchery of the Russian people seems to have set a model for the State

Communist movements to follow over the years.

The national liberation front’s made one basic mistake of many

nationalist movements of oppressed peoples, and that is to organize in a

fashion that class distinctions are obliterated. This happened in

America, where in the fight for democratic rights, the civil rights

movement included Black middle class preachers, teachers and others, and

every Black persons was a “brother” or” sister,” as long as they were

Black. But this simplistic analysis and social reality did not hold for

long, because when the Civil rights phase of the American Black struggle

had spent itself, “class distinctions” and class struggle came to the

fore. They have been getting sharper ever since. Although there are

Black mayors and other bureaucrats, and now Obama; they merely serve as

pacification agents of the State, “Black faces in high places.”

This neocolonial system is similar to the type of neocolonialism which

took place in the 3^(rd) World, after many countries had obtained their

“independence” in the 1960s. Europe still maintained control through

puppet politicians and a command of the petty bourgeois class, who were

willing to barter the freedom of the people for personal gains. These

people merely preside over the misery of the masses. They are not a

serious concession to our struggle. They are put in office to co-opt the

struggle and deaden the people to their pain.

So while Black revolutionaries generally favor the ideas of African

inter-communalism, they want principled revolutionary unity. Of course,

the greatest service we can render the peoples of the so-called “Third

World” of Africa, Asia and Latin America, is to make a revolution here

in North America — in the belly of the beast. For in freeing ourselves,

we get the U.S. imperialist ruling class off both our backs.

We wish to build an international Black organization against Capitalism,

racism, colonialism, imperialism, and military dictatorship, which could

more effectively fight the Capitalist powers and create a world

federation of Black peoples. We want to unite a Brother or Sister in

North America with the Black peoples of Australia and Oceania, Africa,

the Caribbean and South America, Asia, the Middle East, and those

millions of our people Living in Britain and other Western European

countries. We want to unite tribes, nations and Black cultures into an

international body of grassroots and struggling forces.

All over the world, Black people are being oppressed by their national

governments. Some are colonial subjects in European countries, and one

or another of the African States exploits some. Only a Social revolution

will lead to Black unity and freedom. However this will only be possible

when there exists an international Black revolutionary organization and

social movement. An organization which can coordinate the resistance

struggles everywhere of African peoples; actually a network of such

organizations, resistance movements, which are spread all over the world

based on a consensus for revolutionary struggle. This concept accepts

any level of violence that will be necessary to enforce the demands of

the people and workers.

In those countries where an open Black revolutionary movement would be

subjected to fierce repression by the state, such as in South Africa and

in same Black puppet dictatorships in other parts of Africa, the

Caribbean, and Asia, it would be necessary to wage an underground

resistance struggle. Further, the state has grown more and more violent,

with widespread torture and executions, prisons and maximum police

controls, spying and deprivation of democratic rights, police brutality

and murder. Clearly such governments-and all governments-must be

overthrown. They will not fall due to internal economic or political

problems, but must be defeated and dismantled. So we call for an

international resistance movement to overthrow governments and the

system of Capitalist world government.

But even in the Western imperialist countries, we must recognize the

legitimacy of revolutionary violence. When such forms of revolutionary

action are required, however, a clear difference should be seen among

revolutionaries between simple terrorism without popular support and

coherent political program and guerrilla warfare arising out of the

collectively felt frustrations of the common people and workers. The use

of military methods would be necessary in a case where the violence of

the state made it imperative for Black revolutionaries to defend

themselves by taking the armed offensive against the state and the

ruling class, and to expropriate the wealth of the Capitalist class

during the Social revolution.

The Black liberation movement needs an organization capable of

international coordination of the Black liberation struggle, a world

federation of African peoples. Although this would not just be an

Anarchist movement, a federation like this would be made effective than

any group of states, whether the United Nation or the Organization of

African Unity, in freeing the Black masses. It would involve the masses

of people themselves, not just national leaders or nation states.

The military dictators and government bureaucrats have only proven that

they know how to spend money on pomp and circumstance, but not how to

dismantle the last vestiges of colonialism in South Africa or defeat

Western neocolonialist intrigues. Africa is still the poorest of the

World’s continents, while materially the richest. The contrast is clear:

Millions of people are starving in much of Equatorial Africa, but the

tribal chiefs, politicians and military dictators, are driving around in

Mercedes and living in luxury villas, while they do the bidding of

Western European and American bankers through the International Monetary

Fund. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution!

Our ideas about the importance of inter-communalism are based on a firm

belief that only a federation of free Autonomous peoples will bring true

Black power to the masses “Power to the people” does not mean a

government or political party to rule in their name, but social and

political power in the hands of the people themselves. The only real

“people’s power” is the power to make their decisions on matters of

importance, and to merely elect someone else to do so, or to have a

dictatorship forced down their throats is not freedom. True freedom is

to have full self-determination about one’s social economic and cultural

development. The future is Anarchist Communism and Autonomy, not the

nation-state, bloody dictators, Capitalism or wage slavery.