IN MEMORIAM

Throngs of Mourners Attend Funeral of Iran’s Dissident Ayatollah - NYTimes.com



“Independence is being free of foreign intervention, and freedom is giving people the freedom to express their opinions, not being put in prison for every protest one utters.”--Ayatollah Ali Montazeri

The passing of Iran's opposition ayatollah Ali Montazeri is time to pause for the cause of revolution. It is time to reflect on the true possibilities of human potential. Can/will men and women ever evolve beyond the need to amass power, transcend greed, jealousy, lust and pure evil in their hearts? We see the West cannot and events in the Muslim world indicate it is just as impotent as the West. Certainly, Africa cannot. Asia cannot.

So it appears we should dismiss the dream of the Nation of Islam and perhaps strive for simple spiritual consciousness without the religiosity or theology, including the secular state with its pseudo separation of church and state (in God we trust on the money, etc).

Perhaps man is simply incapable of reaching the upper room, thus doomed to the Sisyphus syndrome and must settle for a station on the lower steps of hell. We see the prophetic teachings are to no avail--how many North American Africans have inculcated and demostrated the teachings of Jesus, Muhammad, Marcus Garvey, DuBois, Booker T., Elijah, Malcolm, Martin or anyone else who came on this earth with the message of peace, love and justice for the oppressed?

Imagine a sister saying recently, "The most evil men I knew had bow ties and black suits." And on the other hand, some of the best men in the hells of North America had bow ties and black suits.

But why overthrow the Shah to become the Shah in brutality and oppression. Consider the words of the Grand Ayatollah Montazeri in the New York Times report: in the months since Iran’s disputed June presidential elections, Ayatollah Montazeri issued stinging denunciations of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, saying that the Islamic republic was neither Islamic nor a republic, and that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, had lost his legitimacy. Two weeks ago, he said that the Basij militia — which has brutally suppressed opposition street rallies — was forsaking the “path of God” for the “path of Satan.”

And so we wonder as we wander in the last days of Babylon. Can we do any better than replace one devil by another. We got rid of Bush but now are under the power of a half black devil who may outdo Bush in his iniquities and negrocities. So far he has only cared for the rich, saying nothing about and doing nothing for the poor and wretched Americans who have been scammed out of their meager wealth, their homes, along with their jobs that are being outsourced to India and China in the era of globalism.

What manner of man must arise to take authority over the people, who can truly rule with the consent of the governed? Must each man become the central command, a kind of primitive individualism, since no one can be trusted, even man himself is his own worse enemy since he refuses to look at the man in the mirror but is duped by illusions of every kind, from conspicuous consumption and crass materialism to patriarchal mythological notions of women as property, with the resultant psycho sexual pathology of partner and street violence.

So the question is not what would Jesus do, but what will you do, not what Muhammad and Buddha would do, but what shall you do--since you have demonstrated you are not going to do anything they said.

And if and when you do make the attempt, you become so right you are wrong, so holy you are sinful in your self-righteousness. They say in recovery, don't get too happy or too sad. I will end with don't be too good or too bad--and you may be just fine. Have a happy New Year!

--Marvin X

The Spirit of Mamadou Lumumba

Pan African Warrior

The Spirit of Lumumba was alive in Oakland tonight at the celebration of revolutionary Pan Africanist Mamadou Lumumba. Bay Area radicals gathered at the Afrikan Children's Learning Center on San Pablo Street in Oakland. A few of the those in attendance included Baba Lumumba (brother of Mamadou), Bobby Seale, Oba T'Shaka, Mama Makenya, Isaac Moore, Phil Huchings, Vincent and Ann Lynch, Sister Shukuru, Margo Dashiel, Jim Lacey, Abdul Sabry, Aubrey Labrie, Norman Brown, Sadaat Ahmed, Tarika Lewis, Leo Cherry, Vulindela Wobogo, Marvin X, Judge Henry Ramsey.The celebration morphed into a discussion of Bay Area liberationhistory. There were extended testimonies from the history of Bay Arearadicalism, especially about the Black Panther Party of NorthernCalifornia and the Black Panther Party of Self Defense. Bobby Sealewas diplomatic in recounting his relationship with Mamadou Lumumba who organized the first Black Panther Party in the Bay under the the Revolutionary Action Movement or RAM, headed by Robert F. Williams and Max Stanford (Muhammad Ahmed). A message from Muhammad Ahmed was read.There was also a message from Eusi Kwayana of Guyana, where Mamadou had spent time while the Burnham regime was in power. Burnham turned out to be a CIA negro who was favored by the US imperialists who could tolerate a black power government but not a Cuban style Marxist regime under the opposition party of Cheddi Jagen, although Jagen eventually won power.Marvin X said the last time he saw Mamadou was in Guyana, 1970, when he interviewed Prime Minister Burnham for Muhammad Speaks and the Black Scholar magazine. Mamadou approved the questions he presented to the PM. Long live Mamadou!