The indefatigable and peripatetic, Marvin X, poet, playwright, essayist, activist, planner and thinker
We have tried to imagine the endgame of historical events and present events rooted in history, especially unresolved events, e.g., justice, political and economic equity for descendants of African victims of the American slave system; the resolution for the genocide of indigenous Americans; justice and full nationhood for Palestinians; the self determination of Arab and African peoples, free of colonialism, neo-colonialism and globalism, the most despicable animal of modern times. Globalism is like a drug addiction, cunning and vile, with no discrimination of nations and peoples, and yet globalism is a conundrum because we are perplexed when we attempt to discern the motivation of globalists who already possess 99% of global wealth. They already possess most of the world's wealth, so what else do they desire? Their desires transcend greed, jealousy, envy. It is more morbid and sinister that approaches something demonic, like pure evil. For example, why would the Clinton Foundation raise money for Haiti and take 94% of funds raised for Haiti earthquake relief; Haiti, a nation with a plethora of maladies and a myriad ills that would take someone beyond a rocket scientist to ameliorate except we understand Haiti defeated the Spanish, French and English and must never be forgiven for whipping the white man's ass!.
As per the most complex question of the modern era, The Negro Question, and even the question is made more complex by the very title of the question which is itself bound in what we call the psycho-linguistic crisis of North American Africans who change the very title of the question every few decades, most especially the identity of the people in question: African, Negro, Black, Afro, Kemite, Sudanese, Bilalian, etc. Let us call it the So-called Negro Question, borrowing from Nation of Islam linguistics. Elijah Muhammad tried to simplify our linguistics along with our reality in these hells of North America as he described it. As per identity, he said we are the Aboriginal Asiatic Black Man and Woman, mother and father of the universe. Most scholars acknowledge his history and mythology. But because of what Harold Cruse called historical discontinuity (see Crisis of the Negro Intellectual), we essentially have a problem of consensus or the lack thereof. This lack of consensus is far beyond the psycho-linguistic crisis and identity politics, but it poisons any discussion of relevant topics of communal issues.
Consensus is necessary for communal progress. If we cannot agree on our agenda, whether political, economic, spiritual, cultural, all meetings, conferences, conventions are bound to be a failure. This is why so many of our gatherings end with confusion and disillusionment. People come with a plethora of ideologies that are often dogmatic, sectarian, and narrow-minded. If you want to complicate matters, add to the confusion religiosity, ageism and the inter-generational crisis.
So after 400 years in the wilderness of North America, we are yet treading water in a pitiful state; we suffer a severe case of the Sisyphus Syndrome, i.e., in the manner of the Greek myth of the man who rolled the rock up the hill only to have it escape his grasp and fall down the mountain. W.E.B. DuBois and more recently ancestor Amiri Baraka wrote about the Myth of Sisyphus. in his opera. In my interview with Arna Bontempts, associate of Langston Hughes; Bontempts was also author of that revolutionary novel Black Thunder about Gabriel Prosser's slave revolt, said we seem to react every thirty years, another outbreak for freedom, a spark of dry bones coming into consciousness, most often brought about by political-economic circumstances. When our situation becomes dire, we hear talk and some action toward Blaxit as we are hearing at this hour as the election of Donald Trump approaches inauguration day.
But as per usual, our action is reaction. We somehow cannot gather the energy to be proactive and push our agenda. Even with the out-going Black President, we failed to push our agenda with him so he responded to other agendas that did not benefit us in the least. What does gay/lesbian marriage have to do with the 400 year old fight for the liberation of North American Africans? Our struggle has nothing to do with marriage: liberation of a people is about self-determination, i.e., the political, economic and cultural freedom of a people. Once we exercise self determination and sovereignty, we can configure our social life and resolve gender identity issues, especially issues rooted in the patriarchy of white supremacy. So what that now you can marry a tree but we ain't free in any political sense and most certainly in any economic sense. For sure, the entire world needs to deconstruct its antiquated sexual mythology rooted in religiosity, but we have priorities and often we are distracted by those who have their own agenda for us that is not a priority for us.
Beyond the So-called Negro Question
As we continue our quest to unravel the conundrum of the endgame, we must explore the condition of indigenous peoples in America, to say nothing of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. Alas, the President of Bolivia is the first indigenous leader in 500 years! The burning question is what do we imagine will finally placate the dreams and aspirations of the remaining aboriginal peoples so fortunate to survive the European holocaust and genocide. As we travel throughout the USA and see the beauty of the land, with full knowledge of the genocide, we wonder why it was necessary, for sure there was/is enough land here for anybody and/or everybody who would come in peace, come correct minus that apparently impossible dream of Europeans sharing instead of destroying and dominating.
Since we know what goes around comes around, could anyone imagine when the day of judgment would arrive and the God of Justice would raise His hand to adjudicate matters for once and all times? Why could not those socalled erudite founding fathers and those who came after, discuss that maybe their grand experiment would one day have dire consequences of the most damaging degree imaginable. For one day the remnants of the subject people would rise up in coalition with other oppressed peoples and completely demolish the regime of the settler invaders.
The Palestinian Question
I am a war baby, born in 1944. I was thus four years old in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. As a child at the drive-in theatre, when I used to watch the newsreel, I used to wonder to myself why all those Arabs were fleeing across that bridge into Jordan. I never asked my parents why, but my four year old mind wondered and wandered over the plight of the Palestinian people.
As we look back at history, we must recall the Crusades and the fact that the Christians were forced to depart the "holy lands' after 100 years when the Kurd Saladin forced them back to Europe. Richard the Lion Hearted attempted to conquer Jerusalem but made peace with Saladin and returned to Europe, if my study of history is correct. But as we imagine the end-game, how can we not imagine a similar scenario for Israel who is in the same role as the Crusaders, in fact, represent the Zionist and Crusader mythology.
The irony is that in this part of the world, political chicanery and duplicity is the name of the game and we need only take a cursory glance at the Syrian quagmire to see there are no players left out of the Syrian theatre of war, the grand stand of geo-politics in the Middle East, most assuredly leading us into World War Three. For those steeped in religiosity and biblical prophesy, we have heard with the armies are drawn nigh to Jerusalem, know that the end is near!
Conclusion
The endgame for the oppressed can only be joy and happiness, for surely after difficulty comes ease says Al Qur'an. The ultimate peace for North American Africans is nationhood. The same is true for the American indigenous people. Same for the Palestinians. The right wing globalism and left wing internationalism cannot go anywhere devoid of nationalism. How can we skip to internationalism without the path of nationalism? It's like getting into the pussy without the foreplay! And if the woman demands foreplay, the step to internationalism must include nationalism, alas, in Africa we would call it tribalism or the recognition thereof: tribalism must be recognized even before nationalism. Muddled headed North American African intellectuals yet in crisis since Harold Cruse deconstructed our malady, want to jump into internationalism, Pan Africanism and other ideological fantastic notions that will never attract the masses of North American Africans. It has been told to me that Africans told North American Africans thank you for helping us with African Liberation Day but you North American Africans are free and therefore do not need the assistance of Africans in your struggle with the white man! North American Africans were deeply unsettled by the pronouncements of their Pan African brothers, especially since we had supported African liberation unselfishly. In short, we had helped our African bothers liberate themselves but were not getting mutual support from them for our final confrontation with the American Beast!
But surely we know all peoples and nations look out for their own interests first and foremost. We neglected to insure our own struggle to aid our brothers and sisters in the Motherland, yet it wasn't mutual and we were played in the name of internationalism in general and Pan Africanism in particular.
Elijah Muhammad told us to help ourselves first! How can you help somebody else when you haven't helped yourself? Didn't mama and daddy teach us charity begins at home and spreads abroad? When we meet with our Pan African nationalists, what are we bringing to the table? Are we a sovereign national entity or just some crack headed Pan Africanan intellectuals without a mandate from our nation of North American Africans? As Mayor Ras Baraka noted in his brief words at the State of the Black Race Conference in Newark, NJ: have you gone to the churches and senior citizen centers with your message of Pan Africanism and revolution? No, you have not. You are the group of usual suspects that have kept us in perpetual intellectual crisis in general and whores and sycophants of the Democratic Party pseudo liberal white supremacists in particular.
We see it was pure white nationalism that brought Donald Trump to victory. Pan Africanism without nationalism is a romantic dream that the EU has smashed. African nations have lately reconsidered Kwame Nkrumah's vision of the United States of Africa. North American Africans will conclude if they are to enjoy the American pie, especially upon the Balkanization of the US that we see is on the horizon, they will ultimately consider the nation state. We see the endgame of America as a possible civil war ending with the partitioning of the US into ethnic nation states enjoying self determination and sovereignty. After a four hundred years marriage with the USA, North American Africans must conclude it was a marriage impossible because the parties are disagreeable to live together in freedom, justice and equality.
This endgame will be most painful for our children who only wanted to be treated as human beings and treat others as human beings, yet they were forced to face
Imagine the trauma of a mother forced to decide the USA is not the place to raise and educate her black or African son, especially after witnessing the treatment of Black African boys in the most liberal of US cities, Berkeley CA. My daughter witnessed black boys relegated to "holding cells" in the public schools before they entered the California Department of Corrections. And even the President of the Berkeley NAACP described the treatment of North American African employees in the Berkeley Public Schools and other workplaces in Berkeley as "ethnic cleansing." Of course the response from the white liberals was that the NAACP had crossed the line of propriety in his linguistics and requested he adopt a more Miller Lite linguistics. Perhaps the NAACP President should say the education and workplace of North American Africans reflects the most progressive relationship between ethnic students and employees. We should be happy our children are treated as inmates in holding cells and our workers on the precipice of general removal from employment in the City of Berkeley.
Onward to the Indigenous Peoples in the USA
When it becomes crystal clear the USA endgame is balkinization or the breakup of states and cities into ethnic enclaves with self-determination and nationhood, surely the indigenous peoples will finally recover they human and communal dignity. Who knows better than they that the white man speaks with a forked tongue is his agreements in word or on paper are worthless poppycock! One can even reflect on the voting rights the condition of North Americans Africans to wonder why their voting rights must be renewed if they are in fact full citizens of the USA. The indigenous people know full well their condition proves beyond a doubt the white man is not to be trusted and unable to be a equitable partner in any agreements, thus war may be the only means to resolve their conflict. They know too, even the American Civil War clearly did not reconcile the issue of full citizenship for North American Africans. We maintain our critical mistake was surrendering the arms of 200,000 African troops who fought on the side of the North in the Civil War. Since giving up our weapons, things that could have been never were, thus we are in the present quagmire, treading water in a pitiful state. Well, we can at least learn from the Arabs and white nationalists in America who have no plans to give up their guns, whether liberal or right wing! Thus as we see with Hamas, Heszollah, USA white liberals or right wingers, none of any plans of giving up their guns, so North American African must think in the same vain, Indigenous people as well. All human beings demand liberty or death!
Endgame of the Muslim Question
As per Arabs, especially Arab Muslims, they and all Muslims pledge their life and death for Allah. And this is true for all Muslims everywhere, whether moderate, mild, conservative and/or extreme radicals, the fundamental notion that our lives and deaths are all for Allah is the general consensus among all those who believe Allah is God. On the Islamic mystic plane, we say no attachments but to Allah, yes, beyond wife, husband and children. The Qur'an says, "If your wives and children and the wealth you acquire are dearer to you than Allah, then wait til His command comes to pass. And He guides not the unjust people." Please forgive me if I have misquoted Al Qur'an.
If we seek previous solutions to the Muslim Question, we might consider Moorish Spain, occupied by African and Arab Muslims in 711AD when the African general Tarik crossed into Spain at what is now known as the Rock of Gibraltar, Arabic: Gebral Tarik. After a thousand years of Moorish splendor, after Grenada, Seville, Cordoba, after bringing the savage Europeans from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance, the Moors were finally expelled about the time Columbus sailed with Moorish pilots to discover India, although he found himself in the Americas. But with the Moors finally expelled, Europe would slip into darkness and compared to Moorish Spain, would never again reach the grander of African/Arab culture.
But the historical precedent was set: ultimately expel the Muslim heathens and be done with them. Is it difficult to imagine history repeating itself? We imagined nothing similar to the Jewish holocaust would happen again, but then came Pol Pot in Cambodia, followed by the Rwanda genocide. And now the ISIS terror.
Will it become necessary to expel all Muslims from Europe--alas, and America? Firstly, we know this entire Muslim mess is a conspiracy of the West, which has inspired this global Muslim madness for geo-political reasons in league with reactionary Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in coordination with Zionist Israel. The strategy is to demolish and/or contain the Arab Spring and suppress thoughts of democracy in order to continue neo-colonialism and most especially to check the spread of Shia Islamic expansion from the Tigris and Euphrates to the Mediterranean led by Iran, aka, the Persian Empire resurrected.
The conspiracy theorists are correct in blaming Secretary of State Clinton and the Obama administration for creating ISIS, although the roots of ISIS were created when the West supplied the Jihadists in Afghanistan with the weapons, mainly the Stinger fired weapons that caused the defeat of the USSR. After the Jihadist victory, the West abandoned the Jihadist which gave rise to the Taliban (Arabic: Talib, student) along with Osama bin Laden and his Al Quida. Is it not supreme irony that Saudi Arabians were the majority culprits of 911, yet the US attacked Afghanistan and Iraq rather than Saudi Arabic, from which came the persons responsible and the horrific ideology or theology that continues under the ISIS banner.
Of course the globalists are known for playing both sides of the fence: they support Saudi Arabia and the Sunni forces while simultaneously working with Iran in Iraq and signing deals with them for the benefit of Globalism. As per fake news, we are constantly told the deal included giving Iran billions, but the truth is that the US only returned Iranian money that had been frozen.
As I indicated in my earlier remarks on Syria, this geo-political, sectarian quagmire is about to set off World War III. We see not quick solution to the sectarian battle between Sunnis and Shia. In Sunni theology, Shia can be killed for not submitting to the orthodox line that the successor of the prophet need not be from his bloodline. We doubt the Shia will submit to this anytime soon. So we must move on to other issues such as Islamic terrorism and the endgame thereof. Again, expulsion is the historical option.
Can Muslims alter the endgame and what should be the agenda? Clearly, Islam needs a Martin Luther, not MLK, Jr., but the original Martin Luther who posted those theses on the door of the church to ignite the Protestant revolution. But what Muslim "reformer" would call for new interpretations of the Qur'an, Hadith and Sharia Law? What Muslim would dare call for the destruction of the patriarchal theology and mythology?
What Muslim would call for reconciliation between Sunni and Shia, between Islam and Christianity? These are indeed complex questions, yet who will dare stick up his or her head to challenge the Islamic orthodoxy.
It is much easier to sing Silent Night than face ridicule, ostracism and death, that speak the truth on critical needs of the hour. But can anyone solve Muslim issues better than Muslims? For sure, Christians cannot solve Muslim questions, alas, they can't solve Christian problems of white supremacy and their own patriarchal mythology.
I long ago suggested closing all the holy books and begin anew the march toward true human civility and spirituality, beyond theology and religiosity. Some will claim this is throwing the baby out with the wash, but revolution is change of the most radical order, not Miller Lite reform. Perhaps this entire matter is beyond the mental capacity of most human beings, no matter their ideological and theological persuasion. Maybe it is better to just put all matters on the battle field and like the Battle Royal, see who remains standing.
So again, what is the endgame: war, peace, suffering, prosperity, equity, sovereignty? Well, when a man is in a hole, there is no way to go but up! Was it not Marcus Garvey who said, "Up you mighty peoples, you can accomplish what you will!"
And so I conclude with this: the tide is turning because you are turning the tide!
--Marvin X
12/24/16
